Kim-1 (kidney injury molecule-1), a member of the TIM (T-cell immunglobulin mucin) family is a glykosylated type 1 transmembrane protein, which is markley upregulated during the repair of renal epithel cells after ischemia and in malignant and cystic kidney disease, while expressed at low levels in normal kidneys. In previous experiments Kim-1 has been shown to localize in primary cilia of cultured renal epithelial cells in-vitro. Primary cilia have been shown to play a role in development and recently cilial dysfunction has been shown to be the unifying defect causing polycystic kidney disease. Kim-1 interacts with Inversin, a ciliary protein, which is mutated in Type 2 nephronophthisis, and which has been shown to modulate the Wnt pathway by targeting Dishevelled (Dvl) for proteasomal degradation. The expression of Wnt proteins is necessary for many fundamental processes in differentiation, proliferation, polarity and adhesion. Wnts play an important role in the early embryonic development. There is only limited knowledge on the physiological role of Kim-1 during differentiation, proliferation and survival of tubular epithel cells after renal injury. The aim of this study was to characterize the role of Kim-1 in epithelial polarization and ciliogenesis of tubular epithel cells outside of pathological injury models. Additionally the role of Kim-1 in the Wnt signaling pathway was examined. Renal tubular cells were analyzed phenotypically with immunfluorescence staining. Protein expression levels were detected by SDS PAGE and Western blot. Signaltransduction activity was measured in luciferase reporter assays. Protein overexpression was achieved with transient transfection of plasmid DNA in cultured cells after calcium chloride precipitation. Gene reduction was achieved through lentivirus-mediated transduction of short interfering RNAs. Examination of immunfluorescence stained cryosections showed, that Kim-1 is localized in-vivo in primary cilia of tubular epithelial cells in mouse kidneys. Kim-1 expression levels correlate with the polarization of tubular epithel cells in-vitro. Reporter assays using TOP FLASH luciferase constructs revealed that Kim-1 reduced the Dvl-induced TOP FLASH activation and decreased steady-state levels of s-Catenin in HEK 293t cells, suggesting that Kim-1 antagonizes the canonical Wnt pathway. Conversely Kim-1 expression increased AP-1 activity, which has been linked to the non-canonical Wnt pathway. Phenotypical characterization of two different immortalized renal epithelial cell lines after Kim-1 knock-down showed no changes in epithelial polarization, or ciliogenesis. These results suggest that Kim-1 is a ciliary protein that probably plays no active role in cell polarization or ciliogenesis, but may participate in the Wnt signaling pathway. Kim-1 may act as a molecular switch between the canonical and non-canonical Wnt pathway and thus may play a role in epithelial differentiation.


This thesis has two major purposes: (1) to investigate the impact carshave on Particulate Matter (PM) level in a limited area and (2) to demonstratethrough Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) the possibility toclean a limited area of PM with a system installed on a car.This thesis was performed in collaboration with Volvo Car Corporation(VCC) at Torslanda, Goteborg. All experimental data was sampledat three occasions: 24th of February, 14th of March and 3rd of June andwere compared to similar recent studies for verication. Computer calculationwere conducted in July and August with experimental data asinitial conditions. ANSYS v16.0 Fluent Meshing and ANSYS v16.0 Fluentwere used as computational software to set up and calculate the problem.The result of the experiments shows that with increased number ofcars there is an increased value of PM. It also shows that a cars ventilationsystem can be used to collect small PM. Result from CFD derivationsdisplayed that a cleaning system mounted in a car will decrease number ofPM with 5-20% in 250 seconds in a closed domain and 4% in 135 secondsin a open domain.


Graduates from higher education often enter the labour market with a considerable amount of work experience. Using German data, we address the question of whether early work experience pays off upon labour market entry. We compare the labour market benefits of different types of work experience. This comparison allows us to more generally test hypotheses about different explanations of why education pays off. Results indicate that tertiary graduates do not profit from work experience that is unrelated to the field of study or was a mandatory part of the study programme. Even though field-related and voluntary work experience helps graduates to realize a fast integration into the labour market, it is not linked to higher chances for entering a favourable class position or to higher wages in the long run. These results provide evidence for the signalling explanation of educational benefits in the labour market rather than the human capital explanation.


When beef cattle (Bos taurus) are fed grain of maize (Zea mays L.) in which the concentration of phosphorus (P) exceeds the animal's need for this element, the excess P is excreted in the feces. Spreading this manure on cropland increases the potential for P pollution of surface waters by run-off. Experiments were undertaken to determine the relative magnitudes of genotypic and nongenotypic variances of P concentration in maize grain (P-Gr) to assess the ability to select maize genotypes in which this trait more closely matches the dietary need of beef cattle. Genetic variability was found in a population developed from a cross of Illinois High Protein (IHP) x Illinois Low Protein (ILP). Because of few low P-Gr segregates, the IHP x ILP population was not considered a good breeding source for this trait. Nongenetic sources of variance were significant but small compared with genotypic variances. Broad-sense heritability (H) for P-Gr among S 1 family means in the IHP x ILP population was estimated at 0.82. This high value suggested that this trait would respond to selection. A comparison of mean values of S 1 families selected on the basis of performance in 2000 or in 2001 alone to those selected on the basis of 2-yr data suggested that the loss in efficiency resulting from selecting on 1-yr data would be only approximately 5%.


Different implementations of the same protocol specification usually contain deviations, i.e., differences in how they check and process some of their inputs. Deviations are commonly introduced as implementation errors or as different interpretations of the same specification. Automatic discovery of these deviations is important for several applications. In this paper, we focus on automatic discovery of deviations for two particular applications: error detection and fingerprint generation.

We propose a novel approach for automatically detecting deviations in the way different implementations of the same specification check and process their input. Our approach has several advantages: (1) by automatically building symbolic formulas from the implementation, our approach is precisely faithful to the implementation; (2) by solving formulas created from two different implementations of the same specification, our approach significantly reduces the number of inputs needed to find deviations; (3) our approach works on binaries directly, without access to the source code.

We have built a prototype implementation of our approach and have evaluated it using multiple implementations of two different protocols: HTTP and NTP. Our results show that our approach successfully finds deviations between different implementations, including errors in input checking, and differences in the interpretation of the specification, which can be used as fingerprints.


The process of parturition resulting in the delivery of a newborn is a fundamental event ensuring survival of the species. In humans, the main clinical problems of parturition include activation of the process too early or too late resulting in the delivery of pre-term and post-term infants, both with their own implications for future health for the mother and baby. Additionally, where parturition systems are not activated correctly, dysfunctional labour with the resulting need for caesarean delivery (CS), in addition to atonic post-partum haemorrhage can also ensue. Overall, in the UK up to 40% of pregnancies are affected by one of these problems. However, the exact processes involved in the initiation and maintenance of parturition in the human are not fully understood. With such an important event, influences are most likely to be multi-factorial, with hormonal, mechanical, inflammatory, biochemical and maternal environmental factors playing a part.

The aims of this thesis were to investigate influences on parturition in human pregnancy. Firstly, the myometrial transcriptional effects of long term exposure to the uterotonic oxytocin (OT) were examined. Further investigation of the myometrial and maternal peripheral response to uterine contractions in-vitro and in-vivo was also made with particular reference to the role of inflammation and myocyte damage. Additionally, the influence of maternal factors, particularly obesity, on the myometrial in-vitro contractile function and response to OT was studied.

Initially, 150 gene arrays were produced using the Illumina platform. The samples were derived from myometrium taken at pre-labour CS which subsequently underwent functional contractility experiments in an organ bath. Five drug environments were studied, namely OT, acetic acid (OT vehicle), ML7(a tocolytic acting via inhibition of myosin light chain kinase), ML7 & OT and finally DMSO (ML7 vehicle). Additionally, five time-points of 0, 1, 2, 4, and 6 hours after drug addition were used, resulting in 5 samples for each drug and time combination. The results indicated that despite a clear enhancement of myometrial contractile activity by OT, this functional response does not appear to be mediated by cellular transcription. However, there was a clear contraction and time dependent transcriptional wave, with overrepresentation of genes associated with inflammation and cellular damage/apoptosis, and down-regulation of pathways concerning cellular metabolism.

These findings were confirmed by QPCR on further myometrial samples undergoing additional in-vitro functional studies. In addition to the temporal and contractile association with the inflammatory response, our data suggest inflammation occurs in response to myocyte cellular damage regardless of mode of damage e.g. contractile or chemically induced. This was demonstrated by inflammatory upregulation in myometrium exposed to the tocolytic agents nifedipine and ritodrine, which is not seen in response to ML7. Additionally, the myometrial inflammatory response was enhanced by the infective agent LPS. However, contrary to other proposals, the enhanced inflammatory response of the myometrium did not alter or promote the in-vitro contractile ability of the myometrium or its response to OT. This myometrial transcriptional data therefore suggests that the inflammatory response of labour is associated with
contraction, chemical or infection induced myometrial cellular damage, but would not be considered necessary for a contractile response.

Our in-vivo study of peripheral changes in the maternal circulation again supported our in-vitro myometrial data. Data showed that the effect of pregnancy at term was limited to increased white cell count driven by a
neutrophilia, with no suggestion of leukocyte priming prior to labour. Additionally, term pregnancy is associated with an increase in CRP, an increase in GCSF (corresponding with the neutrophilia) in addition to suppression of the chemokines CCL11 and CCL22. Subsequently, we found that repeated blood samples taken at 2 hourly intervals during term labour induced dramatic changes in inflammatory cells and inflammatory mediators in the maternal circulation.
Importantly, these changes occur in a co-ordinated time and contraction dependent manner, with the degree of inflammation associated with the length of time in labour and the degree of myocyte damage as measured by circulating
CK and Mb.

