The digital edition of Rabindranath Tagore, Bichitra: Online Tagore Variorum aims to encompass all of Rabindranath's literary works in Bengali and English. This edition is an extremely interesting case study for the technical and logistical complexity of the task it sets out to achieve, which involved the development of customised technology and a visualisation strategy to engage the reader with textual variation at both a coarse-grained and a fine-grained level. The edition challenges the role of the literary archive to go beyond being a mere collection of texts and images, and to become instead a set of computational tools that allows the user not only to read but also to interact, explore and visualise the texts.


Game-theoretic algorithms for physical security have made an impressive real-world impact. These algorithms compute an optimal strategy for the defender to commit to in a Stackelberg game, where the attacker observes the defender's strategy and best-responds. In order to build the game model, though, the payoffs of potential attackers for various outcomes must be estimated; inaccurate estimates can lead to significant inefficiencies. We design an algorithm that optimizes the defender's strategy with no prior information, by observing the attacker's responses to randomized deployments of resources and learning his priorities. In contrast to previous work, our algorithm requires a number of queries that is polynomial in the representation of the game.


Eulophia herbacea Lindl. is a beautiful orchid species with medicinal importance. Loss of habitat and illegal collection of tubers have resulted in gradual decrease of its natural populations. Since formulation and successful execution of conservation strategies in such declining species highly depend upon information regarding their distribution, habitat preferences, percent fruit set and seed dispersal ability, present study was planned to document such details of E. herbacea in Himachal Pradesh. Field surveys across the state revealed that this orchid was restricted in distribution (1446–1925 m) to five localities of Solan district. It inhabited open grasslands with sparsely shrubby elements. The population density was found highest (4.94±2.68) at Shaktinagar and lowest (2.38±0.98) at Kathlighat. Slightly acidic soils (pH 5.77±0.59–6.62±0.41) with high contents of organic C, P and K were best suited for its growth and development. Percent fruit set was low (42.50±2.85) and the spindle shaped seeds were very small in size (0.69±0.05×0.11±0.02 mm). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed that the testa cells were spirally arranged, and their periclinal walls possessed thin and oblique external ridges. The embryos were rather tiny; about 80% seed space was occupied by air thus making them buoyant. The localized distribution of this species in Himachal Pradesh seems to be related to high habitat specificity and complex nutritional requirements.


Every day, 700,000 Americans working in Japanese companies confront the "rice-paper ceiling." International business consultant Rochelle Kopp exposes this invisible obstacle to advancement at Japanese corporations, how it operates, and what you can do to "break through" it to improve your workplace relationships and career prospects. Along the way she details case studies that reveal the profound differences between Japanese and American work styles and cultures. If you work for a Japanese company, or plan to, you need this book. "A revealing, readable account of American-Japanese interactions in the workplace."-Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School Rochelle Kopp is a Yale graduate with an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. She is Managing Principal of Japan Intercultural Consulting in Chicago.


Determining the meanings of words requires language learners to attend to what other people say. However, it behooves a young language learner to simultaneously attend to what other people attend to, for example, by following the direction of their eye gaze. Sensitivity to cues such as eye gaze might be particularly important for bilingual infants, as they encounter less consistency between words and objects than monolinguals, and do not always have access to the same word learning heuristics (e.g., mutual exclusivity). In a pre-registered study, we tested the hypothesis that bilingual experience would lead to a more pronounced ability to follow another's gaze. We used the gaze-following paradigm developed by Senju & Csibra (2008) to test a total of 93 6–9 month-old and 229 12–15 month-old monolingual and bilingual infants, in 11 labs located in 8 countries. Monolingual and bilingual infants showed similar gaze-following abilities, and both groups showed age-related improvements in speed, accuracy, frequency and duration of fixations to congruent objects. Unexpectedly, bilinguals tended to make more frequent fixations to onscreen objects, whether or not they were cued by the actor. These results suggest that gaze sensitivity is a fundamental aspect of development that is robust to variation in language exposure.


Problem statement: The Case Based Reasoning (CBR) method can be implemented in differential diagnosis analysis. C4.5 algorithm has been commonly used to help the method's knowledge building process. This process is completed by constructing decision tree from previously handled cases data. The C4.5 algorithm itself can be used with an assumption that all the cases has an exact and equal truth value thus have an exact contribution in decision tree building process. However, the decision makers sometimes not sure about the truth of the cases in the cases database, therefore the confidence value can be different for case by case. Besides that, the C4.5 algorithm can only handle cases that are stored in a flat table with data in form of categorized text or in discrete class. This algorithm has not yet explained about how is decision tree building mechanism in situation when the data are stored in relational tables. It also has not yet explained about the process of knowledge building when the data are in the form of number in continuous class. Meanwhile, the observed objects in this research, that is medical record data, are mostly stored in a complex relational database and have common form of categorized text, discrete number, continuous number and image. Therefore, the C4.5 is needed to be improved so it can handle decision building for cases database of medical record. Approach: We develop a knowledge building framework that can handle confidence level difference of cases in cases database. The framework we build also allows the data are stored in relational database. Moreover, our framework can process data in the form of categorized text, discrete number, continuous number and image. This framework is named CUC-C4.5, abbreviated from Complex Uncertain Case C4.5 as it is the improvement from C4.5 algorithm. Results: The CUC-C4.5 framework has been applied on the case of differential diagnosis knowledge building in a group decision support system to handle geriatric patient. This framework was implemented by using PHP and Javascript programming language and MySQL DBMS. Conclusion: The CUC-C4.5 can support differential diagnosis analysis on group decision support system for geriatric assessment.


The data-center interconnection (DCI) market has been rising sharply for some time, leading to the development of networking solutions tailored specifically for it. On the side of the transport network, DCI devices are characterized by simple, footprint-efficient designs focused on scalability, but still leverage the benefits of flexible-rate transponders on the line-side, to extract the most from costly optical transport infrastructures. Accompanying this evolution arose the need for a technology that could provide a flexible client layer where aggregation was done outside the transport device, but flows could still be efficiently mapped to flexible-rate transponder modules. In this context, the appearance of Flex Ethernet (FlexE) is targeted at decoupling the rates of interfaces connecting routers to transport boxes, from the actual flows traversing them. Through the introduction of an additional mapping/de-mapping layer, the capacity of multiple Ethernet interfaces can be virtualized in a resource pool for different flows. This paper addresses the application of FlexE to dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) transport scenarios. Specifically, it evaluates how agnostic to FlexE a transport box should be, considering the potential trade-off between its complexity and the ability to efficiently fill lightpaths. Through a network simulation handling the provisioning of Ethernet flows in a DCI scenario, we evaluate the various FlexE use cases envisioned for transport networks, and how they affect the efficiency of router port usage and transport box provisioning, as well as their effect on the capacity of the DWDM layer.


Acknowledging retrospective experiential learning as a unique contribution to knowledge in the context of the workplace is the fundamental focus of the work-based professional doctorate. This report details an evaluation of a 'Second Generation' professional doctorate programme. The programme provides a mechanism for both learning development and the acknowledgement and development of pre-existing, discipline-specific, professional practice. Evaluation was used as a means of highlighting how the theory-praxis gap might be bridged via translational knowledge construction. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with eleven doctoral candidates to explore their experiences and perceptions of the programme. The interviews were then transcribed and thematically analysed during which a 'base superstructure model' was identified. This model identified the underpinning skills of critical reflection, investigation and adaptive capacity necessary to inform and facilitate the research phase of the professional doctorate programme. The facilitation and upskilling of doctoral candidates in the use of emergent technology was identified as the basis for the development of professional and academic practice. The role of the doctoral supervisor, as a facilitator of the development of these skills, was also established as pivotal to learning development for doctoral candidates; in terms of developing their 'base super-structure' to become independent, reflective and adaptive learners.


When a pathogen enters its host, it sets off an intruder-alert system that ultimately mobilizes an immune attack force to deal with the offender. Is the host immune system perceived and responded to by the invader, just as a burglar might take evasive action upon hearing an alarm? Wu et al. find that Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a common bacterial pathogen of lung and intestine, does just that. By using a cell surface protein to bind the host cytokine, interferon-γ, the bacterium switches on at least two genes involved in the quorum-sensing system that governs growth and virulence within the host. L. Wu, O. Estrada, O. Zaborina, M. Bains, L. Shen, J. E. Kohler, N. Patel, M. W. Musch, E. B. Chang, Y.-X. Fu, M. A. Jacobs, M. I. Nishimura, R. E. W. Hancock, J. R. Turner, J. C. Alverdy, Recognition of host immune activation by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Science 309, 774-777 (2005). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Question: What is the precision of five methods of measuring vegetation structure using ground-based digital imagery and processing techniques? Location: Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. Methods: Vertical herbaceous cover was recorded using digital imagery techniques at two distinct locations in a mixed-grass prairie. The precision of five ground-based digital imagery vegetation analysis (DIVA) methods for measuring vegetation structurewas tested using a split-splitplotanalysis ofcovariance. Variability within each DIVA technique was estimated using coefficient of variation of mean percentage cover. Results: Vertical herbaceous cover estimates differed among DIVA techniques. Additionally, environmental conditions affected the vertical vegetation obstruction estimates for certain digital imagery methods, while other techniques were more adept at handling various conditions. Overall, percentage vegetation cover values differed among techniques, but the precision of four of the five techniques was consistently high. Conclusions: DIVA procedures are sufficient for measuring various heights and densities of standing herbaceous cover. Moreover, digital imagery techniques can reduce measurement error associated with multiple observers' standing herbaceous cover estimates, allowing greater opportunity to detect patterns associated with vegetation structure.


