Extensions of linear cryptanalysis making use of multiple approximations, such as multiple and multidimensional linear cryptanalysis, are an important tool in symmetric-key cryptanalysis, among others being responsible for the best known attacks on ciphers such as Serpent and present. At CRYPTO 2015, Huang et al. provided a refined analysis of the key-dependent capacity leading to a refined key equivalence hypothesis, however at the cost of additional assumptions. Their analysis was extended by Blondeau and Nyberg to also cover an updated wrong key randomization hypothesis, using similar assumptions. However, a recent result by Nyberg shows the equivalence of linear dependence and statistical dependence of linear approximations, which essentially invalidates a crucial assumption on which all these multidimensional models are based. In this paper, we develop a model for linear cryptanalysis using multiple linearly independent approximations which takes key-dependence into account and complies with Nyberg's result. Our model considers an arbitrary multivariate joint distribution of the correlations, and in particular avoids any assumptions regarding normality. The analysis of this distribution is then tailored to concrete ciphers in a practically feasible way by combining a signal/noise decomposition approach for the linear hulls with a profiling of the actual multivariate distribution of the signal correlations for a large number of keys, thereby entirely avoiding assumptions regarding the shape of this distribution. As an application of our model, we provide an attack on 26 rounds of present which is faster and requires less data than previous attacks, while using more realistic assumptions and far fewer approximations. We successfully extend the attack to present the first 27-round attack which takes key-dependence into account.


Vertical farming (VF) is a source of high-quality, accessible, and climate-friendly nutrition for rapidly growing urban populations. To realize VF's potential as a food source, innovative technologies are required to ensure that VF can be industrialized on a massive scale, and extended beyond leafy greens and fruits into the production of food staples or row crops. A major obstacle to the economic sustainability of VF is the amount of lighting energy consumed and it is important to consider the implications of this energy consumption in terms of both environmental impact and profitability. While technological advances have improved the energy efficiency of VF lighting systems, there has been insufficient research into biological approaches to save energy by shortening the growth period from seeding to harvest. We conducted a controlled trial to evaluate the biostimulant (non-nutrient, biological growth improvement) potential of a phycocyanin-rich Spirulina extract (PRSE) in hydroponically grown, vertically farmed lettuce. PRSE application reduced the time from seeding to harvest by six days, increased yield by 12.5% and resulted in improved quality including color, taste, texture, nutritional flavonoid levels, and shelf life. This preliminary study demonstrates that natural biostimulants such as PRSE may play an important role in improving the economic sustainability of the nascent, but rapidly growing VF sector.


This paper argues that a key aspect of the US labor market is the presence of time-varying heterogeneity across nonparticipants. We document a decline in the share of nonparticipants who report wanting to work, and we argue that that decline, which was particularly strong in the second half of the 90s, is a major aspect of the downward trends in unemployment and participation over the past 20 years. A decline in the share of "want to work" nonparticipants lowers both the participation rate and the unemployment rate, because a nonparticipant who wants to work has (i) a higher probability of entering the labor force (compared to other nonparticipants), and (ii) a higher probability of joining unemployment conditional on entering the labor force. We use cross-sectional variation to estimate a model of nonparticipants' propensity to want to work, and we find that changes in the provision of welfare and social insurance, possibly linked to the mid-90s welfare reforms, explain about 50 percent of the decline in desire to work among nonparticipants.


US immigration policy has serious limitations, particularly when viewed from an economic perspective. Some shortcomings arise from faulty initial design, others from the inability of the system to adapt to changing circumstances. In either case, a reluctance to confront politically difficult decisions is often a contributing factor to the failure to craft laws that can stand the test of time. We argue that, as a result, some key aspects of US immigration policy are incoherent and mutually contradictory —new policies are often inconsistent with past policies and undermine their goals. Inconsistency makes policies less effective because participants in the immigration system realize that lawmakers face powerful incentives to revise policies at a later date. US policies regarding unauthorized immigration, temporary visas, and humanitarian migrants offer examples of incoherence and inconsistency. This article explores key features of an integrated, coherent immigration policy from an economic perspective and how policymakers could better attempt to achieve policy consistency across laws and over time.


Do events of the 1930s carry a message for the 1990s? Lessons from the Great Depression provides an integrated view of the depression, covering the experience in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. It describes the causes of the depression, why it was so widespread and prolonged, and what brought about eventual recovery. Peter Temin also finds parallels in recent history, in the relentless deflationary course followed by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board and the British government in the early 1980s, and in the dogged adherence by the Reagan administration to policies generated by a discredited economic theory - supply-side economics.


Longwall tailgates in coal mines are often subject to severe mining induced loading and deformation. Innovative tailgate supports have been developed over the years to provide safe and economical access and a ventilation pathway at the tailgate. The support capacity and yield capabilities of the supports need to be matched to the loading imposed by the surrounding rock mass. The ground response curve can be used to represent the rock mass response to mining and its effect on support systems. The FLAC finite difference code was used to supplement field results by simulating a longwall tailgate and the associated ground response. The ground response curve is developed by modeling tailgate excavations with different internal support pressures and recording the resulting convergence. Ground response curves are developed for two typical longwalls operating in the Pittsburgh seam with weak and strong immediate roof. An additional model is presented in which the effect of weak overburden strata is simulated. The ground response is shown to be significantly affected by the strength of the immediate roof as well as the main roof. The importance of yield capacity of standing support is demonstrated. Gob height and compaction are found to affect the amount of convergence in the tailgate. The potential exists to develop site specific tailgate design curves by combining model results with field observations.


Traditionally, the design engineer could bear virtually unlimited liability for design failure. Now he is less vulnerable. The concept is less than 20 years old, but since the early 70s, limitation of liability clauses have been written into approximately 400,000 engineering contracts. The trend is apparently growing. This is good news for the engineer, who must limit his risk on individual projects simply to stay in business. The one guideline the engineer should follow is: Take calculated risks. He does this by negotiating a fair contract with the owner/client. A fair contract means risk assumed by all parties is relative to the benefits they derive from a project. Clauses limiting liability are increasingly being upheld in courts across the nation and indications are that engineers will continue to negotiate them into their contracts.


Maintaining a 400-acre campus which supports the education of 3000 students requires energy. Data were gathered from across campus as part of a faculty research project and in conjunction with an undergraduate course. The project was initiated in order to develop an energy usage and emissions inventory for the University while at the same offering students exposure to the process. Inventory inputs included stationary consumption (burning of natural gas to supply heat), electricity purchased, campus vehicle usage (gasoline consumption), commuter vehicle usage (faculty and staff only), and transportation and distribution (T&D) expenses. Whereas the student population has increased by only 8% since 2000, the dollar amount budgeted for energy expenses on campus has risen by 50% over the same time period. Emissions from the various energy inputs were analyzed. In 2007, electricity purchased from the local utility company accounted for 74% of the campus energy usage. Since the university does not have direct control over which fuel is being used to provide this needed electricity and since Congress is currently debating "Cap and Trade" legislation, it behooves the university to take a serious look at its energy conservation practices. Recommendations to the university administration include the following: (1) line-item the energy cost to students as a part of their bills, (2) increase the rate of replacing older equipment with high-efficiency units, (3) develop a plan for becoming carbon-neutral by a specified date in the future, and (4) sponsor a project which integrates environmental, business, engineering, and technical writing majors to produce a "Green Guide" for the campus.


Victim–offender mediation is one of the most widely used practices of restorative justice encounter in the United States. We report findings from research on a victim–offender mediation program sponsored by an American juvenile court. Our specific concern is with power relations at the micro level of the mediation session. Restorative justice has been alternately criticized for controlling its participants too much and for controlling them too little. Some critics point to the silencing of participants, especially those of low social status like youth. Others point to the failure of restorative justice participants to effectively challenge attitudes conducive to crime. We consider the extent to which lay participants were silenced and/or challenged during mediation sessions. Our data suggest that power is diffuse in restorative justice encounters with juvenile offenders and that it is creatively deployed to achieve a variety of purposes. Consistent with restorative justice theories, which consider crime causation broadly, attitudes conducive to crime were not systematically addressed. The analysis underscores the complexity of both restorative justice and its evaluation.


For graduate-level neural network courses offered in the departments of Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science. Neural Networks and Learning Machines, Third Edition is renowned for its thoroughness and readability. This well-organized and completely upto-date text remains the most comprehensive treatment of neural networks from an engineering perspective. This is ideal for professional engineers and research scientists. Matlab codes used for the computer experiments in the text are available for download at: http://www.pearsonhighered.com/haykin/ Refocused, revised and renamed to reflect the duality of neural networks and learning machines, this edition recognizes that the subject matter is richer when these topics are studied together. Ideas drawn from neural networks and machine learning are hybridized to perform improved learning tasks beyond the capability of either independently.


