Mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 signaling in the uterus contributes to preterm birth in mice. Preterm births result in an increased risk of neonatal death and developmental and learning difficulties. Many risk factors are implicated in triggering premature delivery, including inflammation, stress, genetic factors, and infection; however, the underlying mechanism(s) are unclear. Noting that many of these risk factors also contribute to cellular senescence, and that mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) signaling is associated with senescence, Hirota et al. investigated a role for mTORC1 in preterm birth in mice. The authors had previously shown that female mice with conditional deletion of p53 in the uterus (p53d/d mice) exhibit premature delivery, which is associated with increased activity of the serine and threonine kinase Akt. They also showed that preterm birth was associated with premature senescence in the decidua, the lining of the uterus during pregnancy. Under normal conditions, senescence in the decidua increases as the time of birth approaches. In the current study, the authors found that the abundance of phosphorylated S6, a downstream effector of mTORC1, was higher in p53d/d mice than in control mice during pregnancy. Administration of the mTORC1 inhibitor rapamycin to p53d/d mice during pregnancy reduced the incidence of preterm birth and neonatal death. Compared with the decidua of control mice, the decidua of p53d/d mice on day 16 of pregnancy exhibited increased senescence, a phenotype that was prevented by rapamycin. Knockout of the gene encoding p21, which promotes cell cycle arrest and senescence, rescued the preterm birth defect of p53d/d mice. The abundances of cyclooxygenase 2 (COX2) and prostaglandin F synthase (PGFS), two enzymes required for the synthesis of PGF2α, which contributes to the onset of delivery, were higher in uterine samples from p53d/d mice than in those from control mice. Loss of p21 or treatment with rapamycin reduced the amounts of COX2 and PGFS in p53d/d mice to those found in control mice. Together, these data suggest a role for mTORC1 signaling in determining the timing of birth through a mechanism that activates COX2 and increases senescence in the decidua. Y. Hirota, J. Cha, M. Yoshie, T. Daikoku, S. K. Dey, Heightened uterine mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) signaling provokes preterm birth in mice. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 108, 18073–18078 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text]


A 6-week-old girl was referred to the respiratory unit in a tertiary hospital for persistent tachypnoea since she was 5 days old and changes on her chest X-ray. She was born at 37+2 weeks following emergency caesarean section for breech. Antenatal scans were normal and there were no risk factors for sepsis. At day 5 of life, the parents noted increased work of breathing with significant subcostal recessions. Her tachypnoea gradually worsened, and this affected her feeds. A chest X-ray was performed (figure 1) at 4 weeks of age and images were shared with the tertiary unit for opinion. She was admitted at 6 weeks to the tertiary unit for further investigations. On examination, she appeared lethargic and had a respiratory rate of 45 beats per minute with saturations 97% in air. She had good air entry bilaterally with moderate subcostal recessions. …


Background: Sepsis and endotoxemia are associated with increased mucosal production of complement component C3; the enterocyte may be a source of C3 in these conditions. Objective: To test the hypothesis that interleukin 1β (IL-1β) and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) regulate the production of C3 in the enterocyte at the transcriptional level and that this regulation is potentiated by interferon gamma (IFN-γ). Methods: Cultured Caco-2 cells, a human intestinal epithelial cell line, were treated with various concentrations of human recombinant IL-1 β (0.005-1.25 ng/mL) or TNF-α (1-1000 U/mL) with or without the addition of IFN-γ (250 U/mL). C3 levels in the culture medium were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and cellular messenger RNA levels by Northern blot analysis. Results: Treatment of the Caco-2 cells with IL-1β or TNF-α resulted in a time- and dose-dependent increase in C3 production. The use of IFN-γ alone did not affect C3 production but potentiated the effect of IL-1β and TNF-α in a synergistic manner. C3 messenger RNA levels were increased following stimulation with either cytokine. Conclusions: C3 production in the enterocyte is regulated by IL-1β and TNF-α at the transcriptional level, and this response is potentiated by TNF-γ. The results suggest that C3 production in the intestinal mucosa may be regulated locally by cytokines in a paracrine or autocrine manner. Arch Surg. 1997;132:1289-1293


A discussion on the fundamental concepts associated with wind tunnel forces measurement systems (balances) is presented. Detailed static analyses are performed on the six component pyramidal, six component floating beam, and three component strain gaged strut balances. These static analyses lead to a dimensional uncertainty investigation of the pyramidal and strain gaged strut balances. The critical dimensions for the pyramidal balance are found to be the lengths of the pyramidal links, the platform half-width, and the model attachment strut. No single dimension on the strain gaged strut is more critical than the others. A new method for the classification of wind tunnel force balances is presented. This method uses two defined quantities: the degree of coupling, and a hardware parameter based on the number of areas where tolerances are of a concern. The versatility of the method is demonstrated through a number of classification examples. The following recommendations are made: determine the effects of component deflection on the pyramidal force balance readouts and investigate the uncertainties associated with low strains on the three component strain gaged strut. To Mom, Dad, and Laurie, my beautiful sister. CHAPTER


Increasing globalization and the related cross-border flows of capital resources has only increased interest in the taxation of transnational capital gains among practitioners and scholars. This is particularly true as it relates to investments in immovable property. As a consequence, Article 13 of the OECD Model Convention - covering capital gains - has emerged as one of the document's key provisions. Despite this, international tax literature has devoted little attention to the systematic analysis of capital gains in relation to tax treaties. Stefano Simontacchi's thorough and thoughtful examination of the ramifications of Article 13 addresses this "need to know" in a meaningful - and readily actionable - fashion. Based on in-depth historical research, the book pays particular attention to the definition of capital gains falling within the scope of Article 13. It also thoroughly analyses the treaty regime applicable to gains derived from the alienation of both immovable property and shares of immovable property companies. International tax professionals will quickly recognize Stefano Simontacchi's book as an indispensable and highly accessible guide to an area of practice that continues to grow in scope and importance.


Electron–positron (e–p) plasmas are widely thought to be emitted, in the form of ultra-relativistic winds or collimated jets, by some of the most energetic or powerful objects in the Universe, such as black-holes, pulsars, and quasars. These phenomena represent an unmatched astrophysical laboratory to test physics at its limit and, given their immense distance from Earth (some even farther than several billion light years), they also provide a unique window on the very early stages of our Universe. However, due to such gigantic distances, their properties are only inferred from the indirect interpretation of their radiative signatures and from matching numerical models: their generation mechanism and dynamics still pose complicated enigmas to the scientific community. Small-scale reproductions in the laboratory would represent a fundamental step towards a deeper understanding of this exotic state of matter. Here we present recent experimental results concerning the laser-driven production of ultra-relativistic e–p beams. In particular, we focus on the possibility of generating beams that present charge neutrality and that allow for collective effects in their dynamics, necessary ingredients for the testing pair-plasma physics in the laboratory. A brief discussion of the analytical and numerical modelling of the dynamics of these plasmas is also presented in order to provide a summary of the novel plasma physics that can be accessed with these objects. Finally, general considerations on the scalability of laboratory plasmas up to astrophysical scenarios are given.


The issue of the commercialization of patents, as an exemplification of the industrial property, is mostly considered at the microeconomic level. Patent commercialization belongs to the innovation management process, which takes place in innovative organizations. Such microeconomic research approach does not take into account the phenomenon of the intellectual property simultaneous spread and use of scientific and technical knowledge in the economy. These observations lead to undertaking research on the commercial use of patents in the economy. The aim of this paper is to present the research results of the patent licensing as one of the forms of commercialization in the selected European countries in the long time period. The main purpose of undertaken research was to identify and measure the patent licensing dynamics, which is part of the one of the major research related to identify and structure recognition of patents commercialization stream. To achieve this purpose, the collection of patent metadata for the member states of the European Patent Office was used, as well as the author's own concordance IPC→NACE table. As a result of the research, some of the European countries were identified as leading, in terms of the number of licensed patents, the dynamics spread of patent property in the European economy that was set, and the branches were established, in which the emerging new industrial solutions are the subject of commercialization with the use of license contracts.


In this work, we propose new ways to employ 3D-ranging systems in advanced human-computer interfaces and show that they can be used for precise hand-tracking systems aiming at virtual keyboard or mouse applications. We first implement a Structured Light (SL) based 3D-ranging system as the testbed for acquiring depth information. The ranging system uses an off-the-shelf projector combined with an industrial color camera, where the projector projects well-designed line patterns onto the scene and the camera captures the reflected light from the scene and the target. The depth information is recovered from the deformed line pattern and the pre-calibrated projector-camera system. With this system we can capture dense depth maps with moderate resolution and high frame rate as the simulated input to the hand-tracking system. We then explore an approach to 3D hand matching that combines a detailed 3D hand model (skeletal + polygonal model) with a Physical-based Model Fitting technique (PMF). Virtual forces are assigned between the depth measurements and the polygonal vertices of the model. The matching problem is formulated as the minimization of the distances between the measurement and the model surface with the guidance of virtual forces. This can employ 3D information simply and directly onto the parameter space, and yield good results under challenging conditions. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach we show that we can track hand motions such as typing or grasping frame by frame. The major limitation of this method is that it requires a good initialization of the hand model and the computation time to achieve convergence with good fitting results is quite long. We therefore investigated more complex hand models and feature-based matching techniques. A three-level hand model (skeletal + primitive + polygonal model) is proposed for the Multi-Level Feature Matching approach (MLFM). The matching is carried out from the bottom to top levels of different hand presentations, and distinctive features for each level extracted from both the measurements and the model are matched with Scaled Conjugate Gradient method (SCG). The matching result from lower level is used as the initial state of the model parameters for higher level matching. This hierarchical structure speeds up the optimization process and enhances the precision of the matching result. We demonstrate our approach with the same hand motion as in the previous method and compare the performance of these two methods. We show that the MLFM method is faster and more robust to hand occlusions than the PMF method. Finally, we present a more powerful approach based on the Back-Constrained Gaussian Process Latent Variable Model (BC-GPLVM) that import prior information of categorized hand motion such as typing. BC-GPLVM provides a low-dimensional embedding of hand motion data, with a density function that gives higher probability to gestures and motions close to normal typing motion. This model is learned from a small set of clusters of vast captured motion data. The prior model is then combined with the previous multi-level models and features to generate a uniform cost function for optimization. We show the tracking result to demonstrate that this method can be used for human-computer interfaces requiring precise 3D hand tracking.


