A 41-year-old male presented with difficulty in walking on tiptoes and in standing for long periods and also noticed wasting of both his calves, forearm muscles and thighs for 2 years. There was no major past medical history, but there was family history of similar leg wasting and weakness in his father 20 years previously and was diagnosed to have possible Multiple sclerosis and Polio. Examination revealed symmetrically wasted calf muscles, quadriceps and forearms with weak dorsiflexion and plantar flexion of both feet and knee extension with preserved reflexes and sensations. MRI Scan of the Lumbar spine was normal. Serum creatine kinase levels were persistently more than 4000 units. Myopathic changes were noted on EMG in tibialis anterior and gastrocnemius on right side. Muscle biopsy of right quadriceps showed a Necrotising myopathy and no other abnormalties were noted on immunohistochemistry and immunoblotting. Genetic testing for mutations of dysferlin, Caveolin 3, Calpain 3, Facioscapulohumeral dystrophy and common mutations for Myofibrillar myopathy were negative. Genetic analysis of ANO5 gene showed two novel mutations, c.989dupT in exon 10 predicted to disturb the protein reading frame leading to premature termination codon and hence highly likely to be pathogenic and c.2018A→G in exon18 resulting in a substitution of neutral polar tyrosine with neutral polar cysteine. These mutations are previously unreported and are the likely explanation for the clinical presentation leading to a diagnosis of LGMD2L


Social networking sites provide a unique opportunity for users to engage in broadcast online file sharing and collaboration. In this study we examine the usage of Docs.com, which integrates Microsoft Office web documents with facebook. In reviewing the content of Docs.com documents, we found they were equally created and shared for work, personal productivity, and play. Users actively employed relationship levels in their Facebook networks to define access to their documents. However, we also found the most viewed documents were those shared to the entire public, with Facebook notifications driving most of the traffic to these public documents. Finally, through a factor analysis of user activity four primary types of usage emerged – sharing, creating, collaborating, and consuming. Those who created and collaborated around documents had higher levels of engagement than those who just shared or consumed documents, interacting with more documents and returning on more unique days.


Purpose: Elastic tumor deformation and different intra‐ and inter‐fractional tumor paths between inhalation and exhalation were observed for some lung patients. For high accuracy and possibly 100% duty cycle dose delivery, we propose and evaluate a noninvasive method to fluoroscopically track location and shape variations of lungtumors with different types of deformations. Method and Materials: During a fluoroscopic simulation, lungtumor contours in one complete respiratory period are manually drawn by an expert. Each contour is described by 65 landmarks. The respiratory period is divided into 9 phases and a Point Distribution Models (PDM) statistically describing typical tumor shape variations are built for each phase. When tracking starts, the breathing phase for an incoming frame is first determined by the respiratory signal generated simultaneously from diaphragm motion and the PDM for this frame is also found. Starting from an initial estimate of the tumor contour, the Active Shape Models algorithm searches the area near each landmark and finds a better location. Based on the shifts found for these landmarks, the initial estimate is deformed within a certain range of typical shape variations found in PDM and also rigidly transformed to match the shifts. The new generated contour iteratively updates the previous contour estimate until no significant difference appears between two consecutive iterations or a user defined number of iterations is reached. Results:Tumors demonstrating distinct types of deformations in fluoroscopic videos were well tracked. All the landmarks of the tracked objects were manually revised by an expert using a GUI tool. The average magnitude of the deviation between the tracked and revised results was within 2 mm for 95% the landmarks and within 3mm for all landmarks. Conclusion: This method affords precise tracking of lungtumor location and deformation and may be used for real‐time tracking or DMLC radiotherapy.


Precise knowledge of pose is of great importance for reliable operation of mobile robots in outdoor environments. Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is the online construction of a map during exploration of an environment. One of the components of SLAM is loop closure detection, identifying that the same location has been visited and is present on the existing map, and localizing against it. We have shown in previous work that using semantics from a deep segmentation network in conjunction with the Normal Distributions Transform (NDT) point cloud registration improves the robustness, speed and accuracy of lidar odometry. In this work we extend the method for loop closure detection, using the labels already available from local registration into NDT Histograms, and we present a SLAM pipeline based on Semantic assisted NDT and PointNet ++. We experimentally demonstrate on sequences from the KITTI benchmark that the map descriptor we propose outperforms NDT Histograms without semantics, and we validate its use on a SLAM task.


The issues of water supply and management will become more and more critical as the global population increases. In order to meet future demands, water supply systems must be developed to maximize the use of locally available water. It is also important to minimize the impact of water system developments on the environment. In this study, the overall environmental impacts were compared for water importation, reclamation and seawater desalination to address the water scarcity in areas where local supplies are not sufficient. The city of Scottsdale, Arizona was chosen for this study. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was performed and it suggests that seawater desalination has the highest impact whereas reclamation shows a relatively lower impact. However, Importation and reclamation systems have comparable results for several damage categories. The impacts of facility operations are significantly higher than the construction phase even when the life-span of infrastructure reduces from 50 year to 10 year. Due to the high impacts associated with the energy use during plant operations, different energy mixes were analyzed for their capabilities to lower the environmental burden.


A fundamental challenge for parallel computing is to obtain high-level, architecture independent, algorithms which efficiently execute on general-purpose parallel machines. With the emergence of message passing standards such as MPI, it has become easier to design efficient and portable parallel algorithms by making use of these communication primitives. While existing primitives allow an assortment of collective communication routines, they do not handle an important communication event when most or all processors have non-uniformly sized personalized messages to exchange with each other. We focus in this paper on the h-relation personalized communication whose efficient implementation will allow high performance implementations of a large class of algorithms. While most previous h-relation algorithms use randomization, this paper presents a new deterministic approach for h-relation personalized communication with asymptotically optimal complexity for h>p2. As an application, we present an efficient algorithm for stable integer sorting.
 The algorithms presented in this paper have been coded in Split-C and run on a variety of platforms, including the Thinking Machines CM-5, IBM SP-1 and SP-2, Cray Research T3D, Meiko Scientific CS-2, and the Intel Paragon. Our experimental results are consistent with the theoretical analysis and illustrate the scalability and efficiency of our algorithms across different platforms. In fact, they seem to outperform all similar algorithms known to the authors on these platforms.


Should increasing use of personal information by private companies affect the legal interpretation of an individual's "reasonable expectation of privacy" in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence? This note will examine this dynamic and apply it in the context of the burgeoning split among federal and state courts as to whether government surveillance of Global Positioning System ("GPS") devices attached to suspects' vehicles constitutes an unreasonable search and seizure. Part I of this note will discuss the evolution of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, including 1) the Supreme Court's reaction to expanding technology, and 2) shifting ideas of an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy given the increased consent to private use of personal information through GPS devices on vehicles, cellular phones and in conjunction with social networking sites. It will also discuss the Supreme Court and circuit courts' disposition in dealing with electronic "beeper" tracking, the technology that predated GPS, as well as the varying legal standards for the government's use of cellular phones to locate individuals retroactively and in real-time. Part II will examine the split and varying modes of analysis among the federal circuits and state courts in dealing specifically with GPS surveillance. Part III of this note will argue for the adoption of a rule that GPS surveillance constitutes a search and seizure and should require a warrant, because the public's growing awareness and/or consent to use of personal information by private companies has not translated into a shift in an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy in their movement twenty-four hours per day.


Abstract Architecture of late Quaternary incised-valley fills is commonly attributed to the interplay between sea-level rise, sediment supply, and hydrodynamic processes. Inundation of fluvial terraces is commonly overlooked as an autocyclic mechanism for formation of parasequences. If the rate of sea-level rise and sediment supply is constant, architecture of terraced incised-valley fills will likely show backstepping parasequences. The control that variable antecedent topography has on architecture of incised-valley fills is examined in the Trinity incised valley, Texas. The Trinity valley is characterized by a series of downward-stepping terraces, and the Galveston Estuary formed above this irregular antecedent topography. Flooding surfaces, recognized in core by a decrease in sedimentation rates and a change from delta-plain to central-basin facies, formed at ~ −14 m, 8,200 cal. yr BP and ~ −10 m, 7,700 cal. yr BP, matching depths of the relatively flat fluvial terraces. Flooding surfaces formed rapidly and represent entire reorganization of the estuarine complex. Across the −10 m flooding surface, the river mouth and bay-head delta shifted landward at a rate of ~ 6.5 km per century and the associated barrier shoreline was stranded on the inner continental shelf, forming Heald Bank. Flooding surfaces formed as the rate of sea-level rise was decreasing, and are not associated with a decrease in sediment delivery to the estuary. As sea level inundates relatively flat fluvial terraces, rates of transgression rapidly increase, resulting in a sudden increase in accommodation space and an associated landward shift in coastal facies. Backstepping parasequences are inherent to the architecture of terraced incised-valley fills.


The paper presents a preliminary description of an intrusion taxonomy to aid the development of a generic intrusion specification and response platform. Existing intrusion taxonomies are assessed in order to derive a suitable classification of incidents that would be both detectable and addressable by an automated intrusion detection system. The issue of automated responses to intrusions is considered, along with the factors that would influence the level of response selected. The work represents a contribution to ongoing research in relation to the Intrusion Monitoring System, a conceptual architecture for Intrusion Detection.


Pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) clouds are difficult to predict and can produce extreme and unexpected wildfire behavior that can be very hazardous to fire crews. Many forecasters modify conventional thunderstorm diagnostics to predict pyroCb potential, by adding temperature (Du) and moisture increments (Dq) to represent smoke plume thermodynamics near the expected plume condensation level. However, estimating these Du and Dq increments is a highly subjective process that requires expert knowledge of all factors that might influence future fire size and intensity. In this paper, instead of trying to anticipate these Du and Dq increments for a particular fire, the minimum firepower required to generate pyroCb for a given atmospheric environment is considered. This concept, termed the pyroCb firepower threshold (PFT) requires only atmospheric information, removing the need for subjective estimates of the fire contribution. A simple approach to calculating PFT is presented that incorporates only basic plume-rise physics, yielding an analytic solution that offers important insight into plume behavior and pyroCb formation. Minimum increments of Du and Dq required for deep, moist convection, plus a minimum cloud-base height (zfc), are diagnosed on a thermodynamic diagram. Briggs's plume rise equations are used to convert Du, zfc, and a mean horizontal wind speedU to a measure of the PFT: the minimum heat flux entering the base of the plume. This PFT is proportional to the product of U, Du, and the square of zfc. Plume behavior insights provided by the Briggs's equations are discussed, and a selection of PFT examples presented.


A previously proposed modified form of diffusion theory [ Phys. Rev.100, 517 ( 1955)] is applied to problems involving point sources and plane clouds over an absorbing ground. A general but formal solution is first presented. Some analytic results are then obtained for a point source at the edge of a semi-infinite (half-space) cloud; specific formulas are given for the photon density at the edge of the cloud and for the net photon current there; asymptotic results are obtained for large distances inside the cloud along the source axis. Finally, numerical results are presented for the photon density at the mid-plane of an infinite plane cloud with thickness equal to two (transport) mean free paths and a point source at the center. An appendix summarizes analytic results of the modified theory for: a point source in an infinite medium, a point source at the center of a finite sphere, the albedo and transmission of an infinite plane slab with parallel ("solar") illumination at an arbitrary angle, the albedo of the combination of a plane cloud over a ground plane with arbitrary albedo, and a rough analysis of ambient light levels in the ocean.


After cooking, kraft pulps always contain not only residual lignin but also significant amounts of hexenuronic acid and other non-lignin structures oxidizable by permanganate under the standard kappa number determination conditions. These here referred to as false lignin. Like ordinary lignin, the false lignin also consumes bleaching chemicals, thus increasing both the production costs and the environmental impact of bleach plant effluents. The false lignin also has an effect on pulp properties such as brightness stability. This necessitates the development of efficient experimental routines for the determination of false lignin in different types of unbleached and bleached kraft pulps, together with studies of its formation, chemical behaviour, and ultimate fate. The main aim of this work has been to establish a method for the quantification of various types of oxidizable structures in bleached kraft pulps and to study their impact on pulp quality, particularly, on the brightness stability of pulps bleached in elemental-chlorine-free (ECF) and a totally-chlorine-free (TCF) processes. Part of this research deals with the relationship between the kappa number and the lignin content in the case of partly oxidized lignins. Spruce and birch kraft pulps processed according to the ODEQP and OQ(OP)Q(PO) bleaching sequences, respectively, have been analyzed. It has been found that the oxidation equivalent of the residual lignin decreases with increasing degree of oxidation along each bleaching sequence. This finding has been further supported by experiments with a number of model compounds. The Ox-Dem kappa number method has been shown to be an accurate means of determining the residual lignin content and of monitoring the efficiency of lignin removal along different bleaching sequences. It has been demonstrated that the kappa number can always be fractioned into partial contributions, the first of which comes from the residual lignin and is measured by the Ox-Dem kappa number, and the second from the false lignin and is given by the difference between the standard kappa number and the Ox-Dem kappa number. The effect of false lignin on the pulp kappa number is most pronounced in unbleached and oxygen-delignified kraft pulps. The extractability of residual and false lignin in different solvents has been investigated. The changes that occurred in the kappa number following different extraction steps have been compared with corresponding changes in the chemical composition and the conclusion has been drawn that the hemicellulose component of a kraft pulp is a major sourse of non-lignin structures contributing to the kappa number. The influence on the brightness stability of various oxidizable structures, viz.: residual lignin, hexenuronic acid and other non-lignin structures, in spruce, birch and eucalyptus kraft pulps bleached in ECF and TCF type processes was studied. It was demonstrated that the selective removal of all false lignin structures significantly improves the brightness stability. The degree of yellowing was found to be proportional to the content of HexA groups in pulps. It has been shown that 2-furancarboxylic acid, 5-formyl-2furancarboxylic acid and reductic acid are formed during the course of thermal yellowing. The influence of two bleaching sequences, D0(EP)D1 (ECF-type) and Q1(OP)Q2(PO) (TCF)-type, on the content of different oxidizable structures in eucalyptus kraft pulp was studied in relation to the brightness stability of the pulp. It was shown by kappa number fractionation that pulp bleached to full brightness with ECF- and TCF-type sequences contains different amounts of HexA. The most significant discoloration was observed in the case of TCF-bleached pulp having an especially high content of HexA. The mechanism of the moist (8 % moisture) thermal yellowing of fully bleached kraft pulps was further studied using dissolving pulp impregnated with a set of model compounds representing the most likely HexA degradation products, viz. as 2-furancarboxylic acid (FA), 5-formyl-2-furancarboxylic acid (FFA) and reductic acid (RA), either alone or in combination with Fe(II) or Fe(III) ions. It was found that the latter two acids take part in reactions leading to colour formation whereas 2-furancarboxylic acid does not. The effect of iron ions on the colour formation appears to vary with their oxidation state. The brightness loss caused by either FFA or RA, present in an amounts similar to the content of HexA in industrial pulps, was of the same order of magnitude as that observed in industrial pulps aged under the same conditions. Based on these findings, it is suggested that the overall mechanism of moist thermal yellowing involves several stages, including the degradation of hexenuronic acid and the formation of reactive precursors, such as 5-formyl-2-furancarboxylic acid and reductic acid. The presence of ferrous ions further enhances the discoloration.


Following unilateral ureteric obstruction (UUO), hydronephrosis is associated with long term reductions in renal blood flow (RBF) and glomerular filtration rate (GFR), tubular resistance to arginine-vasopressin (AVP), and reduced expression of aquaporin water channels and sodium (Na + ) and urea transporters. During UUO, renal function is contingent upon adaptive changes in the contralateral kidney. In the short term this response is associated with an increased GFR and a reduced expression of Na + transporters. We aimed to assess global renal function in UUO, including a comparison between the obstructed and non-obstructed kidneys. Adult male rats were subjected to UUO of either 3 or 10 days duration. Control rats underwent sham surgery. Before release of the ureteric ligature, blood and both bladder and obstructed renal pelvis urine was sampled, then both kidneys harvested. Urinary and plasma electrolytes and osmolality, and kidney weights, were measured. We observed i) mild uraemia in the obstructed animals, ii) extreme dilution of urine from the pelvis of the obstructed kidney in the absence of noteworthy alterations in plasma ions, and iii) evidence indicative of a contralateral diuresis/natriuresis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study simultaneously examining such an extensive range of urinary (bladder and obstructed renal pelvis) and plasma markers of renal function in UUO. The results demonstrate that UUO is associated with a small deterioration in overall renal function and marked changes in renal electrolyte handling, leading to changes in the composition of urinary output from both the non-obstructed and obstructed kidneys.


Institutional Members of the International Mountain Society (IMS) SDC, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Bern ICIMOD, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, Kathmandu FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome CONDESAN, Consortium for the Sustainable Development of the Andean Ecoregion, Lima CDE, Centre for Development and Environment, Bern MRI, Mountain Research Initiative, Bern UCA/MSRI, Mountain Societies Research Institute, University of Central Asia, Bishkek ICAS, Interacademic Commission for Alpine Studies, Bern CMS, Centre for Mountain Studies, Perth College, University of the Highlands and Islands, Perth, Scotland DIG, Department of Integrative Geography, Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern IMHE, Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, China


Nursing is an ethical profession and nurses are responsible for patient care. In providing healthcare services,
patient right is an important issue to consider. However, not only the awareness the patient right is important
but also moral sensitivity to ethical decision-making is crucial. This study aimed to determine the
relationship between moral sensibility and attitude towards patients' rights. A descriptive-analytic study was
used and 194 nurses working in intensive care units in hospitals affiliated to medical university of South
Khorasan province were selected by convenience sampling method. The data collected through a
questionnaire consisting of three parts: 1) demographics 2) the moral sensitivity questionnaire (Korean
version), and 3) a questionnaire survey of nurses' attitudes towards the patients' rights. Data collected by the
software SPSS version 16, and were analyzed descriptive and analytical statistical tests.
The results showed that there is a significant direct relationship between average moral sensibility and
nurses' attitudes towards patients' rights (r= 0.6, P=0.03). The average nurse's ethical sensitivity has been
reported 3.05±0.68 0f the total score (0-4). The average attitude towards the patients' rights was 4 ± 0.8 of
the total score (1-5). The relationship between moral sensitivity whit the years of service and age of the
participants was significant (P<0.05). There was also a significant relationship between the attitudes of
nurses towards patients' rights with gender and years of service (P<0.05). In conclusion it is necessary to
provide more moral education to increase nurse's moral sensitivity towards patients' rights. It should be
noted that due to the fact that moral sensitivity and attitude towards patients' rights increases with the number
of years of service the article suggests that considering more experienced nurses in the teams would result a
more morally sensitive care for the patients.