As robots are increasingly integrated into modern societyon the battlefield and the road, in business, education, and healthPulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times science writer John Markoff searches for an answer to one of the most important questions of our age: will these machines help us, or will they replace us?In the past decade alone, Google introduced us to driverless cars, Apple debuted a personal assistant that we keep in our pockets, and an Internet of Things connected the smaller tasks of everyday life to the farthest reaches of the internet. There is little doubt that robots are now an integral part of society, and cheap sensors and powerful computers will ensure that, in the coming years, these robots will soon act on their own. This new era offers the promise of immense computing power, but it also reframes a question first raised more than half a century ago, at the birth of the intelligent machine: Will we control these systems, or will they control us?In Machines of Loving Grace, New York Times reporter John Markoff, the first reporter to cover the World Wide Web, offers a sweeping history of the complicated and evolving relationship between humans and computers. Over the recent years, the pace of technological change has accelerated dramatically, reintroducing this difficult ethical quandary with newer and far weightier consequences. As Markoff chronicles the history of automation, from the birth of the artificial intelligence and intelligence augmentation communities in the 1950s, to the modern day brain trusts at Google and Apple in Silicon Valley, and on to the expanding tech corridor between Boston and New York, he traces the different ways developers have addressed this fundamental problem and urges them to carefully consider the consequences of their work.We are on the verge of a technological revolution, Markoff argues, and robots will profoundly transform the way our lives are organized. Developers must now draw a bright line between what is human and what is machine, or risk upsetting the delicate balance between them.


Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) infects more than 1300 plant species that causes reduction in yield and quality of crops. In this research, the application of the hairpin-mediated RNA silencing technology was investigated for obtaining resistance to CMV. Therefore, a fragment of 145 nt from the silencing suppressor gene of CMV was selected. The CMV sequences from NCBI were aligned and the consensus sequence was selected and synthesized. This gene sequence was cloned as sense and antisense in pFGC5941 binary vector and the recombinant vector named p FGC-2b-h . The obtained plasmid was transferred to GV3101 agrobacterium strain. Transient assay on bean ( Phaseolus vulgaris ) and Nicotiana benthamiana was performed by the agrobacterium containing pFGC-2b-h and six days later plants were mechanically inoculated by CMV. Fifteen days postinoculation, plants were assessed using symptoms appearance and ELISA test. Results showed that the construct can effectively reduce the symptoms and virus accumulation level. Furthermore, the results suggested that the pFGC-2b-h construct can be used to obtain transgenic plants resistance to CMV.


The paper presents an XML schema for the representation of genres of computer-mediated communication (CMC) that is compliant with the encoding framework defined by the TEI. It was designed for the annotation of CMC documents in the project Deutsches Referenzkorpus zur internetbasierten Kommunikation (DeRiK), which aims at building a corpus on language use in the most popular CMC genres on the German-speaking Internet. The focus of the schema is on those CMC genres which are written and dialogic―such as forums, bulletin boards, chats, instant messaging, wiki and weblog discussions, microblogging on Twitter, and conversation on "social network" sites. The schema provides a representation format for the main structural features of CMC discourse as well as elements for the annotation of those units regarded as "typical" for language use on the Internet. The schema introduces an element , which describes stretches of text that are sent to the server by a user at a certain point in time. Postings are the main constituting elements of threads and logfiles, which, in our schema, are the two main types of CMC macrostructures. For the microlevel of CMC documents (that is, the structure of the  content), the schema introduces elements for selected features of Internet jargon such as emoticons, interaction words and addressing terms. It allows for easy anonymization of CMC data for purposes in which the annotated data are made publicly available and includes metadata which are necessary for referencing random excerpts from the data as references in dictionary entries or as results of corpus queries. Documentation of the schema as well as encoding examples can be retrieved from the web at http://www.empirikom.net/bin/view/Themen/CmcTEI. The schema is meant to be a core model for representing CMC that can be modified and extended by others according to their own specific perspectives on CMC data. It could be a first step towards an integration of features for the representation of CMC genres into a future new version of the TEI Guidelines.


A software system has been developed that gives engineers and operations personnel with no "formal" programming expertise, but who are familiar with the Microsoft Windows operating system, the ability to create visualization displays to monitor the health and performance of aircraft/spacecraft. This software system is currently supporting the X38 V201 spacecraft component/system testing and is intended to give users the ability to create, test, deploy, and certify their subsystem displays in a fraction of the time that it would take to do so using previous software and programming methods. Within the visualization system there are three major components: the developer, the deployer, and the widget set. The developer is a blank canvas with widget menu items that give users the ability to easily create displays. The deployer is an application that allows for the deployment of the displays created using the developer application. The deployer has additional functionality that the developer does not have, such as printing of displays, screen captures to files, windowing of displays, and also serves as the interface into the documentation archive and help system. The third major component is the widget set. The widgets are the visual representation of the items that will make up the display (i.e., meters, dials, buttons, numerical indicators, string indicators, and the like). This software was developed using Visual C++ and uses COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) software where possible.


account of his birth, his baptism, his vaccination, his schooling and the success thereof, his diligence, his leave of school, his subsequent education and development; and, once he becomes a man, his physique and his ability to bear arms. It also accompanies the subsequent steps of his walk through life; it takes note of his chosen occupation, where he sets up his household and his management of the same; if he saved from the abundance of his youth for his old age, if and when and at what age he marries and who he chooses as his wife—statistics looks after him when things go well for him and when they go awry. Should he suffer a shipwreck in his life, undergo material, moral or spiritual ruin, statistics take note of the same. Statistics leaves a man only after his death—after it has ascertained the precise age of his death and noted the causes that brought about his end.


Advanced applications for Distributed Hash Tables (DHTs), such as Peer-to-Peer Information Retrieval, require a DHT to quickly and efficiently process a large number (in the order of millions) of requests. In this paper we study mechanisms to optimize the throughput of DHTs. Our goal is to maximize the number of route operations per peer per second a DHT can perform (given certain constraints on the lookup delay). Each peer receives congestion feedback from the DHT, which it uses to adjust its routing decisions. This way, peers can avoid routing through slow parts of the overlay network and hence increase the rate at which they insert new messages into the DHT.We provide a numerical analysis of congestion-aware routing in DHTs and show that considerable improvements in throughput are possible compared to DHTs with proximity neighbor selection and strictly greedy routing.


George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) is a founding figure in the field of sociology. His stature is comparable to that of his contemporaries Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Mead's contribution was a profound and unique American theory that analyzed society and the individual as social objects. As Mead saw it, both society and the individual emerged from cooperative, democratic processes linking the self, the other, and the community. Mary Jo Deegan, a leading scholar of Mead's work, traces the evolution of his thought , its continuity and change. She is particularly interested in the most controversial period of Mead's work, in which he addressed topics of violence and the nation state. Mead's theory of war, peace, and society emerged out of the historical events of his time, particularly World War I. During this period he went from being a pacifist, along with his contemporaries John Dewey and Jane Addams, to being a strong advocate for war. From 1917-1918 Mead became a leader in voicing the need for war based on his theory of self and society. After the war, he became disillusioned with President Woodrow Wilson, with Americans' failure to support mechanisms for international arbitration, and with the political reasons for American participation in World War I. He returned to a more pacifist and co-operative model of behavior during the 1920s, when he became less political, more abstract, and more withdrawn from public debate. The book includes Deegan's interpretation of Mead's early social thought, his friendship and family networks, the historical context of America at war, and the importance of analysis of violence and the state from Mead's perspective. She also provides illustrative selections from Mead's work, much of which was previously unpublished.


In the thesis, I endeavour to create a platform on which to construct an understanding of 'integration' in a multilingual and multicultural setting, post-apartheid. I have selected UWC as the research site as it is an institution of higher education and an inherently South African one which houses a large number of diverse ethnicities, cultures and languages. I appeal to the poststructuralist approach as it is one that explores the possible sociopolitical, economic and historical influences on which I argue and which forms the backdrop to understanding integration amongst the various groups. I am especially drawn to the topic of integration as there is to date no well-defined definition of what that means in the 'new' South Africa. Different identities are explored in relation to how students identify themselves within their social networks, across various cultures and through language choices. In particular, I look at the three dominant 'South African' groups, namely: Indians, Blacks and Coloureds and also two international student groups, the Batswanas and Chinese. use a qualitative approach and undertake focus groups and one-to-one interviews as well as participant observations and analyzing documentation. Data analysis is achieved through Discourse Analysis of transcribed interviews. One of the conclusions is that integration will not occur overnight. However, the broadening and exercising of linguistic options could be seen as a step in right direction to integration across the various ethnic groups. The study ends with recommendations and gives an overall view of integration at UWC. One of the recommendations is that UWC needs to give students more opportunities to practice their multilinguality and thereby broaden their linguistic repertoire which could in turn facilitate integration.


Sparfloxacin, a difluoroquinolone antibacterial agent is clinically used in the treatment of streptococci and community-acquired lower respiratory tract infections. The aim of the present study was to investigate to what extent cosolvents and surfactants could affect sparfloxacin degradation kinetics under acidic condition. The degradation of sparfloxacin in acidic aqueous solution of cosolvents and surfactants at 60 ± 0.2°C was studied. The degradation was determined by UV spectrometry. The degradation was observed to follow apparent first-order rate kinetics and the rate constants for the decomposition were obtained from plots of logarithm percent drug concentration remaining versus time. The reaction was shown to be hydrogen ion catalysed. Significant increase in the stability of sparfloxacin was observed with the cosolvents and surfactants investigated. The study suggests that cosolvents or surfactants at non-toxic concentrations could be incorporated into liquid pharmaceutical dosage forms of sparfloxacin to stabilize the preparations under acidic conditions.