The research project is a collaboration with Lowenstein's mother Karin Lowenstein. It is situated in the strand of her research that focuses on the meaning of place in relation to identity and belonging. Through an earlier project 'Heimat', this strand has channelled into a closer interest in the psychology of family relationships, and this is the first project directly engaging with this context.

The format for the project is simple yet powerful. Mother and daughter each make an image each day, and the image pairs are initially uploaded to a blog each day. At a later stage, sections of the images are curated by third persons into a website, book, exhibition, installation etc. Currently, Pulitzer prize winner and editor Judy Walgren has edited/curated a section, and further collaborations are in progress.

The development of the production of the images for the project itself is experiential, in that mother and daughter have an ongoing, daily dialogue by email and Skype around the images, their content, and each other's lives. The simple exchange and publication of image pairs from mother and daughter have opened up communication that doesn't require any explanation or reconciliation of the past.

Karin Lowenstein who is in her eighties and lives with her husband in Cologne, Germany, has suffered from anxiety and depression since a life-changing event in 2011. Access to mental health provision is difficult for the elderly, in Germany as well as the UK. The project has enabled recuperation and has given Karin's life a new lease and purpose.

The scope for developing a project using 'Mum and I' like a template for use with the older population in the UK and Germany is currently under consideration.

The blog where the image pairs have been published thus far is at https://mumandiweb.wordpress.com/


Even in the early days some observers warned that euthanasia was not just another procedure added to the medical practice but would change the physician's whole attitude and also their professional performance. The predictions proved right. Handling the Facts of the Case. Dutch doctors are excellently trained professionals and many of them are strikingly talented individuals. Family physicians impress the specialists by their ability to report from memory every patient's medical history in every detail. And yet two series of cases have been published, one by Innemee from the Dutch Patients' Association,33r and the other by myself, (338) showing factual errors, misrepresentation of the facts, and negligence on the part of doctors in their attempts to justify euthanasia. A family physician phoned me three times to request that I allow his patient to die. The man had suffered cardiac arrest in the street, and had been resuscitated by passers by and transported to my intensive care unit. The family physician argued that the patient also had lung cancer and that the family wanted euthanasia. Both statements proved false. Six months before, the family physician had indeed suspected this patient of lung cancer and had referred him to a chest specialist; the specialist ruled out cancer. The patient's two daughters (he had no other family) categorically denied that they had requested euthanasia; they stated that they had not spoken about their father to the family physician or any other doctor. When transferring to me an acutely ill patient with myocardial infarction and pulmonary edema, an internist colleague of mine tried to persuade me to let the patient die "because he was a widower without family, entirely alone in the world." Of course, that argument had no influence on my actions and also proved untrue. This patient, Mr. T, was under my care for the next eight years and always came to the outpatient clinic accompanied by his loving sons, daughters, and in-laws. After examining a woman patient of mine, the consulting neurologist wrote in his opinion: "this elderly man is deeply comatose and, in my view, should not be resuscitated again." Having examined the patient, this doctor still did not know whether the patient was a man or woman, but he did know that this person's life should not be prolonged. To be sure, the patient's sex had no bearing on the conclusion; but the incident showed that decisions about life and death could be made in a distracted state of mind. The actions of Dr. W (339) were not marked by scrupulousness, to put it mildly. This doctor, who routinely put patients to death without their consent or knowledge, considered it unnecessary personally to examine the patient before making such a decision. If, when making his (quick) ward rounds, he had the impression that a patient was in critical condition, he would ask the nurse: "Ishij euthanasieachtig?" ["Is he suitable for euthanasia?"] The nurse's answer would decide the patients fate. In the case cited in Chapter XXIV, Dr. W ordered that the patient be given a lethal injection though nobody knew what was wrong with the patient (if anything). The patient was in a dimmed state during the ward round because he had been stupefied by valium (diazepam), which that same Dr. W had prescribed a few days before. Dr. W had forgotten that he had prescribed valium and it did not occur to him that this might have been the cause of the patient's stupefaction. He did not even glance at the patient's chart which would show that the patient was receiving the drug. That's how scrupulously the doctors proceeded who attempted to subject patients to euthanasia. In my entire medical career I have never encountered such a series of crude errors and transgressions as those committed by doctors in their rush to euthanasia: lies, distortion of fact, impaired powers of observation and concentration (to mistake a woman for a man! …


The dependence of hydrogen coverage on the bulk doping concentration is investigated for the polar O-terminated (0001 ̅)ZnO surface.We use hybrid density-functional theory in combinationwith ab initio thermodynamics to determine a doping-dependent phase diagramof this surface. For hydrogen coverages lower than 50%dangling oxygen bonds remain at the surface, where they subsequently become charged by bulk electrons. For such charged surfaces, a computationalfirstprinciples approach is presented, withwhich long-range band bending can nowbe included infirstprinciples supercell calculations. In this work, we use amodified and extended version of the recently introduced charge-reservoir electrostatic sheet technique (Sinai et al 2015Phys. Rev. B 91 075311) to incorporate band bending effects directly into our first-principles calculations. This allows us to investigate the effect of space charge layers and the resulting band bending on the hydrogen coverage of the ZnO (0001 ̅) surface. After introducing a new implementation of CREST, we show that the structure and stability of polar ZnO surfaces are indeed sensitive to the amount of free charge carriers in the bulk. At low doping concentrations our results corroborate the previously reported (2× 1) hydrogen phase, at higher doping concentrations the hydrogen coverage diminishes notably.


Observations of exoplanetary spectra are leading to unprecedented constraints on their atmospheric elemental abundances, particularly O/H, C/H, and C/O ratios. Recent studies suggest that elemental ratios could provide important constraints on formation and migration mechanisms of giant exoplanets. A fundamental assumption in such studies is that the chemical composition of the planetary envelope represents the sum-total of compositions of the accreted gas and solids during the formation history of the planet. We investigate the efficiency with which accreted planetesimals ablate in a giant planetary envelope thereby contributing to its composition rather than sinking to the core. From considerations of aerodynamic drag causing `frictional ablation' and the envelope temperature structure causing `thermal ablation', we compute mass ablations for impacting planetesimals of radii 30 m to 1 km for different compositions (ice to iron) and a wide range of velocities and impact angles, assuming spherical symmetry. Icy impactors are fully ablated in the outer envelope for a wide range of parameters. Even for Fe impactors substantial ablation occurs in the envelope for a wide range of sizes and velocities. For example, iron impactors of sizes below ~0.5 km and velocities above ~30 km/s are found to ablate by ~60-80% within the outer envelope at pressures below 10^3 bar due to frictional ablation alone. For deeper pressures (~10^7 bar), substantial ablation happens over a wider range of parameters. Therefore, our exploratory study suggests that atmospheric abundances of volatile elements in giant planets reflect their accretion history during formation.


Abstract The aim of this study is to present a fast parallel implementation of the Horn and Schunck method using a new kind of recurrent neural network called discrete Zhang neural networks. This network is characterized by a few iterations to converge which make it very suitable for real-time motion estimation. To compute the optical flow, we propose to solve directly the system of equations utilizing the discrete Zhang neural networks for matrix inversion instead of the original iterative method. The simulation results for synthetic and real image sequences show that the proposed algorithm is faster than the Horn and Schunck method.