This thesis attempts to identify some of the determinants of R&D investment in UK manufacturing industries in the 1990s, a decade in which R&D intensity in the UK declined. We begin with a summary of the key driving factors that emerge from the current empirical literature on R&D determinants, most of which has utilized firm level data. We then estimate an econometric panel model of R&D investment. Industry characteristics such as sales and profitability, product market competition, macroeconomic factors such as the real interest and exchange rates, and the composition of R&D expenditure and funding are found to be important. The thesis examines the sensitivity of the results to specification, functional form, and estimation method. In a next step, we acknowledge that pooled estimates will not provide reliable estimates of individual effects when the parameters are heterogeneous. Moreover, they may not even be consistent estimates of the average in this case. Evidence from a principal components analysis suggests there may be significant differences between high-tech and low-tech R&D determinants, and hence we move on to test the validity of the pooling assumption in our panel. We find that government funding is significant only for low-tech R&D, whilst skilled labour and foreign R&D matter only in high-tech sectors. Foreign R&D accounts for a substantial amount of total R&D. Considering its importance, we move on to investigate its determinants in the remainder of the thesis, where we take particular account of potential effects from exchange rate uncertainty.


Sheet metal products are often designed without a systematic consideration of downstream product development requirements, such as process planning, manufacturability, production scheduling and manufacturing optimization. This can often result in a lot of expensive and time consuming reworks. Consequently, it affects the quality, cost and delivery time of the product. In this paper, a framework for developing a web based feature recognition system (FRS) has been proposed to recognise bending features on a reconfigurable bending press machine (RBPM). The research explores the current literature and design approaches used to develop feature recognition systems in the current manufacturing industries. This model will help to offer a suitable method for designing a web based feature recognition system for sheet metal bending using RBPMs. This model will be applied to feature recognition systems in other manufacturing industries. The model consists of the integrated platform system, information model, part model, geometric modelling and the feature model. The proposed models will aid the designer right at the design stage with useful design and the feature recognition system. The designer will be able to relate process technology to product design instead of specifying the geometric definition alone. Design of these models will provide a more convenient design environment and an easier way to integrate CAD/ CAM activities. After developing the model the designer will be able to use the CAD software to develop patterns, interpret drawings and transfer dimensions to sheet materials and sections to meet the required specification. © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of The 50th CIRP Conference on Manufacturing Systems.


This paper presents a fully digital polar up-converter for wireless transmission in the GHz range. The system is designed to drive two class-E power amplifiers (PAs) with a power combiner. It uses baseband pulse width modulation (PWM) for the amplitude modulation (AM), whereas phase modulation (PM) is implemented by shifting the RF carrier in time. Both the PWM and the PM are implemented using asynchronous delay lines which allow time resolutions down to 10 ps without the need for any reference frequencies higher than the carrier frequency. The system supports a continuous range of carrier frequencies from 946 MHz up to 2.4 GHz. It also supports a continuous range of sampling frequencies, which allows trading off signal quality for PA efficiency. The modulator has been implemented in 65-nm low-power CMOS. Measurements using 64-QAM OFDM signals show error vector magnitude (EVM) values ranging from 1.90% (-34.4 dB) for 5-MHz bandwidth signals at 946 MHz to 6.08% (-24.3 dB) for 20-MHz bandwidth signals at 2.4 GHz.


China's telecommunications industry has seen revolutionary transformation and growth over the past three decades. Chinese Internet users number nearly 150 million, and the PRC expects to quickly pass the US in total numbers of connected citizens. The number of mobile and fixed-line telephone users soared from a mere 2 million in 1980 to a total of nearly 800 million in 2007. China has been the most successful developing nation in history for spreading telecommunications access at an unparalleled rapid pace. This book tells how China conducted its remarkable "telecommunications revolution". It examines both corporate and government policy to get citizens connected to both voice and data networks, looks at the potential challenges to the one-party government when citizens get this access, and considers the new opportunities for networking now offered to the people of one of the world's fastest growing economies. The book is based on the author's fieldwork conducted in several Chinese cities, as well as extensive archival research. It focuses on key issues such as building and running the country's Internet, mobile phone company rivalry, foreign investment in the sector, and telecommunications in China's vibrant city of Shanghai. It also considers the country's internal "digital divide", and questions how equitable the telecommunications revolution has been. Finally, it examines the ways the PRC's entry to the World Trade Organization will shape the future course of telecommunications growth.


GenoML is a Python package automating machine learning workflows for genomics (genetics and multi-omics) with an open science philosophy. Genomics data require significant domain expertise to clean, pre-process, harmonize and perform quality control of the data. Furthermore, tuning, validation, and interpretation involve taking into account the biology and possibly the limitations of the underlying data collection, protocols, and technology. GenoML's mission is to bring machine learning for genomics and clinical data to non-experts by developing an easy-to-use tool that automates the full development, evaluation, and deployment process. Emphasis is put on open science to make workflows easily accessible, replicable, and transferable within the scientific community. Source code and documentation is available at https://genoml.com.


This dissertation is an inquiry into two disciplines: recreation ecology and
geospatial analysis. The dissertation consists of three article manuscripts
focusing on the sustainability of recreational infrastructure components in backcountry
and wilderness settings. Two articles focus on campsite conditions, nodal areas of visitor
use and impact. The third article focuses on trail conditions, linear corridors of visitor
use and impact. Campsites and trails comprise the most visited and impacted
components of recreation infrastructure; locations where protected natural area visitors
spend the majority of their time and where the majority of resource impacts occur.
Resource conditions at these locations affect the quality of recreational experiences and
are the focus of management and scientific efforts to measure and manage visitationrelated
resource impacts. The articles provide a strong scientific background to
understanding ecological processes and better preparing recreation planners and
managers for sustainable infrastructure management decision-making.
The first article assesses the sustainability of campsites over thirty-two years of
use in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in northern Minnesota.
Differences in vegetation composition, tree cover and groundcover from 1982 to 2014
were measured. Paired t-tests analyzed significant ecological differences on campsites
and paired controls over time. Best management practices for managing campsites for the
long-term are suggested.
The second article analyzes the extent of non-native plants on campsites over
thirty-two years. Paired t-tests were used to look at cover and abundance on campsites
and control areas between 1982 and 2014. This paper explores ecological benefits and
degradation incurred by non-native plants on campsites over time and discusses
implications for wilderness character at BWCAW.
iii
The third article is interdisciplinary, incorporating ground-based recreation
ecology measurements with technical spatial analyses and modeling to improve
understanding of erosional processes on trails. Fine resolution terrain data was used to
examine terrain metrics as they relate to amount of soil loss. Multiple Linear Regression
was used to test a number of variables taken from the field and derived from Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) software using a 1m Digital Elevation Model. This paper
explores relationships between different terrain variables and soil loss observed on the
Appalachian Trail. It provides insights on which terrain features influence erosion and
provides recommendations to trail managers to design more sustainable trails.


ABSTRACT.
 Abundance estimators that account for imperfect detection, such as N-mixture models, assume that detection of individuals is independent of abundance. Using spot-mapping and N-mixture models applied to point-count data, we estimated abundance of Goldencheeked Warblers (Setophaga chrysoparia) in two years at six study sites at the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve, Austin, Texas. N-mixture model estimates deviated from spot-mapping estimates at the site level by overestimating at low abundances, and at the survey-station level by underestimating at high abundance, which suggests that model assumptions may have been violated. We tested whether detection of individuals is influenced by abundance by assessing per capita song rate in relation to abundance. Per capita song rate increased with abundance, illustrating how the behavior of a territorial passerine may violate the independent-detectability assumption. We next explored violation of this assumption at the survey-station level by applying N-mixture models to simulated data exhibiting heterogeneity in detection. This exercise revealed a slight but increasingly negative bias (underestimation of abundance) in the estimator as the actual abundance increased, given positive density-dependent detection. The simulations also revealed a potentiel effect of sampling variation on misestimation by N-mixture model estimators. Assessing the strength, basis, and prevalence of density-dependent detection; further analyzing the effects of nonrandom heterogeneity in producing estimator bias; and accounting for nonrandom detection heterogeneity in abundance estimators are fruitful areas for further study.


Existing leadership theories and applied resources contain bountiful lists of recommended behaviors for leaders to employ, yet an integrated model that produces the most efficient set of leader behaviors does not currently exist. A standard, quantitative method to compare and contrast leader behaviors is needed to siphon utility from each resource, leading to an integrated and diversified set of optimal behaviors for leaders to consider. Leaders have limited time and need a reliable method to make informed behavioral decisions that consistently produce the most positive effects on the desired outcome. Unfortunately, leaders do not have the time to sift through the plethora of literary resources to uncover an optimal list of behavioral options. Leaders need to know what behavior to employ, when to employ it, the expected outcome, and the potential risk. Interestingly, these behavioral variables are also common to investors in the financial arena, where the principles of Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) are often used to decipher the most optimal portfolio from a daunting list of investment options. The primary purpose of this study was to adopt some of the basic principles behind MPT in order to propose a similar quantitative Leader Behavior Portfolio Model, which determines an integrated and optimal set of effective leader behaviors. During this research, the proposed model was populated with archival performance data on over 5,000 cadets at the United States Military Academy. The outputs were then used to construct and administer surveys to 255 ROTC cadets in order to validate the model. The results of the survey response data were consistent with the outputs from the Leader Behavior Portfolio Model, showing strong support for adopting the principles of MPT to create an optimal set of leader behaviors.