The point of departure for this inductive study is to explore the often unseen side of banking organisations by drawing on the lived experiences of bank workers. The research is driven by recent public and political discourse that appears to contain little in-depth knowledge of the inherent culture of banking organisations and the changes they have gone through since 1960. This leads to concerns and queries regarding what is known about the culture of the whole organisation, what changes it has gone through and the social relations that exist between workers in banks.
The research is approached from a phenomenological ontology and an epistemology of social constructionism, which aims to give an uninterrupted voice to the workers understanding of their working life experiences. Often workers are considered passive entities in organisation change, a claim that this method of research shows to be untrue. Through organisation storytelling the workers narrate their experiences of working in a major Irish bank (the Bank) between 1960 and 2000. Their experiences provide a unique perspective of their culture and the changing organisation which they embraced and helped shape.
The stories are analysed in the form of a grand narrative that reveals much about culture and change in the Bank over forty years. The grand narrative is explored through theories and concepts related to work, identity, social relations and modernity. Commencing with the initial break with past traditions the research continues by exploring and describing how the changes affected working life. Nostalgic reflections conclude the grand narrative and provide scope to discuss the meanings attributed by the workers to the transformation of the Bank.
The research contributes to theories of organisation culture by presenting it as reflexive of happenings in the external and internal environment of the bank. Although considered as important in the development of organisational culture models, the use of the models often play-down the importance of reflexivity in the creation, change and maintenance of culture in an organisation. In terms of organisation change the research contributes by providing an emerging 'model of discovery', that could potentially feed into much needed new perceptions of organisation change in the contemporary environment. The contribution to change comments on the lack of agency that managers have in controlling change and finding and 'end' once it has been unleashed. In a contribution to practice, the research notes that banks should consider becoming less reactive to external influences and to provide a strong ethos and boundary for worker identity.


Certain prominent scheduled macroeconomic news releases contain a rounded number on the first page of the release that is widely cited by newswires and the press and a more precise number in the text of the release. The whole release comes out at once. We propose a simple test of whether markets are paying attention to the rounded or unrounded numbers by studying the high-frequency market reaction to such news announcements. In the case of inflation releases, we find evidence that markets systematically ignore some of the information in the unrounded number. This is most pronounced for core CPI, a prominent release for which the rounding in the headline number is large relative to the information content of the release.


the objective of this study is to improve the students' learning activities by remedial teaching that used skill for asking question and giving reinforcement. This is a class action research with 55 students of Economics Education year 2006/2007, Semarang State University as the subject of research. The result of observation cycle I showed that there were several points that blocked learning design. Those are in ineffectual time allotment, crowded class situation and completing assignment dominated by only certain students. Learning activities have improved well and the number of active students who were brave to give opinion has also increased. At the end of cycle I showed that the number of  active students who could give opinion were 12 students (21.82%), students who submitted the assignment on time were 25 students (45.45%), the average of study result was 65.51 and the number of students who got score 71- 80 above were 30 students (54.54%). After remedial teaching, at the end of cycle II, the numbers of active students who asked and answered question and also gave opinion were 35 students (63.64%), students who submitted the assignment on time were 43 students (78.18%), the average score was 77.31 and the number of students who got score 71-80 above were 45 students (81.83%). Based on the result above, it can be concluded that the criteria of action success were (1) at least 60 % students were active to ask and answer questions or give opinions and (2) at least 70% students were on time to submit the assignment and (3) more than 60% students who got  score 71-80 above was reached. K eywords : Remidial Teaching , learning result


The ecosystems around paddy fields in Java are varied, owing to differences in climate, altitude and traditional farming varies across villages.  The main objectives of the present study were 1) to examine the diversity and composition of weed communities in paddy fields and their relation to environmental factors, agricultural practice and cultivation season; 2) to examine the effects of different types of surrounding vegetation on the plant diversity in paddy fields; and 3) to evaluate the productivity and nutrient potential of rice weeds as ruminant feed.
We studied sites in six areas in the island of Java, Indonesia, i.e. Cugenang, Karanganyar, Malang (400–850 m asl), Karawang, Brebes and Gresik (10–50 m asl). Samples of vegetation were taken in a period from October 2011 through to June 2012. Each site comprised 33 plots of paddy fields, 20 m2 in size and bunds 10 m2 in size.  The weeds were collected in cultivated paddy fields, fallows and on paddy field bunds.
In this research studies, the peak of rice cultivation in Java is around the wet season between October and February.  In the examined 198 paddy field plots we recorded 14 crop species and 221 non-crop plant species (weeds), of which 171 species occurred in paddy fields and 190 on bunds.  Poaceae, followed by Asteraceae, were most common.  In the mid elevations we found higher mean number of species in each plot. Weed cover and diversity was higher in fallowed plots than cultivated plots. Six plant communities were identified by means of multivariate analysis, with species combinations related to altitude, herbicide application, water level and cultivation season. Elevation and water level gradients were the most important factors controlling species composition in paddy fields.
Weed management corresponds to water seasonality because farmer used water to flood their fields in order to control weed growth.  Flooding suppresses the growth of grass and certain broadleaved weeds. In fallows, twice as many species as in cultivated rice fields were found.  In contrast, the presence of semi-natural vegetation within short distance had no significant effect on weed species numbers in paddy fields. Altogether, differences in weed species numbers and composition between areas are more pronounced than the effects of local environmental complexity.
Weed biomass in mid elevation areas was largest on bunds as a result of intensive weed control in paddy fields. In the lowlands most weed biomass was on fallows. Fresh weed biomass in the first rice growing season (after dry season) yielded 891–2369 g/m². Nutrient content revealed a proportion of crude protein between 11.9–16.6%, crude fiber between 31.6–39.6%, and crude fat 0.8–1.1%.
In conclusion, a high variation in the diversity of weed was found across the studied paddy field types. Mid-elevation paddy field is highly diverse in weeds than lowland paddy field. Results show that altitude as well as water availability may support species richness.  Some effects differed between regions correlated with different agricultural management, such as weeding habits, plant cropping and cultivation time.  However, environment complexity by semi natural vegetation did not influence weed number in paddy fields.  Accordingly, weed biomass and nutrient content, thereby abundance of rice weeds has considerable potential as ruminant feed. Consequently, to conserve and support species diversity and ecological function in paddy field and farming system, we suggest to enhance the integrated farming system included animal husbandry. Further, varied condition of semi natural vegetation, fallows and bunds should maintain to support plant diversity and ecosystem functioning in paddy field.


2-Methoxyestradiol-bis-sulphamate (2-MeOE2bisMATE) is a bis-sulphamoylated analogue of a biological estradiol metabolite, 2-methoxyestradiol (2ME2) with potential as an anticancer drug. The aim of this in vitro study was to evaluate the effects of 2-MeOE2bisMATE on alpha-tubulin structure, as well as its potential to induce apoptosis in an esophageal carcinoma (SNO) cell line using confocal microscopy, flow cytometry and spectrophotometry. 2-MeOE2bisMATE disrupted the microtubule network of SNO cells, arrested cells in metaphase and induced apoptosis. An increase in the number of cells present in sub-G1, mitochondrial membrane potential reduction and increased caspase 6 activity were observed. This in vitro study demonstrated new insights on the action mechanism of 2 MeOE2bisMATE in esophageal carcinoma (SNO) cells, since these activities have not been studied in esophageal carcinoma cells up to date. Future studies are warranted to further determine which gene and protein expression changes are induced by 2-MeOE2bisMATE in SNO cells.


The inner Atlantic Coastal Plain in New Jersey and the Delmarva Peninsula is underlain by an Upper Cretaceous-lower Tertiary sequence of marine and paralic sand, clay, and glauconitic beds. Campanian, Maastrichtian, Danian, and Thanetian deposits are especially fossiliferous and yield a succession of marine faunas that reveal a pattern of selective extinction and survival across the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary in this area. Cretaceous benthic invertebrate communities are dominated by oysters and other semi-infaunal and infaunal molluscs with planktotrophic larval stages. These are replaced in the Danian by brachiopod-dominated communities that are composed of epifaunal benthos with a variety of nonplanktotrophic reproductive strategies. A similar pattern is observable in the nektonic cephalopod populations in this sequence; the typical ammonites of the Cretaceous became extinct at the K/T boundary, whereas the nautilids survived. Ammonites are thought to have had a planktotrophic larval stage, whereas nautilids are known to lay large lecithotrophic eggs. This pattern of differential survival is attributed to the planktonic population crash at the K/T boundary which placed planktotrophically reproducing species at a disadvantage while favoring the varied groups that practiced alternative reproductive strategies.


Male undergraduate sport management majors substantially outnumber females, suggesting that the path to a career in the sport industry is male dominated and gender stereotypes may exist. Simultaneously, there is a dearth of research on females' experiences while enrolled in higher education and within sport management career development. Through qualitative focus groups conducted at two institutions with female sport management majors, this research sought to understand the barriers and sources of support that female students perceive while engaged in this academic discipline. The authors identified four themes—otherness, roles and credibility, prior experiences, and people of influence—all of which help illuminate the lived experience of gender bias among women in the sport management major and generate suggestions for the creation of more inclusive environments that foster persistence.


Despite their importance to our system, the study of interest groups has produced few concrete findings compared to other actors such as administrative agencies and political parties in the policymaking process. The absence of generalizable findings is partly explained by the unpopularity of the topic, but is primarily due to a deficiency of easily accessible data and lack of agreement over how to operationalize important concepts. In the following dissertation, I employ interest group "scorecards" (ratings of members of Congress) as an approach to examining interest groups in a generalizable manner. Specifically, I use scorecards to test the pluralist assumptions of public policy reflecting an equilibrium of competing interests. I do this by developing a measure of legislative satisfaction, which can be compared across different types of groups and congresses. I examine four types of organizations – business and professional trade associations, labor unions, charitable organizations, and public interest groups – which issued senate scorecards from the 106 th through the 111 th congresses. I find that the satisfaction of labor and charitable groups fluctuates with changes in the partisan makeup of the senate, but business satisfaction remains relatively constant and high for most terms of Congress. As expected, public interest satisfaction remains constant but low. The typical layperson may assume that groups with popular missions (those representing large populations) and lots of money or those who spend considerable amounts on political activities (e.g., campaigning and lobbying) may be more satisfied with Congress. However, this study finds no relationship between group satisfaction and those factors.