Our study of the influence of maternal factors on myometrial contractile ability and response to OT examined in-vitro myometrial contractility of 609 myometrial strips from 85 women. We demonstrated that maternal obesity does
not impair spontaneous or OT induced myometrial contractions in-vitro. Furthermore, maternal age, ethnicity, parity, previous caesarean delivery,gestation at delivery and birthweight do not influence in-vitro myometrial spontaneous or OT induced contractile activity. This therefore suggests that the observed implication of these maternal and infant factors on parturition in-vivo (high rates of induction of labour, high rates of intrapartum caesarean delivery and post partum haemorrhage) cannot be explained by an effect on myometrial contraction per se. This therefore merits further investigation as to alternative mechanisms to ultimately promote and effective, uncomplicated and safe labour and vaginal delivery for at risk mothers.

In summary, this thesis provides evidence that the myometrial contractions of human labour, whether spontaneous or OT induced are capable of inducing a temporal wave of transcriptional changes associated with the processes of inflammation, cellular damage/apoptosis with inhibition of cellular metabolic processes. In addition, maternal peripheral circulating factors mirror the
myometrial transcriptional changes. These changes are highly comparable with those seen in response to exercising skeletal muscle, and in this model have been shown to play an important role in muscle repair and remodelling after
exercise. Therefore, we would suggest that the inflammatory reaction typically associated with human labour occurs as a non-specific response to contraction induced cellular damage and may play a role in postpartum repair and remodelling of the uterus.


Since the economic crisis in July 1997, the performance of the retail industry has
been affected by reduced consumer expenditure and higher costs of imports. Watson's
Personal Care Stores Sdn Bhd, the retail chain store in Malaysia since 1994 was also
affected by this economic turmoil. The problems that Watson's faced were the declining
of profits plus some internal problems in each department i.e. the Human Resources,
Operations and Buying Department. With all the challenges in the retailing industry,
Watson's need to overcome the situation and remain competitive in the market.
There are 4 strategies that Watson's can adopt to increase the sales and profits of
the company i.e. 1) focus on the 4Ps - Product, Price, Place, Promotion; 2) Implement
new policy ; 3 ) Providing outstanding service to the customers and 4) Set up the
Marketing Department.


The roots of GPS sounding go back to the first days of interplanetary flight. In the early 1960's teams from Stanford University and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory exploited radio links between Earth and the Mariner 3 and 4 spacecraft to probe the atmosphere and other properties of Mars. Radio science has since been a staple of planetary exploration. Before the advent of GPS, application of radio occultation to Earth was deemed impractical, and it was not immediately evident that even GPS could be usefully adapted. Techniques devised for geodesy in the 1980's, including "codeless" carrier reconstruction, clock elimination by double differencing, GPS-based precise orbit determination, and compact, low-cost receivers, set the stage. JPL submitted the first GPS occultation proposal to NASA in 1988. Though that "GPS Geoscience Instrument" did not fly, it established the concept and led soon to the GPS/MET experiment, conceived by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and sponsored by the US National Science Foundation. The remarkable success of GPSIMET has led NASA to mount follow-on experiments on five international missions, launching between 1999 and 2001. Those will refine the systems and techniques of GPS sounding, setting the stage for COSMIC-the first operational GPS occultation constellation.


Recent results have shown the interest of trees-of-BDDs [Subbarayan et al., 2007] as a suitable target language for propositional knowledge compilation from the practical side. In the present paper, the concept of tree-of-BDDs is extended to additional classes of data structures C thus leading to trees-of-C representations (ToC). We provide a number of generic results enabling one to determine the queries/transformations satisfied by ToC depending on those satisfied by C. We also present some results about the spatial efficiency of the ToC languages. Focusing on the ToOBDD< language (and other related languages), we address a number of issues that remained open in [Subbarayan et al., 2007]. We show that beyond CO and VA, the ToOBDD< fragment satisfies IM and ME but satisfies neither CD nor any query among CE, SE unless P = NP. Among other results, we prove that ToOBDD< is not comparable w.r.t. succinctness with any of CNF, DNF, DNNF unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses. This contributes to the explanation of some empirical results reported in [Subbarayan et al., 2007].


Corncobs are rich in hemicellulose, which has very important applications in the food industry and biofuels. In this study, hemicellulose was extracted from corncobs after a delignification pretreatment using a three-step extraction. The yield of hemicellulose was nearly 77.64% of the total available hemicellulosic polysaccharides in the pretreated corncobs. Three corresponding fractions HW, HA and HE were obtained, and they all exhibited narrow polydispersity. The amount of HA extracted by alkali accounted for 86.86% of the total amount of the isolated hemicellulose. Its average molecular mass was 24322 g mol−1, which was much higher than that of HW (2497 g mol−1) and HE (2680 g mol−1). HW had a higher thermal stability than the other two fractions and structural analysis indicated that the main structures of these three fractions were slightly different. Nuclear magnetic resonance indicated that fraction HA was mainly composed of 4-O-methyl-α-D-glucurono-α-L-arabino-β-D-xylan. Structural characterization of the hemicelluloses extracted using the three extraction steps will provide information for their further applications in food, pharmaceuticals and other industrial fields.


The extension of the general process simulator SAMPLE to plasma etching and metallization is described. The etching algorithm is divided into isotropic, anisotropic, and direct milling components and is suitable for modeling wet etching, plasma etching, reactive ion etching, and ion milling. Separate deposition algorithms are used for CVD, sputtering, and planetary deposition. With the extension, it is possible to use a simple keyword repertoire to simulate a sequence of photo-lithography, etching, and deposition steps to obtain device cross sections at each stage of fabrication.


This thesis is concerned with the sensitivity of Total Factor Productivity (fFP) estimates in
UK manufacturing industries to the use of alternative output concepts -gross output vs.
value added- and estimation methods -growth accounting vs. econometrics. The departure
point is that differences in methods and assumptions can lead to very different TFP growth
estimates. The interpretation of these estimates can be problematic when they reflect
factors beyond the theoretical concept of TFP. The central goal of this thesis is to evaluate
whether and to what extent these factors have an impact on the measurement of TFP
growth, on the estimation of any relationship between TFP and Research and Development
(R&D) investment and, finally, on the measurement of the UK manufacturing productivity
gap differential.
The empirical results suggest that: First, TFP growth estimates in UK manufacturing are
sensitive to both the output concept used and the assumptions underlying the method used
to estimate them. It was found when tested for that the assumptions of perfect competition
and instantaneous adjustment, which underlie the growth accounting framework, are not
valid. Adjusting for the measurement bias associated with the presence of these factors, it is
found that the recovery experienced in the 1980s in UK manufacturing productivity growth
rates was not as spectacular as implied by the traditional growth accounting approach.
Second, adjusting for measurement bias does not affect markedly the results found in
related studies with respect to the relationship between TFP and R&D efforts. The results
suggest that R&D investment from the industry itself and from other national industries has
a positive impact on the industry's productivity but there is no gain from R&D investment
undertaken abroad.
Third, the results indicate that the bias in traditional TFP estimates does not impact greatly
on the British productivity gap at the aggregate manufacturing level but does so at a more
dis aggregated level. Finally, despite the concerns about measurement bias, the results show
that the productivity gap still remains significant and the productivity of UK manufacturing
still trails behind that achieved in the US, France and Germany, regardless of the sector.


Detrital zircon grains are employed to decipher sediment provenances and crustal evolution, and they provide unique evidence of Hadean crust-mantle differentiation processes. We demonstrate that mineral inclusions in zircon provide valuable information on the conditions under which zircon crystallized. Zircon grains from selected plutonic rocks from Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, contain inclusions of apatite, biotite, amphibole, and pyroxenes that accurately reflect the chemical compositions of the equivalent phases in the host-rock matrix, and the compositions of the whole rocks. High concentrations of Y and low concentrations of Sr in apatite inclusions in zircon are diagnostic of evolved, felsic granitoid host rocks. In contrast, the relative abundances and compositions of plagioclase and alkali feldspar inclusions in zircon are decoupled from the composition of the whole rock, and they are generally indicative of granitic melts regardless of the bulk rock. This is best explained by the late crystallization of zircon relative to the bulk of the feldspars. We conclude that inclusions of apatite and mafic phases in zircon constrain the potential source rocks of detrital zircon, whereas feldspar inclusions do not.


The study of neighbourhood e ects has become a major domain in urban research since the publication of Wilson's book The Truly Disadvantaged in 1987. It is estimated that more than 1,800 articles have been published (van Ham et al. 2012). One of the problems well-known from multilevel analysis is that of specifying the context e ects linking levels, e.g., conditions on the aggregate level to outcomes at the next lower level, individuals in most cases. Two problems seem insu ciently solved. First, many di erent context e ects have been suggested, such as contagion, role models or discrimination; but it is questionable whether they are all relevant. Second, how exactly can the transition from the macro (e.g., neighbourhood) to the micro (e.g., individual) level be speci ed? The article addresses both problems by examining the assumptions underlying the e ects. Di erentiating between causes and outcomes, the diversity of e ects is reduced to ve types of e ects. Mechanisms are de ned as speci cations of context e ects, and for each type a mechanism is speci ed and the causes are related to the outcomes. Drawing on the results of the analyses, a detailed set of suggestions for future studies of neighbourhood e ects that really capture the mechanisms is presented.