Gene action, interaction and linkage relationship of genes creating continuous phenotypic variation of various metric traits are dedicated to breeding methods. Thus both additive and non-additive components of genetic variance, along their allied characteristics are of great use for plant breeders under different situations. An estimate of additive variance and non-additive variance provides a measure of how likely particular traits can be selected for or against and that of whether hybridization or a population improvement program. Five generations viz. P1, P2, F1, F2 and F3 were evaluated in experiments under a compact family block design to estimate gene effects for major agro-morphological traits in four soybean single crosses (Bragg x RKS 18, JS 335x RAUS 5 and Bragg x JS 335 and RAUS 5 x Bir-sa Soy 1). The results showed additive gene effects that determined the inheritance of agro-morphological traits viz. days to 50 percent flowering, days to maturity, plant height and harvest index. Dominance gene action was critical in determining the yield. Duplicate epit-asis was significantly important in inheritance of most traits studied. On the basis of results obtained from the present investigation, it is suggested that these major quantitative traits in the desirable genotypes play a major role in the improvement of high yielding varieties of soybean through exploitation of additive and non-additive variances.


We often assume that policy and laws are the outcome of national deliberative discourse. As we have seen with other domains such as intellectual property and trade, policies that influence privacy and civil liberties are increasingly resulting from international policy dynamics. This article presents a number of these policy mechanisms used to take advantage of international dimensions of our current environment. These mechanisms include policy laundering, modeling, and forum shifting. Using these mechanisms, policies are being developed outside of national deliberative forums and then adopted locally in the interests of national governments. A number of policy instances are presented, tracing the influence of national and international actors, and the implications for national discourse. The article concludes with discussion of some implications for an open society.


In the wake of a series of court cases extending patents to software, open-source software proponents have proposed a number of arguments for limiting or even eliminating software patents. In particular, they claim that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has done a poor job of reviewing software patent applications, resulting in obvious, trivial patents. They also maintain that software patents hinder the standards setting process so important for high-technology industries and that patents will to lead to intellectual property rights "thickets" that slow down or stop the innovative process in the software industry. We evaluate these claims, examining relevant empirical evidence where available. While it is clear that problems exist with the patent-granting process, they do not rise to the level of justifying a ban on software patents. Instead, other reasonable - and far less drastic - measures are available. The USPTO has already begun reforms that should improve its software patent review process. As for patent thickets, theory suggests they could form in the software industry, but empirical evidence suggests that in fact they have not formed. Moreover, tools such as patent pools and cross-licensing that increase innovation sharing are available to limit the development of thickets. While the academic literature is still debating the link between patents and innovation, patents have been show to have some positive effects, including increased venture capital funding for small firms. In the end, reform is far more attractive than abolition because it retains the good while minimizing the bad.


In honour of Bob Meyer, the paper extends the use of his concept of metacompleteness to include various classical systems, as much as we are able. To do this for the classical sentential calculus, we add extra axioms so as to treat the variables like constants. Further, we use a one-sorted and a two-sorted approach to add classical sentential constants to the logic DJ of my book, Universal Logic. It is appropriate to use rejection to represent classicality in the one-sorted case. We then extend these methods to the quantified logics, but we use a finite domain of individual constants to do this.


INTRODUCTION
The aim of this study was to evaluate the possibility of differentiating xanthogranulomatous pyelonephritis (XGPN) preoperatively from chronic pyelonephritis on the basis of demographic data, clinical parameters, and biochemical, microbiological, and radiological workups.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Between 1995 and 2005, a total of 239 patients were diagnosed to have pyelonephritis at our center, of which, 56 underwent nephrectomy. Forty-five (80.4%) of the nephrectomy specimens showed diagnosis of chronic pyelonephritis and 11 (19.6%) showed XGPN.

RESULTS
Compared to chronic pyelonephritis, XGPN was more likely to occur in the middle-aged women (90.9%) with diabetes mellitus (63.6%). A positive history of UTI was more frequent in these patients, too. The disease was likely to present with flank pain and tenderness in 100.0% and 90.9% of the patients with XGPN, respectively. Anemia (81.8%), hematuria (81.8%), and bacteriuria (90.9%) were more frequent in these patients than in those with chronic pyelonephritis. The mean blood hemoglobin was 7.0 g/dL in the patients with XGPN. Proteus mirabilis was detected in 6 patients (54.5%) of the XGPN group and only 2 of the chronic pyelonephritis group (P < .001). Renomegaly and kidney calculus were more frequently noted in the patients with XGPN. Finally, XGPN led to a higher rate of postoperative complications.

CONCLUSION
Demographic data, comorbidities, predisposing factors, and biochemical as well as roentgenological features are significant but nonspecific indicators of preoperative diagnosis of XGPN.


The celebrated Hormander condition is a sucient (and nearly necessary) condition for a second-order linear Kolmogorov partial dierential equation (PDE) with smooth coecients to be hypoelliptic. As a consequence, the solutions of Kolmogorov PDEs are smooth at all positive times if the coecients of the PDE are smooth and satisfy Hormander's condition even if the initial function is only continuous but not dierentiable. First-order linear Kolmogorov PDEs with smooth coecients do not have this smoothing eect but at least preserve regularity in the sense that solutions are smooth if their initial functions are smooth. In this article, we consider the intermediate regime of non-hypoelliptic second-order Kolmogorov PDEs with smooth coecients. The main observation of this article is that there exist counterexamples to regularity preservation in that case. More precisely, we give an example of a second-order linear Kolmogorov PDE with globally bounded and smooth coecients and a smooth initial function with compact support such that the unique globally bounded viscosity solution of the PDE is not even locally Holder continuous and, thereby, we disprove the existence of globally bounded classical solutions of this PDE. From the perspective of probability theory, this observation has the consequence that there exists a stochastic dierential equation (SDE) with globally bounded and smooth coecients and a smooth function with compact support which is mapped by the transition semigroup of the SDE to a non-locally Holder continuous function. In other words, degenerate noise can have a roughening eect. A further implication of this loss of regularity phenomenon is that numerical approximations may convergence slower than any arbitrarily small polynomial rate of convergence to the true solution of the SDE. More precisely, we prove for an example SDE with globally bounded and smooth coecients that the standard Euler approximations converge to the exact solution of the SDE in the strong and numerically weak sense slower than any arbitrarily small polynomial rate of convergence.


The fiftieth anniversary of the Animal Welfare Act ("AWA") was 2016. Most fiftieth anniversaries are cause for great celebration, but this one shouldn't' be because the AWA has caused more harm than good. In previous decades a wide range of sources have praised the Animal Welfare Act as a critical and noteworthy national legislative achievement that protects animals across the country. This Article, by contrast, demonstrates that animal protection efforts are affirmatively hindered by the AWA in both concrete, tangible applications and in a variety of more conceptual ways. Animal industries continually deploy the fact of an AWA license as an obstacle to transparency about the suffering of confined animals, as a soundbite in the media to quell public concern, and even as a basis for defamation and related litigation against animal protection groups who criticize the treatment of confined animals. In sum, the AWA's prominence paired with its meagerness has set the stage for a powerful duality--the AWA is invoked as the centerpiece, even the exclusive source of restrictions on the treatment of many animals, but the protections it provides are actually quite few and almost never enforced. The very existence of the AWA reinforces norms that exacerbate animal suffering.


Using vocational choice and social dominance theories as organizing frameworks, and employing data from a five-wave longitudinal study of undergraduates, we explored the relationship between generalized anti-egalitarianism, on the one hand, and the choice of hierarchy-enhancing (HE) and hierarchy-attenuating (HA) college majors and future careers on the other hand. Consistent with theoretical expectations, the data showed that students with high levels of anti-egalitarianism were more likely to choose HE college majors and future careers, while students with relatively low levels of generalized anti-egalitarianism were more likely to choose HA college majors and future careers. Congruent students (high antiegalitarianism/HE majors and low anti-egalitarianism/HA majors) enjoyed greater academic success, and greater expectations of academic success than incongruent students (high antiegalitarianism/HA majors and low anti-egalitarianism/HE majors). Finally, we explored three processes possibly responsible for the congruence between anti-egalitarianism and career path: (1) self-selection, (2) institutional socialization, and (3) differential success/differential attrition. The results only showed support for self-selection mechanisms.