Ventilation requires energy to transport and condition the incoming air. The energy consumption for ventilation in residential buildings depends on the ventilation rate required to maintain an acceptable indoor air quality. Historically, U.S. residential buildings relied on natural infiltration to provide sufficient ventilation, but as homes get tighter, designed ventilation systems are more frequently required particularly for new energy efficient homes and retrofitted homes. ASHRAE Standard 62.2 is used to specify the minimum ventilation rate required in residential buildings and compliance is normally achieved with fully mechanical whole-house systems; however, alternative methods may be used to provide the required ventilation when their air quality equivalency has been proven. One appealing method is the use of passive stack ventilation systems. They have been used for centuries to ventilate buildings and are often used in ventilation regulations in other countries. Passive stacks are appealing because they require no fans or electrical supply (which could lead to lower cost) and do not require maintenance (thus being more robust and reliable). The downside to passive stacks is that there is little control of ventilation air flow rates because they rely on stack and wind effects that depend on local time-varying weather. In this study we looked at how passive stacks might be used in different California climates and investigated control methods that can be used to optimize indoor air quality and energy use. The results showed that passive stacks can be used to provide acceptable indoor air quality per ASHRAE 62.2 with the potential to save energy provided that they are sized appropriately and flow controllers are used to limit over-ventilation.


ZnTe films have been prepared by two-sourced thermal evaporation. The effects of the deposition parameters, such as evaporation rate and substrate temperature, on the optical, and structural properties as well as the resulting composition of the films were studied. The optical parameters of the films ( Le. refractive index, absorption coefficient, optical band gap and film thickness) were calculated from the normal transmittance data. A 'model was proposed for the calculation of the optical parameters from the transmittance spectra. The transmittance formula, derived for using in the proposed model, includes most of the parameters affecting the transmittance spectra, i.e finite substrate thickness. absorption of the substrate, thickness irregularity of the film surface, reflection from the back side of the substrate in addition to the refractive index and absorption of the film itself. The model was checked by theoretically simulated transmittance spectra as well as experimental data, and good accuracy was confirmed. Comparison of fitting of different transmittance formulas, as well as different models for the refractive index and the absorption coefficient also were done.

For reducing the resistivity of ZnTe films. Doping with different materials were performed. Cu and Ag doping was done by an ion exchange process, which is by immersion of the ZnTe films into a copper nitrate solution (in case of Cu doping). The solution temperature was fixed, and the effect of the immersion time and post vacuum heat treatment, on the physical properties and the composition of the resulting films was studied.

Three sourced evaporation from the elemental sources, was used for Sb doping. The resulting composition of the films was controlled by controlling the elements flux ratio as well as the substrate temperature. The structure of the films was studied by X-ray diffraction and the composition of the resulting films was measured by electron microprobe analysis (EMPA).


The Stirling Range National Park (SRNP), Western Australia, is a place of international importance with regard to its extremely high degree of biodiversity and endemism. However, the plant pathogen Phytophthora cinnamomi is having a devastating impact on the flora and plant communities of the SRNP. The inappropriate use of fire has also been considered in driving species declines in some communities in the SRNP. This present study examines for the first time, the role of these two threats together, on different plant communities of the SRNP.

Five survey sites located across four plant communities containing forty vegetation survey quadrats were chosen to compare the effects of fire on P. cinnamomi in the SRNP. Vegetation survey sites were paired between recently burnt ( 16 years) sites. A mosaic of disease-free and infested vegetation was
present at all sites, while the incidence of disease was consistently higher in recently burnt sites. Four families were the focus of the study, Proteaceae, Papilionaceae, Epacridaceae and Myrtaceae. However, species from Acacia, Hibbertia and Patersonia and the susceptible Xanthorrhoea platyphylla were also included. One hundred and fifty-two species were identified, of which 62 %, 26.6 %, 2.6% and 7.8% were obligate seeder species, resprouter species, facultative sprouter-seeder species, and of unknown fire response strategy, respectively.

Declines in species richness and abundance in recently burnt sites were identified across all plant communities surveyed. The incidence of disease declined with time since last burnt. Increased severity of disease in recently burnt and infested sites was particularly pronounced for X platyphylla. The dominant proteaceous component of the plant communities was the most impacted by the presence of P. cinnamomi in recently burnt sites. Fire promoted recruitment of some members of the Epacridaceae and Papilionaceae and especially the Myrtaceae family. However, numerous species of Epacridaceae and Papilionaceae also suffered serious declines in recently burnt P. cinnamomi infested sites. An increase in species richness and abundance from the Myrtaceae was documented in most recently burnt sites irrespective of P. cinnamomi impact.

Leaf litter measurements including percentage cover, weight (g/m2 ) and depth (mm) increased with time since last fire, while percent bare ground decreased with time since last fire. The presence of P. cinnamomi increased the incidence of percentage bare ground within quadrats. Leaf litter accumulation was also influenced by plant community type and the incidence of P. cinnamomi varied between sites and within sites. Leaf litter was considered to have important roles for reducing the incidence and severity of P. cinnamomi and in reducing conditions favourable to the pathogen. Leaf litter on steeper slopes appears to help control erosion/runoff in periods of heavy rainfall and assist in seedling establishment.

Soil temperature between 100- 200 mm depths were monitored from March 2005 to January 2006, it was identified that soil temperatures in recently burnt sites were up to 9.6 °C warmer than soil beneath leaf litter and canopy cover (long-unburnt sites). Soil moisture contents at the Bluff Knoll Road (BKR) 2000 site, at depths below 200 mm, were significantly greater in spring than at the paired but longer-unburnt BKR 1991 site. At the recently burnt Chester Pass Road (CPR) 2004 site, soil moisture in the top 100 mm was significantly greater in spring than at the longer-unburnt CPR 1996 site.

Sporangial production was significantly higher in soil extract collected from a 7-day-old fire (Saint James Track SJT) when compared to soil collected from the long-unburnt (30+) site. Sporangiallysis was greatest in the long-unburnt (30l soil extract in both seasons but was greatest in spring. Sporangial production was significantly greater in spring than autumn. The SRNP P. cinnamomi isolate MPOS-1 produced significantly more sporangia in both seasons than the DP55 isolate from the southcoast. Soil microbial activity was significantly reduced in the SJT soil when compared to the comparable long-unburnt soil of CPR (30l. Fire significantly increased the concentrations ofpotassium, sulphur, organic carbon and the electrical conductivity and pH of the SJT soil. Soil type was found to have a strong influence on the nutrient composition of sites. Even though some of the findings regarding changes to soil microclimates are preliminary they do undoubtedly provide important directions for future research into the role of fire in P. cinnamomi infested communities.

This study has shown that fire in P. cinnamomi infested communities has the potential to increase both the severity and extent of disease in native plant communities, and impinge on the regeneration capabilities of susceptible species. The findings have important implications for P. cinnamomi and fire management within the SRNP, and have established a foundation from which future research and monitoring of the plant communities and further soil investigations can be based. With careful consideration of the benefits of regeneration from fire in some plant communities and the evidence that fire can increase the severity of disease in infested sites, management may be able to meet these conflicting disturbances.


This research article discusses quality of faculty in public sector universities of Pakistan. All the teachers of public sector universities of Pakistan constituted the population. From the cluster of twelve public sector universities, 300 teachers were selected as a sample. A questionnaire for faculty members was administered at 5-point rating scale in order to collect their views about the quality of teachers in public sector university of Pakistan. Standard deviation and standard error of means were calculated to measure the quality of teaching faculty. Teacher were found to be competent enough to provide conducive environment for learning. Pre service training courses for university teachers in teaching methodology, curriculum planning and education were required in order to improve teaching as a whole. Teachers were dissatisfied with present pay structure which resulted brain drain of teachers. Except a few teachers, majority of the teachers were not provided with housing facility. It is recommended that teachers be qualified and skilled and they should be given every possible facility. Teachers pay scales be revised and they be given quite attractive pay package in order to overcome brain drain of teachers.