Objectives: A review of previous research shows that children with intellectual disability experience various behavioralemotional problems. Behavioralemotional problems may lead to social isolation and exclusion from participation in social activity in children with intellectual disability. The role of first experiences of Children with their caregivers, especially their mothers, are very important in the formation and evolution of mental structures such as excitement, personality and behavior. One of the efficiency variables in the relationship between children and their caregivers, especially their mothers; is empathy. There are two-way relationship Between Children's behavioral-emotional problems and Their Mothers Empathy. This means that children's behavioralemotional problems reduce Mothers Empathy, and the other hand deficits in Mothers Empathy cause behavioralemotional problems in children. Therefor the purpose of the present study was to the Prediction of behavioral/emotional problems in students with intellectual disability based on their mother's empathy. Material and Methods: current study is a descriptive and correlational research. The statistical population of the study consist of all of students with intellectual disability attending special schools in Shiraz city during academic year 2014-2015. The sample consisted of 120 students (55 female and 65 male) students with an intellectual disability, who were selected using multi-stage cluster sampling. Behavioral/emotional problems questioners of Enfeld and Tonge (2002) and basic empathy scale of jolliffe-farrington (2006) were used in this studying. Basic empathy scale complete by mothers of student with intellectual disability and behavioral/emotional problems questioners completed by teacher of students with intellectual disability. The statistical methods of Pearson correlation and multi regression analysis were applied to analyze the data. Results: The results of this study showed that in the base of the correlation matrix, Of the four dimensions of behavioralemotional problems, there is a significant and negative correlation between empathy mothers with anxiety (r=-0.196, p≤0.05) and social communication disorder (r=-0.188, p≤0.05) ) in students with intellectual disability. But there was no significant relationship between Mothers Empathy and antisocial behavior and autism signs subscales. To determine the contribution of maternal empathy for the prediction of emotional behavioral problems in students with an intellectual disability was used from Simultaneous multiple regression method. So that mothers empathy was considered as predictive variables and each of the dimensions of behavioral problems was considered as dependent variable. Multivariate regression analysis showed that empathy was predict negatively and significantly anxiety (R=4.56, F=0.038, p≤0.05) and social communication disorders (R=4.33, F=0.035, p≤0.05). Also the results of multivariate regression analysis about the role of mothers empathy in predicting of behavioral problems in children with intellectual disability with consideration of gender revealed that Maternal empathy (Beta=-0.287, t=2.377, p≤0.05) significantly predict behavioral problems in males with intellectual disability (R=0/08, F=5.64, p≤0.05). However empathy mothers (Beta=0.016, t=0.116, p≤0.05) was not predicted behavior problems in girls with intellectual disability (R=0.001, F=0.01, p≤0.9). Conclusions: According to the findings of this study that showed mothers empathy is a significant predictor for anxiety and social communication disorders; It can be concluded that if the mothers of children with an intellectual disability are taught to have emphatic behavior with their children; then it can be expected that behavioral problems of their children (both girls and boys) will be reduced.


While summer break presents educational and recreational opportunities for some students, students from depressed socioeconomic groups may face significant obstacles in the summer, including learning loss. In general, these students also lack access to a wide range of intrinsic and instrumental benefits attached to the study of philosophy. While there are currently existing philosophy programs, this contribution highlights the connections between summer experiences and the overall achievement gap, while identifying specific practices shown to yield successful summer programs. Philosophy provides an impressive set of benefits, including academic skills and opportunities for personal growth and development. Incorporating best practices while focusing on the methods and content of philosophy should, therefore, yield particularly rewarding programs. Due to these benefits, summer philosophy programs should be researched, developed, and expanded.


In England, parents make "choices" (in reality, "preferences") for the state-maintained secondary schools they wish their child to attend. If there are more applicants than places, the school's published admissions criteria are used to give priority to applicants. This article examines how school composition in London varies by first comparing schools that are overtly academically selective with those that are nominally "comprehensive" ("all ability"); second, comparing "comprehensive" schools that control their own admissions with those that do not; third, comparing schools with and without selective admissions criteria; and fourth, comparing schools that use religious criteria with those that do not. We find that school compositions vary. Academically selective schools have fewer students from poor households than comprehensive schools in the same area and have fewer Black and more Indian and Chinese/Other Asian students. Comprehensive schools with autonomy over admissions admit higher attaining students and have fewer students from poor households and with special educational needs, and those with selective admissions criteria admit higher performing children. There are fewer Bangladeshi/Pakistani students and more Black students in schools with a religious character than in those without. Although a range of factors are likely to play a role in explaining the variation in school composition, the evidence suggests that there is "selecting in" and "selecting out" of more desirable students by some schools. Implications for policy are highlighted.


In recent years, an increasing number of scientific and other domains have attempted to standardize their terminology and provide reasoning capabilities through ontologies, in order to facilitate data exchange. This has spurred research into Web-based languages, formalisms, and especially query systems based on ontologies. Yet we argue that DBMS techniques can be extended to provide many of the same capabilities, with benefits in scalability and performance. We present OWLDB, a lightweight and extensible approach for the integration of relational databases and description logic based ontologies. One of the key differences between relational databases and ontologies is the high degree of implicit information contained in ontologies. OWLDB integrates the two schemes by codifying ontologies' implicit information using a set of sound and complete inference rules for SHOIN (the description logic behind OWL ontologies. These inference rules can be translated into queries on a relational DBMS instance, and the query results (representing inferences) can be added back to this database. Subsequently, database applications can make direct use of this inferred, previously implicit knowledge, e.g., in the annotation of biomedical databases. As our experimental comparison to a native description logic reasoner and a triple store shows, OWLDB provides significantly greater scalability and query capabilities, without sacrifcing performance with respect to inference. Comments University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science Technical Report No. MSCIS-07-24. This technical report is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/cis_reports/716 Integrating Ontologies and Relational Data Soren Auer Computer and Information Science University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA firstname.lastname@example.com Zachary Ives Computer and Information Science University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA email@example.com


This study examines the characteristics of low‐frequency variations (defined as decadal‐scale changes) in summer (June–August) convective afternoon rainfall (CAR) activity over Taiwan during 1961–2012. Using 3‐hourly rain gauge data, it was found that (1) the CAR frequency exhibits a secular trend and the 10–20 decadal oscillation, (2) the trend in CAR frequency is positive in northern Taiwan but negative in central and southern Taiwan, and (3) the CAR rate increased over most of the lower plains but decreased over the mountain range of Taiwan. Diagnoses using the Japanese ReAnalysis (JRA‐55) data and surface observations indicate that the low‐frequency variations in CAR frequency are closely associated with the variations in monsoon southwesterly winds over the South China Sea and island‐wide sea breeze convergence. The regional low‐level circulation changes are linked to sea surface temperature anomalies over the Niño‐4 region and its 10–20 year (quasi‐decadal) oscillation. Regarding the processes that change the CAR rate in the trending patterns, it was found that increases in the moisture flux convergence and the moist (conditional) instability over the lower plains together explain the stronger CAR events in the long run.


The problem addressed is the distributed reconfiguration of a metamorphic robotic system composed of an arbitrary number of two-dimensional hexagonal robots (modules) from specific initial to specific goal configurations. The initial configuration considered is a straight chain of robotic modules, while the goal configurations considered satisfy a more general "admissibility" condition. A centralized algorithm is described for determining whether an arbitrary goal configuration is admissible. We prove this algorithm correctly identifies admissible goal configurations and finds a "substrate path" within the goal configuration, along which the modules can move to reach their positions in the goal. A second result of the paper is a distributed algorithm for reconfiguring a straight chain into an admissible goal configuration. Different heuristics are proposed to improve the performance of the reconfiguration algorithm and simulation results demonstrate the use of these heuristics.


This work takes an in-depth look at the world of comic books through the eyes of a Native American reader and offers frank commentary on the medium's cultural representation of the Native American people. It addresses a range of portrayals, from the bloodthirsty barbarians and noble savages of dime novels, to formulaic secondary characters and sidekicks, and, occasionally, protagonists sans paternal white hero, examining how and why Native Americans have been consistently marginalized and misrepresented in comics. Chapters cover early representations of Native Americans in popular culture and newspaper comic strips, the Fenimore Cooper legacy, the 'white' Indian, the shaman, revisionist portrayals, and Native American comics from small publishers, among other topics.


We show that current microlensing and dynamical observations of the Galaxy permit to set interesting constraints on the Dark Matter local density and profile slope towards the galactic centre. Assuming state-of-the-art models for the distribution of baryons in the Galaxy, we find that the most commonly discussed Dark Matter profiles (viz. Navarro-Frenk-White and Einasto) are consistent with microlensing and dynamical observations, while extreme adiabatically compressed profiles are robustly ruled out. When a baryonic model that also includes a description of the gas is adopted, our analysis provides a determination of the local Dark Matter density, ρ0 = 0.20−0.56 GeV/cm3 at 1σ, that is found to be compatible with estimates in the literature based on different techniques.


We use near-field interference spectroscopy with a broadband femtosecond, white-light probe to study local surface plasmon resonances in flat gold nanoparticles (FGNPs). Depending on nanoparticle dimensions, local near-field extinction spectra exhibit none, one, or two resonances in the range of visible wavelengths (1.6-2.6 eV). The measured spectra can be accurately described in terms of interference between the field emitted by the probe aperture and the field reradiated by driven FGNP surface plasmon oscillations. The measured resonances are in good agreement with those predicted by calculations using discrete dipole approximation. We observe that the amplitudes of these resonances are dependent upon the spatial position of the near-field probe, which indicates the possibility of spatially selective excitation of specific plasmon modes.