A data warehouse is a single data store, where data from multiple data sources is integrated for online business analytical processing (OLAP) of an entire organisation. The rationale being single and integrated is to ensure a consistent view of the organisational business performance independent from different angels of business perspectives. Due to its wide coverage of subjects, data warehouse design is a highly complex, lengthy and error-prone process. Furthermore, the business analytical tasks change over time, which results in changes in the requirements for the OLAP systems. Thus, data warehouse and OLAP systems are rather dynamic and the design process is continuous. In this thesis, we propose a method that is integrated, formal and application-tailored to overcome the complexity problem, deal with the system dynamics, improve the quality of the system and the chance of success. Our method comprises three important parts: the general ASMs method with types, the application tailored design framework for data warehouse and OLAP, and the schema integration method with a set of provably correct refinement rules. By using the ASM method, we are able to model both data and operations in a uniform conceptual framework, which enables us to design an integrated approach for data warehouse and OLAP design. The freedom given by the ASM method allows us to model the system at an abstract level that is easy to understand for both users and designers. More specifically, the language allows us to use the terms from the user domain not biased by the terms used in computer systems. The pseudo-code like transition rules, which gives the simplest form of operational semantics in ASMs, give the closeness to programming languages for designers to understand. Furthermore, these rules are rooted in mathematics to assist in improving the quality of the system design. By extending the ASMs with types, the modelling language is tailored for data warehouse with the terms that are well developed for data-intensive applications, which makes it easy to model the schema evolution as refinements in the dynamic data warehouse design. By providing the application-tailored design framework, we break down the design complexity by business processes (also called subjects in data warehousing) and design concerns. By designing the data warehouse by subjects, our method resembles Kimball's "bottom-up"approach. However, with the schema integration method, our method resolves the stovepipe issue of the approach. By building up a data warehouse iteratively in an integrated framework, our method not only results in an integrated data warehouse, but also resolves the issues of complexity and delayed ROI (Return On Investment) in Inmon's "top-down" approach. By dealing with the user change requests in the same way as new subjects, and modelling data and operations explicitly in a three-tier architecture, namely the data sources, the data warehouse and the OLAP (online Analytical Processing), our method facilitates dynamic design with system integrity. By introducing a notion of refinement specific to schema evolution, namely schema refinement, for capturing the notion of schema dominance in schema integration, we are able to build a set of correctness-proven refinement rules. By providing the set of refinement rules, we simplify the designers's work in correctness design verification. Nevertheless, we do not aim for a complete set due to the fact that there are many different ways for schema integration, and neither a prescribed way of integration to allow designer favored design. Furthermore, given its flexibility in the process, our method can be extended for new emerging design issues easily.


BACKGROUND
Fibromas and fibromyomas belong to the most common solid vulvar tumors. Their cause remains unknown.

CASE
A 15-year-old girl arrived at our department for extirpation of a large pendulous vulval fibroma. For three years she had observed a gradually enlarging structure protruding from her external genitals. After a preoperative CT examination the tumor was extirpated with a histological diagnosis of benign soft fibroma.

CONCLUSION
Our report describes a therapeutic management of a large vulval fibroma in a young girl. The extended time from first symptoms to final treatment deserves reflection.


Abstract Exchange rate depreciation was isolated from other economic influences to measure its impact on retail prices of groups of agricultural inputs in South Africa. The period selected was one of generally declining exchange rate of the Rand. Serial correlation problems were overcome by a combination of the Hildreth-Lu procedure and weighted first differences. Tractor prices reacted within the same quarter, as well as the following two quarters, Prices of other input groups reacted between the first and third quarter following depreciation, with elasticities varying between −0,090 and −0,698. Some effects were of an indirect nature. Statutory administrated prices do not seem to react differently to exchange rate depreciation than prices formed by pure business decisions.


OBJECTIVES: The principal aim was to determine whether the emergency readmission rate varies between medical specialties, and to identify whether differences in emergency readmission rates between hospital trusts can be reduced by standardising for specialty. Possible factors influencing emergency readmission were also investigated, including frequency of previous admission and cause of readmission. DESIGN: Emergency readmission rates were obtained from the Scottish Morbidity Record scheme (SMR1) using record linkage, standardised for age and sex. Rates throughout Scotland were analysed by specialty, and rates for general medicine compared among teaching hospital trusts. Cause of emergency readmission was determined from hospital records in a random sample (177 patients). SETTING: Medical specialties throughout Scotland. SUBJECTS: All patients readmitted as an emergency within 28 days of discharge (October 1990 to September 1994). RESULTS: Emergency readmissions varied markedly between medical specialties, with highest rates in nephrology (24.2%, 95% CI 23.5 to 24.8) and haematology (20.4%, 95% CI 19.9 to 20.9), and the lowest in homeopathy (2.2%, 95% CI 1.6 to 2.7) and metabolic diseases (3.5%, 95% CI 2.4 to 4.5). The largest number of emergency readmissions was in general medicine, accounting for 63% of the total. Restricting emergency readmission rates to general medicine significantly altered previous rates. In the year preceding the emergency readmission, 59% of all patients had been admitted to hospital at least once, and most emergency readmissions (73.3%) resulted from a chronic underlying condition. CONCLUSIONS: Significant variations in emergency readmission rates occurred between medical specialties, suggesting that differences between hospital trusts are influenced by differences in specialties and thus case mix. The majority of emergency readmissions occurred in patients with an underlying chronic condition, and many had a history of multiple previous hospital admissions. The emergency readmission rate is therefore unlikely to be a valid outcome indicator reflecting quality of care until routine data are available for standardisation by case mix.


Entity linking faces significant challenges such as prolific variations and prevalent ambiguities, especially in high-value domains with myriad entities. Standard classification approaches suffer from the annotation bottleneck and cannot effectively handle unseen entities. Zero-shot entity linking has emerged as a promising direction for generalizing to new entities, but it still requires example gold entity mentions during training and canonical descriptions for all entities, both of which are rarely available outside of Wikipedia. In this paper, we explore Knowledge-RIch Self-Supervision ($\tt KRISS$) for biomedical entity linking, by leveraging readily available domain knowledge. In training, it generates self-supervised mention examples on unlabeled text using a domain ontology and trains a contextual encoder using contrastive learning. For inference, it samples self-supervised mentions as prototypes for each entity and conducts linking by mapping the test mention to the most similar prototype. Our approach can easily incorporate entity descriptions and gold mention labels if available. We conducted extensive experiments on seven standard datasets spanning biomedical literature and clinical notes. Without using any labeled information, our method produces $\tt KRISSBERT$, a universal entity linker for four million UMLS entities that attains new state of the art, outperforming prior self-supervised methods by as much as 20 absolute points in accuracy.


ABSTRACT The availability of accurate and updated spatial information of tree cover in semi-arid and arid silvopastoral systems (SPSs) is crucial to understand their spatial patterns and trends. Although remote-sensing techniques have been proved useful in estimating tree canopy cover in general, more research is required to investigate the capabilities of new high spectral and spatial resolution satellites, such as Sentinel-2A, in predicting tree canopy cover in semi-arid environments. The objective of this study was to explore the capabilities of Sentinel-2A multispectral data, in combination with a stochastic modelling technique, for mapping montado tree canopy cover percentage (CCP) at pixel level. The stochastic gradient boosting algorithm was used to predict tree CCP using Sentinel-2A spectral data, vegetation indices, and textural information as predictor variables. The results of the study showed that the combination of multispectral bands with the selected vegetation indices and grey-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) texture features performs well, presenting a coefficient of determination (R2) of 82.8% and an error prediction of 8.68%. The analysis also showed that normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and Plant Senescence Reflectance Index (PSRI), as well as homogeneity texture feature, were the most important predictor variables to undertake the complex montado tree canopy cover estimation. In addition, this study demonstrated the usefulness of narrow spectral bands provided by the Sentinel-2A sensor for accurately estimating tree CCP (e.g. Red Edge1 – B5 – for PSRI and NIR2 – B8a – for NDVI computation). The modelling procedure used here emphasizes the effectiveness of stochastic models for predicting tree canopy cover from a complex semi-arid silvopastoral system by using Sentinel-2A multispectral data.


The transmission and negative refractive index (NRI) of metal-dielectric-metal sandwiched metamaterials perforated with different filling media of holes are numerically studied. Results indicate that filling the appropriate medium in rectangular holes can enhance transmission. The NRI and frequency bandwidth of NRI decrease with increased relative permittivity of the filling medium. A stronger magnetic response that contributes to the dual NRI metamaterials is found.


We describe our experience designing and delivering a general education technological fluency course that frames the discussion of computer science and engineering technology (electronics and programming) in the context of sound-art: art that uses sound as its medium. This course is aimed at undergraduate students from a wide variety of backgrounds and is designed to fit into the ``Intellectual Explorations'' area of a general undergraduate program. The goal is to introduce computer engineering and computational principles to non-CS students through an exploration of sound-art, experimental and electronic music, noise-making circuits, hardware hacking, and circuit bending.


As the information age matures, a biometric identification technology will be at the heart of computer interaction with humans and the biosphere in which they reside. Hence, the reliable information security mechanisms are needed to combat the rising magnitude of identity theft. While cryptography is a powerful tool to achieve information security, one of the main challenges in cryptosystems is to maintain the secrecy of the cryptographic keys. Template protection techniques prevent stored reference data from revealing private biometric information and enhance the security of biometric systems against attacks such as identity theft and cross matching. A critical issue in biometric systems is to protect the template of a user which is typically stored in a database or a smart card. The fuzzy vault construct is a challenging biometric cryptosystem that secures both the secret key and the biometric template by binding them within a cryptographic framework. The helper data itself do not leak any information about the biometric template, yet contain sufficient information to align the template and query biometric accurately. This paper reviews the state of the art biometrics Cryptosystems from the Point of Challenging Designs Strategies.


Hypothesized that attitude judgments about unfamiliar objects are affected by the evaluative inconsistency of relevant attributes. It was further predicted that individuals' perceived self-efficacy moderates the effect of inconsistency on attitude latencies: Individuals with high perceived self-efficacy in regard to systematic processing are expected to persist in their judgmental process and to show deliberative processing when information is inconsistent but not when it is consistently positive or consistently negative. Evaluatively consistent information should lead to an elimination of or even a reversal of this difference between high- and low-efficacy individuals.


