Symbolic model checking algorithms like IC3 have proven to be an effective technique for hardware model checking. Extensions to software model checking have been suggested and implemented and seem promising so far. However, using symbolic model checking algorithms for the specification languages B and Event-B is complicated. This is due to their high-level nature, which accounts for complex constraints. While some problems can be coped with by modifications to the algorithms, others relate to the heart of our tools: the constraint solver.


Epidermal growth factor receptor signaling controls the activity of Wnt and Notch pathways by regulating endosomal trafficking. Endocytosis plays complex roles in Notch signaling, with endocytosis of the signal-producing cell contributing to activation of the receptor in the signal-receiving cell; the activated receptor is also endocytosed by the receiving cell, which contributes to signaling. Endocytosis is also important for Wnt [known as Wingless (Wg) in flies] signaling, with Wg, its receptor Frizzled, and downstream signaling components colocalizing in endosomes. Nagaraj and Banerjee describe a mechanism by which signaling in flies by receptor tyrosine kinase pathways, specifically EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor), regulates Wg and Notch signaling at endosomes (see Shilo for commentary). The gene encoding phyllopod (Phyl) is stimulated by EGFR signaling, and Phyl has a reported function of promoting the degradation of a transcriptional repressor, Tramtrack (ttk). Nagaraj and Banerjee report a new function for Phyl in promoting delivery of Wg and Notch from early endosomes to lysosomes in the developing fly eye. The Notch intracellular domain, the Notch ligand Delta, and Wg accumulated in punctate vesicles in the developing eyes of phyl mutants. The phenotypes of the phyl mutants were the same as those produced by overexpression of Delta—loss of photoreceptor cells R1, R6, and R7 and overspecification of nonneuronal cells. In the phyl mutant eyes, Wg and Notch colocalized with early endosomal markers and failed to reach lysosomes. Ttk is not involved in the endosomal trafficking defect observed in the phyl mutant cells. Forced expression of activated EGFR, forced expression of activated Ras (downstream of EGFR), or forced expression of Phyl restored proper cell specification in a background of constitutively activated Notch, thus confirming the connection between EGFR, Phyl, and Notch. Eye phenotypes associated with excessive EGFR activity were phenocopied by forced expression of Phyl and, in cells in which temperature-sensitive EGFR was expressed, Wg accumulated in endocytic vesicles. Thus, one way that EGFR signaling controls Notch and Wg activity is by promoting their delivery to lysosomes through the induction of the gene encoding Phyl. R. Nagaraj, U. Banerjee, Regulation of Notch and Wingless signalling by phyllopod, a transcriptional target of the EGFR pathway. EMBO J. 28, 337–346 (2009). [PubMed] B.-Z. Shilo, Phyllopod at the intersection of developmental signalling pathways. EMBO J. 28, 311–312 (2009). [PubMed]


South Taranaki region has a number of active faults that show surface expression in the younger and harder materials near the coast and central volcanoes of the North Island, but these traces finish abruptly inland when they cross into older, heavily eroded, mudstone and sandstone. Current methods to locate surface evidence of active faults (i.e. geomorphic interpretation of stereographic aerial photography) are not fully successful in this region. Erosion occurs here at a greater rate than surface rupture of faults which causes the removal of surface expression, and/or dense tree cover obscures surface expression. International studies of tectonic activity in eroded landscapes have identified geomorphic indices as useful reconnaissance tools to locate active faults. This research applies geomorphic indices to the Taranaki region for the first time. Four indices are tested; stream length-gradient index, stream channel sinuosity, hypsometry and drainage basin asymmetry. Results are obtained by applying the indices to four freely available national Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) of differing resolutions. This allowed comparison between DEMs, providing the ability to test DEM quality and at what scale geomorphic indices could be applied to these freely available data. Results show that the geomorphic indices used can identify changes to the equilibrium state at a catchment and stream channel scales. However, the myriad of physical processes occurring at a range of temporal scales within this area make identification of a tectonic signature a challenging task. Conclusive examples of tectonic processes are evident and analysis suggests that these examples are likely to be due to recent or large fault ruptures. There are many areas where a tectonic influence to the equilibrium state of a stream or catchment can be inferred. These areas could then be targeted for detailed geophysical or ground based geological studies. Furthermore, the comparison of results from the four DEMs highlights a range of issues with DEM collection methods and resolution. This study concludes that geomorphic indices can provide an effective method to locate evidence of recent and large faulting events. However, this type of analysis is hindered by the resolution of available digital elevation data.


Recursive-RANSAC: A Novel Algorithm for Tracking Multiple Targets in Clutter Peter C. Niedfeldt Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, BYU Doctor of Philosophy Multiple target tracking (MTT) is the process of identifying the number of targets present in a surveillance region and the state estimates, or track, of each target. MTT remains a challenging problem due to the NP-hard data association step, where unlabeled measurements are identified as either a measurement of an existing target, a new target, or a spurious measurement called clutter. Existing techniques suffer from at least one of the following drawbacks: divergence in clutter, underlying assumptions on the number of targets, high computational complexity, time-consuming implementation, poor performance at low detection rates, and/or poor track continuity. Our goal is to develop an efficient MTT algorithm that is simple yet effective and that maintains track continuity enabling persistent tracking of an unknown number of targets. A related field to tracking is regression analysis, where the parameters of static signals are estimated from a batch or a sequence of data. The random sample consensus (RANSAC) algorithm was developed to mitigate the effects of spurious measurements, and has since found wide application within the computer vision community due to its robustness and efficiency. The main concept of RANSAC is to form numerous simple hypotheses from a batch of data and identify the hypothesis with the most supporting measurements. Unfortunately, RANSAC is not designed to track multiple targets using sequential measurements. To this end, we have developed the recursive-RANSAC (R-RANSAC) algorithm, which tracks multiple signals in clutter without requiring prior knowledge of the number of existing signals. The basic premise of the R-RANSAC algorithm is to store a set of RANSAC hypotheses between time steps. New measurements are used to either update existing hypotheses or generate new hypotheses using RANSAC. Storing multiple hypotheses enables R-RANSAC to track multiple targets. Good tracks are identified when a sufficient number of measurements support a hypothesis track. The complexity of R-RANSAC is shown to be squared in the number of measurements and stored tracks, and under moderate assumptions R-RANSAC converges in mean to the true states. We apply R-RANSAC to a variety of simulation, camera, and radar tracking examples.


Background. Flt-1 is secreted by various cells and elevated concentrations are present in preeclampsia affecting vascular function. Microparticles from these cells may expose Flt-1. We evaluated whether Flt-1 is microparticle-associated in preeclampsia, and established the origin of Flt-1-exposing microparticles. Methods. The concentration of Flt-1 was measured in samples from preeclamptic patients, pregnant and nonpregnant women by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Microparticles were analyzed by flow cytometry. Western blot determined the different forms of Flt-1. Results. Noncell bound Flt-1 was elevated in preeclampsia compared to controls. A fraction (5%) was associated with microparticles in preeclampsia. Flt-1-exposing microparticles were increased in preeclampsia compared to normotensive pregnancy (p = 0.02). Full-length Flt-1, was identified in microparticles of platelet and placental origin. Conclusion. Full-length Flt-1 is associated with platelet and placenta-derived microparticles. Possibly, the presentation of Flt-1 on the membrane of a microparticle might alter its function, particularly if it acts in synergism with other exposed vasoactive molecules.


Adolescent girls and boys use online networking sites differently, and girls have a higher risk of being harmed by non-adaptive use. The aim of the study was to assess the extent to which adolescents portray themselves according to gender stereotypes on their Facebook profiles. Participants were 623 Facebook users of both sexes who responded to the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and the Personal Well-being Index (PWI). In the first step, the adolescents responded to the BSRI with respect to how they view a typical adult in terms of gender stereotypes. In the second step, half of them responded to the BSRI with respect to how they view themselves and the other half responded with respect to their self-presentation on Facebook. The results show that adolescents consider themselves to be less sexually differentiated than a typical adult of their own sex, both in their self-perception and their self-portrayal on Facebook. The study confirms that the psychological well-being of girls decreases considerably with age and that it is associated with a greater degree of masculinity. We conclude that adolescents produce accurate self-representations on their Facebook profiles, and both boys and girls tend to offer a less sexually differentiated self-concept and self-portrayal than of the typical adult, with a slight preference for masculine traits; moreover, masculinity is associated with a greater degree of psychological well-being


Mucormycosis is a common pathogen infecting acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients in bone marrow suppression period after chemotherapy. Infection of mucormycosis on skin is relatively rare. In this study, we present a 7-year-old boy diagnosed as acute lymphoblastic leukemia with myeloid expression and mucormycosis infection on skin. Cutaneous mucormycosis occurred on the right forearm after chemotherapy with increasing manifestations of recurrent fever, local skin necrosis and eschar, skin temperature elevation, and swelling painful feeling of right forearm. Tissue smear examination and cell culture results showed that the patient was with mucormycosis infection. Local debridement was carried out and amphotericin B applied for anti-fungal infection treatment. Although constitutional symptom was controlled after anti-infection therapy, surrounding muscles that were affected by the local necrosis kept getting worse. Therefore, free flap transplantation was undertaken along with surgical debridement, and the patient was cured with right hand function preserved completely. Follow-up examination showed that the child entered the maintain chemotherapy stage for leukemia and the local skin was growing well without infection again. In summary, our result indicated that although mucormycosis is hazardous and fatal, early detection and treatment can significantly reduce the mortality whereas drug therapy combined with surgical treatment could further enhance the cure rate.