Villiers de L'Isle Adam's L'Eve Future published in 1886 features a fictional version of the inventor Thomas Edison who constructs a complex, custom-made android for Englishman Lord Ewald as a substitute for his unsatisfactory lover. Hadaly, the android, has a number of literary and cultural precursors and successors. Her most commonly accepted ancestor is Olympia in E. T. A. Hoffmann's 'The Sandman' (1816) and among her fascinating descendants are Oskar Kokoschka's 'Silent Woman'; Model Borghild, a sex doll designed by German technicians during World War II;'Caracas' in Tommaso Landolfi's short story 'Gogol's Wife' (1954); a variety of gynoids and golems from the realms of science fiction, including Ira Levin's Stepford Wives (1972); and, most recently, that silicon masterpiece - the Real Doll. All, arguably, have their genesis in the classical myth of Pygmalion. This essay considers the tension between animation and stasis in relation to this myth, and explores the necrophiliac aesthetic implicit in Villiers's novel.


The extracellular environment plays an important and crucial role in orchestrating the behaviors of the cells in the central nervous system (CNS). In my thesis work, I studied how the extracellular environment regulates a subset of glial cells, Oligodendrocytes (OLs) and astrocytes. Moreover, I studied the relationship of the astrocyte and the OL, particularly for astrocytes to promote a favorable environment for OL maturation. The extracellular matric (ECM) is composed of a variety of factors, including glycoproteins and secreted extracellular proteins. In my thesis work, I focused on a subset of glycoproteins: Laminin (Ln), Tenascin-C (TnC), Fibronectin (Fn), and Vitronectin (Vn) and their regulation of astrocytes. As described in chapter 4 of my thesis, I concluded that the ECM differentially regulates astrocytes and their functions through β1 integrin. Additionally, I studied the effect of an extracellular factor, tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase (TIMP)1 and its effect on both astrocytes and OLs. In chapter 5 of my thesis, I described how TIMP-1 is important for astrocytic behavior and astrocytes' ability to respond to injury and inflammation. Furthermore, I studied the effect of the extracellular environment on OL maturation. First, as described in chapter 6 of my thesis, I studied the direct effect of TIMP-1 on OL maturation and discovered a previously unreported mechanism of TIMP1 action on OL maturation. I also studied the effect of TIMP-1 on the astrocyte and how it affected OL maturation, specifically through the factors that astrocytes secrete in the absence of TIMP-1. As described in chapter 7 of my thesis, I found that TIMP-1 regulates the factors astrocytes secrete, specifically a Fn fragment that inhibits OL maturation. In general, my thesis studies focused on the effect of the extracellular environment, particularly the ECM molecules, Ln, TnC, Fn, Vn, and the secreted factor, TIMP-1 on the glial cells, astrocytes' and OLs' functions.


Application of existing mobile telemedicine system is restricted by the imperfection of network coverage, network capacity, and mobility. In this paper, a novel telemedicine based handover decision making (THODM) algorithm is proposed for mobile telemedicine system using heterogeneous wireless networks. The proposed algorithm select the best network based on the services requirement to ensure the connected or targeted network candidate has sufficient capacity for supporting the telemedicine services. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm minimizes the number of unnecessary handover to WLAN in high speed environment. The throughput achieved by the proposed algorithm is up to 75% and 205% higher than Cellular and RSS based schemes, respectively. Moreover, the average data transmission cost of THODM algorithm is 24% and 69.2% lower than the Cellular and RSS schemes. The proposed algorithm minimizes the average transmission cost while maintaining the telemedicine service quality at the highest level in high speed environment.


In a series of papers, we have recently demonstrated that it is possible to construct stellar structure models that robustly mimic the stratification of multidimensional radiative magnetohydrodynamic simulations at every time-step of the computed evolution. The resulting models offer a more realistic depiction of the near-surface layers of stars with convective envelopes than parametrizations, such as mixing length theory, do. In this paper, we explore how this model improvement impacts on seismic and non-seismic properties of stellar models across the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram. We show that the improved description of the outer boundary layers alters the predicted global stellar properties at different evolutionary stages. In a hare and hound exercise, we show that this plays a key role for asteroseismic analyses, as it, for instance, often shifts the inferred stellar age estimates by more than 10 per cent. Improper boundary conditions may thus introduce systematic errors that exceed the required accuracy of the PLATO space mission. Moreover, we discuss different approaches for computing stellar oscillation frequencies. We demonstrate that the so-called gas Γ1 approximation performs reasonably well for all main-sequence stars. Using a Monte Carlo approach, we show that the model frequencies of our hybrid solar models are consistent with observations within the uncertainties of the global solar parameters when using the so-called reduced Γ1 approximation.


Based on interface evidence, this paper shows that the interpretation of discourse categories relies on syntactic conditions. Specifically, the existence of a systematic connection between formal properties and discourse functions shows that Topics are licensed in dedicated positions in the C-domain, which correspond to specific realizations at the PF-interface. Different types of Topics thus correspond to specific tonal events and show A'-properties which discard a movement approach. Finally, the interface properties of postverbal subjects are examined, showing that their position does not depend on the argument structure of the verb and is not necessarily different from the position of (referential) preverbal subjects. Though the present analysis is mainly concerned with Italian, a comparison with Bantu data is also proposed in order to show similarities, discuss (apparent) discrepancies and highlight implications for future research.


Abstract Genetic and environmental (co)variance components for 4% FCM yield were simultaneously estimated by REML for grade cows from herds stratified by within-herd SD for 305-d mature equivalent milk and time period. Data were lactation records from 299,441 daughters of 2489 AI bulls that calved for the first time from 1970 to 1985 in California, New York, or Texas. Sire and residual variance components for FCM increased with SD in all time periods and were slightly larger for second than for first lactations. Residual components were of uniform size across time periods within each SD class, but sire components were as much as 21% less for first lactations and 27% less for second lactations in the latter periods than in the earliest one. Heritabilities of first lactation FCM were largest (.154, .263, and .226 for low, medium, and high SD classes) in the earliest time period. Variance components for log-transformed records in each time period differed less than on the original scale, but both sire and residual components remained largest in the most variable herds. Genetic correlation coefficients between yields in first and second lactation were greater (.75 to .99) in all SD classes and time periods than phenotypic correlations (.40 to .61). Heterogeneous phenotypic variation for milk yield was attributed to genetic and environmental components. However, genetic variation only increased with environmental opportunity (variation).


Abstract For many years Sweden has experienced high rates of sickness absence among employees. Sickness absence is often regarded as an indicator of health in a population, with low rates of absence associated with good health and high degrees of absence associated with poor health. The aim of this article is to examine this hypothesis — that the high rates of sickness absence in Sweden is an indicator of poor health. Sickness absence and health data was obtained from official government statistics in order to compare Sweden with six other European countries and a number of health-related variables. The hypothesis was not supported by the results of this study. While Sweden has a high rate of sickness absence, it ranks highly on a range of health variables when compared to other European countries. Instead, sickness absence may be more strongly associated with rates of unemployment. In times of high unemployment, sickness absence is low, and in times low unemployment, sickness absence is high. While public health programs are essential components of primary health care initiatives, the evidence from this study indicates that they are unlikely to have significant impact on sickness absence in Sweden. Instead more effort should be made to intervene early following sickness absence through providing timely vocational rehabilitation and disability management programs.


We estimated the current location, quality, and connectivity of habitat for 50 species of breeding birds in four mountain ranges in the central Great Basin (Lander, Nye, and Eureka Counties, Nevada) and projected the future location, quality, and connectivity of habitat for these species given different scenarios of climate-induced land-cover change. In the United States, such models are relevant to federally mandated management of wild animals by state-level agencies. We sampled birds during the breeding seasons of 2001–2009 with fixed-radius point counts. For each species, we used boosted regression trees to model incidence (proportion of years a location was surveyed in which the species was present) as a function of topography and current land cover and climate. To assess model fit, we calculated the proportion of binomial deviance explained. We used cross-validation to estimate the predictive accuracy of the models. We applied the conservation planning program Zonation to identify locations where incidences of multiple species were maximized through time given current land cover and two scenarios of land-cover change, expansion of pinyon–juniper woodland into sagebrush shrubsteppe and contraction of riparian woodland. Models based on a set of 13 covariates derived from remotely sensed data had some predictive capacity for 41 of 50 species. Model outputs suggested substantial changes in amount of habitat for many species following projected expansion of pinyon–juniper woodland, but less pronounced changes following projected contraction of riparian woodland. Zonation analyses indicated that the spatial distribution of the highest-quality habitat for the avian assemblage was relatively consistent through time under both scenarios. Breeding birds in the Great Basin commonly are grouped in management plans on the basis of their general association with land-cover classes such as pinyon–juniper woodland, sagebrush shrubsteppe, and riparian woodland. However, even within these groups, the environmental attributes that explained a high proportion of variation in species' incidences and the projected responses to different scenarios of land-cover change varied considerably among species.