: The concern of deductive logic is generally viewed as the systematic recognition of logical principles, i.e., of logical truths. This paper presents and analyzes different instantiations of the three main interpretations of logical principles, viz. as ontological principles, as empirical hypotheses, and as true propositions in virtue of meanings. I argue in this paper that logical principles are true propositions in virtue of the meanings of the logical terms within a certain linguistic framework. Since these principles also regulate and control the process of deduction in inquiry, i.e., they are prescriptive for the use of language and thought in inquiry, I argue that logic may, and should, be seen as an instrument or as a way of proceeding (modus procedendi) in inquiry.


The majority of early Christian documents are saturated with Jewish thought. Although Second-Temple Judaism did include a certain amount of diversity, when the Gospel of John was written in different phases during the latter half of the 1st century, the written Torah was a fixed part of Jewish Scripture. In this research, I endeavour to point out how Torah themes saturate the Prologue of the Gospel of John and also how these themes create a certain spirituality amongst its readers. A positive feature of Old Testament imagery and themes is that they are polysemantic, which made it easy for the writers of New Testament documents to reinterpret the Old Testament in the light of Jesus Christ. The author of the Gospel of John also made use of significant characters, themes and imagery, all taken from the Torah. In doing so, he created new spiritualities amongst the readers of the Gospel of John to endorse the identity, reality and a certain image and experience of the unseen God (1:18) of the Old Testament through Jesus Christ. The spirituality in the Gospel of John is bound up with a real God interacting with real people in real situations.


The expression 'publish or perish' has never been truer for one's academic career than it is today. This is little consolation for the would-be academics who have yet to publish their first academic article. So, mindful of the challenges, I offer this article as an encouragement to such scholars. Since this is a personal reflection, and not an attempt at a definitive work on the subject, I will use examples drawn from my own writings.


In this master thesis, iceberg detection and tracking by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles has been studied. Currently, most systems for ice management separate these two tasks. However, combining these tasks into a single algorithm might only require one UAV, which could reduce the operating costs. In this thesis, we propose a combined search and track algorithm and investigate its performance and viability. To test the algorithm, a simulator has been developed. A Kalman filter has been used to keep track of detected icebergs. Data from wind and ocean currents have been used to determine critical areas that should be searched. Optimal paths for combined search and track missions for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), have been computed by solving a Travelling Salesman Problem. To create a more realistic simulation environment, an iceberg drift model has been developed. By collecting real wind and ocean current data from the test area, the model generates dynamic icebergs, which can be used to test the algorithm. A series of simulations were done to test the algorithm's performance and robustness. The results indicated that the combined algorithm had the desired behaviour, in the sense that both search and tracking were prioritized in the UAV missions. Further, we found that an iceberg that is being tracked, should be rediscovered as often as possible, in order to optimize the tracking performance. Other tests indicated that the total search radius was decreased when the ice density was increased. The algorithm showed acceptable performance up to an ice density of 50 icebergs. Considering the decreasing search radius, it was concluded that ice densities above this quantity, could lead to an inadequate detection of icebergs. The algorithm's robustness was also tested in a more rapid changing weather condition. This resulted in a degraded total performance, but it was concluded that the likelihood of weather changing this fast and random, was low. The system showed good flexibility when including radar and satellite data. For the radar case, a safer system was obtained. For the satellite case, results indicated that the performance was improved as long as the iceberg classification accuracy was above 75%. The results of this study support the viability of a combined search and track algorithm for UAV search and track missions. However, some issues have still to be solved, for instance when it comes to performance in rapidly changing weather. Future work should therefore focus on making the algorithm more robust, before performing experiments with a UAV for proof of concept.


Current signal-dependent time-frequency representations are block-oriented methods suited only for short-duration signals. The authors propose a simple, computationally efficient technique for creating adaptive time-frequency representations in which a kernel characterized by one free parameter is adapted over time. Time adaptation of the kernal allows continuous updating of the kernel to optimally track changes in signal characteristics. The procedure computes a short-time quality measure (concentration or entropy based) of the time-frequency representation for a range of values of the free parameter and estimates the parameter value, maximizing the quality measure by means of interpolation. Simple examples illustrate the benefits of this technique over fixed-kernel representations. >


Mobile work zones for various types of moving operations (e.g., striping, pothole patching, sweeping) are an important component in highway maintenance activities which have particular safety issues. To help mitigate the risk and severity of collisions, a truck-mounted attenuator (TMA) is attached to a construction vehicle, typically equipped with amber/white lights. Despite these visible warnings, collisions involving TMAs and traffic still occur. In an effort to improve upon the traditional amber/white lights, the use of green lights on TMAs was investigated. The study included the evaluation of four light-color configurations: amber/white, green only, green/amber, and green/white. Driving simulator tests obtained various driver behavior measures, including the first blinker distance, merge distance, work zone and arrow direction recognition distance, and disability glare. Vehicle speeds were captured in both a simulator study and a field study. In the simulator study, the use of the amber/white combination led to the highest work zone visibility but also created the greatest concern with disability glare. Although the green-only configuration led to the lowest disability glare, it also resulted in low visibility. The results showed an inverse relationship between visibility (awareness of work zone) and arrow board recognition (easy on eyes). Other findings from the field study include lower traffic speeds for the green light TMA and lower vehicle speeds for lower TMA vehicle speeds. Overall, the study showed that the four configurations had various tradeoffs and none stood out as clearly superior in terms of the performance measures.


Motivated by the challenging task of designing "secure" vote storage mechanisms, we deal with information storage mechanisms that operate in extremely hostile environments. In such environments, the majority of existing techniques for information storage and for security are susceptible to powerful adversarial attacks. In this setting, we propose a mechanism for storing a set of at most K elements from a large universe of size N on write-once memories in a manner that does not reveal the insertion order of the elements. Whereas previously known constructions were either inefficient (required Θ(K2) memory), randomized, or employed cryptographic techniques which are unlikely to be available in hostile environments, we eliminate each of these undesirable properties. The total amount of memory used by the mechanism is linear in the number of stored elements and poly-logarithmic in the size of the universe of elements.

In addition, we consider one of the classical distributed computing problems: Conflict resolution in multiple-access channels. By establishing a tight connection with the basic building block of our mechanism, we construct the first deterministic and non-adaptive conflict resolution algorithm whose running time is optimal up to poly-logarithmic factors.


How should we understand the naming of legendary figures like Solomon in biblical titles? The ancient practice of attribution is often obscured by scholars committed to the modern construction of authorship. Texts such as 11QPs a XXVII ("David's Compositions") demonstrate an altogether different understanding of this ancient practice. Using Prov. 1:1 as a test case, this essay examines how biblical authors and editors assigned texts to legendary figures, and how this kind of attribution evokes a set of imagined associations in the broader literary tradition. The essay presents a description and categorization of biblical titles and textual frames, and compares these titles and frames to textual frames of ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean collections of instruction and poetry. The essay argues that Prov. 1:1, like other textual frames, uses attribution to imaginatively stage the text in the broader literary tradition.


We use the AdS/CFT correspondence to argue that large rotating black holes in global AdSD spaces are dual to stationary solutions of the relativistic Navier-Stokes equations on SD−2. Reading off the equation of state of this fluid from the thermodynamics of non-rotating black holes, we proceed to construct the nonlinear spinning solutions of fluid mechanics that are dual to rotating black holes. In all known examples, the thermodynamics and the local stress tensor of our solutions are in precise agreement with the thermodynamics and boundary stress tensor of the spinning black holes. Our fluid dynamical description applies to large non-extremal black holes as well as a class of large non-supersymmetric extremal black holes, but is never valid for supersymmetric black holes. Our results yield predictions for the thermodynamics of all large black holes in all theories of gravity on AdS spaces, for example, string theory on AdS5 × S5 and M theory on AdS4 × S7 and AdS7 × S4.


As a journalist with the English language Emirates News in Dubai, every day is different. As my colleague, reporter Sheri Jamkhou, puts it, "The best points of the job are that it's not monotonous, you get to meet different people from all walks of life, and a new opportunity arises every day." For most members of the team (and any journalist with even a minor addiction to news) the day starts as soon as we switch on a television, scan through internet news sites or scroll through our Twitter feeds. We bring ourselves up-to-speed on the local, regional and international news of the day and begin to consider which stories may be appropriate for us to cover in that evening's half-hour bulletin. As a part of Dubai Media Incorporated (a Dubai Government department), our news priorities start in Dubai, move to the rest of the UAE, the Gulf and Middle East, and finally broaden out to international stories, where we have time in the bulletin. The main reason we focus on local stories over international news, is that there are cable networks and international providers who already cover global news well, but our niche, our advantage and indeed our charter is to provide news on Dubai to our Anglophone audience. This journal article is available in Middle East Media Educator: http://ro.uow.edu.au/meme/vol1/iss2/11 117 Delivering Emirates News As a journalist with the English language Emirates News in Dubai, every day is different. As my colleague, reporter Sheri Jamkhou, puts it, "The best points of the job are that it's not monotonous, you get to meet different people from all walks of life, and a new opportunity arises every day."