Naturally acquired immunity to Plasmodium falciparum may be linked to key features of the immune system that change during normal development and ageing. Evidence of this was seen in non-immune Javanese transmigrants taking up residence in hyperendemic Irian Jaya, Indonesia. After 1-2 years of residence, the adult migrants had less frequent and less intense parasitaemias than their children. Splenomegaly and malaria-like symptoms were also less common in the adults. These age-dependent patterns of relative resistance to P. falciparum mirrored those in lifelong residents. The Javanese adults acquired protective immunity against chronic exposure to infection relatively quickly compared with their children. However, during the initial exposure to infection, the incidence of emergency medical evacuation to hospital with a clinical diagnosis of malaria was 7-fold higher among the adults than in their children. The exaggerated susceptibility of adults to severe morbidity and mortality has been reported in other populations during initial exposure to infection. Thus, whereas adults acquired protection against chronic exposure more rapidly than the children, they were initially more susceptible to severe disease. One possible explanation for these findings is the changes in the immune system that normally occur during ageing. Such changes may establish differences between children and adults that profoundly affect the course of infection by P. falciparum. The ratio of naive to memory T cells gradually diminishes during ageing, as a result of the cumulative effect of exposure to the myriad antigens encountered throughout the normal course of life. Moreover, the gradual involution of the thymus progressively limits the production of naive T cells. The likelihood of stimulating memory T cells with cross-reactive antigens may increase with age and this may bias the immune response to the relative benefits of the host under chronic exposure, or to the detriment of the host under acute exposure. Intrinsic features of the immune system that change with age may determine key characteristics of the immune response to infection by P. falciparum, and whether that response is relatively harmful or beneficial may depend upon the conditions of exposure (i.e. acute or chronic).


New emerging disciplines are specifically devoted to study trivial and non-trivial effects resulting from working in the nanoscale, however, the implementation of these nanostructures in real devices is still a major challenge. Thin film deposition and silicon microtechnology is probably the most promising and straightforward combination for the reliable integration of nanomaterials in real devices. In particular, the implementation of pure ionic and mixed ionic/electronic conductors (MIECs) in thin film form allows the miniaturization of multiple solid state devices such as solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). In this work, we will present the implementation of novel nanoionics concepts in micro-SOFCs by using micro and nanofabrication technologies. We will put special attention on the contribution of grain boundaries to the mass transport properties in interface-dominated materials such as thin films. Grain boundary engineering will be presented as a powerful tool for reducing the resistance associated to electrolytes and even control the intrinsic transport nature and performance of MIEC materials.


We study the fundamental properties of the quantum f-relative entropy, where f(.) is an operator convex function. We give the equality conditions under monotonicity and joint convexity, and these conditions are more general than, since they hold for a class of operator convex functions, and different for f(t) = -ln(t) from, the previously known conditions. The quantum f-entropy is defined in terms of the quantum f-relative entropy and we study its properties giving the equality conditions in some cases. We then show that the f-generalizations of the Holevo information, the entanglement-assisted capacity, and the coherent information also satisfy the data processing inequality, and give the equality conditions for the f-coherent information.


Available sources of hourly wage data in Canada sometimes send conflicting signals about wage growth. This note thus has two objectives: first, we develop a wage measure—the wage-common—to better capture the (underlying) wage pressures reflecting the common trend across the available data sources. Second, we re-examine the relationship between wage growth and macro drivers (labour market slack and labour productivity). We conclude that the wage-common is a superior estimate relative to individual sources because of its timeliness, its lower volatility and its good relationships with fundamentals. Our analysis indicates that labour market slack is the main factor still weighing on the wage-common growth in 2017Q3. Lastly, we investigate globalization (measured by wage growth in other advanced economies) as another potential factor behind the absence of wage pressures in Canada and find no evidence beyond what is already explained by the macro drivers.


Natural ventilation in tropical greenhouse is a common method for ventilation which
gives higher inside temperatures compared to the outside temperatures. This type of
ventilation is not enough to reduce high temperature inside the structure in low land
areas. Thus the requirement of cooling is increased. Use of fossil fuel to run the
cooling fans are not economically viable due to increasing fuel cost and greenhouses
are not always located near the electrical grid. The objectives of this research was to
study the inside microclimate of the greenhouse, the natural ventilation of the
greenhouse, the evaporative cooling system by means of misting fans and to study
the use of photovoltaic (PV) as an alternative energy source to cool down the
greenhouse. This study presents the theoretical and experimental results of the inhouse
microclimate, ventilation rate induced by stack effect, wind effect and
combination of both stack and wind effects for naturally ventilated single and multispan
tropical greenhouses, effect of height and plants on inside temperature and
ventilation rate. Ventilation rate induced by the stack effect was found to increase
with increasing temperature difference between inside and outside of greenhouse structures according to power law, with an index of 0.5. The wind effect ventilation
rate was found to increase linearly with increasing outside wind speed. Ventilation
rate inside single span structure (smaller floor area) was higher than in multi-span
structure. This was due to that the fast movement and air exchanges in single span
structure. However, the bigger floor area gives higher in-house temperatures. Inside
temperature and outside wind speed were calculated to verify the mathematical
models which were developed. This method was used because of the difficulty to use
tracer gas method in porous large scale greenhouse structures. The comparison
between calculated and measured inside temperature showed there was no significant
difference between them. The effect of height on ventilation rate is also crucial in
greenhouse design. The ventilation rate increases with the increasing height (distance
between the middle of the side opening and the middle of the roof opening) of the
structure. Ventilation rate inside the house with plant was found lower than inside the
house without plant. This was due to the temperature difference between inside and
outside structure. Evaporative cooling by means of misting fans in single span was
also presented in this study. Four misting fans were used to cool the greenhouse.
They were installed two meters above ground with two fans near the southern
sidewall and two fans in the middle of the greenhouse operating from 10:00 am to
16:00 pm daily. Data was collected from three rows with total 57 points inside the
greenhouse. The distance between points was 2.5 m along the length of the
greenhouse. The data was processed using GIS (Geographic Information System) to
model the inside temperature and wind speed. The temperature inside the greenhouse
with fans was found to be lower than that without fans, while the inside relative
humidity of the air was found to be higher in the greenhouse with fans than that
without and the outside. However these values of relative humidity lie at the optimum value that is less than 90% which do not give negative effect on the plants
inside the structure. Based on the results, the contours and 3D maps of the in-house
temperature and wind speed distribution in the single span greenhouse were
developed. The efficiency of misting fans was lower than the previous studies. This
was due to the usage of misting fans in porous naturally ventilated greenhouse, while
the previous studies were carried out in closed greenhouses and glasshouses.
Photovoltaic (PV) hybrid system design and simulation was discussed in this study.
The results show that PV system would be suitable to supply electricity to cover the
load requirement without purchasing energy from grid, and the battery state of
charge was found to be in the range of 75-100%.


Nowadays for an appropriate way to deal with teaching and learning there is an axiomatic need to accept an integrated-holistic approach both in terms of the way we regard education and of how we practice it. This leads to a two-prong position: First, that education constitutes a dialectic entity and second that approaches to education presently in use are now absolute. That is, education has recently undergone a paradigm shift from a Student Centred Learning approach, which in its own way have replaced the traditional Teacher Centred Instructing approach, towards an integrating holistic approach, bringing education into the new Net Centred Knowing paradigm which is based on cloud computing and represents the goal and objectives of the School on the Cloud project presented in this paper


A baroclinically forced deep-water renewal event in a small Swedish sill fjord is investigated using a one-dimensional numerical model and a dataset that resolves temporal variations in salinity and oxygen. The observations indicate an almost complete renewal of the basin water within a period of 2-3 weeks. The details of the renewal process are emphasized by modeling the sill flow as well as the resulting dense bottom plume, with various rates of entrainment. It is found that sill mixing is relatively unimportant, but that entrainment increases the deep-water inflow by a factor of 2-4. Different formulas for calculating plume entrainment are compared and the model's sensitivity to variations in sill flow and bottom friction is investigated. It is shown that even weak entrainment, occurring at shallow depths where the density difference between the plume and the resident water is large, has a significant impact. Entrainment prolongs the time it takes for a complete renewal (i.e., to flush out all resident water) and, on the moderate timescales considered here, yields lower post-renewal salinity and oxygen concentrations. This implies that entrainment (and mixing) during renewal may be as important as basin water diffusion in setting the timescale for forthcoming renewal events.


This paper examines the linkage between economic activity and tax revenues for New York State and New York City. Drawing upon the methodology of Stock and Watson, we use a dynamic single-factor model to estimate indexes of coincident economic indicators. We also construct measures of the sales and withholding tax bases. To conduct an empirical analysis of the relationship between the indexes of economic activity and the tax base series, we use vector autoregression and error correction models. The results provide strong evidence that the coincident indexes contain useful information for explaining monthly growth in the tax bases. However, much less evidence exists of a statistically significant linkage from the tax bases to the coincident indexes.


This is a study of the nature, extent and beliefs about crime in rural Iowa. It presents a number of different approaches examining either criminal activity itself or responses made to real or imagined crime within the state. Topics include: urban bias and rural research, Iowa's rural crime, rural policing, police professionalism, state involvement, subduing the Cornbelt Rebellion, and vigilantism.


High data rate transceivers typically consist of a system with hybrid integration of the electronics and photonics. Impedance levels provided by the opto-electronic device are often not the same as the levels desired by the electronic circuit. This mismatch introduces suboptimal operation and can even be detrimental for the overall system performance. Consequently, a matching circuit is often implemented on the electronic IC together with the main electronic functionality. Direct RF matching of the opto-electronic devices on the photonic IC has the potential to significantly reduce the overall system cost as the area cost of photonic chips is much lower. In this paper, narrowband LC-matching is shown for a germanium photodetector on the iSiPP50G silicon photonics platform to convert the output impedance to a more standard 50 Ω impedance level at 30 GHz. By tuning the photodetector reverse biasing voltage between 0 Volt and 3 Volt, a reflection coefficient lower than -20 dB is obtained over the frequency range between 24.3 and 30.4 GHz.