Arnaudov, V. & Petkova, R. (2020). Spirotetramat (Movento®): new systemic insecticide for control of green peach aphid, Myzus persicae (Sulzer) (Hemiptera: Aphidae) on peach. Bulg. J. of Agric. Sci., 26(2), 431–434 The green peach aphid (Myzus persicae) is one of the most common and most harmful species of aphids on the peach in the world. It is a serious problem for many industrial and vegetable crops and vector of various economically important viruses on them. The control of this species of aphids is extremely difficult due to the specific life cycle, the high reproductive potential, the wide range of hosts, the ability to spread rapidly and the development of resistance to different groups of insecticides. А series of field experiments was carried out in the spring of 2016/2017 to improve the control of this species of aphids. The purpose of these experiments was to evaluate and compare the efficacy of spirotetramat (Movento®) used to control M. persicae with that of neonicotinoids imidacloprid or thiamethoxam when applied alone after flowering. The results show that spirotetramat demonstrates excellent efficacy and very good persistance, allowing effective control of M. persicae populations for more than a month. Movento®, applied once after flowering, provides excellent and reliable control of M. persicae populations, significantly superior to that of neonicotinoids imidacloprid and thiamethoxam in terms of efficacy and persistence. Spirotetramat can be considered as a reliable means of controlling M. persicae and a possible alternative to neonicotinoid insecticides to reduce the risk of mass multiplication and resistance occurrence. The best time for its application is after flowering before or in the presence of first visible colonies of M. persicae on the peach shoots.


In this dissertation, we have developed the necessary basis for the characterization of the RF output of a gyrotron. The characterization includes the phase reconstruction and Gaussian beam mode decomposition. In order to analyze the phase reconstruction in detail, we have developed an accurate field propagation method using the complete Rayleigh-Sommerfeld scalar diffraction integral (RSDI) and the Huygens-Fresnel diffraction integral (HFDI), using a fast Fourier Transform (FFT) based approach. The discretization of the two diffraction integrals is analyzed analytically and numerically. In the case of the HFDI, a condition on the distance of propagation, where aliasing and replication are completely removed, is found. It relates the distance of propagation Δz, the number of sampling points M, the grid cell size Δx and the wavelength λ as: Δz = M(Δx)2 · 1/λ. The two formalisms are also studied using a zero-padding technique, which can be used to propagate the field to any arbitrary distance. These propagation methods are then used in the Iterative Phase Retrieval Algorithm (IPRA) for phase reconstruction. The effects of several parameters on the IPRA (the number of planes, the measurement plane size, the distance of propagation, the number of sampling points and the grid cell size, the misalignment along the optical axis, etc.) are then analyzed. For the theoretical field profiles used in this dissertation, the misalignment along the optical axis in the form of a transverse shift affects the IPRA most severely. The experimental procedure to measure the beam intensity patterns using infrared (IR) thermography is explored extensively. Out of the many target materials used, Robax is the most appropriate in terms of dynamic range, temperature linearity and for the possibility to perform measurements from the front side and the back side. Further, infrared image data processing is investigated for intensity pattern enhancement. This includes various steps: Fixed Pattern Noise (FPN) correction by subtracting the background image of the target taken before the microwave irradiation, defective pixels correction, perspective correction, image pattern enhancement by filtering and denoising. Further, the intermodal decomposition of the reconstructed phase and amplitude is analyzed in detail using two methods, in order to extract the Gaussian content: Finding a set of Gaussian beam parameters and a mode content matrix which maximizes the power in the fundamental mode |C00|2. This method is commonly used by the gyrotron tube developers. Finding a set of Gaussian beam parameters and a mode content matrix which minimizes the error between the corresponding reconstructed field and the input (theoretical and/or experimental) field. It is found that, the two methods may give significantly different results. As a general rule, the second method gives more precise and more reliable results, but the solution is unfortunately not unique and depends both on the measured profile and the measurement parameters. Therefore, the concept of Gaussian content adopted by the community seems to be incomplete, and the corresponding optimized parameters should be associated to it. The definition of Gaussian content should then be reexamined, and completed by an analysis of the power coupling coefficient of the microwave beam to the transmission line (corrugated waveguide or a quasi-optical line).


The question I wish to address in this essay is really quite simple: Given the fact that there are "Jews" who seem to play a major role in contemporary German "Kultur" (at least that narrower definition of culture, meaning the production of cultural artifacts, such as books—a field which, at least for Englemann, was one of the certain indicators of a Jewish component in prewar German culture)—what happened to these "Jews" (or at least the category of the "Jewish writer") in postwar discussions of culture? Or more simply: who lulled the remaining Jews in contemporary German culture and why? Why is it not possible to speak about "German-Jews" in the contemporary criticism about German culture? And, more to the point, what is the impact of this denial on those who (quite often ambivalently) see (or have been forced to see) themselves as "Germans" and "Jews," but not as both simultaneously.


Tort law answers two of the most fundamental questions faced by any society: "how should people treat each other" and "whose problem is it when things go wrong". Tort law is striking because it supposes that the question of how people treat each other and the question of whose problem it is when things go wrong are at bottom the same question. If plaintiff is to recover from defendant, defendant must have breached a norm of conduct that governs the ways in which he may treat her. My aim in this chapter is to explain the way tort law brings the two questions together.


The paper describes a sequence of Pliocene(? ) to Quaternary age calcretes developed within alluvial fan and fluvial gravels in the Tabernas Basin, Almeria Province, southeast Spain. Calcrete profiles are described from sites adjacent to major tributaries of the Rambla de Tabernas. Six distinct calcrete units are identified within the basin. These have variable distributions but have developed in an identifiable evolutionary sequence. Two pairs of calcrete units are widely present across the basin preserving two former land surfaces. Each of the former land surfaces has been planated and subsequently buried by alluvial fan or fluvial gravels. A massive calcrete unit is present at the base of each gravel sequence, immediately in contact with the underlying bedrock, with a less well developed calcrete unit situated at the top of the gravel sequence. The lowest two calcrete units within the basin are more spatially restricted and are confined to the floors and flanks of incised drainage lines.

The geochemistry, macro- and micromorphological properties and geomorphological positions of the calcrete units are outlined and, on the basis of this information, their mode of origin identified. Two main modes of calcrete genesis appear to be present: massive calcretes situated in direct contact with bedrock are suggested to have formed by groundwater processes, whilst calcretes situated at the top of gravel sequences are likely to have developed by pedogenic processes. Calcrete genesis is subsequently considered in the context of the reconstruction of the early phases of landscape development, and is suggested to have been controlled by phases of uplift and stability within the Tabernas Basin. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


This paper introduces a fast Traffic Sign Recognition system developed for a robot, participant in the Autonomous Driving Competition in the Portuguese Festival of Robotics. The Autonomous Driving Robot performs detection and classification of traffic signs and traffic lights based on the analysis of images acquired by a camera mounted on its chassis. The proposed algorithm is composed of three processing stages: detection, pictogram extraction and classification. After the two firsts processing stages, a binary pattern matrix is obtained by color segmentation. In the classification stage two different neural networks were trained to recognize the traffic signs or the traffic light sign. Experimental results show that the system precision is very close to 100% whereas recall presents values above 90% in most of the signs. The proposed system also proves to be reliable and suitable for real-time processing.


SUMMARY: Macrobenthic associations were investigated at 29 sampling stations with a semi-quantitative Agassiz trawl, ranging from the South Patagonian Icefield to the Straits of Magellan in the South Chilean fjord system. A total of 1,895 individuals belonging to 131 species were collected. 19 species belong to colonial organisms, mainly Bryozoa (17 species) and Octocorallia (2 species). The phylum Echinodermata was the most diverse in species number (47 species), with asteroids (25 species) and ophiuroids (13 species) being the best represented within this taxon. Polychaeta was the second dominant group in terms of species richness (46 species). Multidimensional scaling ordination (MDS) separated two station groups, one related to fjords and channels off the South Patagonian Icefield and the second one to stations surrounding the Straits of Magellan. 45 species account for 90% of the dissimilarity between these two groups. These differences can mainly be explained by the influence of local environmental conditions determined by processes closely related to the presence/absence of glaciers. Abiotic parameters such as water depth, type of sediment and chemical features of the superficial sediment were not correlated with the numbers of individuals caught by the Agassiz trawl in each group of sampling stations.


Identity Economics provides an important and compelling new way to understand human behavior, revealing how our identities--and not just economic incentives--influence our decisions. In 1995, economist Rachel Kranton wrote future Nobel Prize-winner George Akerlof a letter insisting that his most recent paper was wrong. Identity, she argued, was the missing element that would help to explain why people--facing the same economic circumstances--would make different choices. This was the beginning of a fourteen-year collaboration--and of Identity Economics. The authors explain how our conception of who we are and who we want to be may shape our economic lives more than any other factor, affecting how hard we work, and how we learn, spend, and save. Identity economics is a new way to understand people's decisions--at work, at school, and at home. With it, we can better appreciate why incentives like stock options work or don't; why some schools succeed and others don't; why some cities and towns don't invest in their futures--and much, much more. Identity Economics bridges a critical gap in the social sciences. It brings identity and norms to economics. People's notions of what is proper, and what is forbidden, and for whom, are fundamental to how hard they work, and how they learn, spend, and save. Thus people's identity--their conception of who they are, and of who they choose to be--may be the most important factor affecting their economic lives. And the limits placed by society on people's identity can also be crucial determinants of their economic well-being.