Accurate plate-kinematic reconstructions at relatively highspatial and temporal resolution are the basis for understanding theopening of ocean basins and the evolution of seafloor relief and theeffect it has had on controlling deep ocean current directions. Wedeveloped an animated, grid-based plate-kinematic reconstruction of thesouthern Pacific Ocean from 90 Ma to present, using thesatellite-derived gravity anomaly field, and interpolated isochrons andplate rotation parameters from both published and new studies usingmarine geophysical data.The earliest opening with formation of seafloor between Chatham Rise(New Zealand) and Thurston Island (West Antarctica) occurred at 92-90 Maalong a Pacific-Antarctic plate boundary developing along the BountyTrough and Great South Basin of New Zealand. The break-up betweenCampbell Plateau and Marie Byrd Land began at 83 Ma. The onset of anindependent motion of the Bellingshausen Plate adjacent to the WestAntarctic margin can be estimated at 79 Ma. Its motion generated atranspressional eastern plate boundary. The Pacific-Bellingshausenspreading centre developed a set of long offset transform faults (e.g.Udintsev, Tharp, Heezen) that the Pacific-Antarctic plate boundaryinherited around 61 Ma when the Bellingshausen plate ceased to moveindependently as part of a Pacific-wide plate tectonic reorganizationevent. Southwest of these transforms, the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge saw anincrease in transform-fault segmentation by about 58 Ma. At about 47 Ma,the Pacific-Phoenix Ridge jumped northward to directly link thePacific-Antarctic ridge to the Pacific-Farallon ridge as a result of anunstable Pacific-Antarctic-Phoenix triple-junction configuration.Further reconstruction time steps illustrate the development of thedominant transform and fracture zones systems in the South Pacific.


he objective of this study was to establish the influence of branding practices of fresh fruits and vegetables on performance of commercial farmers in Kiambu County. The population of study consisted of 213 commercial farmers of FFV in Kiambu County. The study adopted stratified random sampling in which 140 farmers were sampled from the seven sub-counties in Kiambu County. The study adopted a descriptive cross sectional survey design. Data was collected using a semi structured questionnaire and analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The study established a statistically significant relationship between branding practices and performance of commercial farmers. It was observed that majority of the farmers had not fully adopted branding practices and therefore didn't benefit from branding. The study was limited by focusing on few constructs within the variables; relying on self reported data with no collaborative evidence and gathering cross sectional data on branding practices that take time to yield results. The study recommends that farmers should engage in branding practices for their fresh produce to improve performance. The government should encourage branding of fresh fruits and vegetables as a means of adding value to the products by putting in place the requisite infrastructure and legislation. Future studies should target other fresh agricultural products; increase the variables and constructs being investigated and target other counties with differing social economic and climatic conditions. A study designed with farmer characteristics as the independent variable and branding practices as dependent variable would add new dimensions to observed interactions and unveil extra relationships. A study adopting time series design would demonstrate the effect of branding practices throughout the life cycle of the product and increase objectivity in the collected data.


In this paper we consider a Bayesian treatment of 'Duhem's thesis', the proposition that theories are never refuted on empirical grounds because they cannot be tested in isolation from auxiliary hypotheses about initial conditions or the operation of scientific instruments. Sawyer, Beed, and Sankey (1997) consider Duhem's thesis (and its restatement in stronger and weaker forms as the 'Duhem-Quine thesis') and its role in hypothesis testing, using four theories from economics and finance as examples. Here we consider Duhem's thesis in the context of theory choice, econometric results, and the 'farm problem' in agricultural economics. This problem is defined as persistently low and highly variable prices, incomes, and returns in the agricultural sector as compared to the nonagricultural sector of the U.S. economy. The existence of the farm problem tends to refute an implication of general equilibrium (GE) theory — that resources flow to equate returns between sectors of the economy. We discuss Duhem's thesis in the context of demonstrating why evidence supporting the farm problem has not diminished the standing of general equilibrium theory among agricultural economists.


When Beacon Press first published Man's Search for Meaning in 1959, Carl Rogers called it "one of the outstanding contributions to psychological thought in the last fifty years." In the thirty-three years since then, this book - at once a memoir, a self-help book, and a psychology manual - has become a classic that has sold more than three million copies in English language editions. Man's Search for Meaning tells the chilling and inspirational story of eminent psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, who was imprisoned at Auschwitz and other concentration camps for three years during the Second World War. Immersed in great suffering and loss, Frankl began to wonder why some of his fellow prisoners were able not only to survive the horrifying conditions, but to grow in the process. Frankl's conclusion - that the most basic human motivation is the will to meaning - became the basis of his groundbreaking psychological theory, logotherapy. As Nietzsche put it, "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." In Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl outlines the principles of logotherapy, and offers ways to help each one of us focus on finding the purpose in our lives. This new edition of Man's Search for Meaning includes a new preface by the author, in which he explains his decision to remain in his native Austria during the Nazi invasion, a choice which eventually led to his imprisonment. It also includes an updated bibliography of books, articles, records, films, videotapes, and audio tapes about logotherapy.


The large scale Wernecke Breccia system occurs throughout the 13 km-thick Early Proterozoic Wernecke Supergroup (WSG) and is spatially associated with regional-scale faults. Breccia emplacement made use of pre-existing crustal weaknesses and permeable zones; metaevaporitic rocks in the lower WSG may be intimately related to breccia formation. The breccia bodies host vein and-disseminated iron oxide-copper-gold ± uranium ± cobalt mineralisation and are associated with extensive sodic and/or potassic metasomatic alteration overprinted by pervasive carbonate alteration. Multiple phases of brecciation, alteration and mineralisation are evident. Six widely spaced breccia bodies that occur in different part of the WSG were examined in this study (i.e. Slab, Hoover, Slats-Frosty, Slats-Wallbanger, Igor and Olympic). New information includes geological, paragenetic, geochronological, isotopic, fluid inclusion thermometric and compositional data.

Re-0s analyses of molybdenite from a late-stage vein that cross-cuts breccia gave model ages of 1601 ± 6 and 1609 ± 6 Ma. These ages range from older than to within error of the ca. 1594.8 ± 4.6 Ma published U-Pb (titanite) date for breccia in the same area. A second molybdenite sample from a late-stage vein gave a Re-0s model age of 1648 ± 5.97 Ma. This date is considered analytically sound but the significance of it is not clear as it is believed to cut the ca. 1595 Ma breccia. Step heating ⁴⁰Ar-³⁹Ar analyses carried out on muscovite from Wernecke Breccia matrix, a syn-breccia vein and two late-stage veins yielded dates of 1178.0 ± 6.1, 1135.0 ± 5.5, 1052 ± 10 and 996.7 ± 8 Ma respectively. These dates are significantly younger than the minimum age (ca. 1380 Ma) of Wernecke Breccia indicated by cross-cutting relationships and must have been reset. Samples submitted for U-Pb and Pb-Pb analyses gave discordant results that cannot be used to constrain the age of Wernecke Breccia or Wemecke Supergroup.

Fluids that formed Wemecke Breccia were hot (185-350 °C), saline (24-42 wt. % NaCl eq.) NaC1-CaC1₂ brines. Isotopic compositions for hydrothermal minerals range from: δ¹³C carbonate ≈-7 to +l ‰ (PDB), δ¹⁸O carbonate ≈ -2 and 20 ‰ (SMOW), δ³⁴Spyrite/chalcopyrite ≈-13 to +14 ‰ (CDT) and δ³⁴Sbarite ≈7 to 18 ‰. Calculated δ¹⁸Ofluid ≈-8 to +14 ‰. The isotopic compositions indicate fluids were likely derived from formation/metamorphic water mixed with variable amounts of organic water ± evolved meteoric and/or evolved seawater. Metals and sulphur were probably derived from host strata and fluids circulated via tectonic (and/or gravity) processes. Magmatic waters are considered less likely as a fluid source because the isotopic data do not have a magmatic signature and mafic to igneous rocks spatially associated with the breccia are significantly older (i.e. ca. 1710 vs. 1600 Ma) thus ruling out a genetic connection. This suggests IOCG mineralisation can occur in non-magmatic environments and a division of the broad IOCG class into magmatic and non-magmatic end-members, with hybrid types in between, is suggested that reflects the involvement of magmatic and nonmagmatic fluids. Wernecke Breccia and Redbank are representative of non-magmatic end-members, Lightning Creek is a magmatic end-member and hybrid types include Ernest Henry and Olympic Dam.


Landslide susceptibility mapping and modeling is critical in the understanding and consequent management of land resources. A study was conducted to ascertain the effect of an intrinsic soil property on landslide susceptibility mapping. Soil friction angle was added as instability factor in the form of PFAS (Peak friction angle – Slope) and RFAS (Residual friction angle – slope). These novel parameters replaced two traditional parameter; lithology and slope. Results indicated that PFAS and RFAS were significant additions and increased the predictive capabilities of the model.


Abstract:Since 2006, democracy in the world has been trending downward. A number of liberal democracies are becoming less liberal, and authoritarian regimes are developing more repressive tendencies. Democracies are dying at the hands of elected authoritarian populists who neuter or take over the institutions meant to constrain them. Changes in the international environment, as well as technological developments and growing inequality, have contributed to this democratic slump. Yet mass prodemocracy protests in authoritarian and semiauthoritarian settings, from Armenia to Hong Kong to Sudan, underscore democracy's continuing appeal. Moreover, authoritarian populism has an Achilles' heel in the form of unchecked leaders' tendency to sink into venality, cronyism, and misrule. There is still an opportunity to renew democratic progress, but a return to first principles and renewed efforts on the part of the advanced democracies will be needed.


Skin colour is an important quality parameter that influences mango fruit marketability. The mango industry is interested in controlled induction of skin blush in mangoes. It is desirable to understand the control of anthocyanin accumulation in mango skin. Among environmental factors known to induce anthocyanin accumulation in plants, light is the most studied. Light exposure induces pigmentation in various fruits, including apple, strawberry and grape. The effect of different light qualities on skin blush in mango fruit has received relatively little attention. The objective of this study was to assess anthocyanin accumulation and blush in response to blue, red and far red light from light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as applied to harvested mango fruit skin during storage at 12°C. Except for red light, the other wavelengths induced anthocyanin accumulation and skin blush as compared to the dark control treatment. Anthocyanin concentration and a∗ values were highest in blue light exposed fruit skin. This wavelength enhanced phenylalanine ammonia lyase activity in the mango skin, which may be associated with increased pigmentation. LED light treatment did not affect other fruit quality parameters at 21 days of storage, including firmness, total soluble solids and titratable acidity. Overall, the findings suggest that postharvest treatment with blue light can induce skin blush in mango fruit, which potentially may enhance their commercial value.