Chemistry and physics of mineral surfaces and interfaces are pivotal in understanding the many processes occurring in the extremely diverse domains in which mineral matter is encountered, such as geochemistry of soils and aquifers (Morse and Arvidson 2002), interaction with microbial organisms (Brown et al. 1999), catalysis (Corma 1995) and nanotechnology (Fu and Wagner 2007). The study of mineral surfaces as archetypes of surfaces of insulators mostly started twenty years ago, which is rather recent with respect to the general evolution of surface science. The likely origin of such delay, surprising given the ubiquity of mineral matter, was the difficulty in operating methods dominated by electron probes to deal with insulating substrates and to the deterrent effect of the complex chemical composition of the encountered compounds. In the burgeoning development of the analysis of mineral surfaces, techniques of investigation which belong to the well-stocked toolkit available to surface science currently involve both versatile enough traditional methods and emerging techniques that have proved relevant. Photoelectron spectroscopy, synchrotron-based diffraction and absorption are cornerstones techniques for the analysis of all surfaces, including those of mineral compounds, as well as pure photon probes which are not affected by the insulating nature of substrates, such as infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction.

In the 1990's, a strong incentive for the development of analysis of mineral surfaces came from the emergence of atomic force microscopy (AFM) which had the potential ability to probe surfaces of insulators and which is a powerful tool for the study of surface topography and structure at sub-nanometer-scale resolution (Binnig et al. 1986). Extremely flexible, the technique can be used in any condition, either vacuum or gas or liquid phases, and on any substrate. The instrument itself is of small size, commercially available, friendly to use and can be operated at …


Analyses of long-term data indicate that human-caused climatic changes are affecting bird phenology in directions consistent with theoretical predictions. Here, we report on recent trends in the timing of spring arrival and egg laying found within a western European Pied Flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca population. Mean egg laying date has advanced over the past 20 years in this population. The advancement in egg laying date was stronger than the advancement of spring arrival, suggesting that Pied Flycatchers are changing these stages of their annual cycle at different rates. It could be shown that selection for earlier breeding had increased. Hence, the observed adjustment in laying date did not match the advancement of spring. Our findings raise general questions about the adaptability of migratory birds to rapid environmental changes. Adaptive advancement of reproduction in response to increasing spring temperatures and to the concomitant advancement of food supply could be held back, because annual breeding and migration cycles are controlled primarily by endogenous rhythms and photoperiodic cues which do not relate to temperature. Migrants may have several options for arriving earlier on the breeding grounds, including an increase in migration speed, earlier departure from the wintering area or a shortening of migration distance. Changes in migratory behaviour could be accomplished either by phenotypic plasticity or by selection on different genotypes. Although descriptive field data provide compelling evidence for changes in, and possible constraints on, the timing of breeding and migration, their explanatory power in predicting the limits of adaptation remains restricted. We review recent experimental approaches, which explicitly test the relative roles of genetic versus environmental factors in the adaptation of life-cycle timing to global environmental changes.


Acoustics research involving human participants typically takes place in specialized laboratory settings. Lis-tening studies, for example, may present controlled sounds using calibrated transducers in sound-attenuating or anechoic chambers. In contrast, remote testing takes place away from the lab, in natural settings or in participants' homes. Remote testing could provide greater access to participants, larger sample sizes, and enhanced ecological validity, at the cost of reduced acoustical control, less precise calibration, and incon-sistency of participant experiences. The ASA Technical Committee on Psychological and Physiological Acoustics (P&P) launched the Task Force on Remote Testing in May 2020, with goals of (1) surveying ap-proaches and platforms available to support remote testing by ASA members, (2) identifying challenges and considerations for prospective investigators, and (3) communicating this information via online resources, papers, and presentations. Longer-term goals include identifying best practices and providing resources for evaluating outcomes of remote testing, e.g. via peer review.


textabstractSafety surveys normally focus on the influence of formal safety management (bureaucracy) on safety performances, while neglecting the impact of informal coping strategies (craftsman-ship) that are the main topic of ethnographic safety studies. Based on a survey in a Dutch en-ergy company (N=265) we show this negligence is problematic. First, the effect of formal safety management on self-reported incidents and accidents depends on informal coping strategies. It is shown that informal coping strategies facilitate formal safety management. Second, informal coping strategies influence safety performances independent of formal safety management. The perceived utilisation of tacit knowledge improves safety records (i.e. self-reported incidents and accidents) because it reduces unsafe behaviour, while perceived presence of professional discretion worsens it because it enhances unsafe behaviour. Our find-ings show that the findings of ethnographic safety studies can be incorporated fruitfully in safety surveys.


A study was conducted among marketing students to assess perceptions of their own and others' plagiarism, likelihood of being caught, and appropriate sanctions for cheating. Students admitted to having plagiarized, though overwhelmingly they believed these activities were more common among classmates. Perceptions of peer behavior was positively related to cheating, while likelihood of being caught and punishment had a negative impact on cheating behavior involving paper writing; however, likelihood of being caught did not have an impact on cheating related to tests and homework. Prescriptions for marketing educators are provided addressing preventative policies/procedure, a culture of academic integrity, teaching techniques to reduce cheating, and sanctions that motivate students to be honest.


Spectral measurements from the ground in the time leading up to the Cassini mission at Saturn provide important context for the interpretation of the forthcoming spacecraft data. Whereas ground-based observations cannot begin to approach the spatial scales Cassini will achieve, they do possess the benefits of better spectral resolution, a broader possible time baseline, and unique veiewing geometries not obtained by spacecraft (i.e., opposition). In this spirit, we present recent NIR reflectance spectra of four icy satellites of Saturn measured with the SpeX instrument at the IRTF. These measurements cover the range 0.8-4.0 µm of both the leading and trailing sides of Tethys and the leading side of Rhea. The L-band region (2.8-4.0 µm) offers new opportunities for searches of minor components on these objects. Additionally, these data include 0.8-2.5 µm spectra of both the leading and trailing sides of Mimas and of the (mostly) trailing side of Enceladus. The spectrum of Enceladus shows activity near 2.25 µm that we interpret as a possible signature of NH3 ice. The presence of ammonia in the Saturn system is not unexpected, and may help explain the apparent recent geologic activity of Enceladus. Analysis of leading/trailing differences in H2O band depths, spectral slopes, and albedo imply a separate regime of surface modification for Mimas and Enceladus than for the more distant icy satellites (Tethys, Dione, Rhea). Aside from the potential NH3 on Enceladus, no other minor constituents are detected in these icy surfaces.


The A to Z of the Mongol World Empire examines the history of the Mongol Empire, the pre-imperial era of Mongolian history that preceded it, and the various Mongol successor states that continued to dominate Eurasia long after the breakdown of Mongol unity. Divided into three parts, the first section is comprised of six introductory essays devoted to the: o Mongolia from the birth of Temujin to the establishment of a Mongol Empire in 1206 o The Mongol Empire, 1206-1260 o The successor qanate of China o Mongol Iran o Ca'adai qanate of Turkistan o Golden Horde The second section contains 865 entries with more than 600 topics including: o Persons o Institutions o Terminology o Battles o Aspects of material culture o Geographical features of importance The third section is comprised of a detailed bibliographical essay and three appendixes.


The article examines the implicit tradition of deep semiotics in Russia initiated by Gustav Shpet, a Russian philosopher of language. Shpet's semiotic approach was developed synchronously with the major lines of European and American semiotics (Saussurian and Peircean), but has not been sufficiently known or studied. The recent publication of previously unknown papers by Shpet makes this Russian philosopher an advanced figure on the Russian semiotic scene. Shpet was one of the first Russian scholars to use the term 'semiotics', by which he meant a "general ontological study of signs". Shpet used this term in his work History as a Problem of Logic as early as in 1916. Shpet's main work on semiotics, the book Language and Sense (1920s), traced back the origins of semiotic thinking and laid the foundations for new semiotics, by which he meant a science of understanding signs. It is here that Shpet spoke of the ontological study of a sign, calling this study semiotics , or else characterics , and raising the issue of the semiotic mind .


The Invention of Childhood will paint a vivid picture of the lives of children in Britain from pagan Anglo-Saxon times to the present day. Drawing heavily on primary sources, such as diaries, autobiographies, paintings, photographs and letters, the book will present a complete chronological history of the experience of children in Britain during the past 1500 years. We will learn the key elements that have shaped their lives down the ages and how this has differed as a result of gender, geography and ethnicity. The book will also relate children's lives to larger events in national and international history. Written by Hugh Cunningham the Professor of History at the Universtity of Kent at Canterbury, and an expert on childhood history - the book will accompany the Radio 4 series presented by the highly respected children's author Michael Morpurgo. Michael is contributing a lengthy foreword to the book. 'The Invention of Childhood' will expand on a number of key themes from the radio series, including the idea of childhood as a distinct stage of life. Opinions on when childhood should start and end, and how it differs from adulthood have changed considerably down the centuries. And these inventions and reinventions of childhood (hence the title) have had a profound effect on children's lives. The prolonged childhood we enjoy in Britain today was a luxury few could afford in the past. This fascinating study will draw attention to the ways in which we may find childhood and children in the past quite similar to the present and to ways in which childrens lives from the past seem to differ sharply from the lives children lead today.


