Abstract: Morphometric characters of equatorial sections of larger benthic foraminifera have been widely applied to define species for both biostratigraphic and evolutionary studies. In order to test the hypothesis that some of the observed morphological differences may reflect environmental conditions rather than evolutionary changes, we applied morphometric analysis to equatorial sections of megalospheric Heterostegina depressa tests from the reef slope of Sesoko-Jima, NW-Okinawa. Only living specimens were analyzed, thereby eliminating any postmortem alteration of the distribution of H. depressa along the water depth gradient. The analyses clearly differentiated two morphogroups corresponding to two megalospheric generations: gamonts with significantly larger proloculi and schizonts with smaller proloculi. Due to their asexual reproduction strategy, schizonts dominate in high-energy shallower environments. After a transition zone between 35 to 55 m, where both generations are present, schizonts are replaced by gamonts deeper on the slope. Both generations retain the characters of their initial tests regardless of depth. Where both megalospheric generations co-occur, the change in proportion of generations with depth results in an environmental morphological trend that matches apparent fossil evolutionary trends. These results are important for understanding relationships among fossil Heterostegina species, where continuous changes in morphological characters of the initial test part are interpreted as evolutionary trends.


This paper evaluates the effect switch design and control method have on the rise and fall time of a photoconductive microwave switch at 2GHz. The effects of switch dimensions, switch fabrication methods and light intensity of the control mechanism are investigated. Switch rise time is affected by switch dimension and optical illumination intensity. Switch fall time is dependent on passivation of the silicon - which is a fabrication step often used to improve the conductivity within photoconductive devices.


Blockchain, whether public or private, is capable enough to maintain the integrity of transactions by decentralizing the records for users. Many IoT companies are using blockchain technology to make the world a better-connected place. Businesses and researchers are exploring ways to make this technology increasingly efficient for IoT services.

This volume presents the recent advances in these two technologies. Chapters explain the fundamentals of Blockchain and IoT, before explaining how these technologies, when merged together, provide a transparent, reliable, and secure model for data processing by intelligent devices in various domains.

Readers will be able to understand how these technologies are making an impact on healthcare, supply chain management and electronic voting, to give a few examples. The 10 peer-reviewed book chapters have been contributed by scholars, researchers, academicians, and engineering professionals, and provide a comprehensive yet easily digestible update on Blockchain on IoT technology.


When I was thirty years old I landed a job in 1989 as a television documentary researcher, quite by accident. I was an undergraduate media student sharing a house and a huge phone bill with six other UTS communication students. Just hours before the phone was disconnected the series producer Martin Rooke from Blackout called to offer me a fortnight researching for documentary films. Seven years later I left the ABC as a producer. In that time I had worked in the Aboriginal Programs Unit on over sixteen documentary films, researching, writing, directing and producing, as well as co-ordinating a four one-hour international co-production series. The first film I worked on for the ABC was a 30 minute documentary film for the second series of Blackout entitled Civil Rights which aired in 1989, which was about the Freedom Ride protesters who travelled to Walgett and Moree in 1965. In this episode I conducted vox populi interviews with Aboriginal people in my own community of Walgett at the annual Aboriginal footbal l knockout, and also in Moree. We aimed to take the same trek the Freedom Rides took back in 1965. The director David Sandy was from Moree and I from Walgett. It was the first time a documentary had been made about the Freedom Rides since the news and current affairs items in the mid 1960s, although there had been several television profiles of Charles Perkins that briefly mentioned them. For both of us it was the first time in many years that we returned to our own communities to interview those family and elders who we had grown up knowing were involved with the civil rights protests in the sixties. It had already been agreed that this series was going to be distinct from the first series, a magazine format program that had Aboriginal presenters in a studio type situation reading cue cards and casting over to roving Aboriginal reporters. The other program I directed in my first year on Blackout was the Education episode, again with a vox populi format, using as many black faces as possible, cross-referencing nationally. This episode focused upon racism in schools. The reason for cross-referencing nationally was to indicate that the issues that affected Aborigines in central Australia were similar to the issues experienced by Aborigines living in Redfern and so forth. The national cross-referencing on topics meant that at any given time a director and researcher in Perth would be asking the same questions as the director and researcher in Walgett, Kempsey or Wagga Wagga for example. On their return to Sydney each team would log out segments for the other team. The Walgett/Moree team headed the Civil Rights episode, but the Wagga Wagga or Perth teams for example would give their answers to the questions about civil rights to the Walgett/Moree team. Likewise with the Wagga Wagga team, they headed the Education episode, and while they gave the o ther team the civil rights questions the civil rights team gave them their education questions. The aim was to get a national perspective on all the episodes in the series. All teams were given instructions on how the visual style would work so there would be a visual style that would be easy to edit in the fine cut. Each episode had a music clip breaker of unknown Aboriginal bands. We did a deal with them to produce music clips for us that they could also use for promotional purposes, as well as getting extra air play on Rage or Radio Triple J. This series launched many bands and singers; Paul Kelly first noticed Archie Roach from a Blackout episode and rang the ABC to find out how to contact him. Other emerging Aboriginal bands and artists at the time of Blackout were Mixed Relations, Scrap Metal, and dancers who are now with the Bangarra Dance Theatre. Other artists like Yothu Yindi, Key Carmody, Jimmy Little, Maroochy and Leah Purcell were also screened nationally on Blackout. The Songlines programs covered many bands that would otherwise not be seen on television, concerts in Broome from 1992 to 1994, the Building Bridges and Survival Day concerts from 1988 to 2000, and the Yepperenya concert in Alice Springs in 2001. …