In this thesis we will show that unsteady, incompressible fluid-flow problems, as described by the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations, can efficiently be simulated by a parallel computer code based on a spectral element discretization. This efficiency relies a great deal on the numerous improvements to spectral methods on the theoretical, algorithmic and computational levels which have been proposed over the last decade. Consequently, the application of spectral methods is no longer limited to regular problems in simple geometries, but is extended to complex situations. The spectral element method in particular has received much attention, because it combines the practical advantages of the well-established finite element method with the "spectral" ability to reduce the number of degrees of freedom to obtain a prescribed level of accuracy. Furthermore, it embodies the concept of domain decomposition which is closely related to parallelism. The latter aspect is important for an effective implementation on the leading ("affordable") supercomputers of the nineties, which are almost exclusively based on parallel processors with distributed memory. The continuous Navier-Stokes equations describe the velocity and pressure of a fluid in a domain and the spectral element method reduces them to a set of discrete equations. This discretization technique has become rather mature and furnishes the framework for this thesis. The main challenge, however, lies in the development of fast algorithms for the solution of the discrete systems. To this end, we will analyze existing and new methods of decoupling the velocity components from the pressure. Iterative methods have shown their merits for the solution of the resulting, decoupled set of equations, provided that they are properly preconditioned. This condition has led to the introduction of a large number of preconditioning methods for velocity and pressure operators. The common factor of these techniques is that they are based on fast, local solves, combined with a strategy to deal with the element interfaces. Another important issue is the time discretization of the unsteady equations. It is common practice to choose an implicit time-integration scheme for the linear terms, and an explicit one for the nonlinear terms. The way in which these two schemes are combined is not trivial, especially when two important conditions, high-order accuracy in time and stability, have to be satisfied simultaneously. In fact, the concepts of precision and stability are related: the more stable a time scheme, the larger the maximum time step that can be used. From a computational viewpoint, it is desirable to advance in time with the maximum dowed time step. An acceptable level of accuracy in time is then only guaranteed by high-order time schemes. The construction of a high-performance code requires not only readily parallelizable numerical solution methods, but also fast algorithms to manage the (little) communication involved. The use of iterative methods for the solution of the discrete systems enhances the parallel implementation, especially when the preconditioners are block diagonal (communication free). The communication algorithms are analyzed and optimized, and the use of very fast, architecture-specific routines has to be balanced against the portability of the code. All the algorithmic, numerical, computational, and parallel improvements are first tested individually on small problems. The parallel spectral element code is based on the outcome of these tests and is used for the simulation of the three-dimensional flow over a backward-facing step.


The male breadwinner model, which dominated both policy assumptions and social ideals in the post-war welfare state, is increasingly being supplanted by an adult worker family model. In this new model, both men and women are assumed to be primarily workers in the labour market, who as fathers and mothers pool their earned income in supporting children. In this article we assess this assumption. First, we examine the gendered moral rationalities of particular social groups of partnered mothers, defined in terms of class, conventionality, ethnicity and sexuality, about how mothering is combined with paid work, and how time and labour is allocated with their partners. Second, in the light of this empirical research, we examine three leading approaches to understanding change and decision making in families - new household economics, individualization in late modernity, and `post-modern moral negotiation'. We conclude that both the empirical and theoretical assumptions of the adult worker model are severely limited.


'Still Waiting for the Revolution…' is a piano trio in four movements that investigates both the practice of chamber music performance, and the re-articulation of melodic fragments through all 12 chromatic tones.

The chamber music canon has created a number of cultural expectations amongst performers and audiences. The fourth movement of 'Still Waiting for the Revolution…'requires the performers to shout while playing. These vocalisations are composed into the body of the music and fit into the rhythmic plan of the piece. They are deliberately placed in the final movement of an 18 minute work to create a powerful effect on listeners who will be experiencing the music in a 'traditional' environment. The social and musical co-ordination plus the cultural expectation in chamber music practice is investigated in Davidson and Good (2002) through the observation of string quartet rehearsal and performance. This piano trio is an applied method of challenging the socio-cultural expectations of both performers and audiences. Added techniques, e.g. extensive use of multi-stopped glissando across strings between either fixed or indeterminate pitches, are used at points of dynamic interest and to aid formal progression.
The slow movement takes the traditional American melody Shenandoah and extracts its key thematic identifiers. These are then re-presented in a dense chromatic melody. The compositional challenge was to present the material as if heard from a number of different perspectives without masking its characteristic motivic (usually intervallic) quality.

The use of added techniques in the string writing is a development of techniques addressed in String Quartet No 2 (1994), …on both sides (1997) for double string orchestra and in moto perpetuo (1998) for symphony orchestra.


What role can lawyers play in the internal disputes of a community to which they are outsiders? This essay highlights two core rationales for outsider intervention in support of internal dissent. It examines these rationales in the case of capital defenders from the U.S. North in the U.S. South. The position as an outsider can provide the will and freedom to launch direct attacks on injustice. Frequently, outsiders also bring superior resources for the fight. When outsiders engage in direct social critique, however, they can be accused of cultural imperialism. As an alternative, outsider lawyers can marshal indirect challenges, using professional tools of conventional lawyering. Yet this can also backfire. The notion of expertise may be tainted by perceptions of an elitist invasion, and, unlike classic cause lawyering, conventional lawyering may lack a narrative with substantive moral force. The case of capital defenders suggests that to support lasting social change outsider lawyers must amplify the voices of local community members and their expressions of intragroup dissent.


The development of avian embryos is characterized by the large amount of yolk present from the one-cell stage until late phases of organogenesis. In the chick, an axis of bilateral symmetry is established already before egg laying, when the egg rotates in the uterus. There is evidence for an active Wnt-catenin pathway in the vegetal cells in the periphery of the multi-cellular embryo. It overlaps with the posteriorly restricted expression of genes characterizing the vegetal hemisphere in amphibia. The zone of overlap bears several functional characteristics of a Nieuwkoop center, which is first apparent in the posterior marginal zone, but continues into the early primitive streak. Only the anterior part of the late streak is capable of direct neural induction, and only its tip, Hensen's node, can induce an anterior neural identity. This latter activity leaves the node together with the cells representing the anterior mesendoderm. Thus, although the constraints and dynamics of avian development make comparisons with the amphibian situation a complex undertaking, Hensen's node comes as close as possible to an organizer in Spemann and H. Mangold's definition.


A lunar lander is designed to provide safe, reliable, and continuous access to the lunar surface by the year 2020. The NASA Exploration System Architecture is used to initially define the concept of operations, architecture elements, and overall system requirements. The design evaluates revolutionary concepts and technologies to improve the performance and safety of the lunar lander while minimizing the associated cost using advanced systems engineering capabilities and multi-attribute decision making techniques. The final design is a flexible (crew and/or cargo) lander with a side-mounted minimum ascent stage and a separate stage to perform lunar orbit insertion.


Using a cohort of 3,021 young migrants from rural Thailand, we examine economic and non-economic determinants of return migration. We "follow" this cohort prospectively for sixteen years from preadolescence to young adulthood. Data come from the Nang Rong project, a longitudinal study of an agrarian migration-sending area in the Northeast region which collected information over three waves (in 1984, 1994, and 2000). Our research extends beyond the economic "success-failure" dichotomy by examining non-economic institutional factors determining return. We find evidence of negative human capital selection, but we also find that connections to origin family members (including children, spouse, and parents) are important determinants of return. The effects of these non-economic family-related factors are as strong in magnitude as economic effects in determining return.


Thresholds are essential for promoting source code metrics as an effective instrument to control the internal quality of software applications. However, little is known about the relation between software quality as identified by metric thresholds and as perceived by real developers. In this paper, we report the first results of a study designed to validate a technique that extracts relative metric thresholds from benchmark data. We use this technique to extract thresholds from a benchmark of 79 Pharo/Smalltalk applications, which are validated with five experts and 25 developers. Our preliminary results indicate that good quality applications - as cited by experts - respect metric thresholds. In contrast, we observed that noncompliant applications are not largely viewed as requiring more effort to maintain than other applications.


In this paper, we explore the spatial modulation (SM) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (SM-OFDM) transmission to achieve good performance in Long Term Evolution (LTE) based systems. For assessment purposes, the performance results of SM-OFDM systems are compared with the popular Alamouti-coded OFDM systems and vertical Bell Labs layered space-time (V-BLAST) OFDM systems. Simulation results show that SM-OFDM systems achieve better performance than other systems at low spectral efficiencies. However, at high spectral efficiencies, the performance of SM depends on a trade-off between the spatial constellation size and signal constellation size. Furthermore, the results also show that SM provides a flexible transceiver configuration, especially for an unbalanced multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel.


In 2006, the Federal Circuit issued over two hundred and fifty precedential opinions and orders. This article discusses sixteen precedent-setting opinions involving government contract law issues, setting forth the relevant facts, the Federal Circuit's analysis, and key points for practitioners to glean from each case. This article also includes a discussion of the Federal Circuit's September 2006 opinion regarding the TRICARE Pharmacy Benefits Program ("TPBP") refund program, a case that the pharmaceutical industry watched closely. The decisions have been grouped into the following categories: jurisdiction, contract interpretation, costs, contract termination, bid protests, and patent rights.


Runaway turbidity currents stretch into the deep ocean to form the largest sediment accumulations on Earth. Seabed-hugging flows called turbidity currents are the volumetrically most important process transporting sediment across our planet and form its largest sediment accumulations. We seek to understand the internal structure and behavior of turbidity currents by reanalyzing the most detailed direct measurements yet of velocities and densities within oceanic turbidity currents, obtained from weeklong flows in the Congo Canyon. We provide a new model for turbidity current structure that can explain why these are far more prolonged than all previously monitored oceanic turbidity currents, which lasted for only hours or minutes at other locations. The observed Congo Canyon flows consist of a short-lived zone of fast and dense fluid at their front, which outruns the slower moving body of the flow. We propose that the sustained duration of these turbidity currents results from flow stretching and that this stretching is characteristic of mud-rich turbidity current systems. The lack of stretching in previously monitored flows is attributed to coarser sediment that settles out from the body more rapidly. These prolonged seafloor flows rival the discharge of the Congo River and carry ~2% of the terrestrial organic carbon buried globally in the oceans each year through a single submarine canyon. Thus, this new structure explains sustained flushing of globally important amounts of sediment, organic carbon, nutrients, and fresh water into the deep ocean.