Abstract Aim: The aim of this study was to explore healthcare professionals' experiences of working with extended home visits for parents. Background: It is essential to identify parents, both expectant and with a newborn child, who need support in their parenting abilities at an early stage because children's health and well-being are affected by their home environment as well as by their parents' health and social relationships. Home visits represent a cost-effective way of identifying and supporting families with a newborn. Further research is needed to explore healthcare professionals' experiences working with extended home visits for parents. Methods: This was a qualitative interview study focusing on an intervention introduced in the Enhanced Parenting—Extended Home Visits project in Sweden. Data were collected via 13 semi-structured interviews with healthcare professionals who provide the intervention in antenatal care (midwives) and child health care (CHC nurses and family supporters), and a qualitative content analysis was performed. Findings: Data analysis resulted in one theme and four categories. The theme – to provide multidimensional adapted professional support, – and the four categories – strengthened collaboration between professionals enriches their work. Home visits provide time for conversation, which promotes continuity of care and relationships with parents; being humble guests in parents' homes provides insight; and home visits provide the opportunity to strengthen parenting and participation in the family centre. The goals of the Enhanced Parenting—Extended Home Visits project were to strengthen parents' confidence in their parenting abilities and to build trusting relationships with healthcare professionals. The conclusion of this study, from the participants' perspective, is that these goals can be achieved with the intervention. Implications for Practice: Extended home visits seem to help healthcare professionals provide collaborative, multi-professional support for parents, both expectant and with a newborn child, with unique support needs.


REINFORCEMENT LEARNING AND STOCHASTIC OPTIMIZATION Clearing the jungle of stochastic optimization Sequential decision problems, which consist of "decision, information, decision, information," are ubiquitous, spanning virtually every human activity ranging from business applications, health (personal and public health, and medical decision making), energy, the sciences, all fields of engineering, finance, and e-commerce. The diversity of applications attracted the attention of at least 15 distinct fields of research, using eight distinct notational systems which produced a vast array of analytical tools. A byproduct is that powerful tools developed in one community may be unknown to other communities.Reinforcement Learning and Stochastic Optimization offers a single canonical framework that can model any sequential decision problem using five core components: state variables, decision variables, exogenous information variables, transition function, and objective function. This book highlights twelve types of uncertainty that might enter any model and pulls together the diverse set of methods for making decisions, known as policies, into four fundamental classes that span every method suggested in the academic literature or used in practice.Reinforcement Learning and Stochastic Optimization is the first book to provide a balanced treatment of the different methods for modeling and solving sequential decision problems, following the style used by most books on machine learning, optimization, and simulation. The presentation is designed for readers with a course in probability and statistics, and an interest in modeling and applications. Linear programming is occasionally used for specific problem classes. The book is designed for readers who are new to the field, as well as those with some background in optimization under uncertainty.Throughout this book, readers will find references to over 100 different applications, spanning pure learning problems, dynamic resource allocation problems, general state-dependent problems, and hybrid learning/resource allocation problems such as those that arose in the COVID pandemic. There are 370 exercises, organized into seven groups, ranging from review questions, modeling, computation, problem solving, theory, programming exercises and a "diary problem" that a reader chooses at the beginning of the book, and which is used as a basis for questions throughout the rest of the book. © 2022 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.


Plasma medicine is a novel and promising field of medicine that utilizes atmospheric pressure plasma. Although most previous studies have focused on the biological effects of plasma-derived chemical species, the influence of electrical transmission processes on cellular activities remains to be fully investigated. In this study, we constructed a novel system for cell stimulation that could physically isolate cells from reactive species generated at electrodes and thus allowed us to evaluate the direct effects of electrical transmission processes on cellular activities. Using this system, we treated human HT-1080 cells with a nanosecond pulsed current supplied by the plasma generator (100 Hz, 990–1000 V, 200–220 mA, current of 10 ns in pulse width) and analyzed various cellular activities. Although the electric treatment did not affect cell viability or proliferation, we observed a significant increase in cell migration along with altered cell morphology. Fluorescent microscopy showed that electroporation of stimulated cells did not occur. Taken together, we speculate that the electrical factors (field, charge, current, etc) of nanosecond pulsed currents may be critical determinants of cellular responses.


Are the concepts: livability and sustainability contradictory? Can they coexist? Or even exist in collaboration? The associations between livability and sustainability are not clear. Their mutually exclusive or independent relationship to each other is often debated. (Bosch, 2009) The purpose of this paper is to make implicit notions about the links between livability and sustainability explicit. The emergence of such awareness is possible as evidenced by transformation of interpersonal interactions among those engaged in a conscious process of systemic knowledge acquisition through Action Research methods (McTaggart, 1990, McNiff, 1996, Argyris, 1999) for the purpose of responsible self management in daily living on multiple levels of social organizations: dyadic, family, community, workplace organization, etc. Such awareness can contribute to accountable behavior among those individuals and communities that learn how to implement and practice System oriented Action Research behavior as a life approach and skill set for daily living. The integration of system knowledge acquisition and Action Research methods in the service of sustainable livability development will be demonstrated through case examples of individual, family, homeless shelter, school and hospital organizations as learning organizations. All case examples involved a learning process that stemmed from different crisis etiologies. They are discussed in systemic conceptualizations that illustrate the connections between systemic thinking, livability and how sustainability notions (Gibson, 2005) and accountable practice emerged as an integral component of daily living practices on all levels of organizations. Both quantitative and qualitative data that demonstrate this developmental process and change from living to sustainable living will be presented.

Argyris, C (1999) On organizational learning. Malden, MA: Blackwell Business.

Bosch, O. (2009) Making liveable, sustainable systems unremarkable. ISSS Announcement

McNiff, J., Lomax,P., Whitehead, J.(1996) You and Your Action Research Project. Routledge, London and New York, Hyde Publications.

McTaggart, R. (1990) "Involving a whole staff in developing a maths curriculum" in P.Lomax (Ed.) Managing Staff Development in Schools: An Action Research Approach, Clevedon: Multi-Lingual Matters, 70-81.

Gibson, RB., Hassan, S., Holtz, S., Tansey, J.,Whitelaw, G. (2005) Sustainability Assessment. Criteria and Processes. Earthscan. London, Sterling, VA


This study examined the attitudes toward web-enhanced and traditional instruction of undergraduate education majors. The Instructional Strategies Instrument was administered to students enrolled in EDUC 310, Foundations of Education and EDUC 340, Human Growth and Development classes in the School of Education at Fayetteville State University. The participants consisted of 100 students and two university professors. ********** In most recent years, the rapid increase to incorporate technology into the curriculum in institutions of higher education has led tenured professor's to question the effectiveness of traditional instruction. The use of technology or web-enhanced courses is up-and-coming as the most common method of instruction in most institutions of higher learning. However, this being the case, how does this impinge on professors who have not been trained to use technology in the classroom or who feel comfortable continuing proven effective traditional instructional methods ? There are certainly many challenges for faculty who are not technologically literate, as well as those who are. Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of under-graduate education majors on the effectiveness of web-enhanced instructional strategies and traditional instructional strategies. Review of Related Literature Traditional instruction includes teaching strategies where students learn by listening to information presented by the professor, such as, lecturing, classroom discussions and recall instructional model, (Huitt 1999). According to Huitt, traditional instruction challenges the technology experts of education and shows that even the most at-risk student can excel, if only educators teach them. The success of traditional instruction has for years provided substantial evidence of its success. According to Huitt in 1999 the demand for traditional instruction method is likely to decline, while more advanced instructional strategies will increase. The research suggested that educators who integrate technology or other creative instructional methods into their learning environment will impact the lives of many and remain vital for years. Traditional instruction is a method rich in structure and content, and is the most desired methods of instructional delivery for tenured university educators; however, this contradicts what is actually being taught to future educators in universities. Traditional instruction continues to bring remarkable success at low cost when it is implemented, (Schug et al. 2001). It has been suggested from university professors that face-to-face instruction was essential to students' learning and without it students suffer. (Schutte 1996). According to the author, lack of face-to-face interaction with the professor led to greater interaction between students and this collaboration resulted in higher student test results, (Schutte 1996). According to Garson (1998) Schulman and Sims (1999), combining the traditional and on-line approach is probably most productive for those students whose communication skills were not up to par. Online instruction, according to Kubala (1998), is a form of individualized instruction. It requires regular contact between the student and the instructor for maximum learning to occur. Kubala found that students were more students were willing to participate in class discussions and other learning activities online when compared to the traditional mode of learning. Methodology Undergraduate students enrolled in EDUC-340 Human Growth and Development and EDUC 310 Foundations of Education classes participated in this study. The students in these courses were taught by two professors in the School of Education. One course was taught using face-to-face instructional strategies, while the other used web-enhanced instruction. …


Investiga tions into social imaginaries have burgeoned in recent years. From 'the capitalist imaginary' to the 'democratic imaginary', from the 'ecological imaginary' to 'the global imaginary' – and beyond – the social imaginaries fi eld has expanded across disciplines and beyond the academy. Th e recent debates on social imaginaries and potential new imaginaries reveal a recognisable fi eld and paradigm-in-the-making. We argue that Castoriadis, Ricoeur, and Taylor have articulated the most important theoretical frameworks for understanding social imaginaries, although the fi eld as a whole remains heterogeneous. We further argue that the notion of social imaginaries draws on the modern understanding of the imagination as authentically creative (as opposed to imitative). We contend that an elaboration of social imaginaries involves a signifi cant, qualitative shift in the understanding of societies as collectively and politically-(auto)instituted formations that are irreducible to inter-subjectivity or systemic logics. After marking out the contours of the fi eld and recounting a philosophical history of the imagination (including deliberations on the reproductive and creative imaginations, as well as consideration of contemporary Japanese contributions), the essay turns to debates on social imaginaries in more concrete contexts, specifi cally political-economic imaginaries, the ecological imaginary, multiple modernities and their intercivilisational encounters. Th e social imaginaries fi eld imparts powerful messages for the human sciences and wider publics. In particular, social imaginaries hold signifi cant implications for ontological, phenomenological and philosophical anthropological questions; for the cultural, social, and political horizons of contemporary worlds; and for ecological and economic phenomena (including their manifest crises). Th e essay concludes with the argument that social imaginaries as a paradigm-in-the-making off ers valuable means by which movements towards social change can be elucidated as well providing an open horizon for the critiques of existing social practices.