We evaluate the effect of the Federal Reserve's purchase of long-term Treasuries and other long-term bonds (QE1 in 2008-09 and QE2 in 2010-11) on interest rates. Using an event-study methodology, we reach two main conclusions. First, it is inappropriate to focus only on Treasury rates as a policy target, because quantitative easing works through several channels that affect particular assets differently. We find evidence for a signaling channel, a unique demand for long-term safe assets, and an inflation channel for both QE1 and QE2, and a mortgage-backed securities (MBS) prepayment channel and a corporate bond default risk channel for QE1 only. Second, effects on particular assets depend critically on which assets are purchased. The event study suggests that MBS purchases in QE1 were crucial for lowering MBS yields as well as corporate credit risk and thus corporate yields for QE1, and Treasuries-only purchases in QE2 had a disproportionate effect on Treasuries and agency bonds relative to MBSs and corporate bonds, with yields on the latter falling primarily through the market's anticipation of lower future federal funds rates.


This paper presents ERGOSIM, a software that automatically evaluate the design of menu bars, pull-down menus, and sub-menus of a graphical user interface by reviewing usability guidelines related to menu design. In this method, a menu design is parsed against the definition of usability guidelines in order to detect potential usability problems manifested by any occurrence where a guidelines is not respected. Four evaluation strategies are enabled depending on the end user's preferences: an active strategy initiated by the system, a passive strategy initiated by the designer, a mixed strategy collaboratively initiated by both the designer and the system, and a strategy by conceptual units based on the domain. From an initial corpus of 312 usability guidelines compiled from different sources on menu design, a final knowledge base of 58 implemented usability guidelines has been obtained for automatic evaluation. By examining how each usability guideline for menu design is expressed, we discuss to what extent such guidelines could be automated in an automated process by guidelines review. Author


A large proportion of stock improvement in agriculture and more recently aquaculture has come through breeding strategies that work to isolate and fix favourable characters and eliminate undesirable genetic qualities in the target species. The development of homozygous breeding lines, which allow fixing of desirable traits need to be progressed to enhance the effectiveness of breeding strategies. Such lines would also be a valuable research tool for examining genetic versus environmental influence on reproductive biology and stock performance. One potentially rapid and effective method that may produce 100% homozygous individuals is to create what are known as "double-haploids", by suppressing the 1st cell cleavage in haploid zygotes.
This project investigated the efficacy of haploid production in the Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas, by examining UV irradiation of the paternal DNA, and restoration to the diploid state using the chemicals 6-dimethylaminopurine (6-DMAP) or Cytochalasin B (CB) to suppress either polar body I, polar body II or 1st Cleavage of activated eggs. Additionally, the use of a recessive colour phenotype was examined as a marker to identify parentage of putative gynogen offspring.
Sperm Viability via a membrane integrity test ranged between 78-80% viable for controls (no UV exposure) and was significantly greater than all treatment exposures except 60 second low energy exposure (601±22μWcm⁻²s⁻¹), with 300 second high energy exposure (1063±15μWcm⁻²s⁻¹) causing the greatest reduction in sperm viability, ranging between 32-52%.
There was no significant difference in egg activation between controls and treatments. In contrast, there was a significant reduction in development of embryos to D larvae with controls averaging approximately 40% development to D stage and the lowest energy treatment (60 seconds @ 601±22μWcm⁻²s⁻¹) averaging a little over 1%.
UV radiation of sperm had a significant effect on embryo ploidy levels, with all treatments 180 seconds or longer resulting in less than 20% of cells being diploid or some level of aneuploidy between haploid and diploid. However other published work indicated that, sperm densities and treatment depths are likely to be as important as energy levels when developing irradiation protocols.
Survival of putative diploid gynogens was extremely low in all experiments, with the best results yielding 3.9% recovery to D stage larvae and 0.04% recovery to settled spat assessed at 34 days post spawning. Suppression of PB II or 1st Cleavage with CB resulted in the greatest proportion of diploid cells (37.3% and 28.9% respectively) compared with CB suppression of PB I which resulted in the majority of cells produced being tetraploid (35.7%). Microsatellite (mSAT) analysis of these putative gynogen spat revealed a greater level of homozygosity in their genome relative to normal diploid controls; however the presence of null alleles and a lack of genetic variability at some mSAT loci reduced the power of these tools to fully distinguish parentage and validate the production of meiotic or mitotic gynogens.
In a direct comparison of 6-DMAP and CB to restore the diploid state by suppression of 1st Cleavage, CB provided a greater percentage of diploid cells (28.4%) compared with 6-DMAP (23.7%) and significantly lower subsequent mortality of larvae. However using 6-DMAP to suppress PB I and II, survival and percentage of diploid cells produced was comparable to that obtained for similar trials using CB.
The use of eggs obtained from recessive gold phenotype females crossed with inactivated sperm from homozygous wild type males was investigated to help elucidate the parentage of putative meiotic and mitotic gynogens. Survival of these putative gynogens was lower than for wild type female progeny however gold offspring were produced in both forms of gynogen induction and were not found in corresponding diploid controls.
In summary, effective sperm deactivation for subsequent haploid gynogen production can be achieved by exposure to UV radiation for 5 minutes at energy levels ranging between 600 and 1000 μWcm⁻²s⁻¹. Restoring the diploid state of zygotes for meiotic gynogen production can be achieved through the addition of Cytochalasin B or 6-dimethylaminopurine targeting Polar body II suppression, however Cytochalasin B is recommended over 6-dimethylaminopurine for the production of putative mitotic gynogens through 1st cleavage suppression. Mitotic gynogens may be particular useful in the production of genetically identical lines, as they have the potential to be homozygous at every locus.


American plaice (Hippoglossoides platessoides) distribution, age and growth, and sexual maturity on the Flemish Cap from 1978 to 1985 were determined. American plaice were distributed mainly in the shallower areas, generally in the central, southern and southwestern areas of Flemish Cap. Densities were much lower on average than in the adjacent Grand Bank area. There was no size selective distribution by depth or temperature. Examination of otoliths revealed that females grew at a faster rate than males after age 3. The maximum age recorded was 15 years, which was considerably lower than the value for adjacent stocks of American plaice. In many years the population was dominated by one year-class, which comprised up to 68% of the catch numbers. The M50 values for age and length for males were 3.8 years and 26.4 cm, respectively, and the corresponding values for females were 6.2 years and 39.7 cm. The lengths at M50 were similar to those for American plaice in other areas of the Northwest Atlantic, although the ages at M50 were considerably lower.


NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.


The present volume seeks to contribute some studies to the subfield of Empirical Translation Studies and thus aid in extending its reach within the field of translation studies and thus in making our discipline more rigorous and fostering a reproducible research culture. The Translation in Transition conference series, across its editions in Copenhagen (2013), Germersheim (2015) and Ghent (2017), has been a major meeting point for scholars working with these aims in mind, and the conference in Barcelona (2019) has continued this tradition of expanding the sub-field of empirical translation studies to other paradigms within translation studies. This book is a collection of selected papers presented at that fourth Translation in Transition conference, held at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona on 19–20 September 2019.


Grid computing is a computing framework to meet growing demands for running different grid enable applications. This paper proposes a neural network for automatically capturing the requirements of the user and uses it for resource selection. This paper also introduces an approach based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to schedule jobs on computational grids. The representations of a position and particle velocity in a conventional PSO are extended to real vectors. The proposed approach aims to generate dynamically, an optimal schedule to complete tasks within minimum time duration and also to use resources efficiently.


This survey lays out the main facts and problems of Alexander's principal associations with Africa, in life, in death and in the imagination of the later ancients (it does not venture into the realm of so-called Reception Studies). Of the themes inevitably treated here two above all, the foundation of Alexandria and the visit to Siwah, are well established chestnuts of Alexander scholarship, and will be handled rather more circumspectly than they might otherwise be. The shadow of Ptolemy, both as a rival actor and as a re-packager of the deeds of Alexander, in the development of political propaganda and the writing of history alike, hangs over much of the discussion.


ABSTRACT The phenomenon of the middle neighborhood, those urban working-class neighborhoods that are, in Paul Brophy's words, "not in deep distress but not thriving either," has not been widely studied, particularly African-American middle neighborhoods. This article calls attention to the large number of such neighborhoods that emerged in the 1970s in the wake of White flight and examines the trajectory of those neighborhoods in St. Louis since 2000, showing how the great majority of these neighborhoods, after decades of relative stability, have seen devastating social, economic, and housing market decline since 2000. The article examines the roles of subprime lending and the foreclosure crisis, as well as accelerated suburbanization of Black middle-class families since 2000, as central factors in the decline; explores the effect of the decline on Black homeowners' equity as well as the larger social and political configuration of the city; and suggests policy directions to address the decline of these neighborhoods.


We introduce a variational Bayesian inference algorithm which can be widely applied to sparse linear models. The algorithm is based on the spike and slab prior which, from a Bayesian perspective, is the golden standard for sparse inference. We apply the method to a general multi-task and multiple kernel learning model in which a common set of Gaussian process functions is linearly combined with task-specific sparse weights, thus inducing relation between tasks. This model unifies several sparse linear models, such as generalized linear models, sparse factor analysis and matrix factorization with missing values, so that the variational algorithm can be applied to all these cases. We demonstrate our approach in multi-output Gaussian process regression, multi-class classification, image processing applications and collaborative filtering.