A 2010 Colorado River symposium held in Flagstaff, Arizona, in May 2010, had 70 participants who engaged in intense debate about the origin and evolution of the Colorado River system. This symposium, built on two previous decadal scientific meetings, focused on forging scientific consensus where possible, while also articulating continued controversies regarding the Cenozoic evolution of the Colorado River System and the landscapes of the Colorado Plateau–Rocky Mountain region that it drains. New developments involved hypotheses that Neogene mantle flow is driving plateau tilting and differential uplift, with consensus that multidisciplinary studies involving differential incision studies and additional geochronology and thermochronology are needed to test the relative importance of tectonic and geomorphic forcings in shaping the spectacular landscapes of the Colorado Plateau region. In addition to the scientific goals, the meeting participants emphasized the iconic status of Grand Canyon for geosciences, and the importance of good communication between the research community, the geoscience education/interpretation community, the public, and the media. Building on a century-long tradition, this region still provides a globally important natural laboratory for studies of the interactions of erosion and tectonism in the shaping landscape of elevated plateaus.


Literature now exists on how the media reports on health inequalities. One compelling concept as to the sources and impacts of health inequalities is "social murder" as articulated by Friedrich Engels in his 1845 volume, The Condition of the Working Class in England, whereby the capitalist economic system sent workers prematurely to the grave to serve the profit motives of the bourgeoisie. There is a reemergence of the concept in the academic literature in response to growing social and health inequalities, but is this material being reported to the public? We examine news content since the turn of the 21st century and find a significant increase since 2017 in reporting that evokes the social murder concept in relation to the Grenfell Tower Fire, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the imposition of austerity in Canada and the UK. We consider these developments in relation to journalists' roles and their reporting on health inequalities.


In this paper, we describe the R package mediation for conducting causal mediation analysis in applied empirical research. In many scientific disciplines, the goal of researchers is not only estimating causal effects of a treatment but also understanding the process in which the treatment causally affects the outcome. Causal mediation analysis is frequently used to assess potential causal mechanisms. The mediation package implements a comprehensive suite of statistical tools for conducting such an analysis. The package is organized into two distinct approaches. Using the model-based approach, researchers can estimate causal mediation effects and conduct sensitivity analysis under the standard research design. Furthermore, the design-based approach provides several analysis tools that are applicable under different experimental designs. This approach requires weaker assumptions than the model-based approach. We also implement a statistical method for dealing with multiple (causally dependent) mediators, which are often encountered in practice. Finally, the package also offers a methodology for assessing causal mediation in the presence of treatment noncompliance, a common problem in randomized trials.


We study the dependence of the ac Stark shifts of electronic energies on the molecular orientation relative to the polarization direction of an incident intense laser field, using a three-dimensional non-Hermitian Floquet method and H2 + as a model system. Simultaneously, we also study the orientation-dependent high-order harmonic generation HHG and multiphoton ionization MPI . We find that with the presence of near-onephoton resonance, the Stark effect strongly mixes electronic states of different symmetries to create quasienergy states QESs . The orientation dependence of multiphoton processes, in which these QESs play an important role, becomes complex. Population transfer is better achieved with aligned molecules and optimized orientation. When the energies of emitted photons are lower than the ionization energy, the Stark effect plays an important role in the orientation dependence of HHG intensity and polarization. It also is important for MPI, when the Keldysh parameter is larger than 1. Results from fixed-nuclei calculations for a series of internuclear distances are used to obtain values for different vibrational states. With a multiphoton resonance, the HHG intensity of the fixed-nuclei model resembles that of the lowest vibrational state. Molecular vibration of H2 + has a great effect in MPI and the off-resonant HHG.


Abstract We present the results of U–Pb dating of zircons of two Late Permian igneous rocks from the Dun Mountain–Maitai and Brook Street terranes of New Zealand's South Island. A conglomerate clast of hornblende diorite from the Early–Middle Triassic Stephens Subgroup, Maitai Group, gives an age of 251.1 ± 1.6 Ma. A sample of hypabyssal andesite–microdiorite (Weetwood Formation) that intrudes the Late Permian Productus Creek Group of the Brook Street Terrane gives an age of 258.8 ± 7.9 Ma. The intermediate and subalkaline geochemistry of the two samples is not distinctive of specific tectonic settings, but their ages match plutons of the I-type, subduction-related Longwood Suite of the nearby Median Batholith. Assuming that correlation with the Longwood Suite is correct, the Weetwood sample increases the known areal extent of intrusion of the Longwood Suite; and the Stephens Subgroup Formation clast is consistent with a detrital link between Gondwana and the Dun Mountain–Maitai Terrane by the Middle Triassic. However, because of uncertainties regarding the timing of magmatism along other parts of the Gondwana margin, the data in this paper do not establish any specific provenance links.


Yu Wang writes: On the basis of descriptions of the stratigraphic sequences and structural features in the field, and interpretations of published data, Yan et al . (2006 a ) reach the surprising conclusion that early Mesozoic (early–middle Triassic) ESE-oriented extension resulted in formation of the Fangshan metamorphic core complex. If correct, the authors have made an important contribution to understanding of the tectonic evolution of North China. However, the way in which they cite previously published work to support their model, and discrepancies between their findings in the field and those of other workers raise a number of problems that will be discussed below.

### Citing of published work.

Yan et al . (2006 a ) cited many references (e.g. Lei et al . 1994; Niu et al . 1994; Yu & Zhang 1996; Chen 1999; Fu 1999; Meng et al . 2003) in support of their conclusions about early Triassic extension and formation of metamorphic core complexes, as well as Late Cretaceous normal faulting. In many cases, however, the cited references do not lend support to their interpretations. For example, the Du Shan granite and surrounding Archaean and Proterozoic metamorphic rocks (Yu & Zhang 1996) contain no evidence for extension or development of metamorphic core complex features, but instead record NE-trending, strike-slip ductile shearing, not top-to-the-SE extension. The Malanyu dome is an old metamorphic sequence (Chen 1999), and no one has previously interpreted it as an extensional dome associated with SE-directed extensional shear. Zhang et al . (1991) did not examine any aspect of the geology in the area of the so-called Yuerya metamorphic core complex. Furthermore, no dome has been identified here by any previous geologists; instead, it is a c . 175–174 Ma (U–Pb sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe ages, Luo et al . 2001) granitic sheet-like …


: Transition to clinical practice is an important topic in athletic training, as it can be a period of time that presents challenges for the athletic trainer. Most of the research pertaining to transition to practice focuses on the skills and knowledge necessary for clinical practice, yet we know that stress can manifest from not only being an independent practitioner but also from learning how to balance one's roles. We wanted to understand the perspective of today's novice athletic trainers and how they feel in their first full-time position, specifically relating to their professional development and establishment or maintenance of work-life balance (WLB). Using a qualitative paradigm, we phone interviewed athletic trainers who were categorized as career starters by the National Athletic Trainers' Association. Using a purposive recruitment strategy we were able to recruit 20 (12 female, 8 male) athletic trainers meeting this classification. General inductive analyses were used to code the data from our interviews, and we satisfied credibility though saturation of the data, peer review, and researcher triangulations during the coding process. Our findings suggest that while confidence in clinical skills is apparent, some of the more administrative aspects of clinical practice present challenges. We found that various employment settings offered various expectations or challenges that had the potential to impact WLB. A blend of professional and organizational processes helped transition the athletic trainer, and although both were helpful each also could be bolstered to improve transitioning for the newly credentialed athletic trainer. Employers of early career starters should be aware of the stress related to transition to practice, and the time it can take to acclimate.


The tableau approach to automated network design optimization via implicit, variable order, variable time-step integration, and adjoint sensitivity computation is described. In this approach, the only matrix operation required is that of repeatedly solving linear algebraic equations of fixed sparsity structure. Required partial derivatives and numerical integration is done at the branch level leading to a simple input language, complete generality and maximum sparsity of the characteristic coefficient matrix. The bulk of computation and program complexity is thus located in the sparse matrix routines; described herein are the routines OPTORD and 1-2-3 GNSO. These routines account for variability type of the matrix elements in producing a machine code for solution of Ax=b in nested iterations for which a weighted sum of total operations count and round-off error incurred in the optimization is minimized.


This work presents a novel, two-scale model of viral infection evolution in a cell population taking into account immunological response based on Interferon-β. Infection dynamics is analyzed on a population level, using standard compartmental approach and on a intracellular level, describing biochemical processes taking place inside cells during infection. Additionally, an optimization problem has been stated, aiming at finding best therapy protocols using Interferon-β.


Watersheds and irrigation systems have the characteristic of connecting people vertically by water flows. The location of users along these systems defines their role in the provision and appropriation of water which adds complexity to the potential for cooperation. Verticality thus imposes a challenge to collective action. This paper presents the results of field experiments conducted in four watersheds of Colombia (South America) and Kenya (East Africa) to study the role that location plays in affecting trust and cooperation in decisions regarding to provision and appropriation of water. We recruited 639 watersheds inhabitants from upstream, midstream and downstream locations in these basins and conducted two field experiments: the Irrigation Game and the Water Trust Game. The Irrigation Game (Cardenas et al, 2013; Janssen et al, 2011) involves decisions regarding to the provision and appropriation of water where the location in the system is randomly assigned. The Water Trust Game is an adaptation of the trust game (Berg et al 1995) framed around water and economic compensation flows where we explicitly reveal the actual upstream or downstream location of the two players. The results of the two games show that location affect water provision and distribution and that reciprocity and trust are key motivations for upstream-downstream cooperation. Yet, both experiments also suggest that the lack of trust from downstream players towards upstream players may restrict the possibilities of cooperation among watershed users.