Abstract As infrastructure development has become a key ingredient in Africa–China relations, the role of African governments in co-determining the design, funding and governance of the continent's infrastructures has come under close scrutiny. This article sheds light on the rehabilitation of a symbol of Sino–African friendship: the Tanzania–Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA). Employing Jessop's strategic-relational approach, it is shown that the strategies of the shareholding governments in the negotiations with a Chinese consortium were informed by strategic learning from previous railway privatisations, corresponding cost–benefit analyses and reflection about Chinese commercial interests. Zambia's indebtedness and Tanzania's autocratic developmental state under President Magufuli formed crucial elements of the structural context in which the fate of Africa's Freedom Railway was negotiated. The article transcends both crudely structuralist accounts of a supposedly all-powerful China and voluntarist conceptions of African agency that are void of structure. Assessing (African) agency requires analytical sensitivity towards the dialectical interaction between specific strategic capacities and strategically selective political–economic contexts.


Existing and future wide-field photometric surveys will produce a time-lapse movie of the sky that will revolutionize our census of variable and moving astronomical and atmospheric phenomena. As with any revolution in scientific measurement capability, this new species of data will also present us with results that are sure to surprise and confound our understanding of the cosmos. While we cannot predict the unknown yields of such endeavors, it is a beneficial exercise to explore certain parameter spaces using reasonable assumptions for rates and observability. To this end I present a simple parameterized model of the detectability of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). I also demonstrate that the LSST is well suited to place the first systematic constraints on the rate of UFO and extraterrestrial visits to our world.


Background and importance It is not uncommon that endovascular balloon test occlusion (BTO) is performed to assess collateral blood flow and risk of injury of permanent occlusion of the internal carotid artery (ICA). This case is the first reported of detection and reversal of the inferolateral trunk (ILT) syndrome in an awake patient during provocative BTO; prompt recognition of the syndrome effectively prevented permanent neurologic deficits. Clinical presentation The case of a 42-year-old woman is reported who had a left sphenoid wing meningioma with extension into the cavernous sinus and who underwent awake catheter angiography with provocative BTO of the ICA. Serial examinations by intraoperative monitoring neurologists and neurointerventionalists detected acute progressive left retro-orbital pressure followed by sudden inability to adduct the left eye, or a left medial rectus palsy, indicative of the ILT syndrome which led to immediate balloon deflation and resolution of the deficits. The hypothesis was that hypoperfusion of the ILT, an arterial branch of the ICA which provides blood supply to several cranial nerves (CN) III, CN V1 and CN V2, caused her acute symptoms. Conclusion Although cerebral ischemia is a well known complication of endovascular procedures, CN ischemia is a rare potential risk. Knowledge of cerebrovascular anatomy and serial examinations prevented neurologic deficits; this case underscores the added utility of examinations by intraoperative monitoring neurologists and interdisciplinary collaboration.


Crowdsourcing provides a practical way to obtain large amounts of labeled data at a low cost. However, the annotation quality of annotators varies considerably, which imposes new challenges in learning a high-quality model from the crowdsourced annotations. In this work, we provide a new perspective to decompose annotation noise into common noise and individual noise and differentiate the source of confusion based on instance difficulty and annotator expertise on a per-instance-annotator basis. We realize this new crowdsourcing model by an end-to-end learning solution with two types of noise adaptation layers: one is shared across annotators to capture their commonly shared confusions, and the other one is pertaining to each annotator to realize individual confusion. To recognize the source of noise in each annotation, we use an auxiliary network to choose from the two noise adaptation layers with respect to both instances and annotators. Extensive experiments on both synthesized and real-world benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed common noise adaptation solution.


Background. Empirical findings suggest that psychiatric illness is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD). The purpose of this study was to compare the strength of the association of lifetime post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and lifetime major depression on CVD among Northern Plains American Indians. Method. A total of 1414 participants aged 18–57 years completed a structured interview that assessed psychiatric diagnoses, alcohol abuse/dependence, self-reported CVD, and traditional CVD risk factors including age, sex, education, diabetes, high blood pressure, and smoking. Logistic regression analyses compared the odds ratios of CVD in participants with and without diagnosed PTSD or major depression. Results. The rates of lifetime PTSD and major depression were 15% and 8% respectively. CVD was more commonly reported by participants with PTSD than by those without PTSD (12% v. 5%, p[les ]0·01). Likewise, more participants with major depression reported CVD than did their non-depressed counterparts (14% v. 6%, p[les ]0·05). PTSD was significantly associated with CVD even after controlling for traditional CVD risk factors and major depression (odds ratio 2·0, confidence interval 1·1–3·8). In contrast, the association of major depression with CVD was not significant after accounting for both traditional risk factors and PTSD. Conclusions. Rates of PTSD are high in American Indian communities. Rising CVD rates in this population may be better understood if PTSD is considered along with other traditional risk factors. Future research should examine the association and mechanisms of PTSD and CVD prospectively. Such data could lead to more effective CVD prevention efforts for American Indians.


In Chini, a language of northeastern New Guinea, speakers rely on principles of semantic extension including
 metonymy, metaphor, and other types of association to create new terms using material from the vernacular. They do so in a special
 sociolinguistically marked register referred to here as 'secret language', a linguistic practice not unheard of in New Guinea. The
 same principles at work in secret language can also be seen in the creation of terms for new, modern concepts in the
 sociolinguistically unmarked register of the language. There is additionally some degree of overlap between the two registers,
 since what were originally secret language terms have entered into use in the unmarked register. This suggests that secret
 language has been a resource for resistance to borrowing and brings into focus the larger point that any understanding of
 borrowability should be rooted in the local sociolinguistic context, to the locally relevant ideologies at work and the particular
 creative principles of language use that speakers employ.


The global language of scholarly research is English and so the obstacle of getting noticed is montainous when the article is not written in the English language. Indeed, despite rapid advances in technology, the "tyranny of language" creates a segmentation inhibiting scholarly research and innovation generally. Mass translation of non-English language articles is neither feasible nor desirable. Our paper proposes a strategy for remedying this segmentation – such that, the work of non-English language scholars become more discoverable. The core piece of this strategy is a "reverse-engineering" [RE] application of Faff's (2015, 2017a) "pitching research" template. More specifically, we provide access to translated versions of the "cued" template across thirty-three different languages, and most notably for this journal, including the Romanian and French languages. Further, we showcase an illustrative dual language French-English example.


There has been considerable recent interest in "cloud storage" wherein a user asks a server to store a large file. One issue is whether the user can verify that the server is actually storing the file, and typically a challenge-response protocol is employed to convince the user that the file is indeed being stored correctly. The security of these schemes is phrased in terms of an extractor which will recover the file given any "proving algorithm" that has a sufficiently high success probability. This forms the basis of proof-of-retrievability (PoR) and proof-of-data-possession (PDP) systems. The contributions of this thesis in secure cloud storage are as below. 1. We provide a general analytical framework for various known PoR schemes that yields exact reductions that precisely quantify conditions for extraction to succeed as a function of the success probability of a proving algorithm. We apply this analysis to several archetypal schemes. In addition, we provide a new methodology for the analysis of keyed PoR schemes in an unconditionally secure setting, and use it to prove the security of a modified version of a scheme due to Shacham and Waters [72] under a slightly restricted attack model, thus providing the first example of a keyed PoR scheme with unconditional security. We also show how classical statistical techniques can be used to evaluate whether the responses of the prover on the storage are accurate enough to permit successful extraction. Finally, we prove a new lower bound on the storage and communication complexity of PoR schemes. 2. We propose a new type of scheme that we term a proof-of-data-observability scheme. Our definition tries to capture the stronger requirement that the server must have an actual copy of M in its memory space while it executes the challenge-response protocol. We give some examples of schemes that satisfy this new security definition. As well, we analyze the efficiency and security of the protocols we present, and we prove some necessary conditions for the existence of these kinds of protocols. 3. We study secure storage on multiple servers. Our contribution in multiple-server PoR systems is twofold. We formalize security definitions for two possible scenarios: (i) when a threshold of servers succeed with high enough probability (worst-case) and (ii) when the average of the success probability of all the servers is above a threshold (average-case). Using coding theory, we show instances of protocols that are secure both in the average-case and the worst-case scenarios.