This thesis investigates the role of cultural differences in the design and usability of web sites. Specific factors that affect localisation and internationalisation of web sites and user preferences are studied. The overarching research question is: Are there differences in usability of web sites for users from different cultures?

There are three areas of interest in this research: (i) Human Computer Interaction (HCI), (ii) Culture, and (iii) Localisation/Internationalisation. HCI focuses on the cultural factors affecting the usability of web sites. Culture is discussed in the context of HCI. Geographically disparate people use the Internet through web browsers. They may come from different cultural backgrounds and are likely to have different perceptions due to their cultural influences, which may influence their preferences for aspects of web interfaces. Challenges and opportunities regarding localisation and internationalisation of web sites are also examined. The methodology for this research facilitates the study of the impacts of culture on HCI in the context of the design of web sites and usability, specifically in terms of localisation and internationalisation.

An explorative pilot study of the materials, procedures and analysis techniques was undertaken. Due to the small number of participants in the pilot study, only limited statistical analyses are provided.

In the main study, 301 participants were divided into three almost equal groups, based on their preferred language (Australian English; Mandarin; International [primarily American] English). Each group responded to two of three virtual restaurant web site versions constructed for the experiment: (i) a localised version for Australian English speakers, (ii) a localised version for Mandarin speakers, and (iii) an internationalised version for speakers of other languages. Detailed statistical analyses of the quantitative data were compared with results from qualitative analyses of participants' comments on experimental web site versions.

The results demonstrate that a web site that uses an International version of web design, text and web interface elements is more usable to International group participants. Participants who chose Australian English or Mandarin as their Preferred Language did not display significant preference for localised versions of the web site. The participants, being experienced and heavy users of the web, were perhaps expecting to use International English, since it has traditionally been the dominant web language.


In this work, the utilization of a spray congealing technique was adopted to prepare enhanced release, solvent-free microparticles of meloxicam (Mel). The binary and ternary phases prepared by spray congealing with Polyethylene glycol 3000 (PEG-3) and Gelucire 44/14 (Gel-44) in different drug-to-polymer ratios were considered. The prevalent particle size (mean diameter) was in the range of 75-85 μm and the microparticles had good encapsulation efficiency up to 99.0 %. The formulations were characterized by solubilizing efficiency, physical properties, drug content and dissolution behavior. In addition, the anti-inflammatory activity was determined. The ternary system of Mel-PEG-Gel (T1, T2 and T3) was compared with those of the corresponding binary system of Mel-PEG (B1) or Mel-Gel (B2). Scanning electron microscope analysis showed that it was possible to obtain spherically shaped and non-aggregated microparticles, with slightly drug crystals evident on the surfaces of drug-loaded microparticles. Differential scanning calorimetry and X–ray diffractometry were used to investigate the solid-state physical structure of the prepared microparticles. The results from X-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry showed the absence of well-defined drug–polymer interactions. The solubility of binary phases (B1 or B2) was lower than the ternary phase's formulae (T1, T2 and T3). Consequently, the ternary phases as a carrier represents the most promising approach to the dissolution rate enhancement of meloxicam. From the in vitro release data, the selected formula prepared by spray congealing (T3) was enhanced the solubility and dissolution rate rather than other preparation techniques (physical mixture and solid dispersion by melting method). Finally, the microparticles prepared by spray congealing (T3) containing 10% Mel, 45% PEG-3 and 45% gelucire 14/44 exhibited higher anti-inflammatory activity on the paw edema of rats in comparison to the drug alone, physical mixture and solid dispersion. ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY


The main objective of Information Retrieval (IR) systems is to satisfy searchers' needs. A great deal of research has been conducted in the past to attempt to achieve a better insight into searchers' needs and the factors that can potentially influence the success of an Information Retrieval and Seeking (IR&S) process.

One of the factors which has been considered is searchers' emotion. It has been shown in previous research that emotion plays an important role in the success of an IR&S process, which has the purpose of satisfying an information need. However, these previous studies do not give a sufficiently prominent position to emotion in IR, since they limit the role of emotion to a secondary factor, by assuming that a lack of knowledge (the need for information) is the primary factor (the motivation of the search).

In this thesis, we propose to treat emotion as the principal factor in the system of needs of a searcher, and therefore one that ought to be considered by the retrieval algorithms. We present a more realistic view of searchers' needs by considering not only theories from information retrieval and science, but also from psychology, philosophy, and sociology. We extensively report on the role of emotion in every aspect of human behaviour, both at an individual and social level. This serves not only to modify the current IR views of emotion, but more importantly to uncover social situations where emotion is the primary factor (i.e., source of motivation) in an IR&S process.

We also show that the emotion aspect of documents plays an important part in satisfying the searcher's need, in particular when emotion is indeed a primary factor. Given the above, we define three concepts, called emotion need, emotion object and emotion relevance, and present a conceptual map that utilises these concepts in IR tasks and scenarios.

In order to investigate the practical concepts such as emotion object and emotion relevance in a real-life application, we first study the possibility of extracting emotion from text, since this is the first pragmatic challenge to be solved before any IR task can be tackled. For this purpose, we developed a text-based emotion extraction system and demonstrate that it outperforms other available emotion extraction approaches.

Using the developed emotion extraction system, the usefulness of the practical concepts mentioned above is studied in two scenarios: movie recommendation and news diversification.

In the movie recommendation scenario, two collaborative filtering (CF) models were proposed. CF systems aim to recommend items to a user, based on the information gathered from other users who have similar interests. CF techniques do not handle data sparsity well, especially in the case of the cold start problem, where there is no past rating for an item. In order to predict the rating of an item for a given user, the first and second models rely on an extension of state-of-the-art memory-based and model-based CF systems. The features used by the models are two emotion spaces extracted from the movie plot summary and the reviews made by users, and three semantic spaces, namely, actor, director, and genre. Experiments with two MovieLens datasets show that the inclusion of emotion information significantly improves the accuracy of prediction when compared with the state-of-the-art CF techniques, and also tackles data sparsity issues.

In the news retrieval scenario, a novel way of diversifying results, i.e., diversifying based on the emotion aspect of documents, is proposed. For this purpose, two approaches are introduced to consider emotion features for diversification, and they are empirically tested on the TREC 678 Interactive Track collection. The results show that emotion features are capable of enhancing retrieval effectiveness.

Overall, this thesis shows that emotion plays a key role in IR and that its importance needs to be considered. At a more detailed level, it illustrates the crucial part that emotion can play in

• searchers, both as a primary (emotion need) and secondary factor (influential role) in an IRS
• enhancing the representation of a document using emotion features (emotion object); and finally,
• improving the effectiveness of IR systems at satisfying searchers' needs (emotion relevance).


This paper investigates the relationships between gender, sexuality and space, understood both in material and discursive terms. To this end, it brings under the spotlight Safe Zones, an anti-homophobia campaign spearheaded in 2011 and 2012 by the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. More specifically, the paper draws upon Queer Linguistics in order to deconstruct a sample of banal sexed signs, produced as part of the campaign. Essentially, the argument is that Safe Zones contributed to changing, albeit fleetingly, the character of university corridors, notice boards and office doors. The campaign brought about a sexed visual environment, one in which the invoking of specific identities went hand in hand with the highlighting of more fluid practices and processes. Because of the multimodal nature of the data, the paper argues for the need for Queer Linguistics to engage with the no less meaningful visual and material properties of public texts.


Isolated strains of HPAI H5N1 during February 2006 from infected chicken located at El-Qanater El- Khiria center, Qaluobia, Egypt were molecularly characterized and compared with those isolated strains during January 2007 from the same locality. The isolated strains from infected chicken during 2006 were closely related to strain isolated from turkeys located in Turkey at 2005 (A/ty/Turkey/1/05) and to A/Vietnam/1194/04 strain isolated from human cases of AI H5N1 and induced higher case fatality in human in Vietnam. The phylogenetic analysis of HA and NA genes of the isolated strains during 2006 revealed that, these isolates are located in Eurasia- African lineage which contains AI H5N1 strains from Egypt, Turkey, Romania, Iraq, Mongolia, Iran, Korea and Nigeria and differed from those isolated in South-Eastern of Asia which contains Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam Nam strains of AI H5N1. The phylogenetic analysis of HA, NA, and M genes of Egyptian isolates of January 2007 from the same locality showed minor antigenic variation from those of 2006 and located in a new sub-clade from Egyptian strains of 2006 and all of them located in Euro-African lineage. All 8 genes were closely related to the genes of onther Egyptian H5N1 isolates from chicken, duck, and human. The sequence of NAs did not possess any know oseltamivir resistance mutations. Also the M2 sequences did not possess amantadine resistance mutations. (Madbouly, H.M; Orkhan, M.H; Nagwa El-Kholy and Hussein, A.S. Comparative Molecular Analysis of Egyptian Strains of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) Virus H5N1 Isolated During 2006 And 2007. J Am Sci 2012;8(10):254-240). (ISSN: 1545-1003). http://www.jofamericanscience.org . 38


In many markets, firms produce and sell complementary components that form a product system. This paper studies the effects of compatibility in product advertisement and entry decisions in a differentiated product market. While advertising enhances the ability of consumers to mix and match components closer to their preferences, more advertising does not always generate larger welfare. In my model, an incumbent uses advertising to increase the prospects of market competition with the objective to deter potential entry. However, under some parameters, entry deterrence does not occur when products are made compatible. With compatible products, the incumbent either obtains large benefits from accommodation or equilibria when all consumers are aware of the existence of the available products emerge. In this latter case, the amount of advertising cannot be further expanded to protect the incumbent's monopolistic position. As a result, policies in favor of compatibility may encourage entry and generate larger levels of advertisement.