Earth's deepest earthquakes occur as a population in subducting or previously subducted lithosphere at depths ranging from about 325 to 690 km. This depth interval closely brackets the mantle transition zone, characterized by rapid seismic velocity increases resulting from the transformation of upper mantle minerals to higher-pressure phases. Deep earthquakes thus provide the primary direct evidence for subduction of the lithosphere to these depths and allow us to investigate the deep thermal, thermodynamic, and mechanical ferment inside slabs. Numerical simulations of reaction rates show that the olivine → spinel transformation should be kinetically hindered in old, cold slabs descending into the transition zone. Thus wedge-shaped zones of metastable peridotite probably persist to depths of more than 600 km. Laboratory deformation experiments on some metastable minerals display a shear instability called transformational faulting. This instability involves sudden failure by localized superplasticity in thin shear zones where the metastable host mineral transforms to a denser, finer-grained phase. Hence in cold slabs, such faulting is expected for the polymorphic reactions in which olivine transforms to the spinel structure and clinoenstatite transforms to ilmenite. It is thus natural to hypothesize that deep earthquakes result from transformational faulting in metastable peridotite wedges within cold slabs. This consideration of the mineralogical states of slabs augments the traditional largely thermal view of slab processes and explains some previously enigmatic slab features. It explains why deep seismicity occurs only in the approximate depth range of the mantle transition zone, where minerals in downgoing slabs should transform to spinel and ilmenite structures. The onset of deep shocks at about 325 km is consistent with the onset of metastability near the equilibrium phase boundary in the slab. Even if a slab penetrates into the lower mantle, earthquakes should cease at depths near 700 km, because the seismogenic phase transformations in the slab are completed or can no longer occur. Substantial metastability is expected only in old, cold slabs, consistent with the observed restriction of deep earthquakes to those settings. Earthquakes should be restricted to the cold cores of slabs, as in any model in which the seismicity is temperature controlled, via the distribution of metastability. However, the geometries of recent large deep earthquakes pose a challenge for any such models. Transformational faulting may give insight into why deep shocks lack appreciable aftershocks and why their source characteristics, including focal mechanisms indicating localized shear failure rather than implosive deformation, are so similar to those of shallow earthquakes. Finally, metastable phase changes in slabs would produce an internal source of stress in addition to those due to the weight of the sinking slab. Such internal stresses may explain the occurrence of earthquakes in portions of lithosphere which have foundered to the bottom of the transition zone and/or are detached from subducting slabs. Metastability in downgoing slabs could have considerable geodynamic significance. Metastable wedges would reduce the negative buoyancy of slabs, decrease the driving force for subduction, and influence the state of stress in slabs. Heat released by metastable phase changes would raise temperatures within slabs and facilitate the transformation of spinel to the lower mantle mineral assemblage, causing slabs to equilibrate more rapidly with the ambient mantle and thus contribute to the cessation of deep seismicity. Because wedge formation should occur only for fast subducting slabs, it may act as a "parachute" and contribute to regulating plate speeds. Wedge formation would also have consequences for mantle evolution because the density of a slab stagnated near the bottom of the transition zone would increase as it heats up and the wedge transforms to denser spinel, favoring the subsequent sinking of the slab into the lower mantle.


Transportation infrastructure is a major source of stormwater runoff that can alter hydrology and contribute significant loading of nutrients, sediment, and other pollutants to surface waters. These increased loads can contribute to impairment of streams in developed areas and ultimately to Lake Champlain. In this study we selected six watersheds that represent a range of road types (gravel and paved) and road densities (rural, suburban, and urban) present in Chittenden County, one of the most developed areas in Vermont. The location and density of road networks were characterized and quantified for each watershed using GIS analysis. Monitoring stations in each watershed were constructed and instrumented to measure discharge and water quality parameters continuously from spring through early winter. Storm event composite samples and monthly water chemistry grab samples were collected and analyzed for total nitrogen, total phosphorus, chloride, and total suspended sediments. Results from this study show that road type and road density are closely linked with the level of impairment in each watershed. Total phosphorus and total nitrogen from storm event composite samples and monthly grab samples significantly increased along a gradient of increasing road network density. Chloride concentrations increased several orders of magnitude along this same gradient. With the exception of Alder Brook where total suspended sediment (TSS) concentrations tended to be high, there were no significant differences in TSS concentrations between rural and developed watersheds. The elevated storm event TSS concentrations in the rural streams suggest that the unpaved roads in the rural watersheds contribute to stormwater runoff loads and that sediment control, at least in the developed watersheds, might be fairly effective. The overall results from this study show that local roads are a significant source of impairment for streams in the Chittenden County area. Most of these roads are municipal roads that are not under management of the Vermont Agency of Transportation. Thus, local actions will be necessary to reduce runoff and pollutant loading from these roads.


American corporate law scholars have long focused on state-to-state jurisdictional competition as a powerful engine in the making of American corporate law. Yet much corporate law is made in Washington, D.C. Federal authorities regularly make law governing the American corporation, typically via the securities law - from shareholder voting rules, to boardroom composition, to dual class stock, to Sarbanes-Oxley - and they could do even more. Properly conceived, the United States has two primary corporate lawmaking centers - the states (primarily Delaware) and Washington. We are beginning to better understand how they interact, as complements and substitutes, but the foundational fact of American corporate lawmaking during the past century is that whenever there has been a big issue - the kind of thing that could strongly affect capital costs - Washington acted or considered acting. Here I review the concepts of the vertical interaction, indicate what still needs to be examined, and examine one Washington-Delaware interaction in detail over time. Overall, we cannot understand the governmental structure of American corporate lawmaking well just by examining the nature, strength, and weaknesses of state-to-state jurisdictional competition.


In the present day in national and international perspectives, quality is the top of most agendas. Quality of education has significant impact and invaluable contribution to the area of development. Recently, the SSC & HSC program of BOU have earned recognition of equivalency with the formal education sector, which has naturally raised the question of quality assurance of these programs By applying the quantitative method, the study has assessed the present status of the quality of SSC & HSC program of BOU and also put some recommendations to meet the challenges for further development.


Abstract. Over 3 weeks in May and June 2018, an exceptionally large number of thunderstorms hit vast parts of western and central Europe, causing precipitation accumulations of up to 80 mm within 1 h and several flash floods.
This study examines the conditions and processes that made this particular thunderstorm episode exceptional, with a particular focus on the interaction of processes across scales. During the episode, a blocking situation persisted over northern Europe. Initially, the southwesterly flow on the western flank of the blocking anticyclone induced the advection of warm, moist, and unstably stratified air masses. Due to the low-pressure gradient associated with the blocking anticyclone, these air masses were trapped in western and central Europe, remained almost stationary, and prevented a significant air mass exchange. In addition, the weak geopotential height gradients led to predominantly weak flow conditions in the mid-troposphere and thus to low vertical wind shear that prevented thunderstorms from developing into severe organized systems. Due to a weak propagation speed in combination with high rain rates, several thunderstorms were able to accumulate enormous amounts of precipitation that affected local-scale areas and triggered several torrential flash floods. Atmospheric blocking also increased the upper-level cut-off low frequency on its upstream regions, which was up to 10 times higher than the climatological mean. Together with filaments of positive potential vorticity (PV), the cut-offs provided the mesoscale setting for the development of a large number of thunderstorms. During the 22 d study period, more than 50 % of lightning strikes can be linked to a nearby cut-off low or PV filament. The exceptionally persistent low stability over 3 weeks combined with a weak wind speed in the mid-troposphere has not been observed during the past 30 years.


We consider nondifferentiable optimization problems that arise when solving Lagrangian duals of large-scale linear programs. Different from traditional subgradient-based approaches, we design two new methods that attempt to circumvent or obviate the nondifferentiability of the objective function, so that standard differentiable optimization techniques could be used. These methods, called the perturbation technique and the barrier-Lagrangian reformulation, are implemented as initialization procedures to provide a warm start to a theoretically convergent nondifferentiable optimization algorithm. Our computational study reveals that this two-phase strategy produces much better solutions with less computation in comparison with both the stand-alone nondifferentiable optimization procedure employed, and the popular Held-Wolfe-Crowder subgradient heuristic. Furthermore, the best version of this composite algorithm is shown to consume only about 3.19% of the CPU time required by the commercial linear programming solver CPLEX 8.1 (using the dual simplex option) to produce the same quality solutions. We also demonstrate that this initialization technique greatly facilitates quick convergence in the primal space when used as a warm start for ergodic-type primal recovery schemes.


Agricultural leadership extension programs aim to expand the horizons of leaders through study and experiences. These programs can have direct implications for communities when they are designed and delivered for county officials. This study specifically examined a leadership program administered in Texas which has graduated five classes of county commissioners and judges over the past decade, boasting 54 alumni. Given that the program had not been evaluated, this study used qualitative methodology to determine the program's impacts on community leaders. Eleven program graduates were interviewed as well as asked to provide artifacts representing impacts of the program. Categories emerged from the data and were identified as: affective impacts, behavioral impacts, and cognitive impacts. Data revealed that the social networks and relationships participants gained was an overarching outcome of the program as these influenced the affective, behavioral, and cognitive impacts of the program. Several recommendations for further research, program modifications, and community leadership opportunities resulted from the study. Findings provide insight for those seeking to improve programming for agricultural leadership extension programs.