Due to their volatile nature and low solubility in silicate melts at the surface of the Earth, the direct measurement of the volatile components H2O and CO2 in magmatic systems is dependent on the presence of glass inclusions trapped in a crystal host prior to eruption. These inclusions, along with the glassy rinds of submarine pillow lavas, represent one of the few windows researchers have into the pre-eruptive chemical characteristics of magmatic systems (e.g., Anderson et al. 2000; Roggensack 2001a; Metrich and Wallace 2008). This information is critically important, as it is volatile exsolution and expansion that provides much of the energy for explosive eruptions, plus it informs our broader understanding of geochemical fluxes in igneous environments (Wallace 2005), and helps us understand specific magmatic behavior such as pre-eruptive phase equilibria (Moore and Carmichael 1998). The dissolved volatile concentration in magmas also strongly influences their physical properties such as density and viscosity (Lange 1994; Ochs and Lange 1999), which in turn affect volcanological behavior such as eruption style (Sparks et al. 1994; Zhang et al. 2007).

In order to use melt inclusion volatile content measurements for petrologic interpretation, experimental volatile solubility data are critically necessary. Experimental solubility constraints allow the measured volatile contents in melt inclusions to be used to estimate intensive properties such as a minimum depth of entrapment of the inclusion (i.e., a calculated fluid saturation pressure), as well as to indicate the type of degassing process (i.e., open or closed system) that occurred during the emplacement and eruption of the magma (Fig. 1⇓). These estimates assume, of course, that the magma is saturated in a fluid containing H2O and/or CO2, and are not appropriate for a magma that is fluid-undersaturated. With the assumption of …


Brain death (BD) is a distinct mode of death in pediatric intensive care units, accounting for 16–23% of deaths. Coma, absent brainstem reflexes, and apnea in a patient with acute irreversible neurological insult should alarm the attending physician to start the appro ‐ priate actions to establish or refute the diagnosis for BD. BD diagnosis is clinical, starting with the preconditions that should be met, and based on the examination of all brain ‐ stem reflexes, including the apnea test. Apnea testing should be conducted according to standard criteria to demonstrate the absence of spontaneous respirations, in the case of an intense ventilatory stimulus, setting at increased PaCO 2 levels ≥60 and ≥20 mm Hg, compared to baseline. When elements of clinical examination and/or apnea test cannot be performed, ancillary studies to demonstrate the presence/absence of electrocerebral silence and/or cerebral blood flow are guaranteed. Two clinical examinations by qualified physicians at set intervals are required. Time of death is the time of second examination and ventilator support should stop at that time, except for organ donation. The use of check list in documentation of BD helps in the uniformity of diagnosis and fosters further trust from medical, family, and community personnel.


Waste management is becoming a central point on public policies due to its economic and environmental impacts. Therefore, prediction of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) generation is an important issue both for public service planning (such as waste collection services, infrastructures and MSW treatment facilities) and for assessing society sustainability. Conventional forecasting of MSW generation frequently uses demographic and socioeconomic factors in a per-capita basis1,2. However, this approach is not reliable in all situations. In this way, in highly impacted touristic areas MSW generation could be variable, highly influenced on tourist flows and not only on the town inhabitants 3. In this work, we developed a system dynamic model to predict the MSW generation of Andorra, a small Pyrenean country, where the touristic activity is one of the main basis of its economy. Therefore, our model, will be built using the available MSW and socioeconomic data time series integrating tourist flow information in order to account to the country economic specificity. The developed prediction tool should be useful for both Andorra public services and private waste management companies as they will be able to plan needed investments on a much more solid basis. Furthermore, similar models should be useful in predicting MSW generation in other touristic areas.


The purpose of this case report and review is to present the successful management of complicated crown-root fracture of maxillary central incisor with a multidisciplinary approach. A 57-year-old male patient reported with a complaint of unpleasant appearance due to a broken 21. Clinical and radiological examination revealed a complicated oblique crown-root fracture extending below the gingival margin. The tooth was endodontically treated. Surgical crown lengthening with osseous recontouring was performed. After 7 days prefabricated temporary crown was cemented, 6 weeks after surgery fiber post was placed followed by composite core build up. The tooth was restored with a permanent restoration of porcelain fused to the metal crown with gingival porcelain. Examination after 3 months revealed the good periodontal health, esthetic, normal function and patient satisfaction. The key factor in the successful functional and esthetic rehabilitation of a complicated crown-root fracture is weighing of all the available options with a multidisciplinary approach.


This study aimed to investigate the inhibitory effects of the different concentrations of Tanshinone IIA (Tan IIA) on the proliferation of human alveolar epithelial cell line A549 and its regulatory mechanism in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). The proliferation activity of cells was examined using the thiazolyl blue tetrazolium bromide (MTT) method. The changes in the expression of epithelial cell marker protein E-cadherin (E-cad) and interstitial marker protein alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) were detected using the cellular immunochemical method. The changes in cell morphology and ultrastructure were observed under the inverted microscope and transmission electron microscope, respectively. Western blot analysis was used to detect the expression of E-cad, α-SMA, Smad7, and Smad3. The MTT assay showed that the cell viability in the transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-β1) induced group was higher than that in the normal group, but the difference was not obvious. However, the cell viability of the Tan IIA-treated groups obviously decreased compared with the TGF-β1-induced and normal groups. Meanwhile, the expression of E-cad and Smad7 decreased, and the expression of α- SMA and Smad3 increased after A549 cells were induced by 5 ng/mL TGF-β1 for 24 h. However, their expression levels were close to the expression level of the control group after the cells were treated with Tan IIA for 24 h. In conclusion, the results demonstrated that Tan IIA could inhibit EMT of alveolar epithelial cells induced by TGF-β1, probably by regulating the expression of TGF-β/Smad pathway protein. Therefore, Tan IIA might serve as a potential anti-fibrosis drug in treating pulmonary fibrosis.


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 OBJECTIVES: Vascular remodeling is determined by the balance of proliferation and apoptosis in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC). Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress has been reported as an inducible factor of apoptosis. We have recently reported that growth arrest and DNA damage inducible gene (Gadd)153, which is known to be upregulated by ER stress, plays a pivotal role in the regulation of apoptosis in VSMC. The aim of this study is to characterize a promoter region of the Gadd153 gene for further elucidation of underlying mechanisms of VSMC apoptosis mediated by Gadd153. METHODS: Promoter region was isolated by screening of a rat genomic library. Transcription start sites were determined by primer extension analysis. Progressive 5′-deletions were prepared and used for the construction of luciferase-fusion vectors. For all experiments, VSMC were maintaining in the presence of 10% FCS to make them a proliferative state. Promoter activity was measured by luciferase assay, and DNA-binding studies were performed by electromobility shift and supershift assays. RESULTS: A 1500-bp fragment containing a Gadd153 promoter region was obtained, and its sequence alignment was determined. Primer extension analysis revealed that there were two major transcription start sites. Further, one TATA-like box was found within 30 bp from the transcription start sites. Although the 5′-deletion that was deleted the sequence spanning -1500 through -400 showed the highest promoter activity in VSMC, the presence of sequence spanning -447 and -400 reduced promoter activity drastically to the almost equal level of promoter less control. This domain between -447 and -400 contained a well-known consensus element, NF1 binding site, located at positions between -447 and -417. DNA-binding studies indicated that nuclear extracts from VSMC specifically produced a retarded band that was supershifted by addition of antibodies against NF1. CONCLUSION: In proliferative VSMC, basal transcriptional activity of the Gadd153 gene was regulated mainly by a nuclear factor NF1 via a negative regulatory element located at positions between -447 and -417, suggesting that NF1 may act as an anti-apoptotic factor of VSMC.


Predators may attack isolated or grouped preys in a cooperative, collective way. Whether a gregarious behavior is advantageous to each species depends on several conditions and game theory is a useful tool to deal with such a problem. We here extend the Lett-Auger-Gaillard model [Theor. Pop. Biol. 65, 263 (2004)] to spatially distributed groups and compare the resulting behavior with their mean field predictions for the coevolving densities of predator and prey strategies. We show that the coexistence phase in which both strategies for each group are present is stable because of an effective, cyclic dominance behavior similar to a well studied generalizations of the Rock-Paper-Scissors game with four species (without neutral pairs), a further example of how ubiquitous this mechanism is. In addition, inside the coexistence phase (but interestingly, only for finite size systems) there is a realization of the survival of the weakest effect that is triggered by a percolation crossover.


ABSTRACT Intraspecific phenotypic variation occurs for many different reasons and understanding its basis has applications in taxonomy, ecology, and evolution. Chamaecrista fasciculata (partridge pea) is a widely distributed species with much phenotypic variation and varied interactions with other species in communities where it grows. Botanists have often noted that phenotypic variation in some traits of this species increases from north to south in the eastern United States. In this study, we grew seeds collected from five Mississippi populations in a common greenhouse environment to determine if the observed variation in leaf and stem traits is maintained in this environment. Interpopulation variation in the greenhouse-grown plants was not as extensive as that observed under natural conditions, but significant differences were detected in the number of stems and leaves and shoot height. The number of flowers and final shoot weight of plants did not differ, suggesting that there may be multiple growth strategies for this species to achieve equal fitness. Variation was detected in stem and leaflet trichome density. The population collected at the lowest latitude showed the most distinct morphology, producing shorter plants with many branched stems, more leaves, and a higher degree of leaflet pubescence. Trait variation that has so often been observed in natural populations of this species is maintained in a common environment, suggesting a genetic basis for the observed variation. Phenotypic variation observed in this species may reflect both responses to varied selective pressures from interacting species and adaptation to differing climatic factors.