More than 100 site years of hydrology and water quality data spanning 25 years (1976-2000) were
compiled from research and monitoring studies on forest stands with natural vegetation and tracts managed for
timber production. A total of 41 watersheds located on poorly drained to very poorly drained soils on flat
divides between coastal streams were included ranging in area from 7.3 to 6070 ha. Hydrology and nutrient
concentration data from the study sites are used to examine how variation among sites may be related to soil
type, drainage intensity, vegetation, and physiographic setting. The median annual hydrologic response
(outflow as a percentage of precipitation) among the sites was 31%, with an interquartile range of 26-35%.
Nutrient concentrations in forest outflow were generally low for most study sites compared with typical values
for other land uses. Mean seasonal concentrations of nutrient fractions in drainage from 75% of the study sites
were <1.8 mg/L for total N (TN), <0.08 mg/L for total P (TP). Concentrations of Org-N, TN, and TP were all
consistently higher in drainage from organic soils compared with mineral soils for both paired comparisons and
the overall data base. TN exports from 75% of the study sites were less than 6.5 kg/ha/yr, predominantly as
Org-N and TP exports from all forest sites was <0.36 kg/ha/yr.


The paper examines agricultural production and productivity growth in two Central Asian countries – Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Both countries are characterized by a significant shift of resources from the traditional Soviet model of collective agriculture to more market-compliant individual and family farming. In both countries, the beginning of the policy-driven switch to family farming around 1997 coincided with the beginning of recovery in agriculture, namely resumption of agricultural growth after a phase of transition decline since 1991. In addition to growth in total agricultural production, we also observe significant increases in productivity of both land and labor since 1997. These observations suggest that productivity growth may be attributable to the changes in farming structure in Central Asia. To check this conjecture we assess the sources of growth by applying the standard Solow growth accounting methodology. Using time series of country statistics for farms of different organizational forms, we decompose the growth in output into growth in the resource base (extensive growth) and growth in productivity (intensive growth). Solow growth accounting clearly shows that, first, much of the growth at the country level is attributable to increases in productivity rather than increases in resources and, second, the increases in productivity in family farms (especially household plots) outstrip the increases in productivity in former collective and state farms. These findings confirm that the recovery of agricultural production in Central Asia has been driven largely by productivity increases, and it is the individual farms that are the main source of agricultural productivity increases.


OSPFv3 requires functional extension beyond what can readily be done
with the fixed-format Link State Advertisement (LSA) as described in
RFC 5340. Without LSA extension, attributes associated with OSPFv3
links and advertised IPv6 prefixes must be advertised in separate LSAs
and correlated to the fixed-format LSA. This document extends the LSA
format by allowing the optional inclusion of Type-Length- Value (TLV)
tuples in the LSAs. Backward compatibility mechanisms are also
described.


The focus of this work are Bayesian inverse problems in an infinite-dimensional setting with Gaussian prior and data corrupted by additive Laplacian noise. In particular, the connection between Tikhonov–Phillips regularisation with an l^1-discrepancy term and Bayesian MAP estimation based upon a Laplacian noise model is investigated for linear problems as well as the consistency of MAP and CM estimator.
For Laplacian infinite product measures on a separable Hilbert space, a result similar to the Cameron–Martin theorem for Gaussian measures is shown, stating the space of admissible shifts and the relative density of shifted Laplacian measures.
Under certain conditions on the log-likelihood, MAP estimates in separable Hilbert spaces are characterised as minimisers of the Onsager–Machlup functional of the posterior distribution, which in this case has the form of a Tikhonov–Phillips functional with a discrepancy term given by the log-likehood and a squared norm penalty term.
The behaviour of MAP and CM estimator is studied for a severely ill-posed linear problem; a generalised form of the inverse heat equation, under the presence of additive Laplacian noise. The posterior distribution is derived via Bayesian inference and both MAP and CM estimator are computed explicitly. The MAP estimator is shown to be asymptotically unbiased in a frequentist setting. An estimate for the convergence rate of the bias is stated under an analytic source condition. Moreover, an estimate for the convergence rate of the mean squared error of the MAP estimator is proved under an analytic source condition and in conjunction with an a priori parameter choice. This rate is then compared to the minimax rate in the fully Gaussian case.
The behaviour and consistency of MAP and CM estimator is studied numerically for the classical inverse heat equation in one dimension with additive Laplacian noise. The empirical MSE of both estimators is observed to converge to zero in the small noise limit with the estimated rate if an analytic source condition is satisfied, whereas neither MAP nor CM estimator converge towards the true solution in mean square if only a Sobolev-type source condition is satisfied.
Moreover, empirical confidence regions around both estimators are computed. Finally, a direct sampler for the posterior distribution is developed and used to compute credible regions around both estimators.


Transmembrane receptors with tyrosine kinase activity (RTK) constitute a superfamily of proteins present in all metazoans that is associated with the control and regulation of cellular processes. They have been the focus of numerous studies and are a good subject for comparative analyses of multigene families in different species aimed at understanding metazoan evolution. The sequence of the genome of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans is available. This offers a good opportunity to study the superfamily of nematode RTKs in its entirety and to compare it with its mammalian counterpart. We show that the C. elegans RTKs constitute various groups with different phylogenetic relationships with mammalian RTKs. A group of four RTKs show structural similarity with the three mammalian receptors for the vascular endothelial growth factors. Another group comprises RTKs with a short extracellular region, a feature not known in mammals; the genes encoding these RTKs are clustered on chromosome II with other gene families, including genes encoding chitinase-like proteins. Most of the C. elegans RTKs have no direct orthologous relationship with any mammalian RTK, providing an illustration of the importance of the separate evolution of the different phyla.


Metformin has been used successfully since the 1950s as first line pharmacotherapy to treat people with type 2 diabetes. It is a biguanide that decreases blood glucose concentration by mechanisms different from those of insulin secretagogues, such as sulphonylureas, or exogenous insulin therapy. Metformin lowers, rather than increases, fasting plasma insulin concentrations and acts by enhancing insulin sensitivity, inducing greater peripheral uptake of glucose, and decreasing hepatic glucose output. By reducing hepatic glucose output it lowers blood glucose and insulin levels with minimal risk of hypoglycaemia, and when used as monotherapy can lower HbAlc by around 1.5%. It is usually well tolerated, the most common side effects being gastrointestinal. Of particular value is that the improved glucose control seen with metformin is achieved without weight gain. Concerns that it may increase the risk of lactic acidosis have largely been allayed with recent studies suggesting less than one case per 100,000 treated patients. The UK Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) demonstrated a substantial beneficial effect of metformin therapy on cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes, with a 36% relative risk reduction in all cause mortality and a 39% relative risk reduction in myocardial infarction . The first ever joint ADA (American Diabetes Association) and EASD (European Association for the Study of Diabetes) consensus guidelines on the management of hyperglycaemia in type 2 diabetes state explicitly that metformin should be used as first-line foundation therapy, in addition to lifestyle interventions.


In the current world of engineering, structural vibration problems continue impact the design and construction of a wide range of products. Amid the parameters that determine the dynamic behaviour of a structure the one that takes into account the dissipation of energy resulting in the decay of the vibration is the least understood and the most difficult to quantify [1]. The estimation of damping factors is of interest in most branches of engineering sciences. In the field of aircraft structures the damping directly affects the fatigue life, a parameter which is applied conservatively due to the inherent complexity in modelling the damping of built up structures and the potentially catastrophic consequences of a fatigue failure. One of the most important problems is the limited knowledge of how joints affect the damping of the complete structure. This work therefore addresses this issue and focuses on the damping of joints in metal plates as part of a larger project to investigate the damping of built up structures. Various plate configurations are experimentally investigated using two different approaches. The results from the configurations are compared and discussed along with the advantages and disadvantages of each experimental approach. This enables a link to be identified between the damping magnitudes and the mode shapes and joint stiffnesses.


We develop an efficient and easy to use computational method for solving a wide class of general equilibrium heterogeneous agent models with aggregate shocks together with an open source suite of codes that implement our algorithms in an easy to use toolbox. Our method extends standard linearization techniques and is designed to work in cases when inequality matters for the dynamics of macroeconomic aggregates. We present two applications that analyze a two asset incomplete markets model parameterized to match the distribution of income, wealth, and marginal propensities to consume. First, we show that our model is consistent with two key features of aggregate consumption dynamics that are difficult to match with representative agent models: (1) the sensitivity of aggregate consumption to predictable changes in aggregate income, and (2) the relative smoothness of aggregate consumption. Second, we extend the model to feature capital-skill complementarity and show how factor-specific productivity shocks shape dynamics of income and consumption inequality.