In declaring 2012 the international year of sustainable energy for all, the United Nations (UN) general assembly (2011) established at the personal initiative of the UN secretary general- three global objectives to be accomplished by 2030. Those goals are to ensure universal access to modern energy services (including electricity and clean, modern cooking solutions), to double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency, and to double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. Some 70 countries have formally embraced the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative, while numerous corporations and agencies have pledged tens of billions of dollars to achieve its objectives. As 2012 drew to a close, the UN general assembly announced a decade of sustainable energy for all stretching from 2014 to 2024. Sustaining momentum for the achievement of the SE4ALL objectives will require a means of charting global progress over the years leading to 2030. Construction of the necessary framework has been coordinated by the World Bank and Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), in collaboration with 13 other agencies. The process has benefited from public consultation with more than a hundred stakeholder groups. This report provides an initial system for regular global reporting based on indicators that are both technically rigorous and feasible to compute from current global energy databases, and that offer scope for progressive improvement over time.


The new mobile devices can access data networks and they can also execute complex applications. In this work, we present the first micropayment system adapted to these devices, accomplishing the security properties that guarantees the privacy of users and avoids the financial risks. Moreover, the payment phase has been designed as a fair exchange, where the user U sends coupons to the provider P and U will receive the requested good, information or service. Along this fair exchange, the anonymity and the untraceability of users are assured. We should take into account that the current smart-phones have a lot of computation capabilities and they also have location systems like GPS. The combination of both technologies can be useful to build new ubiquitous applications and services based on the user location. In our work, we also show how our micropayment scheme can be adapted to the payment of Location-Based Services (LBS) using mobile devices and assuring the security requirements.


In Switzerland as in most european countries, the last decades of urban development have put much pressure on the environment due to uncontrolled urban sprawl. The existing peripheral residential built-up areas mostly composed of single-family houses are responsible for and subjected to many sustainability issues, which are expected to grow in the short/medium term. focusing on urban and architectural design, this on-going research investigates possible paths for the future of peri-urban neighbourhoods of single-family houses by 2050. The paper presents the intermediary results of several test-applications of prospective scenarios developed for two case studies in the urban region of lausanne, Switzerland. first, this article briefly introduces the research framework of the periurban question in Switzerland by highlighting the specificities of the policy and territorial contexts. Second, it describes the design framework, focusing on the elaboration of a typology of peri-urban neighbourhoods of single-family houses used as a preoperational tool to guide the design process. The core of the paper then focuses on the conceptual elaboration of four prospective scenarios foreseeing possible evolutions for peri-urban neighbourhoods of single-family houses. To illustrate this approach, test-applications – in terms of urban and architectural design – are conducted in two existing neighbourhoods. finally, a limited list of indicators on density, land use and environmental impacts helps assessing the performances of each applied prospective scenario. The scenarios seek to be operational and feasible in a way to provide a decision support. The preliminary conclusions of the study highlight several initial conditions to bring peri-urban neighbourhoods on a path towards sustainability transitions.


The present study discusses the metabolism of ethanol in the human body from the ingestion of ethanol to the excretion of its break down products water and carbon dioxide. Ethanol is a small molecule, soluble in water as well as in organic solutions. It is quickly distributed to every section in the body, where it exerts a direct toxic effect on the cells. Ethanol cannot directly leave the body efficiently so it needs other metabolic pathways. The molecule is metabolized by oxidation, predominately in the liver. The enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase catalyses the degradation of ethanol to acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is even more toxic than ethanol and it is degraded by the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase. In chronic alcoholics other chemical processes such as the cytochrome P450 system may have a bigger impact on alcohol metabolism.The carbohydrate metabolism is extensively affected by ethanol. Most important is its restrictive effect on the gluconeogenesis leading to sustained hypoglycaemia in glycogen deprived alcoholics, possibly dangerous for the brain. Ethanol even affects the lipoprotein metabolism leading to evaluated plasma levels of HDL and triglycerides in alcoholics.The study also evaluates the genetic polymorphism of the enzymes alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase, metabolic markers for high chronic ethanol consumption, ethanol as an energy supply, ethanol in medical treatment and harmful effects of ethanol and its metabolites on import organ systems in primarily alcoholics.


Background: Maternal mortality is the leading cause of death among women of childbearing age in Kenya, and 1 in every 19 infants dies before their first birthday. To address this, Chama cha MamaToto was developed as a community-based program for pregnant and breast-feeding women. It integrates health and social education to decrease poor health outcomes and parental stress. It also uses a table banking system called GISHE to develop financial independence. Central to Chamas is peer support and accountability, leading to empowerment of the women. This poster is an analysis of the program's history, and a summary of data collected by the MNCH team from MTRH.
Results: Women in Chamas had 5 times the odds of delivering in a health facility (OR = 5.07, 95% CI: 2.74-9.39). Children in Chamas had 33% relative reduction in stunting. Women and children in Chamas experienced 30% absolute reduction in harsh punishment (p< 0.001) compared to the control group. The Chamas program showed the potential for combined relative reduction of stillbirths and infant deaths by 56 percent (p<0.083). Additionally, women in Chamas had an 35% absolute increase in EBF for 6 months.
Personal role: My role working with the Chamas program this summer involved a cost analysis of the program as well as developing an implementation manual.
Conclusion: The next steps for the program include a continued scale up in two new sub counties, validation of findings from a cluster RCT, and a scale up of the program to all of Kenya in 2019.


Stress is part of human daily life and although some stress is beneficial for improved performance, excessive or prolonged periods of stress have been linked to negative health and psychological outcomes. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program in its traditional group workshop format has been used for the past 30 years. MBSR has been shown to be effective in reducing perceived stress as well as symptoms of physiological and psychological conditions including cancer, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth, chronic medical disease, anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and improve overall health and quality of life. Similar to other treatments, MBSR has a number of obstacles to accessibility of treatment such as stigma, geographical and financial barriers. MBSR workbook can address all of these limitations and, hence, enhance dissemination of potentially effective treatment. However, similar to other self-help interventions, even those based on the empirically-based treatments, the MBSR bibliotherapy does not yet have empirical evidence to support its effectiveness. The current study examined feasibility and effectiveness of the MBSR bibliotherapy through a randomized control trial with bibliotherapy and non-treatment control groups. The results showed that participants were able and willing to follow the workbook over a period of 10 weeks with the participants who completed weekly follow-up assessments an average of 76.5 percent reported reading at least 50 percent of the book and an average of 58.6 percent reported completing at least 50 percent of the writing exercises from the workbook. Furthermore the MBSR bibliotherapy showed to be effective in reducing symptoms of psychopathology and improving quality of life. Overall, findings were consistent with the effects of the MBSR program in its traditional in-person group workshop reported in the literature. These findings provide scientific support for the use MBSR bibliotherapy as an


The cameral and intrasiphonal deposits of a Pennsylvanian straight nautiloid (Pseudorthoceratidae) are studied in order to understand the formation of these deposits. The specimens from the Buckhorn Asphalt deposit (Oklahoma) are exceptionally preserved including original aragonite and microstructures. The specimen investigated survived a predation attempt and shows bite marks on the phragmocone. This is the second report of an ectocochleate cephalopod and first report of an orthoconic nautiloid which survived massive damage of conch and siphuncle. For the first time, a high-magnesium calcitic mineralogy of cameral deposits is documented. These deposits were formed in alternation with aragonite in a chamber which was perforated during the unsuccessful predation attempt. The animal formed the chamber deposits throughout its entire lifetime and the siphuncle played a major role in formation of the cameral deposits.


In this work, we investigate the effect of phase morphology on the nature of charges in poly(2,5-bis(3-tetradecyl-thiophen-2-yl)thieno[3,2,-b]thiophene) (pBTTT-C16) and phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PC61BM) blends over timescales greater than hundreds of microseconds by quasi-steady-state photoinduced absorption spectroscopy. Specifically, we compare an essentially fully intermixed, one-phase system based on a 1 : 1 (by weight) pBTTT-C16 : PC61BM blend, known to form a co-crystal structure, with a two-phase morphology composed of relatively material-pure domains of the neat polymer and neat fullerene. The co-crystal occurs at a composition of up to 50 wt% PC61BM, because pBTTT-C16 is capable of hosting fullerene derivatives such as PC61BM in the cavities between its side chains. In contrast, the predominantly two-phase system can be obtained by manipulating a 1 : 1 polymer : fullerene blend with the assistance of a fatty acid methyl ester (dodecanoic acid methyl ester, Me12) as additive, which hinders co-crystal formation. We find that triplet excitons and polarons are generated in both phase morphologies. However, polarons are generated in the predominantly two-phase system at higher photon energy than for the structure based on the co-crystal phase. By means of a quasi-steady-state solution of a mesoscopic rate model, we demonstrate that the steady-state polaron generation efficiency and recombination rates are higher in the finely intermixed, one-phase system compared to the predominantly phase-pure, two-phase morphology. We suggest that the polarons generated in highly intermixed structures, such as the co-crystal investigated here, are localised polarons while those generated in the phase-separated polymer and fullerene systems are delocalised polarons. We expect this picture to apply generally to other organic-based heterojunctions of complex phase morphologies including donor:acceptor systems that form, for instance, molecularly mixed amorphous solid solutions, underlining the generality of the understanding gained here.