Purpose Space agencies are looking for effective and efficient countermeasures for the degrading effects of weightlessness on the human body. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of a novel jump exercise countermeasure during bed rest on vitals, body mass, body composition, and jump performance. Methods 23 male participants (29±6 years, 181±6 cm, 77±7 kg) were confined to a bed rest facility for 90 days: a 15-day ambulatory measurement phase, a 60-day six-degree head-down-tilt bed rest phase (HDT), and a 15-day ambulatory recovery phase. Participants were randomly allocated to the jump training group (JUMP, n = 12) or the control group (CTRL, n = 11). A typical training session consisted of 4x10 countermovement jumps and 2x10 hops in a sledge jump system. The training group had to complete 5–6 sessions per week. Results Peak force for the reactive hops (3.6±0.4 kN) as well as jump height (35±4 cm) and peak power (3.1±0.2 kW) for the countermovement jumps could be maintained over the 60 days of HDT. Lean body mass decreased in CTRL but not in JUMP (-1.6±1.9 kg and 0±1.0 kg, respectively, interaction effect p = 0.03). Resting heart rate during recovery was significantly increased for CTRL but not for JUMP (interaction effect p<0.001). Conclusion Participants tolerated the near-daily high-intensity jump training and maintained high peak forces and high power output during 60 days of bed rest. The countermeasure was effective in preserving lean body mass and partly preventing cardiac deconditioning with only several minutes of training per day.


In a Hierarchical Model Predictive Control (H-MPC) framework, this paper explores suitable time-variant structures for the hierarchies of different local MPC controllers. The idea is to adapt to different operational conditions by changing the importance of the local controllers. This is done by defining the level of the hierarchy they belong to, and solving within each level the local MPC problem using the information provided by the higher levels at the current time step and the predicted information from the lower levels obtained in the previous time step. As selecting a hierarchy results in a combinatorial optimization problem, it is explicitly solved for a limited number of relevant topologies only and then the switching between topologies is defined with a multiobjective optimizer, so as to decide the best H-MPC scheme according to the expected performance. A comparison with fixed-topology H-MPC controllers is done, showing the effectiveness of the proposed approach for the power control of a hydro-power valley.


In many auctions, the auctioneer is an agent of the seller. This delegation invites corruption. In this paper we propose a model of corruption, examine how corruption affects the auction game, how the anticipation of corruption affects bidding, and how it altogether changes the revenue ranking of typical auctions. In addition we characterize incentive schemes that may prevent corruption, and compare them to the fee schedules employed by major auction houses.


Rf8 is a newly described nuclear gene that can substitute for Rf1 to partially restore pollen fertility to male-sterile, T-cytoplasm maize. Families segregating for Rf8 were used to investigate the mechanism of this fertility restoration and to compare it to the restoration conditioned by Rf1. Although Rf8 is unlinked to the rf1 locus, it also alters T-urf13 mitochondrial transcript accumulation and reduces the accumulation of the URF13 protein. Like the 1.6- and 0.6-kilobase (kb) T-urf13 transcripts that accumulate in T-cytoplasm plants carrying Rf1, 1.42- and 0.42-kb transcripts accumulate in plants that are partially restored by Rf8. A survey of T-cytoplasm maize lines, inbreds, and F1 hybrids by mitochondrial RNA gel blot analyses revealed that Rf8 is rare in maize germplasm. These surveys revealed the presence of another rare, weak restorer factor, Rf*, which is uniquely associated with the accumulation of 1.4- and 0.4-kb T-urf13 transcripts. Primer extension analyses position the 5' termini of the 1.42/0.42-kb and 1.4/0.4-kb transcripts at +137 and +159 nucleotides, respectively, 3' of the AUG initiation codon of the T-urf13 reading frame. The conserved motif, 5'-CNACNNU-3', overlaps the 5' termini of the Rf1-, Rf8-, and Rf*-associated transcripts and the 380 nucleotide, Rf3-associated orf107 transcript from cytoplasmic male sterility sorghum. These results demonstrate that multiple unlinked, nuclear genes can have similar but distinct effects on the expression of the unique T-urf13 mitochondrial coding sequence to restore pollen fertility to T-cytoplasm maize.


The F-measure is a classification performance measure, especially suited when dealing with imbalanced datasets, which provides a compromise between the precision and the recall of a classifier. As this measure is non convex and non linear, it is often indirectly optimized using cost-sensitive learning (that affects different costs to false positives and false negatives). In this article, we derive theoretical guarantees that give tight bounds on the best F-measure that can be obtained from cost-sensitive learning. We also give an original geometric interpretation of the bounds that serves as an inspiration for CONE, a new algorithm to optimize for the F-measure. Using 10 datasets exhibiting varied class imbalance, we illustrate that our bounds are much tighter than previous work and show that CONE learns models with either superior F-measures than existing methods or comparable but in fewer iterations.


In earlier days, children used to play in outdoors with plant parts and their products for fun making and games. However with modernity and advancement in science and technology, this indigenous knowledge is vanishing day by day. There is no scientific documentation of plants being used for fun and games by children. The present study carried out in different tribal and non-tribal village schools of Koraput and Khordha districts of Odisha, India in a systematic manner documented 90 plant species distributed in 85 genera spread over 44 families. The plant species recorded include 35 trees, 21 shrubs, 24 herbs and 10 climbers/creepers. The plants widely used as play material include Artocarpus heterophyllus, Dendrocalamus strictus, Cocos nucifera, Calotropis gigantea, Ficus benghalensis, Mangifera indica, Musa paradisiaca, Phoenix sylvestris, Tamarindus indica, etc. The different plant parts such as leaves, fruits, flowers, seeds etc. and their mode of use by the participating respondents have been recorded and discussed. It was noted that the most and frequently used plant parts as the source of play were fruits followed by leaves, flowers, and seeds. The economic importance of plants, besides their implications in teaching and learning along with their sustainable utilization and conservation is discussed.

 Keywords: Plant biodiversity, conservation, fun, modernity, advancement, technology, utilization.


From the Publisher:

A+ Exam Cram 2 is a study skill enhancement and tutorial, designed to focus on exactly what students need to get A+ certified, with coverage of exams 220-221 and 220-222. It details all the new exam objectives and items in the following areas: Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows NT version 4.0. Because the A+ certification is a core competency of the MCSA program, this book is also helpful for those who are seeking their MCSA certification.This book is not intended to teach new material. Instead it assumes that you have a solid foundation of knowledge but can use a refresher on important concepts as well as a guide to exam topics and objectives. This book focuses exactly on what you need to pass the exam - it features test-taking strategies, time-saving study tips, and a special Cram Sheet that includes tips, acronyms, and memory joggers not available anywhere else. The series is supported online at several Web sites: examcram.com, informit.com, and cramsession.com, and 24/7 technical support is available through KnowledgePool.com!

The accompanying CD features PrepLogic Practice Tests, Preview Edition. This product includes one complete PrepLogic Practice Test with approximately the same number of questions found on the actual vendor exam. Each question contains full, detailed explanations of the correct and incorrect answers. The engine offers two study modes, Practice Test and Flash Review, full exam customization, and a detailed score report.


How do wartime legacies affect repression after the conflict ends? Irregular forces support the government in many civil wars. We argue that if this link continues after the war, respect for human rights declines. As "tried and tested" agents they are less likely to shirk when given the order to repress. Governments might also keep the militias as a "fall-back option", which results in more repression. Analyzing data from 1981 to 2014 shows that pro-government militias that were inherited from the previous conflict are consistently associated with worse repression, but newly created ones are not. Wartime pro-government militias target a broader spectrum of the population and are linked to worse state violence. New militias usually supplement wartime ones and use violence primarily against political opponents. This study highlights the detrimental impact of war legacies.


Metformin, an insulin-lowering agent, has been associated with decreased cancer risk in epidemiologic studies in diabetic patients. We performed a comprehensive literature search and meta-analysis of epidemiologic studies to assess the effect of metformin on cancer incidence and mortality in diabetic patients, using Pubmed, ISI Web of Science, Embase, and the Cochrane library until May 2009, with no language or time restrictions. Independent reports with sufficient information to allow risk estimation of cancer risk/mortality and a measure of uncertainty were reviewed and cross-checked independently by three investigators. Eleven studies were selected for relevance in terms of intervention, population studied, independence, and reporting of cancer incidence or mortality data, reporting 4,042 cancer events and 529 cancer deaths. A 31% reduction in overall summary relative risk (0.69; 95% confidence interval, 0.61-0.79) was found in subjects taking metformin compared with other antidiabetic drugs. The inverse association was significant for pancreatic and hepatocellular cancer, and nonsignificant for colon, breast, and prostate cancer. A trend to a dose-response relationship was noted. Metformin is associated with a decreased risk of cancer incidence compared with other treatments among diabetic patients. Given the retrospective nature of most studies and the possibility that the control treatments increase risk, phase II trials are needed before large cancer prevention trials are launched. Cancer Prev Res; 3(11); 1451–61. ©2010 AACR.


Abstract. Atmospheric sulfur dioxide (SO2) was measured continuously from the Penlee Point Atmospheric Observatory (PPAO) near Plymouth, United Kingdom, between May 2014 and November 2015. This coastal site is exposed to marine air across a wide wind sector. The predominant southwesterly winds carry relatively clean background Atlantic air. In contrast, air from the southeast is heavily influenced by exhaust plumes from ships in the English Channel as well as near Plymouth Sound. A new International Maritime Organization (IMO) regulation came into force in January 2015 to reduce the maximum allowed sulfur content in ships' fuel 10-fold in sulfur emission control areas such as the English Channel. Our observations suggest a 3-fold reduction in ship-emitted SO2 from 2014 to 2015. Apparent fuel sulfur content calculated from coincidental SO2 and carbon dioxide (CO2) peaks from local ship plumes show a high level of compliance to the IMO regulation (> 95 %) in both years (∼  70 % of ships in 2014 were already emitting at levels below the 2015 cap). Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) is an important source of atmospheric SO2 even in this semi-polluted region. The relative contribution of DMS oxidation to the SO2 burden over the English Channel increased from about one-third in 2014 to about one-half in 2015 due to the reduction in ship sulfur emissions. Our diel analysis suggests that SO2 is removed from the marine atmospheric boundary layer in about half a day, with dry deposition to the ocean accounting for a quarter of the total loss.