The nature and effects of PBLA were investigated. I examined LINC program evaluations, government-solicited assessment reports, PBLA research, and other PBLA-related documents. I discuss the features of PBLA and its reported effects on language outcomes and teacher and student attitudes. I found that the government did not provide a rationale for PBLA and that the results of research did not support the introduction of PBLA. I also found that PBLA is neither standardized nor portfolio-based as claimed. It is costlier, more time-consuming, and appears to have more teacher pushback than the approach it replaced. Regardless, there is no evidence that the LINC program has improved students' language skills before or after the implementation of PBLA


Since its inception, the polyvalent vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV), Gardasil, has generated some controversies as a temporal relationship between the administrations of the vaccine and the development of a few autoimmune diseases, such as acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), multiple sclerosis (MS) and Guillain–Barre syndrome have been reported.1–3 We encountered two cases whose initial presentation of CNS demyelination followed in close time relationship the administration of Gardasil vaccine and we discuss their possible association.

A 19-year-old woman received two doses of Gardasil, 3 months apart, and approximately 1 month after the second dose, she developed numbness to the right foot that within 1 day extended to the contralateral foot and was associated with mid-thoracic back pain. Her neurological examination was only significant for the altered perception to touch to the feet. Deep tendon reflexes were normal and plantar reflexes in flexion. MRI of cervical and thoracic spine revealed a total of three lesions with characteristic demyelinating appearance, one of those in the thoracic spine was contrast-enhancing (figure 1A–C). MRI brain demonstrated one additional white matter lesion also consistent with a demyelinating process.

Figure 1
MRI scans for case No 1 (A–I) and case No 2 (J–P). MRI of the spine in case No 1 obtained at the onset of symptoms. Two areas of signal abnormalities are shown in the thoracic cord (A, B), one of which is contrast enhancing (C). MRI of the brain of case No 1 obtained at …


This paper examines the current context of legal education within Dutch legal culture as a case study focusing on the growing role of clinical legal education in the Netherlands, a progressive country in Western Europe, where traditional legal education has held sway for centuries. The Dutch experience with clinical legal education, though limited, is expanding even as the traditional apprenticeship phase of law training there is undergoing major reform, responsive to the growth of "big law." These reforms are largely attributable to a history of innovation and openness in Dutch legal culture, one dimension of which is the general acknowledgment that the Netherlands has become the international law capital of the world. Dutch law schools offer four distinct models of legal clinics, each examined in some detail here.


We estimate the effect of high school graduation on participation in criminal activity accounting for endogeneity of schooling. We begin by analyzing the effect of high school graduation on incarceration using Census data. Instrumental variable estimates using changes in state compulsory attendance laws as an instrument for high school graduation uncover a significant reduction in incarceration for both blacks and whites. When estimating the impact of high school graduation only, OLS and IV estimators estimate different weighted sums of the impact of each schooling progression on the probability of incarceration. We clarify the relationship between OLS and IV estimates and show that the 'weights' placed on the impact of each schooling progression can explain differences in the estimates. Overall, the estimates suggest that completing high school reduces the probability of incarceration by about .76 percentage points for whites and 3.4 percentage points for blacks. We corroborate these findings using FBI data on arrests that distinguish among different types of crimes. The biggest impacts of graduation are associated with murder, assault, and motor vehicle theft. We also examine the effect of drop out on self-reported crime in the NLSY and find that our estimates for imprisonment and arrest are caused by changes in criminal behavior and not educational differences in the probability of arrest or incarceration conditional on crime. We estimate that the externality of education is about 14-26% of the private return to schooling, suggesting that a significant part of the social return to education comes in the form of externalities from crime reduction.


The uptake of nanomolar levels of methyl‐14C‐glycine betaine (GBT) was studied in surface water samples from the Gulf of Maine, Mobile Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico. At all locations, 14C‐GBT was rapidly taken up into particulate material (>0.2 µm). Formalin treatment, autoclaving, or prefiltration of water through 0.2‐µm membranes completely inhibited 14C‐GBT uptake, indicating the process was biologically mediated, probably by bacteria. During the first several hours of uptake, >80% of the label found in particulates was recovered as untransformed 14C‐GBT This fraction diminished over longer incubations but never fell below 16%, indicating some longer term storage of GBT in microorganisms. Respiration of the added label to 14CO2 was typically <5% of the total uptake during 5–10‐min incubations but increased to approximately 40–60% after 24–48 h. Increasing the salinity of an estuarine water filtrate culture from 14 to 25 or 35 resulted in greater retention of 14C‐GBT in particulates and less production of 14CO2, suggesting that GBT may be used as an osmolyte by microorganisms. Uptake, retention, and degradation patterns were similar in <0.8‐µm filtrates and whole seawater, and size fractionation experiments showed that most GBT uptake was by organisms of <1 µm, suggesting bacteria as the microbes most likely responsible for GBT uptake. Uptake rates followed Michaelis‐Menten kinetics with saturation at <20 nM added GBT in most cases and Kt + Sn values ranging from 1.2 to 49 nM. Turnover times for Sn were short, ranging from 0.52 to 11 h. Vmax values ranged from 0.39 to 44 nmol liter−1 h−1, and Vmax could be increased by enriching <1.0‐µm filtrates for 48 h with 100 µM glucose or acrylate. GBT uptake displayed temperature optima from 20°C to 30°C, with optima close to the in situ temperature on the day of sample collection. Together, the results indicate that nanomolar levels of GBT are rapidly scavenged by seawater microorganisms for use as an osmolyte or carbon and energy source. The relative proportion of retention vs. degradation is likely to depend on the composition of the microbial community and environmental factors such as osmotic stress and the availability of alternative osmotic or carbon and energy substrates.


The nature and functioning of governments in the 21st century has evolved to consider additional measures that offer increased responsiveness towards citizens in the provisioning of service delivery. The daily functioning and implementation of programmes requires that public officials, especially at senior management levels, need not only guard against the wastage of diminishing public resources, but maintain efficient and effective public services. This matter of diminishing public resources has also been clear during the current global economic challenges, which have their roots in the 2008 global economic crisis. This is where, for example, the South African Treasury has responded by introducing austerity measures that sought to curtail spending on non-essentials for all government departments at national and provincial spheres. Maintaining and ensuring adherence to these austerity measures requires strong internal controls within these public institutions. Some of these internal controls include audit committees, chief financial officers, and other relevant structures that seek to monitor and evaluate compliance to policies and legislations. Some of the key legislative provisions include the Public Finance Management Act 1 of 1999 and Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003.


Alzheimer's disease (AD) immunotherapy accomplished by vaccination with beta-amyloid (Abeta) peptide has proved efficacious in AD mouse models. However, "active" Abeta vaccination strategies for the treatment of cerebral amyloidosis without concurrent induction of detrimental side effects are lacking. We have developed a transcutaneous (t.c.) Abeta vaccination approach and evaluated efficacy and monitored for deleterious side effects, including meningoencephalitis and microhemorrhage, in WT mice and a transgenic mouse model of AD. We demonstrate that t.c. immunization of WT mice with aggregated Abeta(1-42) plus the adjuvant cholera toxin (CT) results in high-titer Abeta antibodies (mainly of the Ig G1 class) and Abeta(1-42)-specific splenocyte immune responses. Confocal microscopy of the t.c. immunization site revealed Langerhans cells in areas of the skin containing the Abeta(1-42) immunogen, suggesting that these unique innate immune cells participate in Abeta(1-42) antigen processing. To evaluate the efficacy of t.c. immunization in reducing cerebral amyloidosis, transgenic PSAPP (APPsw, PSEN1dE9) mice were immunized with aggregated Abeta(1-42) peptide plus CT. Similar to WT mice, PSAPP mice showed high Abeta antibody titers. Most importantly, t.c. immunization with Abeta(1-42) plus CT resulted in significant decreases in cerebral Abeta(1-40,42) levels coincident with increased circulating levels of Abeta(1-40,42), suggesting brain-to-blood efflux of Abeta. Reduction in cerebral amyloidosis was not associated with deleterious side effects, including brain T cell infiltration or cerebral microhemorrhage. Together, these data suggest that t.c. immunization constitutes an effective and potentially safe treatment strategy for AD.


As computer systems continue to grow rapidly in both complexity and scale, developers need tools to help them understand the behavior and performance of these systems. While information visualization is a promising technique, most existing computer systems visualizations have focused on very specific problems and data sources, limiting their applicability.
This dissertation introduces Rivet, a general-purpose environment for the development of computer systems visualizations. Rivet can be used for both real-time and post-mortem analyses of data from a wide variety of sources. The modular architecture of Rivet enables sophisticated visualizations to be assembled using simple building blocks representing the data, the visual representations, and the mappings between them. The implementation of Rivet enables the rapid prototyping of visualizations through a scripting language interface while still providing high-performance graphics and data management.
The effectiveness of Rivet as a tool for computer systems analysis is demonstrated through a collection of case studies. Visualizations created using Rivet have been used to display: (a) line-by-line execution data from the SUIF Explorer interactive parallelizing compiler, enabling programmers to maximize the parallel speedups of their applications; (b) detailed memory system utilization data from the FlashPoint memory profiler, providing insights on both sequential and parallel program bottlenecks; (c) the behavior of applications running on superscalar processors, allowing developers to take full advantage of these complex CPUs; and (d) the real-time performance of computer systems and clusters, drawing attention to interesting or anomalous behavior.
In addition to these focused examples, Rivet has been also used in conjunction with more comprehensive data sources such as the SimOS complete machine simulator. A detailed performance analysis of the Argus parallel graphics library demonstrates how these tools combine to provide a powerful iterative analysis framework for understanding computer systems as a whole.