Dimesityl borinic acid, (mes)2BOH [mes = 2,4,6-Me3C6H2], has been employed as a source of boroxide ligand in lithium, zinc, and magnesium chemistry; for structural comparisons, the alkoxide ligand [OCH(mes)2]- has also been used. The lithium compounds [Li{OB(mes)2}(L)n]2 [1a, L = Et2O, n = 1; 1b, L = Py, n = 1; 1c, L = MeCN, n = 2] have been structurally characterized, showing a common bimetallic core with bridging boroxide ligands that differ in the relative rotation of the "BC2" unit about the Li2O2 metallacycle. The zinc compounds [Zn{OR}Me]2 [2, R = B(mes)2; 3, R = CH(mes)2] have been synthesized from the reaction of ZnMe2 with the corresponding ROH species. As for the Li salts, 2 and 3 display a dimeric solid-state structure with -OR ligands. Reaction of the in situ generated lithium boroxide 1a with MgBrEt2O afforded an unprecedented tetrametallic compound, [Mg{OB(mes)2}BLiBr(OEt2)2]2 (4), in which the lithium bromide side product is retained in a tricyclic structure containing a "Li(-Br)2Mg{-OB(mes)2}Mg(-Br)2Li" core. The magnesium alkyl compounds [Mg{OB(mes)2}R(THF)]2 [5, R = Me; 6, R = Bu] were obtained from the reaction of the Li salt with the Grignard reagent, MgMeBr, and protonolysis of MgBu2 with (mes)2BOH, respectively. X-ray crystallography showed formation of a dimer in each case, where in 6 only the n-butyl group was observed in the solid state. Attempts at combining the boroxide ligand with the widely used -diketiminate ligand, [HC{C(Me)NAr}2]- (BDI), at a zinc center are discussed, and a brief study into the potential of selected zinc complexes to initiate the ring-opening polymerization of -caprolactone and rac-lactide is described.


At the end of 2009, there were 33.3 million people living with HIV. In 2009, there were an estimated 2.6 million people who became newly infected with HIV. The number of annual AIDS-related deaths worldwide is steadily decreasing from the peak of 2.1 million in 2004 to an estimated 1.8 million in 2009. Sub-Saharan Africa still bears an inordinate share of the global HIV burden. In Kenya, the number of people living with HIV in 2009 was 1,500,000. The number of people receiving ART in December 2009 was 336,980. Anti-retroviral therapy (ART) coverage in Kenya according to 2010 World Health Organization's guidelines stands at 50%. In the last one year, Kenya has lost 20% of patients enrolled to HIV IAIDS treatment programs raising serious concerns about access to ARVs medication. The study therefore aimed to determine the factors influencing access to ARVs in Nairobi's Kibera slums. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted with a desired sample size of 384 study participants. Purposive sampling was used to sample seven of the busiest sites offering ART services. The sample was then distributed proportionate to size in each selected site. Systematic random sampling was then used to select the individual study participant. Data were collected using structured interview schedule and key informant interviews. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 11.5. The findings showed 54.9% of the respondents accessing ARVs. Several factors were established to hinder access to ARVs. These included the gender of the respondent (OR=0.632, 95% CI 0.4210.950, p=0.028), the distance to the ARVs delivery points (OR=5.921, 95% CI 3.710-9.447, p=O.OOOI), attitude towards the open ARVs access program (OR=0.642, 95% CI 0.4270.964, p=0.033) and knowledge to the free ARVs provision (OR=0.590, 95% CI 0.390-0.891, p=0.012). Several challenges to the open access ARVs program highlighted in the study were distance and transport difficulties, stigma, poor drug adherence, lack of funds, staff shortages, lack of drugs to treat opportunistic infections, cultural beliefs, illiteracy among patients, patient migration, lack of proper nutrition, long waiting time and transfer of counsellors. It is evident that that there were eminent factors and challenges affecting access to ARVs by HIV/AIDS patients in Kibera slum. The study therefore recommends devolvement of ARVs delivery points to increase physical access, education of the pubic about the free provision of ARV s to increase awareness and the review of the free open access program to make it more patient friendly.


The mobile telemetry system of biological parameters serves for reading and wireless data transfer of measured values of selected biological parameters to an outlying computer. It concerns basically long time monitoring of vital function of car pilot.The goal of this projects is to propose mobile telemetry system for reading, wireless transfer and processing of biological parameters of car pilot during physical and psychical stress. It has to be made with respect to minimal consumption, weight and maximal device mobility. This system has to eliminate signal noise, which is created by biological artifacts and disturbances during the data transfer.


The incorporation of drugs into phosphorylcholine (PC) polymers coated onto coronary stent surfaces is one potential method of treatment for reducing restenosis, the reclosure of the artery after angioplasty treatment. This work on the characterisation of the swelling performance of thin PC polymer films represents a further extension of the study on biocompatible polymers. The broad aim of this work is to relate the PC polymer structure and film processing conditions to their swelling, drug loading and release kinetics. As the two highly sensitive and powerful techniques in film structure determination, both ellipsometry and neutron reflection have proved to be useful in characterising PC polymer films and drug release processes. Following an established ellipsometry measurement method, a two stage process consisting of diffusion and relaxation has been observed during the PC film swelling: this suggests an anomalous mechanism, and this performance is well described by the coupled diffusion and relaxation model developed by Berens and Hopfenberg. Furthermore, the swelling of PC polymer films was investigated as a function of cross-linking, annealing temperature, chemical composition, hydrophilic/hydrophobic ratios, film thickness and environmental conditions by ellipsometry measurements, and their effects on swelling kinetics well quantified. The structures of the PC polymer films (PC100B) with cross-linking groups have been further characterised by neutron reflection. The segregation of hydrophobic and hydrophilic domains was found in the PC films with different dimensions. The PC100B with deuterated dodecyl chains was used to highlight the interfacial structures of the PC films. The hydrophilic segments, including phosphorylcholine groups and hydroxypropyl groups, are preferentially adsorbed at the polymer/substrate interface. The hydrophobic dodecyl chains are expelled away from the silicon oxide surface. The main part of PC100B films is the middle uniform region with 40% of water in the sample annealed at 150°C, and 55% of water in the sample annealed at 50°C. The combination of the ellipsometry results and the drug release profiles from UV measurements indicates that the drug release pattern is strongly affected by the film swelling kinetics when the drug molecules and polymer matrix interact weakly. Otherwise, a strong interaction between the drug and the polymer will dominate the drug release behaviour from the PC polymer films.


In this essay, I analyze Vietnamese migrant associations in Poland, which have been routinely classified as "non-governmental organizations." And yet, through their involvement in networks of relationships with a broad range of actors, including transnational connections with institutions back in Vietnam, they are in fact positioned in a liminal zone between the state and civil society. On the one hand, migrant associations are to a large extent entangled with the politics of the Vietnamese state through various channels, including the embassy, and through personal and institutional connections maintained with mass organizations such as the Fatherland Front and the Women's Union. On the other hand, they are able to retain some degree of autonomy and pluralism, remaining active agents engaged with the fraught social and political activities of Vietnamese diasporics in Poland.


Male sand lizards (Lacerta agilis) with a specific restriction fragment length polymorphism fragment in their major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genotype ('O-males') are more resistant to ectoparasites (a tick, Ixodes ricinus) than are males that lack this fragment ('NO-males'). However, emerging evidence suggests that such adaptive immune responses are costly, here manifested by reduced body condition and a compromised defence against secondary infections by haemoprotid parasites that use the ticks as vectors. Subsequent to tick encounter, O-males suffer from a higher leucocyte–erythrocyte ratio, and higher haemoprotid parasitaemia, in particular in relation to vector encounter rate. Furthermore, O-males (i.e. successful tick defenders) with more haemoprotid parasites remaining in their blood stream were in better body condition, whereas this did not apply in NO-males, demonstrating that the adaptive immunoreaction can—in the short term—be energetically even more costly than being moderately parasitized. In agreement with Zahavian handicap theory, O-males had a (marginally) higher reproductive success than males that lacked this fragment.


This study was directed towards detecting the positive and negative sides for the foreign investors while they go for direct investment in India and China. A descriptive and explorative research study has been carried out for investigating the current proposition of the concerned case of FDI in those two countries. Advantages of investing in India includes-Huge market size and a fast developing economy, availability of diversified resources and cheap labour force, increasing improvement of infrastructure, public private partnerships, IT revolution and English literacy, openness towards FDI, regulatory framework, and investment protection, where as few drawbacks likes huge section of poor and middle class, bureaucracy, power shortage and ethnic diversified are also available in the country. As far as the case of China is concern positives areas are the immense size and growth of the Chinese economy and very bright prospects, resource availability and low cost of labour force, immense development in relevant infrastructure, openness to international trade and easy access to international markets, development and alteration of the regulatory framework, investment protection and promotion. There are also few drawbacks as well like the regulator burden, hindrances in free flow of information, lack of English literacy and so on.


The histochemical and electron microscopic findings in seven cases of dermal duct tumor are described. All seven of the patients were elderly, and five were women. The tumors were small flesh-colored or red papules located most often on the head and neck region. Intense phosphorylase and moderate respiratory enzymes characterized the histochemical reaction of the tumors. The following three types of tumor cells were recognized ultrastructurally: clear, dark, and luminal. The tumor was principally composed of clear cell proliferation around a regular ductal lumen. In addition, melanocytes, Langerhans' cells, and lymphocytes were occasionally seen within the tumor masses. An intact basal lamina and few hemidesmosomes with no detectable actin-like microfilaments were the features of the tumor-stroma interface. Our study results showed that the dermal duct tumor is a benign tumor with eccrine dermal ductal differentiation.