We consider the adversarial multi-armed bandit problem under delayed feedback. We analyze variants of the Exp3 algorithm that tune their step-size using only information (about the losses and delays) available at the time of the decisions, and obtain regret guarantees that adapt to the observed (rather than the worst-case) sequences of delays and/or losses. First, through a remarkably simple proof technique, we show that with proper tuning of the step size, the algorithm achieves an optimal (up to logarithmic factors) regret of order $\sqrt{\log(K)(TK + D)}$ both in expectation and in high probability, where $K$ is the number of arms, $T$ is the time horizon, and $D$ is the cumulative delay. The high-probability version of the bound, which is the first high-probability delay-adaptive bound in the literature, crucially depends on the use of implicit exploration in estimating the losses. Then, following Zimmert and Seldin [2019], we extend these results so that the algorithm can "skip" rounds with large delays, resulting in regret bounds of order $\sqrt{TK\log(K)} + |R| + \sqrt{D_{\bar{R}}\log(K)}$, where $R$ is an arbitrary set of rounds (which are skipped) and $D_{\bar{R}}$ is the cumulative delay of the feedback for other rounds. Finally, we present another, data-adaptive (AdaGrad-style) version of the algorithm for which the regret adapts to the observed (delayed) losses instead of only adapting to the cumulative delay (this algorithm requires an a priori upper bound on the maximum delay, or the advance knowledge of the delay for each decision when it is made). The resulting bound can be orders of magnitude smaller on benign problems, and it can be shown that the delay only affects the regret through the loss of the best arm.


We propose a model for analyzing an intermediary's incentives to increase the search costs incurred by consumers looking for sellers (stores). First, we show that the quality of the search service offered to consumers is more likely to be degraded (i.e. the probability that consumers find their favorite store in the first round of search is less than 1) when the intermediary derives higher revenues from consumers shopping at the lesser-known store relative to revenues from consumers shopping at the more popular store. Second, the intermediary may have an incentive to degrade the quality of search even further when its design decision influences the prices charged by stores. By altering the composition of demand faced by stores, the intermediary can force the latter to price lower and thereby increase total consumer traffic.


Abstract The dye-sensitized solar cells made of NiO@ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized by a novel Pechini route using different NiO molar concentration ratios. The thermal, structural morphological, optical and electrical properties of the prepared samples were investigated using thermal gravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetery (TGA/DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), FT-IR and Raman spectroscopy, UV-diffuse reflectance (UV-DRS), photoluminescence (PL) and current-voltage (I-V) measurements. The success of doping process was confirmed by the XRD patterns, which revealed the existence of new peak at 43.2° corresponding to secondary phase NiO. UV spectra exhibited red shifts in NiO doped ZnO NCs and PL spectra showed strong emission band at 355 nm. The doping of ZnO with NiO was intended to enhance the surface defects of ZnO. The current-voltage measurements showed an improvement of the short circuit photocurrent (Jsc) and fill factor (FF) and a decrease in the open circuit voltage (VOC) for dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) based on NiO-ZnO NCs. A clear enhancement in efficiency of DSSC from 1.26±0.10 % for pure ZnO to 3.01±0.25 % for NiO-ZnO NCs at the optimum doping with 1.5 mol% of NiO to ZnO (ZN1.5) was observed. The obtained material can be a suitable candidate for photovoltaic applications.


The main objective of the work is to study the impact of air pollution on children's health in Portugal and more specifically in the city of Barreiro. We use the suitability of general linear methods (GLM) as a tool to estimate a model which relates air qualityand health. With detail, this relationship is investigated for the case of the effects of small particles on health. It was difficult to find clear and unambiguous correlations in particle dispersion, air quality and health. After a previous treatment of data, the models are estimated and validated by GLM. At the end of this process, the best models are selected using validation tests and residual analysis. The results are promising but some work using different statistical methods is ongoing.


Is the brain the biological substrate of consciousness? Most naturalistic philosophers of mind have supposed that the answer must obviously be «yes » to this question. However, a growing number of philosophers working in 4e (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive) cognitive science have begun to challenge this assumption, arguing instead that consciousness supervenes on the whole embodied animal in dynamic interaction with the environment. We call views that share this claim dynamic sensorimotor theories of consciousness (DSM). Clark (2009), a founder and leading proponent of the hypothesis of the extended mind, demurs, arguing that as matter of fact the biology of consciousness doesn't allow for a brain, body and world boundary crossing architecture. We begin by looking at one of the arguments for DSM, the variable neural correlates argument. We then outline two criticisms that Clark has made of this argument and endorse his criticisms. However we finish up by using the case of sensory substitution to argue that something of this argument for DSM nevertheless survives. We suggest that Clark ought to concede sensory substitution as a case in which the conscious mind extends.


We report the experimental observation of systematically occurring phase singularities in coherent imaging of sub-Rayleigh distanced objects. A theory that relates the observation to the sub-Rayleigh distance is presented and compared with experimental measurements. As a consequence, the limit of resolution with coherent illumination is extended by a factor of 1.64x.


Vegetable tannins are plant extracts that have traditionally been used to tan leather. These extracts are polyphenolic compounds that are widely distributed in plants and have the ability to precipitate proteins since their structures are rich in hydroxyls. Tannins can be classified into two groups: the hydrolyzable tannins and the proanthocyanidins, also called condensed tannins. In this study, 49 samples of vegetable tannin extracts, representing six commercially available types, were analyzed by near infrared and multivariate analyses (HCA and PLS-DA). The first derivative of the NIR spectra proved useful in the differentiation of the extracts, as it provided information on the main absorption bands, which are related to the chemical composition and structure. A well-defined separation between condensed (quebracho and mimosa) and hydrolyzable tannins (tara, myrobalan, chestnut and valonea) was observed by HCA (unsupervised method). The PLS-DA supervised method showed excellent results regarding classification, with a sensitivity and specificity of 100%. From the results, we concluded that this method may be useful for the quality control of commercial tannins and correct identification, as well as in mitigating fraud since other extracts and products can also be detected.


Abstract Impolite and aggressive behaviour of anonymous users appears to be an important feature of online newspaper comments. This paper identifies and investigates how impoliteness is utilized strategically by newspaper readers to attack the author of an article. Empirical data is drawn from "Have-your-say" sections of the Guardian Online, Times Online and Telegraph Online. Results illustrate that impolite moves frequently involve facethreats that question the journalists' authority, credibility and trustworthiness. In the main part of the paper a categorization scheme for different types of impolite moves is introduced and a working definition of impoliteness in the context of "Have-your-say" sections presented. After having sketched a number of fundamental methodological and theoretical challenges in impoliteness research, the paper also demonstrates how the communicative setting and medium influence the realization and interpretation of impolite behaviour in those forms of public debates. Given the challenge of identifying and conceptualizing impoliteness in general and more specifically in a computer-mediated environment, netiquette rules prove especially useful for norms of appropriateness. It is also argued that the strength of those face-threats may be boosted by the fact that they are uttered in front of a large audience and more specifically the journalist's readership.


ABSTRACT Coaching can have tremendous positive effects, but to date, there has been little attention to the possibility that coaching can also exhibit negative effects. To fill this void, this literature review introduces the concepts of negative effects of coaching for clients, coaches and organisations to a wide audience of coaching researchers and practitioners. In a synthesis of the literature, it illuminates which negative effects can emerge, how frequently and intensely they occur, and which antecedents can explain their occurrence. Nine different studies with a qualitative, cross-sectional, time-lagged, or experimental research orientation were identified and used for this review. Throughout the diverse studies, negative effects occurred frequently, but only a few of them were severe and most of them were low in intensity. Concerning their antecedents, higher relationship quality between clients and coaches was related to fewer negative effects. The findings also indicated a beneficial influence of supervision. Moreover, negative effects for clients and negative effects for coaches were interrelated. These findings contribute to the professionalisation of coaching and put coaching in line with other helping relationships, where negative effects have been acknowledged as natural occurrences without being taboo.


When people move country, they experience new social, infrastructural, and ambient contingencies, which enables them to imagine otherwise unknowable possible futures 'at home'. In this article, we mobilise a design anthropological approach to show how collaboration with temporary migrants can generate understandings that generate insights regarding future sustainable products in emerging economies. We draw on research with temporary Indonesian student migrants in Australia, which explored how they envisioned their possible domestic futures through their changing laundry practices.


The study makes an inquiry into the security of property (land) rights in Albania, making use of focus groups in a case study area of Albania. The paper addresses two types of subjective insecurity. First, we identified a subjective (perceived) insecurity of land owners resulting from the friction between the legal rights accepted by the majority and the ancestral rights of the former owners. Second, we investigated insecurity related to formal institutional failures regarding the enforcement of property rights. This insecurity regarding land rights affects land transactions; therefore, conducting research on the nature, causes and major factors related to this type of insecurity is of high relevance and importance for the agricultural sector in Albania.