Ovarian function with regular menstrual cycles is usually restored in women of reproductive age after solid organ transplantation. The number of pregnancies reported in these patients increases gradually. Pregnancy is always considered high risk, and not properly planned may lead to serious complications. The best for the patient is to conceive in a period of good general health and good stable graft function, after appropriate preparation and not later than five years after transplantation. Immunosuppressive regimen should be modified before conception. Sirolimus and mycophenolate mofetil should be excluded. The blood levels of immunosuppressive agents should be regularly controlled during the whole pregnancy. The rate of successful pregnancies isn approximately 95% in graft recipients. Increased incidence of preterm labor, anemia and intrauterine growth restriction is observed compared with general population. Organ transplantation itself is not an indication for cesarean section and vaginal delivery is recommended as the best for the patient, the graft and the newborn. Breast feeding is believed to be contraindicated in women on immunosuppressive therapy, however no adverse effects were reported in children of graft recipients who decided to breast feed. The rate of congenital malformations in newborns is approximately 3-4% and does not differ from the rate seen in general population. The rate of perinatal deaths decreased beneath 0.8% in recent reports. Jaundice, hyperglycemia and hyperkalemia, observed more frequently in newborns of graft recipients, are mild and in most cases do not have any clinical implications.


We present a zero-shot learning approach for text classification, predicting which natural language understanding domain can handle a given utterance. Our approach can predict domains at runtime that did not exist at training time. We achieve this extensibility by learning to project utterances and domains into the same embedding space while generating each domain-specific embedding from a set of attributes that characterize the domain. Our model is a neural network trained via ranking loss. We evaluate the performance of this zero-shot approach on a subset of a virtual assistant's third-party domains and show the effectiveness of the technique on new domains not observed during training. We compare to generative baselines and show that our approach requires less storage and performs better on new domains.


BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES
The use of insecticides to eliminate mosquito larvae from ground pools may disrupt atural predator-induced control of mosquito larvae. Detrimental effects on predators may be directly from toxicity or by eliminating prey organisms. Identifying the principal predators responsible for mosquito suppression is needed to select non-target indicator species for insecticide studies. In this study, we sought to determine trophic level interactions between predators and immature stages of Anopheles gambiae Giles mosquitoes under experimental conditions in the coastal region of Kenya.

METHODS
To identify effective predation pattern, a series of prey choice experiments was conducted. The relative abilities of five common species of aquatic insects found in the malaria-endemic coastal region of Kenya were assessed in a series of experiments. Experiments were conducted in semi-field conditions at Jaribuni, near the sites of insect collection.

RESULTS
In single predator experiments, notonectids consumed most of the mosquito larvae; hydrometrids consumed about half of the mosquito larvae in treatments. Veliids and gerrids had significant, but small effects on larval survivorship. Dytiscids did not have a significant effect on mosquito larvae survivorship. In a two-predator experiment, notonectids significantly decreased survivorship of dytiscids without a change in suppressive effects on mosquito larvae. Of the five common predators evaluated, notonectids were clearly the most voracious consumers of mosquito larvae. The predation pressure on mosquito larvae was not affected by the addition of additional prey items, consisting of small dytiscid beetles. The importance of this notonectid species in coastal Kenya suggests that it would be a valuable non-target indicator species for insecticide studies. Hydrometrids were also efficient at consuming mosquito larvae.

INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION
Of the five common predators from the Kenyan coast evaluated in this study, notonectids were the most voracious consumers of immature mosquitoes. Their predation pressure on mosquito larvae was not affected by the addition of additional prey items, consisting of small dytiscid beetles.


To successfully use mobile phones to aid development efforts, understanding the impact of the social structure on mobile phone adoption, uses, perceived impacts, and reinvention of uses is invaluable. Interviews were conducted with 90 mobile phone-owning holders of small- to medium-sized farms—50 women and 40 men—actively involved in agricultural development-based farm groups in Kamuli District, Uganda. Respondents indicated use of the mobile phone for coordinating access to agricultural inputs, market information, to monitor financial transactions, and to consult with agricultural experts. Over time, the number and variety of agricultural uses increased among all users, indicating that adoption occurs for a few key purposes, but that uses will be added or reinvented to fit changing needs. This study identified a number of unique uses, including storing local market trends in the calendar, using the speakerphone function for group consultation with agricultural experts, and taking photos of agricultural demonstrations.


The most common psychiatric disorder in young people is depression. Unipolar depressive disorder in young people are common globally but still unrecognized. The incidence is growing sharply following the puberty, especially in girls, and the 1-year prevalence rate at the end of adolescence exceeds by 4%. In middle and low-income nations, the burden is highest. Depression is related to current and potential illness and raises the risk of suicide. A family history of depression and exposure to psycho-social stress were the most important risk factors for depression in young people. Adolescence is a physical, social, sexual and emotional stress phase and it is a topic of concern at this stage of life if there are mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety and stress. The inherited risks, developmental factors, sexual hormones and psycho-social adversity interact in order to increase risk by hormone and associated neural disturbance factors. In this study, the student's executive functions were studied and compared with those of a stable person with depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. These scales are structured to measure depression, anxiety and stress in negative emotional states.


The plant-pathogenic fungus Verticillium longisporum is a causal agent of early senescence and ripening in cruciferous crops like Brassica napus. Verticillium wilts have become serious agricultural threats in recent decades. Verticillium species infect host plants through the roots and colonize xylem vessels of the host plant. The xylem fluid provides an environment with limited carbon sources and unbalanced amino acid supply, which requires V. longisporum to induce the cross-pathway control of amino acid biosynthesis. RNA-mediated gene silencing reduced the expression of the two CPC1 isogenes (VlCPC1-1 and VlCPC1-2) of the allodiploid V. longisporum up to 85%. VlCPC1 encodes the conserved transcription factor of the cross-pathway control. The silenced mutants were highly sensitive to amino-acid starvation, and the infected plants showed significantly fewer symptoms such as stunting or early senescence in oilseed rape plant infection assays. Consistently, deletion of single CPC1 of the haploid V. dahliae resulted in strains that are sensitive to amino-acid starvation and cause strongly reduced symptoms in the plant-host tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). The allodiploid V. longisporum and the haploid V. dahliae are the first phytopathogenic fungi that were shown to require CPC1 for infection and colonization of their respective host plants, oilseed rape and tomato.


Dams have fragmented rivers and threatened aquatic biodiversity globally. However, the findings regarding dam impacts on riverine macroinvertebrates vary across regions and taxa. We conducted a global meta-analysis to quantify the effects of dams on macroinvertebrate assemblages (i.e. species richness and abundance) based on 3849 data points extracted from 54 publications. Responses of macroinvertebrates to dams varied among climatic zones, dam altitudes, dam sizes (i.e. height), downstream distances from the dams, and taxonomic groups. The overall effect size of dams on macroinvertebrate richness was negative, while that of dams on abundance was positive but varied among different dam types. Richness reductions were most pronounced in cold regions and high-altitude regions and were least pronounced in tropical regions and low-altitude regions, while abundance increases were more obvious in tropical regions and low-altitude regions. Macroinvertebrate richness reduction and abundance increase were coupled (i.e. when the richness slightly decreased, the increase in abundance was more significant, and vice versa) under the influence of dams across different climatic zones, altitudes, dam heights, and downstream distances from the dams. Furthermore, different taxonomic groups responded variably to dams, with stoneflies (Plecoptera), caddisflies (Trichoptera) and true bugs (Hemiptera) being the most sensitive groups (i.e. significant reduction in richness) among the taxa examined. Macroinvertebrate richness reductions were primarily attributed to changes in downstream substrate composition (i.e. from coarse to fine substrates), while abundance increases were potentially caused by replacements among taxa at downstream sites. Collectively, our results contribute to improving the prediction of the effects of dams on riverine macroinvertebrate assemblages and are valuable for guiding assessment and monitoring of river ecosystems, as well as sustainable dam development, planning and restoration.


Tuberculosis (TB) disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb) remains one of the leading infectious causes of death and disease throughout the world. The only licensed vaccine, Mycobacterium bovis bacille Calmette–Guérin (BCG) confers highly variable protection against pulmonary disease. An effective vaccination regimen would be the most efficient way to control the epidemic. However, BCG does confer consistent and reliable protection against disseminated disease in childhood, and most TB vaccine strategies being developed incorporate BCG to retain this protection. Cellular immunity is necessary for protection against TB and all the new vaccines in development are focused on inducing a strong and durable cellular immune response. There are two main strategies being pursued in TB vaccine development. The first is to replace BCG with an improved whole organism mycobacterial priming vaccine, which is either a recombinant BCG or an attenuated strain of M. tb. The second is to develop a subunit boosting vaccine, which is designed to be administered after BCG vaccination, and to enhance the protective efficacy of BCG. This article reviews the leading candidate vaccines in development and considers the current challenges in the field with regard to efficacy testing.