Luteinizing hormone (LH) is mandatory for the maintenance of the corpus luteum. Ovarian stimulation for IVF has been associated with a defective luteal phase. The luteal phases of two groups of patients with normal menstrual cycles and no endocrinological cause of infertility were retrospectively analysed in IVF cycles. Thirty-one infertile patients stimulated with human menopausal gonadotrophins (HMG) for IVF to whom the gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonist Cetrorelix 0.25 mg was also administered to prevent the LH surge (group I) were compared with 31 infertile patients stimulated with HMG alone (group II). Despite differences in the stimulation outcome, luteal LH serum concentrations were similar in the two groups. LH values dropped from 2.3 +/- 1 IU/l on the day of human chorionic gonadotrophin (HCG) administration to 1.1 +/- 0.7 IU/l on day HCG +2 in group I (P < 0.0001) and from 5.1 +/- 3 to 1.2 +/- 1.7 IU/l (P < 0.0001) in group II. In the mid-luteal phase, LH concentrations were low in both groups. Our results suggest that suppressed LH concentrations in the early and mid-luteal phase may not be attributed solely to the GnRH-antagonist administration. Pituitary LH secretion may be inhibited by supraphysiological steroid serum concentrations via long-loop feedback and/or by the central action of the exogenously administered HCG via a short-loop mechanism.


This paper discusses the different options that the Zimbabwean economy can adopt in order to eventually re-introduce its local currency so as to benefit from the use of our own local currency. This is done through reviewing the cases of countries that de-dollarised their economies after having dollarised due to hyperinflation; a situation that Zimbabwe also went through. An exploration of the different options adopted in different countries was done and recommendations were drawn for the Zimbabwean economy. Two main options were found to have been adopted in other countries. The first one is a hands-on approach or an administrative approach which involves forcing back the local currency through prudential regulation aimed at building credibility of the introduced local currency without causing disintermediation. A review of literature reveals that only a few countries have managed to successfully de-dollarised their economies using this route. The second method adopted to de-dollarise is the hands-off approach or a market based de-dollarisation which is based on good macroeconomic performance and a successful disinflation programme. Most countries that adopted this approach have shown significant successes in de-dollarisation; notable success stories being that of Israel, Poland and Egypt. It is therefore against this background that we recommend that Zimbabwe follows a market based approach to de-dollarisation which becomes an endogenous outcome of sound macroeconomic performance. A review of Zimbabwe's macroeconomic framework also indicates that more needs to be achieved on major macroeconomic variables before de-dollarisation is considered an option. The paper also recommends no distinct time frame for de-dollarisation as this is dependent on macroeconomic performance and economic stability.


Purpose: New therapies are urgently needed for patients with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). The novel NEDDylation inhibitor MLN4924 (pevonedistat) has demonstrated significant preclinical antileukemic activity and preliminary efficacy in patients with AML in a phase I trial. On the basis of its antimyeloid and DNA-damaging properties, we investigated the ability of MLN4924 to augment conventional cytarabine (ara-C) therapy. Experimental Design: The effects of MLN4924/ara-C on viability, clonogenic survival, apoptosis, DNA damage, and relevant pharmacodynamic targets were determined. The efficacy and pharmacodynamics of MLN4924/ara-C were assessed in an AML xenograft model. Results: Cotreatment of AML cell lines and primary patient specimens with MLN4924 and ara-C led to diminished clonogenic survival, increased apoptosis, and synergistic levels of DNA damage. RNAi demonstrated that stabilization of CDT-1, an event previously shown to mediate the DNA-damaging effects of MLN4924, was not a key regulator of sensitivity to the MLN4924/ara-C combination. Global metabolic profiling revealed that MLN4924 disrupts nucleotide metabolism and depletes intracellular nucleotide pools in AML cells. Subsequent experiments showed that MLN4924 promoted increased incorporation of ara-C into the DNA of AML cells. This effect as well as the therapeutic benefit of the MLN4924/ara-C combination was antagonized by supplementation with the nucleotide building block ribose. Coadministration of MLN4924 and ara-C to mice bearing FLT3-ITD+ AML xenografts stably inhibited disease progression and increased DNA damage in vivo. Conclusions: Our findings provide strong rationale for clinical investigation of the MLN4924/ara-C combination and establish a new link between therapeutic inhibition of NEDDylation and alterations in nucleotide metabolism. Clin Cancer Res; 21(2); 439–47. ©2014 AACR.


Increased activity of multinational firms exposes national corporate tax bases to cross-country profit shifting, but also leads to rising profitability of the corporate sector. We incorporate these two effects of economic integration into a simple political economy model where the median voter decides on a redistributive income tax rate. In this setting economic integration may raise or lower the equilibrium tax rate, and it is more likely to raise the tax rate of a low-tax country. The implications of the model are consistent with the empirical observations that effective corporate tax rates have not fallen in all OECD countries, and that corporate tax revenues have generally risen.


Land leveling is one of the most important steps in soil preparation for agricultural and other purposes. . New techniques based on artificial intelligence, such as Artificial Neural Network, integrating Artificial Neural Network and Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA-ANN), or Genetic Algorithms (GA-ANN), or Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO-ANN) have been employed for developing predictive models to estimate the energy related parameters and the results were compared to SPSS and Sensitivity Analysis  results. In this study, several soil properties such as cut/fill volume, compressibility factor, specific gravity, moisture content, slope of the area, sand percent, and swelling index were measured and their effects on energy consumption were investigated. Totally 90 samples were collected from 3 land areas by grid size of 20m×20m. The aim of this work was to develop predictive models based on artificial intelligence techniques to predict the environmental indicators of land leveling . Results of sensitivity analysis illustrated that only three parameters consist of soil density, soil compressibility, and soil cut/fill volume had meaningful effects on energy consumption.  Among the proposed methods, the GA-ANN had the most capability in prediction of the environmental energy parameters. However, for prediction of LE and FE the ANN and ICA-ANN algorithms had better performance. On the other hand, SPSS software had higher R 2 value than Minitab software and sensitivity analysis and in fact close to the ANN values. Keywords: Energy; Imperialist competitive algorithm; Sensitivity analysis; ANN; Land levelling; Environmental indicators.


This paper explores the debate and initiatives concerning the use of information technology (IT) in primary health care in developing countries. The literature from 1992-2002 was identified from searches of the MEDLINE, Latin American and Caribbean Health Science Literature Database (LILACS), Cochrane Library and Web of Science databases. The search identified 884 references, 350 of which were classified according to the scheme described by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). For the analysis of advantages, problems and perspectives of IT applications and systems, 52 articles were selected according to their potential contribution to the primary health-care processes in non-developed countries. These included: 10 on electronic patient registries (EPR), 22 on process and programmatic action evaluation and management systems (PPAEM) and 20 on clinical decision-support systems (CDS). The main advantages, limitations and perspectives are discussed.


Arrays of asymmetric Permalloy nanorings with a decentered inner hole are studied by broadband inductive spectroscopy in the gigahertz range. The spectra display a set of characteristic spin-wave eigenmodes. We find that these eigenmodes probe the absolute vortex circulation direction of a ring. The eigenmode spectra and the signal strengths provide evidence that the asymmetric rings in the large array exhibit an ordered vortex circulation state. The degree of ordering is better than 97%. Micromagnetic simulations reveal that the circulation control is achieved by suppression of domain-wall propagation as the switching mechanism. The deterministic vortex circulation is an important prerequisite for the application of rings in magnetoelectronics.


This chapter describes an emergent jurisprudence and a residual economics that converge to support the reconceptualization of U.S. patent policy as a competition regime. Its approach is inspired by an opinion that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court some twenty years ago. The Court's recent patent jurisprudence sounds an echo of the opinion, which described the foundation of patent policy this way: "[F]ree exploitation of ideas will be the rule, to which the protection of a federal patent is the exception." There is, Justice O'Connor explained, a "baseline of free competition upon which the patent system's incentive to creative effort depends." The chapter develops this proposition in three sections. The first explicates the economics of incentive theory, both its limits and its residual value. The second analyzes the jurisprudence of recent decisions by the Supreme Court and Federal Circuit Court of Appeals – the speciality court for patent and trademark. The third section presents some instances of progressive change that would come of extending the re-conception of the patent system as fundamentally a competition regime, an extension inspired by Justice O'Connor's image but informed by the failure of incentive theory as the economic logic for patent protection.


The members of the East Africa Royal Commission, 1953-55, drew attention in their Report1 to the Kilombero valley region of south-central Tanganyika as an agricultural zone of high potential. The extensive area of fertile land was at that time virtually undeveloped, but several major projects have subsequently been established, and investigations have shown that future agricultural expansion on a scale unprecedented in Tanganyika would be both technically possible and economically advantageous.


In diamond cutting of optical glasses, the magnitude of critical depth of cut for brittle-ductile transition is an important factor affecting the machinability of the work material in terms of production rate and surface quality. In this work, scratching tests with increasing depths of cut were conducted on glass BK7 to evaluate the influence of the cutting fluid properties on the critical depth of cut. Boric acid solutions of different concentrations were selected as cutting fluids in the tests. The resulting scratches were examined utilizing a white light interferometer and the values of the critical depth of cut were determined based on the observations of the micro-morphology of the scratch surfaces produced. Experimental results indicated that compared with the process without cutting fluid action, the critical depth of cut in diamond cutting of glass BK7 can be increased by using boric acid solution as the cutting fluid.