Edith Wharton, arguably the most important American female novelist, stands at a particular historical crossroads between sentimental lady writer and modern professional author. Her ability to cope with this collision of Victorian and modern sensibilities makes her work especially interesting. Wharton also writes of American subjects at a time of great social and economic change-Darwinism, urbanization, capitalism, feminism, world war, and eugenics. She not only chronicles these changes in memorable detail, she sets them in perspective through her prodigious knowledge of history, philosophy, and religion. A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton provides scholarly and general readers with historical contexts that illuminate Wharton's life and writing in new, exciting ways. Essays in the volume expand our sense of Wharton as a novelist of manners and demonstrate her engagement with issues of her day.


This chapter charts the progress of Fox's systematic teaching-based pedagogic research into inclusive learning and teaching
methods for students - both with and without learning disabilities - within the arts education sector. Built upon a sustained
programme of research that originated with her 2001 study for the Arts Council which concluded that learning-disabled people
with artistic talent had limited chances to improve their skills, Fox undertook a thorough analysis of partnership working between
the university and the community through Access to Art. Funded by InQbate: the CETL (Centre for Excellence in Teaching and
Learning) in Creativity, and with support from the LearnHigher CETL (a partnership of 16 universities and the Higher Education
Academy), Fox's research centred on investigations into a new model of creative documentation and reflective, practice-based
evaluation for participants with and without learning disabilities. Her research recognised that opportunities for art practice in the Brighton area (as in many other locations nationally) were largely confined to day-centre classes without professional help or equipment, or to non-accredited, segregated courses. Significantly, Fox's research studies have established an excellent model for the kind of inclusive learning envisaged in the 2001 Special Educational Needs and Disability Act, also resulting in participants with complex learning disabilities exhibiting their artwork at the Tate Modern in May 2005. Her research considered the words of many participants, drawing on interviews, written reflections and video diaries. Interim findings of this research project in Fox's paper, 'Access to Art - testing the limits of diversity and inclusion' published in Pam Coare et al. (eds) 'Diversity and Difference in Lifelong Learning: Proceedings of 35th Annual Conference SCUTREA 2005);
also in her 'Access to Art' presentation (with Ridley) at the HEA Curriculum Innovation for Diversity Conference at York (2006).


This essay, based on the 20th annual Hugo Black lecture at Wesleyan University, argues that we should think about individual liberties of freedom of speech, press, and assembly not in isolation, but in the larger context of policies for the spread and growth of knowledge and information.Although we normally think about the First Amendment as an individual right, we should also see it as an integral part of a knowledge and information policy for a democratic state. That is because the practical ability to speak rests on an infrastructure of free expression that involves a wide range of institutions, statutory frameworks, programs, technologies and practices.Using the examples of democratic protests in the Middle East and the controversy over WikiLeaks, the essay explains how free speech values are implicated in knowledge and information policies, in the design of digital networks and in the maintenance of infrastructure.Around the world today, the fight over free speech is a fight over knowledge and information policy, and, in particular, how the infrastructure that makes free speech possible will be designed and implemented. Although the First Amendment is a crucial information policy for democracy, it is only one information policy among many. It needs the assistance of an infrastructure of free expression to make good on its promises. We must design democratic values into the infrastructure of free expression if we want an infrastructure that protects democracy.


In this paper, we formulate and solve a problem of resource allocation over a given time horizon with uncertain demands and uncertain capacities of the available resources. In particular, we consider a number of data sources with uncertain bit rates, sharing a set of parallel channels with time-varying and possibly uncertain transmission capacities. We present a method for allocating the channels so as to maximize the expected system throughput. The framework encompasses quality-of-service (QoS) requirements, e.g., minimum-rate constraints, as well as priorities represented by a user-specific cost per transmitted bit. We assume only limited statistical knowledge of the source rates and channel capacities. Optimal solutions are found by using the maximum entropy principle and elementary probability theory. The suggested framework explains how to make use of multiuser diversity in various settings, a field of recently growing interest in communication theory. It admits scheduling over multiple base stations and includes transmission buffers to obtain a method for optimal resource allocation in rather general multiuser communication systems.


Vision transformers (ViTs) have gained popularity recently. Even without customized image operators such as convolutions, ViTs can yield competitive performance when properly trained on massive data. However, the computational overhead of ViTs remains prohibitive, due to stacking multi-head self-attention modules and else. Compared to the vast literature and prevailing success in compressing convolutional neural networks, the study of Vision Transformer compression has also just emerged, and existing works focused on one or two aspects of compression. This paper proposes a unified ViT compression framework that seamlessly assembles three effective techniques: pruning, layer skipping, and knowledge distillation. We formulate a budget-constrained, end-to-end optimization framework, targeting jointly learning model weights, layer-wise pruning ratios/masks, and skip configurations, under a distillation loss. The optimization problem is then solved using the primal-dual algorithm. Experiments are conducted with several ViT variants, e.g. DeiT and T2T-ViT backbones on the ImageNet dataset, and our approach consistently outperforms recent competitors. For example, DeiT-Tiny can be trimmed down to 50\% of the original FLOPs almost without losing accuracy. Codes are available online:~\url{https://github.com/VITA-Group/UVC}.


GUIDING CHILDREN'S SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING, Seventh Edition, focuses on ways professionals can help children develop both positive feelings about themselves and social competence. Readers will find practical, developmentally appropriate strategies for how to work with children and families from many different backgrounds and circumstances, and in a variety of group settings. And, they'll obtain a unified framework for decision-making and professional practice that incorporates sound principles of children's development, relationship enhancement, and behavior management.


While a first generation of video coding techniques proposed to remove the redundancies in and between image frames to get smaller bitstreams, second generation schemes like MPEG-4 and MPEG-7 aim at doing content-based coding and interactivity. To reach this goal, tools for the extraction and description of semantic objects need to be developed. In this work, we propose an algorithm for the extraction and tracking of semantic objects and an MPEG-7 compliant descriptor set for generic objects; together, they can be seen like a smart camera for automatic scene description. Some parts of the proposed system will be tested by software. The tracking algorithm has been laid out so as to follow generic objects in scenes including partial occlusions and merging. To do this, we first localize each moving object of the scene using a change-detection mask. Then, a certain number of representative points called centroids is given to the objects by a fuzzy C-means algorithm. For each centroid of some current frame, we try to find the closest centroid in the previous frame. Once we found these pairs, each object can be labelled according to its corresponding previous centroids. The description structure is a subset of the DDL language used in MPEG-7. The main concern was to find a simple, but flexible descriptor set for generic objects. A corresponding C-structure for software implementations is also proposed and partially tested.


Background In recent years sport climbing is increasing in popularity, due to the improvements of climbing facilities. This sport has a spectrum of associated injuries which involve most frequently overuse injuries of the hand and the finger. Objective To determine the incidence of climbing related injuries in Dutch recreational climbers and to identify possible risk factors that are associated with these injuries. Design A prospective cohort study. Setting Indoor climbing halls. Participants 426 recreational climbers in four different climbing halls were recruited. Assessment of risk factors All climbers filled in a baseline questionnaire including potential risk factors such as age, gender, body mass index, education level, finger strength, climbing level/experience/time, main climbing activity, earlier injury, training with campus board, performing warming-up/cooling down and other sport activities. Finger strength was measured with the DIGITSgrip. A physical examination was performed to examine the shoulders, elbow, wrist, hand and fingers. Main outcome measurements Follow-up questionnaires were sent to all climbers at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months follow-up and reported on new injuries occurred due to climbing. Results A total of 178 (41.8%) climbers reported a new injury during the 1-year follow-up period. Fingers were the most reported injuries, followed by the elbow and shoulder. A climbing level >6a, climbing more than 40 h per 3 months, bouldering and those who train with a campus board and perform warming-up and cooling-down exercises are univariately associated with a higher injury risk. Only a climbing level >6a (OR 2.00, 95%CI 1.25 to 3.19) remained in the multivariate regression model as being associated with climbing injuries. Conclusion Climbing injuries of the upper body extremities in Dutch recreational climbers are very frequent. The most common site of an injury is the finger. A climbing level >6a is a risk factor for climbing injuries in this recreational climbing population.


The phototactic orientation in Gyrodinium dorsum and G. aureolum has been analyzed. Both species show only positive phototaxis with an optimum at about 300 W-m–2. The mechanism of photoorientation does not seem to be based on a dichroic orientation of the photoreceptor pigments as in the flagellate Euglena gracilis. Photobleaching experiments have shown a far higher resistance toward continuous irradiation at even high fluence rates than in other flagellates which is in good agreement with the exclusive behavior of positive phototaxis.


Whereas Part I on "Improving your writing" (Jan., '75) talked about how to find something to say, this article (Part II) focuses on how to say it clearly, simply, forcefully. Don't just make generalizations; support them and bring them alive by giving numerous examples, instances, specifics, actual case histories. English has a hierarchy of building blocks: single-syllable word; multi-syllable word; phrase; clause; sentence; paragraph; essay. To improve the clarity and force of writing, use the simplest building block that will do the job. For instance, can that clause be replaced by a single-syllable word? All words in the english language fall into two major groups: content words (stone, run, big, swiftly); and empty words (in, has, because, the, and, to, been, etc.). Use empty words sparingly; they clutter a sentence, add sounds but not meaning, are like noise or static, detracting from the sentence music. Choose concrete words, words that conjure up things you can see, touch, etc. Select lively verbs. Avoid the passive voice. Remember the most important position in the sentence is the end, then the beginning; the middle is less strategic, almost a blur. Thus, where possible, put key words at the end and beginning of sentences.