This article reviews recent literature on drought of the last millennium, followed by an update on global aridity changes from 1950 to 2008. Projected future aridity is presented based on recent studies and our analysis of model simulations. Dry periods lasting for years to decades have occurred many times during the last millennium over, for example, North America, West Africa, and East Asia. These droughts were likely triggered by anomalous tropical sea surface temperatures (SSTs), with La Niña‐like SST anomalies leading to drought in North America, and El‐Niño‐like SSTs causing drought in East China. Over Africa, the southward shift of the warmest SSTs in the Atlantic and warming in the Indian Ocean are responsible for the recent Sahel droughts. Local feedbacks may enhance and prolong drought. Global aridity has increased substantially since the 1970s due to recent drying over Africa, southern Europe, East and South Asia, and eastern Australia. Although El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO), tropical Atlantic SSTs, and Asian monsoons have played a large role in the recent drying, recent warming has increased atmospheric moisture demand and likely altered atmospheric circulation patterns, both contributing to the drying. Climate models project increased aridity in the 21st century over most of Africa, southern Europe and the Middle East, most of the Americas, Australia, and Southeast Asia. Regions like the United States have avoided prolonged droughts during the last 50 years due to natural climate variations, but might see persistent droughts in the next 20–50 years. Future efforts to predict drought will depend on models' ability to predict tropical SSTs. WIREs Clim Change 2011 2 45–65 DOI: 10.1002/wcc.81


The aim of the paper is to develop an analytical framework for understanding and measuring the impact of cultural industries and creative activities in local development. Despite the great debate on the importance of cultural and creative industries in policy, academic and business circles, we still lack a grounded theoretical model to understand how these activities contributes to local development and how far enhancement of culture-based creativity may be linked to certain social and economic configurations in these industries. In order to better understand the role of cultural industries in local development we propose a novel framework, which tries to depict the main actors and structure of local systems of cultural production and under what conditions such systems are able to generate and express creative atmosphere


The accurate quantification of gene expression levels is crucial for transcriptome study. Microarray has been used as a main platform for simultaneously interrogating thousands of genes in the past decade, and recently RNA-Seq has emerged as a promising alternative. The gene ex- pression measurements obtained by microarray and RNA-Seq are however subject to various measurement errors. A third platform called qRT-PCR is acknowledged to provide more accurate quantification of gene expression levels than microarray and RNA-Seq, but it has limited throughput capac- ity. In this article, we propose to use a system of functional measurement error models to model gene expression measurements and calibrate the mi- croarray and RNA-Seq platforms with qRT-PCR. Based on the system, a two-step approach was developed to estimate the biases and error variance components of the three platforms and calculate calibrated estimates of gene expression levels. The estimated biases and variance components shed light on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the three platforms and the calibrated estimates provide a more accurate and consistent quantifi- cation of gene expression levels. Theoretical and simulation studies were conducted to establish the properties of those estimates. The system was applied to analyze two gene expression data from the Microarray Quality Control (MAQC) and Sequencing Quality Control (SEQC) projects.


An isolate of Aspergillus flavus was found to be a potential producer of cell bound lipase. A maximum lipase production of about 32 U/g dried biomass occurred after 36 h of cultivation. The enzyme production remained
constant thereafter. The lipase activity of the fungus was not greatly influenced by the presence of various carbon and nitrogen sources and lipid materials in the basal medium. During the period of maximum synthesis of cell-bound lipase, a significant increase in the extracellular lipase was also detected in the culture medium. However, extracellular lipase was found to be extremely unstable. The activity of cell-bound lipase
was stable at 55°C and retained 100% of its activity after 24 h at this temperature. The lipase activity can also be stimulated by the presence of sodium taurocholate and ZnC12 . The lipase exhibited a wide range of substrate specificity on the hydrolysis of lipid materials


We evaluate the duration of the China trade shock and its impact on a wide range of outcomes over the period 2000 to 2019. The shock plateaued in 2010, enabling analysis of its effects for nearly a decade past its culmination. Adverse impacts of import competition on manufacturing employment, overall employment-population ratios, and income per capita in more trade-exposed U.S. commuting zones are present out to 2019. Over the full study period, greater import competition implies a reduction in the manufacturing employment-population ratio of 1.54 percentage points, which is 55% of the observed change in the value, and the absorption of 86% of this net job loss via a corresponding decrease in the overall employment rate. Reductions in population headcounts, which indicate net out-migration, register only for foreign-born workers and the native-born 25-39 years old, implying that exit from work is a primary means of adjustment to trade-induced contractions in labor demand. More negatively affected regions see modest increases in the uptake of government transfers, but these transfers primarily take the form of Social Security and Medicare benefits. Adverse outcomes are more acute in regions that initially had fewer college-educated workers and were more industrially specialized. Impacts are qualitatively—but not quantitatively—similar to those caused by the decline of employment in coal production since the 1980s, indicating that the China trade shock holds lessons for other episodes of localized job loss. Import competition from China induced changes in income per capita across local labor markets that are much larger than the spatial heterogeneity of income effects predicted by standard quantitative trade models. Even using higher-end estimates of the consumer benefits of rising trade with China, a substantial fraction of commuting zones appears to have suffered absolute declines in average real incomes. David Autor Department of Economics, E52-438 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139 and NBER firstname.lastname@example.com David Dorn University of Zurich Department of Economics Schoenberggasse 1 CH-8001 Zurich Switzerland and CEPR firstname.lastname@example.com Gordon H. Hanson Harvard Kennedy School Harvard University 79 John F. Kennedy St. Cambridge, MA 02138 and NBER email@example.com


The paper studies two performance metrics of systems enabled with Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors: the ratio of performance to consumed electrical power and the ratio of performance to purchasing system cost, both under the assumption of linear parallel scalability of the application. Performance to power values are measured for three workloads: a compute-bound workload (DGEMM), a memory bandwidth-bound workload (STREAM), and a latency-limited workload (small matrix LU decomposition). Performance to cost ratios are computed, using system configurations and prices available at Colfax International, as functions of the acceleration factor and of the number of coprocessors per system. That study considers hypothetical applications with acceleration factor from 0.35x to 2x. In all studies, systems with Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors yield better metrics than systems with only Intel Xeon processors. That applies even with acceleration factor of 1x, as long as the application can be distributed between the CPU and the coprocessor.


Seepages occurring at high altitudes in the Hottentots Holland Mountains (HHM) (Western Cape Province. South Africa) were subject to a phytosociological survey. Releve sampling method and classification procedures of the floristic-sociological (Braun-Blanquet) approach as well as numerical data analyses (numerical classification and ordination) were used to reveal syn- taxonomic patterns and characterize the position of the syntaxa along major environmental gradients. Nine plant communities were recognized, three of which were classified as associations, following formal syntaxonomic and nomenclatural rules of the floristic-sociological approach Most of the studied mire communities were dominated by low-growing clonal restios (Restionaceae). whereas some consisted of other types of graminoids. The most important species determining the structure (and function) of the mire communities on sandstones of the HHM include restios Anthochortus crinalis , Chondropetalum deustum.C. mucronatum, Elegia intermedia. E. thyrsifera. Restio subtilis. R. purpurascens. cyperoids Epischoenus villosus. Ficinia argy-ropa, grasses Ehrharta setacea subsp. setacea. Pentameris hirtiglumis as well as shrubs Berzelia squarrosa. Cliffortia tricuspi- data . Erica intenallaris and Grubbia rosmarinifolia . Protea lacticolor and Restio perplexus dominate a rare shale band seepage community. There are two major groups of communities—the fens (dominated by carpets of Anthochortus crinalis and other low-growing species) and the restio marshlands (mosaics of low tussocks of Restio subtilis and tall Chondropetalum mucronatum ). The degree of soil (and water) minerotrophy was found to be the most important differentiating feature between the mire (fen and restio marshland) communities studied. The soils in the centre of mires were found to have high contents of peat and showed very little influence from the underlying sandstone. The soils along the mire margins had a greater admixture of mineral soil derived from the sandstone or shale bedrock.


The main objective of this Economic and Sector Work (ESW) is to identify opportunities for stronger linkages between domestic agricultural supply chains and the tourism sector in the OECS, and to outline priority interventions with potential to strengthen these linkages. Since this topic has been analyzed in a number of studies, the approach for this ESW is not to conduct yet another comprehensive study. Instead, the goal is to validate and build on previous work through detailed field interviews with a selected sample of 'game changers' in the private and public sectors, and to come up with priority areas of focus and investments. The continued focus on strengthening the agriculture-tourism linkages is appropriate given the unexploited possibilities for increasing the share of locally sourced food purchased by the tourism sector and reducing the growing food import bill. The studies also identified specific types of food with potential to satisfy demand from the tourism sector. Both studies caution, however, that the potential for local production to replace imports is limited, given the region's agro-climatic conditions and price competitiveness. The World Bank, FAO study estimated that the scope to substitute tourism import demand by local produce is limited to around 11 percent of hotel food imports, equivalent to approximately 2 percent of the total food import bill. The study estimated that the annual 'leakage' of the tourism sector in fresh products could be reduced by about US$10 million, arguing that local and regional markets have greater potential to lower the food import bill.


Analog circuits are often specified using non-linear equations, which are difficult to analyze. Therefore, test generation and diagnosis are problematic issues in practice. In this paper we propose a new method for diagnosis of analog circuits that uses combined information from tests at different frequencies. By solving simultaneously the resulting equations (one for each test frequency), we get a reliable method that decreases the number of possible answers to the diagnosis
problem. The min-max optimization algorithm that we implemented for non-linear transfer functions gives good average runtime for diagnosis parametric
faults.