Significant hypophosphatemia in adult is uncommon, in which the most common culprit being Vitamin D deficiency. Hypophosphatemia in adults, require proper attention as it may indicate paraneoplastic effect of mesenchymal tumour (Fibroblast growth factor 23 secreting tumour). The diagnosis of such condition at early stage, along with prompt treatment can correct hypophosphatemia and improve the patient symptomatically. Here we are presenting a case of 48 years old female who had severe hypophosphatemia and on work up found to have FGF23 secreting mesenchymal tumour of the naso-ethmoid bone, surgical removal of which corrected hypophosphatemia and showed clinical improvement.


Rhythmatical was designed to be an educational application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that conveyed mathematical topics via musical, rhythmic, or movement interactive techniques. Created by a team of professors, a librarian, students, and members of the game development industry, this iPhone and iPod Touch application connects music and math for fourth- to eighth-grade students. This article describes the history of the application and the creation of the new deliverable and gives insights into new ideas for the future.


Earthquake statistics is a growing field of research with direct application to probabilistic seismic hazard evaluation. The earthquake process is a complex spatio-temporal phenomenon, and has been thought to be an example of the self-organised criticality (SOC) paradigm, in which events occur as cascades on a wide range of sizes, each determined by fine details of the rupture process. As a consequence, deterministic prediction of specific event sizes, locations, and times may well continue to remain elusive. However, probabilistic forecasting, based on statistical patterns of occurrence, is a much more realistic goal at present, and is being actively explored and tested in global initiatives. This thesis focuses on the temporal statistics of earthquake populations, exploring the uncertainties in various commonly-used procedures for characterising seismicity and explaining the origins of these uncertainties. Unlike many other SOC systems, earthquakes cluster in time and space through aftershock triggering. A key point in the thesis is to show that the earthquake inter-event time distribution is fundamentally bimodal: it is a superposition of a gamma component from correlated (co-triggered) events and an exponential component from independent events. Volcano-tectonic earthquakes at Italian and Hawaiian volcanoes exhibit a similar bimodality, which in this case, may arise as the sum of contributions from accelerating and decelerating rates of events preceding and succeeding volcanic activity. Many authors, motivated by universality in the scaling laws of critical point systems, have sought to demonstrate a universal data collapse in the form of a gamma distribution, but I show how this gamma form is instead an emergent property of the crossover between the two components. The relative size of these two components depends on how the data is selected, so there is no universal form. The mean earthquake rate—or, equivalently, inter-event time—for a given region takes time to converge to an accurate value, and it is important to characterise this sampling uncertainty. As a result of temporal clustering and non-independence of events, the convergence is found to be much slower than the Gaussian rate of the central limit theorem. The rate of this convergence varies systematically with the spatial extent of the region under consideration: the larger the region, the closer to Gaussian convergence. This can be understood in terms of the increasing independence of the inter-event times with increasing region size as aftershock sequences overlap in time to a greater extent. On the other hand, within this high-overlap regime, a maximum likelihood inversion of parameters for an epidemic-type statistical model suffers from lower accuracy and a systematic bias; specifically, the background rate is overestimated. This is because the effect of temporal overlapping is to mask the correlations and make the time series look more like a Poisson process of independent events. This is an important result with practical relevance to studies using inversions, for example, to infer temporal variations in background rate for time-dependent hazard estimation.


In the Minimalist Program, language competence is seen to stem from a fundamental ability to construct hierarchical structure, an operation dubbed 'Merge'. This raises the problem of how to view hierarchical concept-combination. This is a conceptual operation which also builds hierarchical structure. We can conceive of a garden that consists of a lawn and a flower-bed, for example, or a salad consisting of lettuce, fennel and rocket, or a crew consisting of a pilot and engineer. In such cases, concepts are put together in a way that makes one the accommodating element with respect to the others taken in combination. The accommodating element becomes the root of a hierarchical unit. Since this unit is itself a concept, the operation is inherently recursive. Does this mean the mind has two independent systems of hierarchical construction? Or is some form of integration more likely? Following a detailed examination of the operations involved, this paper shows there are three main ways in which Merge might be linked to hierarchical concept-combination. Also examined are the architectural implications that arise in each case.


This paper proposes the problem of Deep Question Generation (DQG), which aims to generate complex questions that require reasoning over multiple pieces of information about the input passage. In order to capture the global structure of the document and facilitate reasoning, we propose a novel framework that first constructs a semantic-level graph for the input document and then encodes the semantic graph by introducing an attention-based GGNN (Att-GGNN). Afterward, we fuse the document-level and graph-level representations to perform joint training of content selection and question decoding. On the HotpotQA deep-question centric dataset, our model greatly improves performance over questions requiring reasoning over multiple facts, leading to state-of-the-art performance. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/WING-NUS/SG-Deep-Question-Generation.


For decades, embedded systems, ranging from intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) sensors to electronic warfare and electronic signal intelligence systems, have been an integral part of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) mission systems. These embedded systems are increasingly the targets of deliberate and sophisticated attacks. Developers thus need to focus equally on functionality and security in both hardware and software development. For critical missions, these systems must be entrusted to perform their intended functions, prevent attacks, and even operate with resilience under attacks. The processor in a critical system must thus provide not only a root of trust, but also a foundation to monitor mission functions, detect anomalies, and perform recovery. We have developed a Lincoln Asymmetric Multicore Processing (LAMP) architecture, which mitigates adversarial cyber effects with separation and cryptography and provides a foundation to build a resilient embedded system. We will describe a design environment that we have created to enable the co-design of functionality and security for mission assurance.


Ever increasing globe-spanning business activity paired with the wide availability of the internet, even in remote places, has at once provoked and provided suitable communication means (e.g., email) for complex business communication and tasks such as negotiation. Current research cautions against the use of email for negotiation as compared to other media because of the numerous challenges e-negotiators face, but the findings are far from unanimous. This study investigates if negotiators' attitude toward and facility with email as a communication medium, i.e. their email affinity, influences the negotiation process and results. Three facets of email affinity are theoretically considered and empirically derived: email preference, email comfort and email clarity. In an experimental intercontinental email negotiation exercise where subjects were paired according to their email affinity score, email comfort emerged as a significant predictor of individual profit, joint gain, and different dimensions of subjective value. Theoretical implications and further research are discussed.


Cells use different types of receptors to respond to extracellular cues that stimulate cell movement. Jékely et al. report that Drosophila border cells of the egg chamber, which rely on receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) for directed motility, use endocytosis of the receptors to control directionality of cell migration. In flies with a mutant form of the ubiquitin ligase Cbl or a mutant form of the guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) Sprint (the homolog of mammalian RIN1), the border cells failed to migrate to the oocyte, which was exacerbated by overexpression of the RTKs [in this case, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and PVR, the Drosophila homolog of the platelet-derived growth factor and vascular endothelial growth factor]. The mutant cells also showed a loss of localized activity of the RTKs at the leading edge of the border cells. Cells mutant for Hrs, a protein required after internalization for degradation, or wild-type cells overexpressing the RTKs did not show migration defects despite having elevated, but still localized, RTK activity. Thus, it was not simply an excess activity of RTK that caused the migration defects in the Cbl- or Sprint-mutant cells. Yeast two-hybrid experiments showed that Cbl and Sprint both interacted with PVR in a phosphotyrosine-dependent manner. Expression of a PVR mutant that could not interact with Cbl and Sprint resulted in a low-penetrance migration defect and delocalized phosphotyrosine accumulation (a measure of RTK activity) in the border cells. Thus, for RTK-mediated migration of border cells, it appears that the absolute level of RTK activity is less critical than the location of that activity in the cell. Receptor endocytosis mediated by ubiquitin ligation is a critical step in restricting RTK activity, allowing the cells to move toward the ligand (see Le Roy and Wrana for commentary). G. Jékely, H.-H. Sung, C. M. Luque, P. Rørth, Regulators of endocytosis maintain localized receptor tyrosine kinase signaling in guided migration. Dev. Cell 9, 197-207 (2005). [PubMed] C. Le Roy, J. L. Wrana, Signaling and endocytosis: A team effort for cell migration. Dev. Cell 9, 167-168 (2005). [PubMed]


The paper presents LIRKIS CAVE, a Cave Automatic Virtual Environment, developed and built at the home institution of authors. The most significant features of LIRKIS CAVE are a compact and transportable design and use of LCD displays, organized in a decagon. The CAVE is described in terms of hardware and software and its performance is evaluated by a series of experiments. The paper also outlines future research and development activities related to the CAVE, which focus on the area of rehabilitation and education of handicapped people.


The electrical conductivity at 25°C (EC25) of soil solutions or irrigation waters is the standard property for assessing salinity. Many models for soil salinity prediction calculate the major ion composition of the soil solution. The electrical conductivity of a solution can be determined from its composition through several different empirical equations. An assessment of these equations is necessary to incorporate the most accurate and precise equations in such models. Twelve different equations for the EC25 calculation were calibrated by means of regression analyses with data from 133 saturation extracts and another 135 1:5 soil‐to‐water extracts from a salt‐affected agricultural irrigated area. The equations with better calibration parameters were tested with another data set of 153 soil solutions covering a wide range of salt concentrations and compositions. The testing was conducted using the standardized difference t‐test, which is a rigorous validation test used in this study for the first time. The equations based on the ionic conductivity decrement given by Kohlrausch's law presented the poorest calibration parameters. The equations founded on the hypothesis that EC25 is proportional to analytical concentrations had worse calibration and validation parameters than their counterparts based on free‐ion concentrations and ionic activities. The equations founded on simpler mathematical relationships generally gave improved validation parameters. The three equations based on the specific electrical conductivity definition presented a mean standardized difference between observations and predictions indistinguishable from zero at the 95% confidence level. The inclusion of the charged ion‐pair concentrations in the equation based on free‐ion concentrations improved its predictions, particularly at large electrical conductivities. This equation can be reliably used in conjunction with chemical speciation software to assess EC25 from the ion composition of soil solutions.