Axis specification during Drosophila embryonic development requires transfer of maternal components during oogenesis from nurse cells (NCs) into the oocyte through cytoplasmic bridges. We found that the asymmetrical distribution of Golgi, between nurse cells and the oocyte, is sustained by an active transport process. We have characterized actin basket structures that asymmetrically cap the NC side of Ring canals (RCs) connecting the oocyte. Our results suggest that these actin baskets structurally support transport mechanisms of RC transit. In addition, our tracking analysis indicates that Golgi are actively transported to the oocyte rather than diffusing. We observed that RC transit is microtubule-based and mediated at least by dynein. Finally, we show that actin networks may be involved in RC crossing through a myosin II step process, as well as in dispatching Golgi units inside the oocyte subcompartments.


Salespeople, consultants, managers, executives, entrepreneurs. . . Influence is a crucial tool for absolutely anyone seeking success and prosperity. But how can everyday people actually become more influential? Maximum Influence unlocks the secrets of the master influencers. Now in an all-new edition, the book combines scientific research with real-world studies, presenting the most authoritative and effective arsenal of persuasion techniques ever. Author and renowned expert Kurt Mortensen reveals the 12 Laws of Persuasion, explaining why each law works, how to use it, and what to avoid. You will learn about the law of dissonance, the law of contrast, the law of expectation—and nine other proven principles that consciously and unconsciously propel people to act. You willalso discover how to:

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 And convince anyone to give you almost anything.

 With new case studies and cutting-edge influencing techniques, this is the ultimate guide to the art and science of getting exactly what you want—when you want.


Ghrelin, a circulating peptide hormone produced in the stomach, has attracted much attention because of its stimulatory effect on food intake, but the effect of ghrelin may represent only half the story. Using a bioinformatics approach, Zhang et al. (see the Perspective by Nogueiras and Tschöp) show that ghrelin encodes a second peptide hormone that is processed from the same protein precursor as ghrelin. In rodents, a synthetic version of this hormone, obestatin, has the opposite physiological effect as ghrelin--it suppresses food intake. Obestatin mediates its actions through an orphan G protein-coupled receptor, GPR39, which shares sequences with, but is distinct from, the receptor targeted by ghrelin. J. V. Zhang, P.-G. Ren, O. Avsian-Kretchmer, C.-W. Luo, R. Rauch, C. Klein, A. J. W. Hsueh, Obestatin, a peptide encoded by the ghrelin gene, opposes ghrelin's effects on food intake. Science 310, 996-999 (2005). [Abstract] [Full Text] R. Nogueiras and M. Tschöp, Separation of conjoined hormones yields appetite rivals. Science 310, 985-986 (2005). [Summary] [Full Text]