Background and Objectives: Failure to attend pediatric outpatient endoscopic procedures leads to inefficient use of resources, longer wait-list times, and delay in diagnoses. The causes for pediatric endoscopy nonattendance are not well studied. The aim of the study was to identify factors associated with failure to attend endoscopic procedures and to assess the value of quality improvement (QI) interventions implemented to improve pediatric endoscopy attendance. Methods: This was a continuous QI project. We collected nonattendance data from November 2011 to November 2013. Information collected included procedure type, age, sex, time on the waiting list, history of previous procedures, and reason for nonattendance. The following QI interventions were implemented sequentially: an appointment reminder letter, a telephone call 1 week before procedure, and creation of an electronic medical note dedicated to endoscopy appointment. Pareto charts and statistical process control charts were used for analysis. Results: From November 2011 to November 2013, we were able to decrease nonattendance from 17% to 11% (P = 0.005). No-show rate was reduced from 5% to 0.9% (P = 0.00001). There was no significant difference between attendees and nonattendees in relation to sex, age, or having a previous procedure. Longer waiting time (33 vs 26 days) was associated with increased risk for nonattendance (P = 0.0007). The most common causes for nonattendance were illness (31.5%), followed by caregiver/patients who no longer wanted the procedure (17.7%), and patients who improved (12.9%). Conclusions: Applying QI methods and tools improved pediatric endoscopy attendance. Longer wait time for endoscopic procedures is associated with nonattendance. Given the increased pediatric endoscopy demand, strategies should be implemented to reduce wait time for pediatric endoscopy.


The security of smart grid is a major challenge in grid modernization. While many existing solutions rely on human-defined features to develop machine learning (ML) based attack detectors against prominent exploits, such features are becoming more expensive and less effective in the smart grid. To supplement more high-quality features for ML-based threat monitoring, this paper proposed a stacked autoencoder (SAE) based deep learning framework to develop machine-learned features against transmission SCADA attacks. Compared with the state-of-the-art ML detectors, the proposed framework leverages the automaticity of unsupervised feature learning to reduce the reliance on system models and human expertise in complex security scenarios. Simulations with data collected from a high-fidelity smart grid testbed demonstrated that the machine-learned features effectively enabled more accurate discrimination against SCADA exploits in power transmission systems.


—We consider a multiuser OFDM system in which users want to transmit videos via a base station. The base station knows the channel state information (CSI) as well as the rate distortion (RD) information of the video streams and tries to allocate power and spectrum resources to the users according to both physical layer CSI and application layer RD information. We derive and analyze a condition for the optimal resource allocation solution in a continuous frequency response setting. The optimality condition for this cross layer optimization scenario is similar to the equal slope condition for conventional video multiplexing resource allocation. Based on our analysis, we design an iterative subcarrier assignment and power allocation algorithm for an uplink system, and provide numerical performance analysis with different numbers of users. Comparing to systems with either only physical layer or only application layer information available at the base station, our results show that the user capacity and the video PSNR performance can be increased significantly by using cross layer design. Bit-level simulations which take into account the imperfection of the video coding rate control, the variation of RD curve fitting, as well as channel errors, are presented.


The objectives of this study were to determine general practitioners' (GPs) intentions to seek help for drug and alcohol problems and persistent suicidal thoughts, as well as their preferred sources of help. A postal survey of all GPs in the Illawarra region of New South Wales was conducted. One hundred and thirty-six GPs completed the questionnaire. Participants indicated they were most likely to seek help for drug and alcohol problems from a GP, the NSW Doctors' Health Advisory Service, family, or friends. GPs with persistent suicidal thoughts were most likely to seek help from a psychiatrist, GP, or family. GPs reported greater intentions to seek help from psychiatrists, psychologists, phone help-lines and family for persistent suicidal thoughts compared to drug and alcohol problems. However, as depression increased, intentions to seek help from GPs and family decreased. Family and other GPs were preferred sources of help for both types of problem described in this study. GP spouses often experience high levels of burden for caring for children, their GP spouse, and at times the practice itself. The importance of GPs' spouses suggests they should be included in any programs aimed at strengthening the helping support systems for GPs. It may also be useful to educate GPs generally about how to work with colleagues who are seeking help, and the sorts of barriers they may experience in doing so.


As memory capacity and density grow, a corresponding increase in the number of defects decreases the yield and quality of embedded memories for systems-on-chip as well as commodity memories. For embedded memories, built-in redundancy analysis (BIRA) is widely used to solve quality and yield issues by replacing faulty cells with healthy redundant cells. Many BIRA approaches require extra hardware overhead in order to achieve optimal repair rates, or they suffer a loss of repair rate in minimizing the hardware overhead. An innovative BIRA approach is proposed to achieve optimal repair rates, lower area overhead, and increase analysis speed. The proposed BIRA minimizes area overhead by eliminating some storage coverage for only must-repair faulty information. The proposed BIRA analyzes redundancies quickly and efficiently by evaluating all nodes of a branch in parallel with a new analyzer which is simple and easy-to-implement. Experimental results show that the proposed BIRA allows for a much faster analysis speed than that of the state-of-the-art BIRA, as well as the optimal repair rate, and relatively small area overhead.


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A Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) consists of a number of mobile wireless nodes, the communication between these mobile nodes is carried out without any centralized control. The set of applications for MANET's is diverse, ranging from small, static networks that are constrained by power sources, to large-scale, mobile, highly dynamic networks. The design of network routing for these networks is a complex issue. Irrespective of application, MANET's need efficient distributed algorithms to determine network organization, link scheduling, and routing. In this paper we discuss about simulation & comparison of the performance between two types of routing protocols, Table Driven (Proactive) and On-Demand (Reactive) using the NS-2 simulation tool. These routing protocols compared in terms of packets delivery ratio, average delay and speed.


We review the evidence for multiple ecological states and the factors that create ecological resilience in coral reef ecosystems. There are natural differences among benthic communities along gradients of water temperature, light, nutrients, and organic matter associated with upwelling-downwelling and onshore- offshore systems. Along gradients from oligotrophy to eutrophy, plant-animal symbioses tend to decrease, and the abundance of algae and heterotrophic suspension feeders and the ratio of organic to inorganic carbon production tend to increase. Human influences such as fishing, increased organic matter and nutrients, sediments, warm water, and transportation of xenobiotics and diseases are common causes of a large number of recently reported ecological shifts. It is often the interaction of persistent and multiple synergistic disturbances that causes permanent ecological transitions, rather than the succession of individual short-term disturbances. For example, fishing can remove top-level predators, resulting in the ecological release of prey such as sea urchins and coral- eating invertebrates. When sea urchins are not common because of unsuitable habitat, recruitment limitations, and diseases, and when overfishing removes herbivorous fish, frondose brown algae can dominate. Terrigenous sediments carried onto reefs as a result of increased soil erosion largely promote the dominance of turf or articulated green algae. Elevated nutrients and organic matter can increase internal eroders of reef substratum and a mixture of filamentous algae. Local conservation actions that attempt to reduce fishing and terrestrial influences promote the high production of inorganic carbon that is necessary for reef growth. However, global climate change threatens to undermine such actions because of increased bleaching and mortality caused by warm-water anomalies, weakened coral skeletons caused by reduced aragonite availability in reef waters, and increased incidence of diseases in coral reef species. Consequently, many coral reefs, including those that are heavily managed, have experienced net losses in accumulated inorganic carbon in recent decades and appear likely to continue this trend in coming decades. Reefs urgently need to be managed with a view to strengthening their resilience to the increased frequency and intensity of these pressures. Ecological targets must include the restoration or maintenance of species diversity, keystone species, spatial heterogeneity, refugia, and connectivity. Achieving these goals will require unprecedented cooperative synergy between human organizations at all political levels, from intergovernmental to local. * (ERRATUM: A longer version of this paper is published as a book chapter in McClanahan, T.R., N.V.C. Polunin and T.J. Done. 2002. Resilience of coral reefs. in L.H. Gunderson and L. Pritchard Jr. (editors). Resilience and the Behavior of Large-Scale Systems. SCOPE and Island Press, Washington. The original version of this paper stated incorrectly that the book chapter was still in press.)


Management plays an important role in overall development towards achieving organization goals by arranging the factors of production, assembling and organizing the resources, integrating the resources in an effective manner. The process of creating products and services is regarded as the most essential part of a business firm in a sector like retail. The inputs like raw materials, the effort of human resources, capital, and natural resources turn into the output of various products and services through the production. Therefore, managing the production activities and fulfil its requirements, come under the responsibilities of operation management.

The study has discussed about determine the roles of the management strategies of Apache Pizza by marinating the quality and the production processes of the company. In doing so, various aspects associated with it are studied such that a proper conclusion can be reached. Furthermore, in order to gather data, the researcher has taken into consideration of both primary and secondary analysis. For primary data collection, the researcher has done interviews and for secondary analysis, the researcher has done thematic analysis.

The results suggest that management strategy is highly important for the companies. Without appropriate management strategies, the business organisation will not be capable of maintaining appropriate business performance per year. In addition, quality management activities are also required for the business organisation as it helps in attracting the number of customers in future. It has been understood that the production managers have been focused on developing the portfolio of product.