This paper proposes a theoretical and experimental performance study to characterize the transmission of code-division-multiple-access-based wireless signals over a radio frequency on free-space optical (RF-FSO) system using an aperture averaging (AA) technique. First, we propose an analytical model including the carrier-to-noise-plus-interference ratio (CNIR) and outage probability expressions taking into consideration the use of the AA technique, the laser diode nonlinear distortion, and the multiple-access interference. Furthermore, we show that there is a design trade-off between an optimum optical modulation index in the transmitter side and the receiver aperture size to achieve a required average CNIR ensuring a substantial scintillation fade reduction. We thus provide preliminary criteria for optimizing both the transmitter and the receiver design of our RF-FSO system. Using an experimental RF-FSO system, we conduct investigations to characterize the deployment environment influencing the transmission of wideband code division multiple access (W-CDMA) signals over a 1 km free-space optical communication (FSO) link. Important performance metric parameters like the CNIR and adjacent channel leakage ratio are measured and analyzed to quantify the influence of atmospheric effects. We then validate the proposed mathematical model by performing a comparison with the experimental results obtained from the W-CDMA signal transmission over RF-FSO experiments. The presented work can be used as a baseline for the design and performance evaluation of FSO systems able to transmit different broadband wireless services signals.


Representing knowledge graphs (KGs) by learning embeddings for entities and relations has led to accurate models for existing KG completion benchmarks. However, due to the open-world assumption of existing KGs, evaluation of KG completion uses ranking metrics and triple classification with negative samples, and is thus unable to directly assess models on the goals of the task: completion. In this paper, we first study the shortcomings of these evaluation metrics. Specifically, we demonstrate that these metrics (1) are unreliable for estimating how calibrated the models are, (2) make strong assumptions that are often violated, and 3) do not sufficiently, and consistently, differentiate embedding methods from each other, or from simpler approaches. To address these issues, we gather a semi-complete KG referred as YAGO3-TC, using a random subgraph from the test and validation data of YAGO3-10, which enables us to compute accurate triple classification accuracy on this data. Conducting thorough experiments on existing models, we provide new insights and directions for the KG completion research. Along with the dataset and the open source implementation of the models, we also provide a leaderboard for knowledge graph completion that consists of a hidden, and growing, test set, available at https://pouyapez.github.io/yago3-tc/.


This master thesis consists of implementation and evaluation of an AEC, Acoustic Echo Canceller, algorithm in a floating-point architecture. The most important question this thesis will try to answer is to determine benefits or drawbacks of using a floating-point architecture, relative a fixed-point architecture, to do AEC. In a telephony system there is two common forms of echo, line echo and acoustic echo. Acoustic echo is introduced by sound emanating from a loudspeaker, e.g. in a handsfree or speakerphone, being picked up by a microphone and then sent back to the source. The problem with this feedback is that the far-end speaker will hear one, or multiple, time-delayed version(s) of her own speech. This time-delayed version of speech is usually perceived as both confusing and annoying unless removed by the use of AEC. In this master thesis the performance of a floating-point version of a normalized least-mean-square AEC algorithm was evaluated in an environment designed and implemented to approximate live telephony calls. An instruction-set simulator and assembler available at the initiation of this master thesis were extended to enable; zero-overhead loops, modular addressing, post-increment of registers and register-write forwarding. With these improvements a bit-true assembly version was implemented capable of real-time AEC requiring 15 million instructions per second. A solution using as few as eight mantissa bits, in an external format used when storing data in memory, was found to have an insignificant effect on the selected AEC implementation's performance. Due to the relatively low memory requirement of the selected AEC algorithm, the use of a small external format has a minor effect on the required memory size. In total this indicates that the possible reduction of the memory requirement and related energy consumption, does not justify the added complexity and energy consumption of using a floating-point architecture for the selected algorithm. Use of a floating-point format can still be advantageous in speech-related signal processing when the introduced time delay by a subband, or a similar frequency domain, solution is unacceptable. Speech algorithms that have high memory use and small introduced delay requirements are a good candidate for a floating-point digital signal processor architecture.


This paper introduces a new measure of residential segregation based on individual-level data. We exploit complete census manuscript files to derive a measure of segregation based upon the racial similarity of next-door neighbors. Our measure allows us to analyze segregation consistently and comprehensively for all areas in the United States and allows for a richer view of the variation in segregation across time and space. We show that the fineness of our measure reveals aspects of racial sorting that cannot be captured by traditional segregation indices. Our measure can distinguish between the effects of increasing racial homogeneity of a location and the tendency to segregate within a location given a particular racial composition. Analysis of neighbor-based segregation over time establishes several new facts about segregation. First, segregation doubled nationally from 1880 to 1940. Second, contrary to previous estimates, we find that urban areas in the South were the most segregated in the country and remained so over time. Third, the dramatic increase in segregation in the twentieth century was not driven by urbanization, black migratory patterns, or white flight to suburban areas, but rather resulted from a national increase in racial sorting at the household level. The likelihood that an African American household had a non-African American neighbor declined by more than 15 percentage points (more than a 25% decrease) through the mid-twentieth century. In all areas of the United States -- North and South, urban and rural -- racial segregation increased dramatically.


An overwhelming and growing amount of data is available online. The problem of untrustworthy online information is augmented by its high economic potential and its dynamic nature, e.g. transient domain names, dynamic content, etc. In this paper, we address the problem of assessing the credibility of web pages by a decentralized social recommender system. Specifically, we concurrently employ i) item-based collaborative filtering (CF) based on specific web page features, ii) user-based CF based on friend ratings and iii) the ranking of the page in search results. These factors are appropriately combined into a single assessment based on adaptive weights that depend on their effectiveness for different topics and different fractions of malicious ratings. Simulation experiments with real traces of web page credibility evaluations suggest that our hybrid approach outperforms both its constituent components and classical content-based classification approaches.


In order to understand how children cope with the enormous variation in structures worldwide, developmental paths need to be studied in a sufficiently varied sample of languages. Because each study requires very large and expensive longitudinal corpora (about one million words, five to seven years of development), the relevant sample must be chosen strategically. We propose to base the choice on the results of a clustering algorithm (fuzzy clustering) applied to typological databases. The algorithm establishes a sample that maximizes the typological differences between languages. As a case study, we apply the algorithm to a dozen typological variables known to have an impact on acquisition, concerning such issues as the presence and nature of agreement and case marking, word order, degrees of synthesis, polyexponence and inflectional compactness of categories, syncretism, the existence of inflectional classes etc. The results allow deriving small samples that are maximally diverse. As a side result, we also note that while the clustering algorithm allows maximization of diversity for sampling purposes, the resulting clusters themselves are far from being discrete and therefore do not reflect a natural partition into basic language types.


Background: Coronary artery disease (CAD) is one of the most prevalent non-communicable diseases in Sri Lanka. Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery (CABG) is considered as the main revascularization procedure in patients with CAD. Cardiac rehabilitation is a multiphasic and multi-disciplinary program and is considered as a significant component of postoperative management after CABG. Objective: To study the effect of obesity on Cardiac Rehabilitation Program II (CRPII), a 1-month period of cardiac rehabilitation following discharge from the hospital, in patients who have undergone CABG. Methods: This was a prospective analytical study involving a convenient sample of 100 patients after CABG surgery. The patients (age: 40-70 years, both males and females) were selected from the cardiac rehabilitation program of the Cardiology Unit at the National Hospital of Sri Lanka. Data collection was done using 5 interviewer based questionnaires: socio-demographic characteristics using socio-demographic questionnaire, cardio-vascular endurance and fatigue levels using 6 minute-walk test (6MWT) and Borg scale (BS), anxiety and depression levels using Hospital anxiety and depression scale (HAD) and overall quality of life using quality of life questionnaire cardiac version (QOL). Data collection 1 was done on the first day of CRPII and data collection 2 was done on the final day of the program. Results: There were 33% obese and 67% non-obese patients in the study population. Both groups showed a statistically significant improvement (p<0.0001) of 6MWT, BS, HAD and QOL after CRPII. There was a significant difference (p<0.05) in the improvement of 6MWT in the non-obese group compared to the obese group and there was no difference in BS, HAD and QOL between obese and non-obese groups. Conclusions: CRPII led to an improvement in cardiovascular endurance, anxiety/depression and overall quality of life in patients who underwent CABG. Non-obese patients showed a better improvement in cardiovascular endurance compared to obese patients after CRPII.