We compute spectra of symmetric random matrices describing graphs with general modular structure and arbitrary interand intra-module degree distributions, subject only to the constraint of finite mean connectivities. We also evaluate spectra of a certain class of small-world matrices generated from random graphs by introducing short-cuts via additional random connectivity components. Both adjacency matrices and the associated graph Laplacians are investigated. For the Laplacians, we find Lifshitz type singular behaviour of the spectral density in a localised region of small |λ| values. In the case of modular networks, we can identify contributions local densities of state from individual modules. For small-world networks, we find that the introduction of short cuts can lead to the creation of satellite bands outside the central band of extended states, exhibiting only localised states in the band-gaps. Results for the ensemble in the thermodynamic limit are in excellent agreement with those obtained via a cavity approach for large finite single instances, and with direct diagonalisation results.


This document is a Technical Report of the software project which subject is multi-platform hybrid mobile application called "Dublin Commuting - Live Routing".

The main focus in this document is on the description of the project problem, requirements specification, analysis and design of the proposed solution as well as description of the implementation, testing and evaluation.

The project subject is the multi-platform hybrid mobile application called "Dublin Commuting - Live Routing".

The problem which the application will solve is to keep the user, who is commuting in the Greater Dublin Area using public transport (Dublin Bus, LUAS, Dart, Commuter Train, Bus Eireann, Dublin Bikes), updated with live information on the estimated travel times for the route from user's current location (or other selected location) to selected destination point. The user will be able to take informed decision if the selected route of transport is the best currently available option.

The application being developed is a mobile application created using PhoneGap which will let the system to be converted into mobile application for multiple mobile platforms (Android, iOS, Windows Phone).

Technologies used to implement are web technologies:
- HTML5,
- CSS3,
- JavaScript,
- Bootstrap,
- JavaScript frameworks: jQuery, jQueryMobile.

Application uses external APIs:
- Real time Passenger information (RTPI – Dublin Bus, LUAS, Bus Eireann),
- Irish Rail Real Time API (Dart, Commuter Trains),
- Dublin Bikes API (Dublin Bikes),
- Google Map API,
- Google Directions API,
- Google Places API.

The intended users of the application are the commuters who use public transport within Greater Dublin Area.


Using two-step method InP epilayers were grown on GaAs(100) substrates by low-pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (LP-MOCVD). X-ray diffraction (XRD) and room-temperature (RT) photoluminescence (PL) were employed to characterize the quality of InP epilayer. The best scheme of growing InP/GaAs(100) heterostructures was obtained by optimizing the initial low-temperature (LT) InP growth conditions, investigating the effects of thermal cycle annealing (TCA) and strained layer superlattice (SLS) on InP epilayers. Compared with annealing, 10-period Ga0.1In0.9P/InP SLS inserted into InP epilayers can improve the quality of epilayers dramatically, by this means, for 2.6-micron-thick heteroepitaxial InP, the full-widths at half-maximum (FWHMs) of XRD 'omega' and 'omega'-2'theta' scans are 219 and 203 arcsec, respectively, the RT PL spectrum shows the band edge transition of InP, the FWHM is 42 meV. In addition, the successful growth of InP/In0.53Ga0.47As MQWs on GaAs(100) substrates indicates the quality of device demand of InP/GaAs heterostructures.