Behavioral Analytics (BA) relies on digital breadcrumbs to build user profiles and create clusters of entities that exhibit a large degree of similarity. The prevailing assumption is that an entity will assimilate the group behavior of the cluster it belongs to. Our understanding of BA and its application in different domains continues to evolve and is a direct result of the growing interest in Machine Learning research. When trying to detect security threats, we use BA techniques to identify anomalies, defined in this paper as deviation from the group behavior. Early research papers in this field reveal a high number of false positives where a security alert is triggered based on deviation from the cluster learned behavior but still within the norm of what the system defines as an acceptable behavior. Further, domain specific security policies tend to be narrow and inadequately represent what an entity can do. Hence, they: a) limit the amount of useful data during the learning phase; and, b) lead to violation of policy during the execution phase. In this paper, we propose a framework for future research on the role of policies and behavior security in a coalition setting with emphasis on anomaly detection and individual's deviation from group activities.


Over the last quarter of a century, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) have grown in prevalence as a primary human rights intervention for post-conflict reconstruction. Building upon restorative justice theory, TRCs investigate past abuses, listen to the experiences of victims and perpetrators, and seek to repair the social fabric damaged by violence. TRCs constitute an unrecognised opportunity for social work to contribute to the welfare of communities recovering from violence. This paper introduces TRCs to social workers, highlights the relevance of TRCs to social work, identifies how social workers have engaged with TRCs in the past, sketches the history and core elements of TRCs, and addresses how social worker can improve TRCs. Social workers can contribute to TRCs by facilitating interviews and eliciting testimonials from victims of violence, lending their ethical commitments of self-determination and social justice, advocating at various levels of governmental and community groups, working in legal settings and with courts, practising cultural competence, promoting the work of reconciliation through dialogue and mediation, conducting social work research and emphasising the material welfare of victims by encouraging TRCs to address structural inequalities and include social development programs.


Participants in social media systems must balance many considerations when choosing what to share and with whom. Sharing with others invites certain risks, as well as potential benefits; achieving the right balance is even more critical when sharing photos, which can be particularly engaging, but potentially compromising. In this paper, we examine photo-sharing decisions as an interaction between high-level user preferences and specific features of the images being shared. Our analysis combines insights from a 96-user survey with metadata from 10.4M photos to develop a model integrating these perspectives to predict permissions settings for uploaded photos. We discuss implications, including how such a model can be applied to provide online sharing experiences that are more safe, more scalable, and more satisfying.


Numerous papers have reported great success at inferring the political orientation of Twitter users. This paper has some unfortunate news to deliver: while past work has been sound and often methodologically novel, we have discovered that reported accuracies have been systemically overoptimistic due to the way in which validation datasets have been collected, reporting accuracy levels nearly 30% higher than can be expected in populations of general Twitter users. Using careful and novel data collection and annotation techniques, we collected three different sets of Twitter users, each characterizing a different degree of political engagement on Twitter - from politicians (highly politically vocal) to "normal" users (those who rarely discuss politics). Applying standard techniques for inferring political orientation, we show that methods which previously reported greater than 90% inference accuracy, actually achieve barely 65% accuracy on normal users. We also show that classifiers cannot be used to classify users outside the narrow range of political orientation on which they were trained. While a sobering finding, our results quantify and call attention to overlooked problems in the latent attribute inference literature that, no doubt, extend beyond political orientation inference: the way in which datasets are assembled and the transferability of classifiers.


Adolf Hitler is perceived to be the most evil political leader of twentieth century Europe. Hitler draws on his background and involvement in the rise of National Socialism, the government of the Third Reich, leadership of the Second World War in Germany and his psychology to discuss Hitler's credentials as a revolutionary. This volume includes examination of: * the general characteristics of revolutions and revolutionaries * Hitler as Agitator, Dictator, Deceiver and Warlord * Hitler's architectural and artistic ambitions * Hitler's mind and personality. Hitler investigates what it was that motivated this national leader to achieve such monstrosities which still cast a shadow over Europe today.


ABSTRACT Purpose: The aim of the paper is to explore how advisors' relational and professional competence influences inter-subjectivity and farmers' perceptions of farm visits in a setting where advisors have formal power.Methodology: Advisors from the dairy company Tine, which is owned by farmers in collaboration, visit farmers at least once a year. The aim of the visit is to assist farmers in managing the farm and to control the production conditions in the cowshed. In a case study, we attended 10 such mandatory advisor visits and interviewed both farmers and advisors.Findings: Together with advisor style, our findings show that the power relation leaves room for advisors to define their roles widely, ranging from inspector to coach. Advisors have different perceptions of what their jobs are and when they have done a good job. These differences determine the degree of inter-subjectivity and how satisfied farmers are with visits. Furthermore, advisors' relational and professional competencies are crucial for achieving high inter-subjectivity and satisfied farmers.Theoretical implications: This paper contributes to the theory by identifying factors that influence farmers' perceptions of advisor visits, as well as by showing the importance of the advisor's relational and professional competence in a setting where they have formal power.Practical implications: Partly as an outcome of this study, Tine has started a process to separate the control function from farm visits. Tine has also decided to let farmers choose advisors themselves. Originality/value: The power relation in our study differs from most consultant–client interactions in the literature.


Autoimmune diseases and in particular type 1 diabetes rely heavily on treatments that target the symptoms rather than prevent the underlying disease. One of the barriers to better therapeutic strategies is the inability to detect and efficiently target rare autoreactive T-cell populations that are major drivers of these conditions. Here, we develop a unique artificial antigen presenting cell (aAPC) system from biocompatible polymer particles that allows specific encapsulation of bioactive ingredients. Using our aAPC we demonstrate that we are able to detect rare autoreactive CD4 populations in human patients and using mouse models we demonstrate that our particles are able to induce desensitization in the autoreactive population. This system provides a promising tool that can be used in the prevention of autoimmunity before disease onset.


: Pruning can be done on chili plant. Pruning aims to increase and improve production quality because the nutrients are absorbed by the roots directly distributed to the leaves as the plant so the plant stems will form a strong and upright. Too much leaves also interfere with the production process for it is also necessary to cut the leaves so the results of photosynthesis can be concentrated to the production process. This research examines methods of pruning on chili plants known for massive growth characteristics and production of chili plants before or after harvest. The method consisted of two stages. Phase 1 is testing the leaf pruning consists of cutting 25%, 50% and without pruning. Phase 2 is pruning branches on chili plants which have been harvested in the treatment phase I. Phase II consists of treatment without pruning and pruning. The results showed that treatment pruning the leaves (stage I) effect on the production of chili harvest time in quantity and quality, pruning leaves on chili plants by 50% provides an increase in production, the percentage of flowers become fruit, fruit weight and the pruning of leaves be done when a branch plant reaches about 30 branches (30-40 days).


Clouds are becoming the preferred platforms for large-scale applications. Currently, Cloud environments focus on high scalability and availability by relaxing consistency. Weak consistency's considered to be sufficient for most of the currently deployed applications in the Cloud. However, the Cloud is increasingly being promoted as environment for running a wide range of different types of applications on top of replicated data - of which not all will be satisfied with weak consistency. Strong consistency, even though demanded by applications, decreases availability and is costly to enforce from both a performance and monetary point of view. On the other hand, weak consistency may generate high costs due to the access to inconsistent data. In this paper, we present a novel approach, called cost-based concurrency control (C3), that allows to dynamically and adaptively switch at runtime between different consistency levels of transactions. C3 has been implemented in a Data-as-a-Service Cloud environment and considers all costs that incur during execution. These costs are determined by infrastructure costs for running a transaction in a certain consistency level (called consistency costs) and, optionally, by additional application-specific costs for compensating the effects of accessing inconsistent data (called inconsistency costs).C3 considers transaction mixes running different consistency levels at the same time while enforcing the inherent consistency guarantees of each of these protocols. The main contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it thoroughly analyzes the consistency costs of the most common concurrency control protocols; second, it specifies a set of rules that allow to dynamically select the most appropriate consistency level with the goal of minimizing the overall costs (consistency and inconsistency costs);third, it provides a protocol that guarantees that anomalies in the transaction mixes supported by C3 are avoided and that enforces the correct execution of all transactions in a transaction mix. We have evaluated C3 on the basis of real infrastructure costs, derived from Amazon's EC2. The results demonstrate the feasibility of the cost model and show that C3 leads to a reduction of the overall costs of transactions compared to a fixed consistency level.