This paper presents an overview of visual programming environment named Splish which enables an icon-based visual programming to develop a program which runs on a microcontroller board family called Arduino which is a popular platform for physical computing. A user program can be developed visually on a PC side, and the compiled code will be transferred to the microcontroller board so that runtime environment of Splish can execute the complied code by interpreting the machine instructions of a simple virtual stack machine. This functional distribution allows the interactive debugging when the microcontroller board is connected to a PC. Because physical computing attracts wide variety of people including non-specialists and students, the visual programming and the interactive debugging capabilities of Splish will accelerate their physical computing experiences. Splish is developed with JavaFX to achieve platform independence.


Abstract Elemental distributions in a magnetic multilayer system with the structure Si substrate/Ta/NiFe/Ru/CoFeB/Ru/NiFe were studied using atom probe tomography (APT) along different analysis directions. The distributions of Ru and B atoms, which require a high evaporation field, were strongly influenced by the APT analysis direction. In particular, B in the CoFeB layer appeared near the interface with the lower Ru layer when the analysis was anti-parallel to the film growth direction, while B atoms were observed at the other side of the CoFeB layer when the analysis was parallel to the film growth direction. Moreover, when the analysis was perpendicular to the film growth direction, a homogenous distribution of B atoms was found within the CoFeB layer. Owing to this B behavior, the underlying Ru layer was affected in both of these analysis directions. In APT measurements of such a multilayer system composed of a stack of different evaporation field materials, evaluation of the elemental distribution around interfaces should be performed from more than one analysis direction.


I review the development of direct N‐body codes at Cambridge over nearly 40 years, highlighting the main stepping stones. The first code (NBODY1) was based on the simple concepts of a force polynomial combined with individual time steps, where numerical problems due to close encounters were avoided by a softened potential. Fortuitously, the elegant Kustaanheimo‐Stiefel two‐body regularization soon permitted small star clusters to be studied (NBODY3). Subsequent extensions to unperturbed three‐body and four‐body regularization proved beneficial in dealing with multiple interactions. Investigations of larger systems became possible with the Ahmad‐Cohen neighbor scheme which was used more than 20 years ago for expanding universe models of 4000 galaxies (NBODY2). Combining the neighbor scheme with the regularization procedures enabled more realistic star clusters to be considered (NBODY5). After a period of simulations with no apparent technical progress, chain regularization replaced the treatment of compact subsystems (NBODY3, NBODY5). More recently, the Hermite integration method provided a major advance and has been implemented on the special‐purpose HARP computers (NBODY4) together with an alternative version for workstations and supercomputers (NBODY6). These codes also include a variety of algorithms for stellar evolution based on fast lookup functions. The treatment of primordial binaries contains efficient procedures for chaotic two‐body motion as well as tidal circularization, and special attention is paid to hierarchical systems and their stability. This family of N‐body codes constitutes a powerful tool for dynamical simulations which is freely available to the astronomical community, and the massive effort owes much to collaborators.


We take the view that, as understood from a thoroughly democratic standpoint, revolutions need not be "uncontainable and disorderly occurrences that resist confinement". Instead, we insist that it is better and feasible to think of certain revolutions as being part and parcel of a vigorous democratic culture and sensibility. Indeed, we contend that a democratic revolution can not only occur "when challengers self-consciously adopt non-constitutional means to transform the state with the consent of their fellow citizens", but also when challengers self-consciously adopt and use constitutional means to transform the state. For us, there is no sharp or enduring distinction between some revolutions and constitutional changes: a robust democracy will incorporate constitutional means by which to facilitate periodic revolutions. In this sense, we follow through on Albert's claim that "there can be no higher authorizing force than citizens themselves" and take even more seriously than he does "the promise of revolution as the most noble civic ambition". To paraphrase de Tocqueville, there is no need in a true democracy to invent the end of revolution as it becomes a continuing and integral part of democratic arrangements themselves. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part is devoted to explaining how democratic revolutions can be profitably understood as exercises of constituent power unmediated by any particular way of proceeding; reference will be made to contemporary developments in global politics. The second part contends that the democratic legitimacy of a revolution does not depend only on whether it was supported by citizens or on whether the regime it creates governs in the name of the citizenry, but also on whether it attempts re-produce its democratic impulse through a 'weak' constitutional order that contains participatory procedures for its own transformation. Finally, in the third part, we defend the radical proposal that an unconditional commitment to democracy implies that revolutionary-initiated constitutions should leave the door open for future exercises of constituent power or, what is the same thing, for future democratic revolutions. Throughout, we develop and stand by an account of democracy as both a theory and practice that re-orders the traditional relationship between constitutionalism and democracy.


Artificial intelligence (AI) has undergone a renaissance recently, making major progress in key domains such as vision, language, control, and decision-making. This has been due, in part, to cheap data and cheap compute resources, which have fit the natural strengths of deep learning. However, many defining characteristics of human intelligence, which developed under much different pressures, remain out of reach for current approaches. In particular, generalizing beyond one's experiences--a hallmark of human intelligence from infancy--remains a formidable challenge for modern AI.
The following is part position paper, part review, and part unification. We argue that combinatorial generalization must be a top priority for AI to achieve human-like abilities, and that structured representations and computations are key to realizing this objective. Just as biology uses nature and nurture cooperatively, we reject the false choice between "hand-engineering" and "end-to-end" learning, and instead advocate for an approach which benefits from their complementary strengths. We explore how using relational inductive biases within deep learning architectures can facilitate learning about entities, relations, and rules for composing them. We present a new building block for the AI toolkit with a strong relational inductive bias--the graph network--which generalizes and extends various approaches for neural networks that operate on graphs, and provides a straightforward interface for manipulating structured knowledge and producing structured behaviors. We discuss how graph networks can support relational reasoning and combinatorial generalization, laying the foundation for more sophisticated, interpretable, and flexible patterns of reasoning. As a companion to this paper, we have released an open-source software library for building graph networks, with demonstrations of how to use them in practice.


A wireless ad-hoc network is a collection of nodes that are dynamically and arbitrarily located in such a manner that the interconnections between each node are capable of changing on a continual basis. In this paper, we provide a novel way to improve node interconnects without changing the overall network topology by allowing nodes to have limited mobility. Received signal strength (RSS) measurements are recorded from neighboring nodes as the node makes small changes in position. This allows the node to move out of fades due to multi-path or shadowing, and is a form of selection diversity that requires only a single antenna. This algorithm is tested using a full 3-D ray tracing propagation model as well as physical measurements in an indoor scenario.


A total of fiften (15) protein sequence of Chlamydia abortus ( C abortus ) were retrieved from the GenBank ( www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ).The phyco-chemical properties of C abortus proteins were performed using protparam tool. The isoelectric point (pI), extinction coefficient (EC); instability index (II), aliphatic index (AI) and grand average of hydropathicity (GRAVY) were also computed. The study revealed that the pI value of C abortus protein showed that some were basic (>7) nature and acidic ( 100 which indicates thermally stable. The GRAVY of all the protein were negative (hydrophilic). The amino acid composition of C abortus proteins indicated high in serine and threonine which are hydroxyl amino acid which is non reactive and can play a role in substrate recognition.. The prediction of secondary structure was performed using SOPMA. The proteins are more of random coil structure then followed by alpha helix. Phyre2 server was used to predict the 3D structure of C abortus proteins. Molecular analysis should be carry out to substantiate this findings.


The purpose of this microethnographic qualitative study was to explore the nature of international cross-cultural travel experiences as articulated by U.S. secondary teachers, through in-depth personal interviews and personal self-reflections. The purposive sample included eight licensed secondary teachers from a rural high school in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, who had traveled internationally with each having more than 16 years of teaching experience. Through the two interviews and reflective journal entries of each participant, I explored the nature of international cross-cultural travel experiences: (1) how did participants describe their international cross-cultural travel experiences; (2) what did international cross-cultural travel experiences mean to the participant; and (3) what did teachers self-report about how their crosscultural travel experiences have shaped them as teachers. I used a three-stage strategy of coding with initial, focused, and thematic analyses of the 125 pages of transcripts. I found 37 themes during this time that were repeated or similar in nature to at least two or more of the participants. At the completion of identifying themes, I moved to focused coding, where I collapsed the 37 themes into like categories. In this process, I created a spreadsheet with the 37 themed categories and then collapsed them into 13 categories. The final step involved thematic analyses, a process that looked for similarities, patterns, and uniqueness in both the transcript and the spreadsheet and seven themes emerged. As a result of my research I found eight findings. First, secondary teachers travel out of curiosity. Second, pre-travel arrangements and philosophy of travel directly impact participants' experiences. Third, international cross-cultural experiences of cultures much different from their own allowed participants a greater understanding of the minority experience. Fourth, international cross-cultural experiences promoted transformational learning as participants examined their perspectives. Fifth, international cross-cultural


Capital punishment has generated an incredible amount of public debate. Is the practice constitutional? Does it deter crime? Is it humane? Supporters and opponents of capital punishment disagree on all of these issues and many more. There is perhaps only one thing that unites these two camps: the belief that the death penalty is society's most severe punishment.In this Article, I argue that this belief is mistaken. Capital punishment is not at the top of the punishment hierarchy. In fact, it is no punishment at all. My argument builds from a basic conception of punishment endorsed by the Supreme Court: for something to qualify as a punishment, it must be bad, in some way, for the person who is punished. By drawing upon the philosophical literature regarding death, I show that this is not the case. Contrary to our intuitions, the death penalty is not bad, in any way, for a condemned criminal.This conclusion should not be understood to suggest that death is never bad. In most circumstances, death is bad. There are, however, situations in which it is not, and capital punishment, as employed in the United States penal system, is one such situation. By showing that capital punishment is not bad for the condemned criminal, I provide a strong constitutional objection to the practice.