A centrally differentially private algorithm maps raw data to differentially private outputs. In contrast, a locally differentially private algorithm may only access data through public interaction with data holders, and this interaction must be a differentially private function of the data. We study the intermediate model of pan-privacy. Unlike a locally private algorithm, a pan-private algorithm receives data in the clear. Unlike a centrally private algorithm, the algorithm receives data one element at a time and must maintain a differentially private internal state while processing this stream.
First, we show that pure pan-privacy against multiple intrusions on the internal state is equivalent to sequentially interactive local privacy. Next, we contextualize pan-privacy against a single intrusion by analyzing the sample complexity of uniformity testing over domain $[k]$. Focusing on the dependence on $k$, centrally private uniformity testing has sample complexity $\Theta(\sqrt{k})$, while noninteractive locally private uniformity testing has sample complexity $\Theta(k)$. We show that the sample complexity of pure pan-private uniformity testing is $\Theta(k^{2/3})$. By a new $\Omega(k)$ lower bound for the sequentially interactive setting, we also separate pan-private from sequentially interactive locally private and multi-intrusion pan-private uniformity testing.


Data journalism has emerged as a trend worthy of attention in newsrooms the world over. Previous research has highlighted how elite media, journalism education institutions, and other interest groups take part in the emergence and evolution of data journalism. But has it equally gained momentum in smaller, less-scrutinized media markets? This paper looks at the ascent of data journalism in the French-speaking part of Belgium. It argues that journalism, and hence data journalism, can be understood as a socio-discursive practice: it is not only the production of (data-driven) journalistic artefacts that shapes the notion of (data) journalism, but also the discursive efforts of all the actors involved, in and out of the newsrooms. A set of qualitative inquiries allowed us to examine the phenomenon by first establishing a cartography of who and what counts as data journalism. It uncovers an overall reliance on a handful of passionate individuals, only partly backed up institutionally, and a limited amount of consensual references that could foster a shared interpretive community. A closer examination of the definitions reveal a sharp polyphony that is particularly polarized around the duality of the term itself, divided between a focus on data and a focus on journalism, and torn between the co-existing notions of "ordinary" and "thorough" data journalism. We also describe what is perceived as obstacles, which mostly pertain to broader traits that shape contemporary newsmaking; and explain why, if data journalism clearly exists as a matter of concern, it has not transformed in concrete undertakings.


Thomas Joshua Cooper is one of the most celebrated and distinctive landscape photographers working anywhere in the world today. He was born in California in 1946, of mixed Jewish and Cherokee descent, but has lived in Scotland for many years. He is the founding Head of Photography at Glasgow School of Art but spends much of his working life away from Scotland in the role of explorer, seeking out the edges of the world.

The capturing of any one image can involve months of preparation and arduous travel as the given location is first found on a map, tracked down and then photographed; each place the subject of a single 5x7 inch negative, taken with a weighty wooden field camera from 1898. They are meditative, almost philosophical images, hovering between abstraction and intense figurative detail, exquisitely hand printed by the artist in the late nineteenth century manner, with layers of selenium and silver.

Cooper's travels have taken him from pole to pole, old world to new, but always between journeys he returns to his studio and dark room in Glasgow. Scotland is his home and, for the last 32 years, he has worked on a parallel project to his wider travels, chronicling his adopted land through the rivers that help to define its identity. Scattered Waters: Sources Streams Rivers is Cooper's love letter to Scotland and presents some of the most beautiful and unexpected photographs that he has ever made.

A new 96-page hardback book with essay by writer Bella Bathurst has been published to accompany the exhibition.


ABSTRACT This article confirms and deepens an understanding of the negative impact of teaching culturally embedded speech standards to actors who are "othered" by a dominant "somatic norm" within the performing arts. The author analyzes evidence from a three-year longitudinal study of actors within a UK conservatory in relation to the critical frame of the somatic norm and colonized listening practices in the performing arts. The author identifies conscious and unconscious bias within traditional training methods and proposes a decolonizing approach to listening within foundational speech training. The ideological shift outlined follows the "affective turn" in the humanities and social sciences and moves away from the culturally embedded listening at the core of "effective" speech methods, which focus solely on clarity and intelligibility. The outcome of this research is a radical performance pedagogy, which values the intersectional identities and linguistic capital of students from pluralistic backgrounds. The revised curriculum offers an approach to affective speaking and listening that assumes an equality of understanding from the outset, and requires actors, actor trainers, and, ultimately, audiences to de-colonize their listening ears.


Habitable zone dust levels are a key unknown that must be understood to ensure the success of future space missions to image Earth analogs around nearby stars. Current detection limits are several orders of magnitude above the level of the solar system's zodiacal cloud, so characterization of the brightness distribution of exo-zodi down to much fainter levels is needed. To this end, the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI) will detect thermal emission from habitable zone exo-zodi a few times brighter than solar system levels. Here we present a modeling framework for interpreting LBTI observations, which yields dust levels from detections and upper limits that are then converted into predictions and upper limits for the scattered light surface brightness. We apply this model to the HOSTS survey sample of nearby stars; assuming a null depth uncertainty of 10−4 the LBTI will be sensitive to dust a few times above the solar system level around Sun-like stars, and to even lower dust levels for more massive stars.


After the nuclear disaster, in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, the Japanese government shut down all nuclear power plants in Japan. The German government decided to permanently phase out nuclear power. Japan was, and still is, directly affected by the nuclear disaster and Germany is considered the most sensitive country to nuclear energy after the nuclear disaster. This study aims to empirically examine whether there were changes in corporate environmental performance through companies' implementations of environmental policies from before 2011 to after 2011 in Germany and Japan in the non-financial and non-energy. The dependent variable (as corporate environmental performance) is defined as a firm's sales divided by corporate direct greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1) in the logarithm form. The independent variables are nine corporate policies, which all are dummy variables. This study uses the global firm dataset from the Bloomberg professional service where the number of observation is 832 in over a seven-year period (2006-2012). In the regression result, we find that when roughly examining pre and post 2011, using a dummy variable, there is significant change regarding the Japan and both sample. We then find that in eight out of the nine cases there is no effect of implementing the environmental policies on corporate efficiency.


A theoretical method is described for reducing the diameter of the central bright disk in the diffraction pattern produced by an objective from an unresolved pinhole as object. On the basis of the Airy criterion the limit of resolution is therefore improved. The method offers a systematic approach for discovering how to coat the exit pupil of the objective with light absorbing and refracting materials so as to reduce the diameter of the central bright disk and yet obtain favorable energy distribution in the diffraction rings. The method selects that family of diffraction patterns whose amplitude and phase distribution can be expressed as a series of Sonine Diffraction Integrals. The coefficients of this series automatically determine both the characteristics of the diffraction pattern and of the corresponding coating which must be applied to the exit pupil. The numerical results obtained for a simple series involving Bessel Functions of the first and second orders are included. In this case the radius of the bright disk is 77 percent of that of the usual Airy disk when the energy density at the diffraction head is 21 percent of that of the classical Airy disk. The radius of the central bright disk can be reduced still further at the expense of serious reduction of the energy density at the diffraction head and a corresponding increase in the energy content of the diffraction rings.


Abstract Assessing the health and condition of animals in their natural environment can be problematic. Many physiological metrics, including immunity, are highly influenced by specific context and recent events to which researchers may be unaware. Thus, using a multifaceted physiological approach and a context‐specific analysis encompassing multiple time scales can be highly informative. Ecoimmunological tools in particular can provide important indications to the health of animals in the wild. We collected blood and hair samples from free‐ranging polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in the southern Beaufort Sea and examined the influence of sex, age, and reproductive status on metrics of immunity, stress, and body condition during 2013–2015. We examined metrics of innate immunity (bactericidal ability and lysis) and stress (hair cortisol, reactive oxygen species, and oxidative barrier), in relation to indices of body condition considered to be short term (urea to creatinine ratio; UC ratio) and long term (storage energy and body mass index). We found the factors of sex, age, and reproductive status of the bear were critical for interpreting different physiological metrics. Additionally, the metrics of body condition were important predictors for stress indicators. Finally, many of these metrics differed between years, illustrating the need to examine populations on a longer time scale. Taken together, this study demonstrates the complex relationship between multiple facets of physiology and how interpretation requires us to examine individuals within a specific context. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT Immunity and other physiological condition metrics varied by sex, age, and reproduction. Female bears had greater immunity than males, which was related to nutrition. Hair cortisol was also inversely related with long‐term energy storage and condition. Figure. No caption available.


Introduction: Musculoskeletal pain accompanied by psychological problem lead to reduce the efficiency of adolescents; so, this study aimed to determine the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain and its association with psychological factors among female adolescents. Materials and methods: The target population of this cross sectional study was female students (3625 in total) from both private and state funded high school children in Gorgan, northern Iran. Self assessment questionnaires were distributed to 255 students across 8 female high schools. Self-report version of the Strengths and Difficulties (SDQ) questionnaires was used to screen adolescents with Psychiatric symptoms. To evaluate musculoskeletal pain Nordic questionnaire and numeric pain rating scale was used. Data were analyzed by binary logistic regression and the cumulative odds ratio (COR) was carried out for the ordinal level of musculoskeletal symptoms. Results: The prevalence rate of neck, shoulder and low back pain was reported, 23.1%, 27.8% and 27.7%, respectively. Hyperactivity-inattention (OR=2. 82; CI: 1.14-6.97) and peer problem (OR= 2.72; CI: 1.01-7.32) had significant relationship with neck pain, and prosocial behaviors (OR= 3.11; CI: 1.09-10.73) were associated with low back pain in the multivariate model. Ordinal regression showed that the increasing numbers of musculoskeletal symptoms related only to prosocial behavior (COR= 2.78; CI: 1.12-6.91). There was no significant association between shoulder pain and psychological factors. Conclusion: Based on the results, psychological factors were associated with musculoskeletal pain; so, it seems suffering from musculoskeletal pain need to be concurrently noticed with mental feeling for more effective response to attenuate pain.