A series of four field experiments which tested the camouflage properties of different eggshell pigmentation and marking patterns was conducted. Neither natural (Laughing Gull, Larus atricilla, eggs) nor artificial (khaki, khaki-randomly spotted, and black painted eggs) camouflage patterns conferred any selective advantage, when crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos and C. ossifragus) were allowed extended periods (over 2 hours) to hunt for the eggs. However, a natural eggshell pattern (Japanese Quail, Coturnix c. japonica, eggs) conferred a very strong survival advantage during field tests which were terminated either after half the eggs were discovered or after I hour, whichever came first. The selection index (SI) obtained for the quail eggs was higher than those yielded from other experimental investigations of the survival value of camouflage. The results of these experiments were discussed in view of the different test procedures employed, and the extent to which such procedures are reflective of naturally occuring patterns of crow predation, such as in a gull or a tern colony. A fifth experiment which tested the capacity of pigmented and unpigmented eggshells to shield egg contents from solar radiation was also conducted. Pigmented eggshells provided far less effective solar shielding than did unpigmented ones, and this effect appears to hold over a wide range of eggshell thicknesses. In view of these findings, the dark eggshell pigmentation patterns of open ground nesting birds are seen as an "adaptive compromise." That is, under different circumstances dark eggshell pigmentation may be either advantageous or disadvantageous to species and individuals which possess them. Based upon functional considerations an hypothesis was generated which predicts that natural selection should favor darker eggshell pigmentation patterns among certain avian species with particular types of reproductive strategies nesting in particular types of breeding habitat. Some general evidence in support of this hypothesis was offered, and some suggestions for further comparative tests of this hypothesis are suggested.


The expert contributors assess the state-of-the-art with regard to private regulation of food, natural resources and labor conditions. They begin with an introduction to, and discussion of, several leading existing private standards, and go on to assess private food standards and their legitimacy and effectiveness in the context of the global trade regime.


The CHP system not only produces electrical energy, but also produces thermal energy. An extensive analysis of the CHP market reveals that one of the most important engineering characteristics is flexibility. A variable heat-to-power ratio has compelling advantages over a fixed one and enables a power plant to achieve reliability and flexibility, which are very important characteristics for a CHP system. In this paper, a conceptual SOFC/GT CHP system is presented. The parameters' effect on the variable heat-to-power ratio is investigated. As SOFC reactors are still under development, a flexible simulation tool based on mass and energy balances coupled with appropriate expressions for the reaction kinetics, thermodynamic constants and material properties, is presented for adaptation to different cell geometries and operating conditions. Simulation results show that the SOFC/GT CHP system's advantage over the engine is that a low stack running temperature can achieve a low heat-topower ratio.


In this paper, we approach the problem of modeling the human component in technical systems with a view on the difference between the use of model and theory in sociology and computer science. One aim of this essay is to show that building of theories and models for sociology can be compared to and implemented in Higher Order Logic. We validate this working hypothesis by revisiting Weber's understanding explanation. We focus on constructive realism in the context of logical explanation. We review Higher Order Logic (HOL) as a foundation for computer science and summarize its use of theories relating it to the sociological process of logical explanation. As a case study on modeling human behaviour, we present the modeling and analysis of insider threats as a Higher Order Logic theory in Isabelle/HOL. We show how each of the three step process of sociological explanation can be seen in our modeling of insider's state, its context within an organisation and the effects on security as outcomes of a theorem proving analysis.


An approach for the three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of architectural scenes from two un-calibrated images is described in this paper. From two views of one architectural structure, three pairs of corresponding vanishing points of three major mutual orthogonal directions can be extracted. The simple but powerful constraints of parallelism and orthogonal lines in architectural scenes can be used to calibrate the cameras and to recover the 3D information of the structure. This approach is applied to the real images of architectural scenes, and a 3D model of a building in virtual reality modelling language (VRML) format is presented which illustrates the method with successful performance.


We study the largely unexplored transition between coherent and noise-seeded incoherent continuum generation in all-normal dispersion (ANDi) fibers and show that highly coherent supercontinua with spectral bandwidths of one octave can be generated with long pump pulses of up to 1.5 ps duration, corresponding to soliton orders of up to N = 600. In terms of N, this corresponds to an approximately 50 times increase of the coherent regime compared to anomalous dispersion pumping. In the transition region between coherent and incoherent spectral broadening we observe the manifestation of nonlinear phenomena that we term incoherent cloud formation and incoherent optical wave breaking, which lead to a gradual or instantaneous coherence collapse of SC spectral components, respectively. The role played by stimulated Raman scattering and parametric four-wave mixing during SC generation in ANDi fibers is shown to be more extensive than previously recognized: their nonlinear coupling contributes to the suppression of incoherent dynamics at short pump pulse durations, while it is responsible for non-phasematched parametric amplification of noise observed in the long pulse regime. We further discuss the dependence of SC coherence on fiber design, and present basic experimental verifications for our findings using single-shot detection of SC spectra generated by picosecond pulses. This work outlines both the further potential as well as the limitations of broadband coherent light source development for applications such as metrology, nonlinear imaging, and ultrafast photonics, amongst others.


Focusing on the Fluxus concept-practice of "art-amusement," this essay traces the cross-fertilization of the legacy of experimental art, most notably Marcel Duchamp and John Cage and the popular medium of sports and games. It explores the ways in which intermediality, concretism, and chance operations come together to create a socio-aesthetic practice that, while classifiable as "family entertainment" in the sense that it is accessible to all regardless of age, skill, culture, or education, nevertheless produces a durable "shift in consciousness" usually reserved for the transcendental realm of "high culture." I argue that it is through the deployment of Derrida's "blind tactics" that an equivalent, mutually structuring relationship is created between the hierarchically divided categories of art and entertainment, durable aesthetic satisfaction and instant gratification, and ideality and corporeality/materiality, and that it is due to the dissolution of these formerly antagonistic relationships that "the game" takes on a different shape. This new shape, which is paradoxical and solicits conceptually implausible behavior from the player, redefines the notion of game-playing and its constituent factors: the playing field, the field doxa, the stakes, and the goals, while at the same time creating Bourdieu's nonhegemonic, ludic-concretist game model of social interaction.


Of 60 patients with atopic dermatitis (30 males and 30 females, 15-30 years old) 30 were treated with gamma-linolenic acid of (C18:3 n-6) at a dosage of 274 mg twice a day; the other 30 patients were given placebo. The patients were treated for 12 weeks, during which their symptoms were assessed on a linear scale both by a dermatologist and by themselves every 4 weeks. The patients who received gamma-linolenic acid, showed gradual improvements in pruritus, erythema, vesiculation and oozing, which were statistically significant compared with the control group (P < 0.001). Only one patient had presented with scaling at the beginning of the study and this symptom appeared to be less influenced by the effects of gamma-linolenic acid. The assessments of symptoms made by the dermatologist were generally consistent with those made by the patients themselves. gamma-linolenic acid was found to be effective and without side-effects for the treatment of atopic dermatitis.


Fine-grain pipelined adaptive decision-feedback equalizer (ADFE) architectures are developed using the relaxed look-ahead technique. This technique, which is an approximation to the conventional look-ahead computation, maintains functionality of the algorithm rather than the input-output behavior. Thus, it results in substantial hardware savings as compared to either parallel processing or look-ahead techniques. Pipelining of the decision feedback loop and the adaptation loop is achieved by the use of delay relaxation and sum relaxation. Both the conventional and the predictor form of ADFE have been pipelined. Results of the convergence analysis of the proposed algorithms are also provided. The performance of the pipelined algorithms for the equalization of a magnetic recording channel is studied. It is shown that the conventional ADFE results in an SNR loss of about 0.6 dB per unit increase in the speed-up factor. The predictor form of ADFE is much more robust and results in less than 0.1 dB SNR loss per unit increase in the speed-up factor. Speed-ups of up to 8 and 45 have been demonstrated for the conventional and predictor forms of ADFE. >


Clostridium perfringens is a microorganism commonly found in the microbiota of humans and animals and a potential cause of enteric, muscle or nervous diseases. The treatment of these diseases is based on antimicrobial therapy and it is extremely important to know the antimicrobial susceptibility profile of the strains present in the region. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antimicrobial susceptibility of C. perfringens isolated from domestic and wild animals in Brazil against seven different antimicrobials. Forty-one strains from the stool samples of cattle (n = 12), buffalo (n = 2), goat (n = 3), dogs (n = 12) and wild carnivores (n = 12) were examined. The minimum inhibitory concentration was determined by the agar dilution method using Brucella agar supplemented with 5% of sheep blood, 0.1% of vitamin K, 0.1% of hemin and concentrations ranging from 0,25 to 256,0 mg L -1 of the following antibiotics: erythromycin, florfenicol, metronidazole, oxytetracycline, penicillin, tylosin, and vancomycin. All C. perfringens strains were susceptible to florfenicol, metronidazole, penicillin and vancomycin. Two strains (4.9%) were resistant to erythromycin and tylosin, while five (12.2%) were resistant to oxytetracycline, one of which (2.4%) from an ocelot.


Passive probes continuously generate statistics on large number of metrics, that are possibly represented as probability mass functions (pmf). The need for consolidation of several pmfs arises in two contexts, namely: (i) whenever a central point collects and aggregates measurement of multiple disjoint vantage points, and (ii) whenever a local measurement processed at a single vantage point needs to be distributed over multiple cores of the same physical probe, in order to cope with growing link capacity. In this work, we take an experimental approach and study both cases using, whenever possible, open source software and datasets. Considering different consolidation strategies, we assess their accuracy in estimating pmf deciles (from the 10th to the 90th) of diverse metrics, obtaining general design and tuning guidelines. In our dataset, we find that Monotonic Spline Interpolation over a larger set of percentiles (e.g., adding 5th, 10th, 15th, and so on) allow fairly accurate pmf consolidation in both the multiple vantage points (median error is about 1%, maximum 30%) and local processes (median 0.1%, maximum 1%) cases.