Study Design. A retrospective case series. Objective. To propose a novel treatment strategy for chronic atlantoaxial rotatory fixation (AARF). Summary of Background Data. Treatment strategy for chronic or recurrent AARF remains controversial. We have previously reported that a deformity of the superior facet of the axis (C2 facet deformity), which is frequently observed in patients with chronic AARFs, is a risk factor for recurrent dislocation. In this article, we report seven consecutive cases of chronic AARF who underwent closed manipulation followed by external halo fixation and maintained good reduction with the remodeling of the C2 facet deformity. Methods. Seven girls with a chronic AARF who sustained torticollis for an average of 4.6 months after the onset were referred to our clinic. Closed manipulation by careful manipulation under general anesthesia followed by external immobilization with a halo vest was performed in all cases. Radiographic findings and clinical courses were retrospectively reviewed with approvals by the institutional review board. Results. Three-dimensional computed tomography images before reduction revealed persistent atlantoaxial subluxation and the C2 facet deformity in the dislocated side in all cases. Follow-up three-dimensional computed tomographic scans demonstrated the remodeling of the C2 facet deformity at an average of 2.8 months after successful reduction of subluxation. Subsequently, the halo vests were removed and gentle neck range of motion exercise was started in all cases. The normal cervical range of motion was obtained 2 weeks after the removal of halo vests in five cases, whereas the range of motion remained limited in two cases. At a mean follow-up of 17.4 months, neither symptoms nor recurrence of subluxation occurred in all cases. Conclusion. Chronic irreducible and recurrent unstable AARF can be managed successfully by careful closed manipulation followed by halo fixation, if the C1 and C2 have not been osseously fused. The remodeling of the C2 facet deformity detected on follow-up CT scans can be a useful radiographic parameter to determine the appropriate period of halo fixation in this new treatment strategy obviating the need for surgical intervention.


The grating and prism compressors are studied for the case of finite beam size by using the Kirchhoff–Fresnel integral and an amplitude transfer operator for the grating and prism. The results show that, even for well-collimated beams, pulse broadening may occur (mainly because of the wavelength dependence of the lateral walk-off). Methods to avoid the different types of distortions appearing in these systems are discussed.


Since the 1930s, industrial sociologists have tried to answer the question, Why do workers not work harder? Michael Burawoy spent ten months as a machine operator in a Chicago factory trying to answer different but equally important questions: Why do workers work as hard as they do? Why do workers routinely consent to their own exploitation? "Manufacturing Consent," the result of Burawoy's research, combines rich ethnographical description with an original Marxist theory of the capitalist labor process. "Manufacturing Consent" is unique among studies of this kind because Burawoy has been able to analyze his own experiences in relation to those of Donald Roy, who studied the same factory thirty years earlier. Burawoy traces the technical, political, and ideological changes in factory life to the transformations of the market relations of the plant (it is now part of a multinational corporation) and to broader movements, since World War II, in industrial relations.


Forward modeling is an important part of understanding controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) responses. The diffusive term in the electromagnetic wave equation is dominant over the displacement term at these frequencies. It is the diffusive behavior that makes it difficult to imagine the actual propagation of the signal. An important tool in gaining experience therefore is forward modeling, and lots of it. The advantage of one-dimensional (1D) forward modeling, besides its speed, is to study isolated effects (see for instance Key, 2009): What is the influence of resistivity anisotropy, or of fine-scale resistivity variations? What is the influence of the airwave? With 1D modeling you can quickly study these effects in isolation before you go on to more complex models in higher dimensions. For an introduction to CSEM for hydrocarbon exploration see, for instance, Constable (2010).


This study aimed to test the effectiveness of a "guarding net", a device placed at the bottom of a trammel net, for reducing unwanted catches in the caramote prawn trammel net fishery of the Ligurian Sea. This specialized and profitable fishery is affected by unwanted catches that generate high discard rates and damage to the nets, with environmental impacts and costs for fishermen. The experimental study consisted in comparing the catches of a standard trammel net (STN) with those of two "experimental" trammel nets, e.g. STNs provided with a guarding net of 19 cm (TGN20) and 24 cm height (TGN25), respectively. The guarding net, a strip of gillnet placed at the bottom of the net, can be considered a by-catch reducer device (BRD). Some fishermen of the investigated fishery have been using this device for several years. The results of the 15 experimental fishing trials performed from June to July 2016 indicate that the guarding nets significantly reduce discards (e.g. crabs and other invertebrates); the biomass of the unwanted species caught was 75% lower than that produced by the STN. The catch rates of the target species obtained with TGN20 and TGN25 were also significantly lower than those of the STN, though of a lesser amount. Nonetheless, this economic loss can be compensated by the decrease in sorting time and material and labour costs that can be achieved using the guarding net.


Abstract Aqueous chemistry methods assessed the kinetic reactivity and reduction capacity of fracture-filling minerals from a granitic groundwater environment at the Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory, a field station for research and development into the geological disposal of spent nuclear fuel. Naturally occurring fracture filling reacted with oxygenated test solutions of known composition in recirculating batch reactors. The loss of O2(aq) with time was consistent with second-order reaction kinetics where O2(aq) is consumed through reduction by reaction with structural Fe(II) at the surface of the fracture minerals. Values of the second-order rate constant (k, l mole-1 h-1) varied between experiments within the range 1.7 < log k < 2.9 and values for the total concentration of reducing sites as a measure of the reduction capacity of the mineral (St, mole g-1) varied within the range 8.5×10-5 < St < 4.3×10-4. Values for the rate constant are somewhat less than those published previously for reaction between O2(aq) and Fe(II) surface complexes; i.e. structural Fe(II) appears to be less reactive than adsorbed Fe(II)(aq) but is significantly more reactive than Fe2+. Values of the rate constant did not depend on release of network ions from the reacting minerals, and did not vary significantly with pH, mineral mass, specific surface area or mineral Fe(II) content. Oxidative weathering of sulphide minerals does not occur to any measurable extent. When corrected to rock/water ratios for granite aquifers, the rate constants correspond to a half-life for O2(aq) onthe order of seconds indicating an essentially instantaneous reaction on repository time scales. Comparison of reducing capacity for the fracture fillings and oxidizing capacity for groundwater saturated with O2(aq) indicates that oxidizing fronts within the geological barrier would travel ~4000 times more slowly than the velocity of groundwater flow.


Anthropology of Violence has only recently developed into a field of research in its own right and as such it is still fairly fragmented. Anthropology of Violence and Conflict seeks to redress this fragmentation and develop a method of cross-cultural analysis. The study of important conflicts, such as wars in Sarajevo, Albania and Sri Lanka as well as numerous less publicised conflicts, all aim to create a theory of violence as cross-culturally applicable as possible. Most importantly this volume uses the anthropology of violence as a tool to help in the possible prevention of violence and conflict in the world today.


Published to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Culloden, an account of the life of Bonnie Prince Charlie, of his childhood and upbringing, his claim to the throne he thought was rightfully his, of the Battle of Culloden and of his escape to the Highlands. First published in 1995 and now available in paperback.


Background: Photography is one of the most objective methods in the clinical evaluation of acne. To standardize the quality of photographs, it is essential to standardize variables including focus distance, exposure time, posture and removal of flash glare but this is still insufficient. Cross polarizing photography (CPP) with a stereotactic device (STD) is a possible solution. Objective: This study was conducted to determine the feasibility of photographic assessment using CPP with STD instead of direct inspection in Korean acne patients. Methods: Sixty patients with acne (mean age=23.4, M=29, F=31) were enrolled in this study. Pictures using CPP with STD were taken three times during a 4-week period. Inflamed acne lesions that were counted at each visit were compared to the photographic assessment in a double-blind manner. To assess the quality of the picture, conventional photographs using a digital camera were also taken. Results: The coefficient of correlation between direct lesional counting and photographic counting was 0.80. Photographic counting showed slightly higher results than direct counting. There was also a high coefficient of correlation (ranging from 0.78 to 0.85) among the inter-rater correlation which was 0.92. Photographs taken by CPP with STD showed an excellent quality in evaluating inflamed lesions of acne. Reduced glare and exact posture allowed for the detection of subtle lesions, that could not be seen in conventional pictures. Conclusion: Photography using CPP with STD is an objective, convenient and reproducible method for Korean acne patients. This method can be applied in evaluation of therapeutic response in clinics and clinical studies. (Korean J Dermatol 2007;45(8):778∼784)


Ongoing anthropogenic alterations of the biosphere have shifted emphasis in conservation biology from individual species to entire ecosystems. Modern measures of ecosystem change, however, lack the extended temporal scales necessary to forecast future change under increasingly stressful environmental conditions. Accordingly, the assessment and reconstruction of ecosystem dynamics during previous intervals of environmental stress and climate change in deep time has garnered increasing attention. The nature of the fossil record, though, raises questions about the difficulty of reconstructing paleocommunity and paleoecosystem-level dynamics. In this study, we assess the reliability of such reconstructions by simulating the fossilization of a highly threatened and disturbed modern ecosystem, a Caribbean coral reef. Using a high-resolution coral reef food web from Jamaica, we compare system structures of the modern and simulated fossil reefs, including guild richness and evenness, trophic level distribution, predator dietary breadth, food chain lengths, and modularity. Results indicate that despite the loss of species, guilds, and trophospecies interactions, particularly zooplankton and other soft-bodied organisms, the overall guild diversity, structure, and modularity of the reef ecosystem remained intact. These results have important implications for the integrity of fossil food web studies and coral reef conservation, demonstrating that fossil reef communities can be used to understand reef community dynamics during past regimes of environmental change.