The Blackbird district, east-central Idaho, contains the largest known Co reserves in the United States. The origin of strata-hosted Co-Cu ± Au mineralization at Blackbird has been a matter of controversy for decades. In order to differentiate among possible genetic models for the deposits, including various combinations of volcanic, sedimentary, magmatic, and metamorphic processes, we used U-Pb geochronology of xenotime, monazite, and zircon to establish time constraints for ore formation. New age data reported here were obtained using sensitive high resolution ion microprobe (SHRIMP) microanalysis of (1) detrital zircons from a sample of Mesoproterozoic siliciclastic metasedimentary country rock in the Blackbird district, (2) igneous zircons from Mesoproterozoic intrusions, and (3) xenotime and monazite from the Merle and Sunshine prospects at Blackbird. Detrital zircon from metasandstone of the biotite phyllite-schist unit has ages mostly in the range of 1900 to 1600 Ma, plus a few Neoarchean and Paleoproterozoic grains. Age data for the six youngest grains form a coherent group at 1409 ± 10 Ma, regarded as the maximum age of deposition of metasedimentary country rocks of the central structural domain. Igneous zircons from nine samples of megacrystic granite, granite augen gneiss, and granodiorite augen gneiss that crop out north and east of the Blackbird district yield ages between 1383 ± 4 and 1359 ± 7 Ma. Emplacement of the Big Deer Creek megacrystic granite (1377 ± 4 Ma), structurally juxtaposed with host rocks in the Late Cretaceous ca. 5 km north of Blackbird, may have been involved in initial deposition of rare earth elements (REE) minerals and, possibly, sulfides. In situ SHRIMP ages of xenotime and monazite in Co-rich samples from the Merle and Sunshine prospects, plus backscattered electron imagery and SHRIMP analyses of trace elements, indicate a complex sequence of Mesoproterozoic and Cretaceous events. On the basis of textural relationships observed in thin section, xeno-time and cobaltite formed during multiple episodes. The oldest age for xenotime (1370 ± 4 Ma), determined on oscillatory-zoned cores, may date the time of initial cobaltite formation, and provides a minimum age for the host metasedimentary rocks. Additional Proterozoic xenotime growth events occurred at 1315 to 1270 Ma and ca. 1050 Ma. Other xenotime grains and rims grew in conjunction with cobaltite during Cretaceous metamorphism. However, ages of these growth episodes cannot be precisely determined due to matrix effects on 206 Pb/ 238 U data for xenotime. Monazite, some of which encloses cobaltite, uniformly has Cretaceous ages that mainly are 110 ± 3 and 92 ± 5 Ma. These data indicate that xenotime, monazite, and cobaltite were extensively mobilized and precipitated during Middle to Late Cretaceous metamorphic events.


Low back pain affects 85% of the population and carries a socioeconomic price tag of $100 billion USD per year. Lumbar intervertebral disc disease is strongly implicated as a causative factor in back pain, as degeneration, which is ubiquitous in the population, leads to loss of normal spine function. For these reasons, our lab has developed disc-like angle ply structures (DAPS) for total disc replacement. These cell-seeded replacements are designed to match the natural hierarchical structure and function of the native disc and correct spinal kinematics after end-stage disc disease. In this dissertation, I describe the development of a rat caudal spine (tail) model of total disc replacement as a platform to evaluate DAPS in vivo; an external fixation system that immobilized caudal vertebrae at the site of implantation was required for DAPS retention and a radiopaque scaffold was developed to confirm intervertebral DAPS positioning. A detailed analysis of the DAPS in vitro growth trajectory was performed to select the optimum pre-culture duration before implantation. Cell-seeded DAPS were subsequently implanted in the rat tail and evaluated by histological, mechanical, and MRI analyses. DAPS successfully restored the mechanical properties of the native motion segment in compression, providing the first evidence of the efficacy of engineered disc replacements. Adaptations of the implant to the in vivo environment were identified; there was a reduction in glycosaminoglycan after implantation, structural modifications to the NP material, and no evidence of vertebral integration. In tackling the first of these issues, a pre-culture strategy that primed DAPS for the in vivo environment was developed; using a rat subcutaneous model, implant phenotype was best conserved post-implantation using a pre-culture strategy with a transient high dose of TGF-b3. Future work will address maintenance of NP structure, vertebral integration and scaling up to human sizes. In my work, the most promising finding was that DAPS replicated compressive motion segment mechanical properties after implantation supporting the idea that engineered biological disc replacement is a possibility for clinical treatment of advanced disc disease. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Mechanical Engineering & Applied Mechanics First Advisor Robert L. Mauck


Author(s): Basile, Anthony; Schwartz, David; Stapell, Hamilton M | Abstract: The Ancestral Health (or Paleo) movement is a collection of people who apply an evolutionary perspective to improve their health through lifestyle changes (e.g., diet, physical actively, sleep). In 2013, a survey of this population revealed that its participants did not align with media stereotypes; in contrast, survey participants were predominantly white, female, and middle aged. Since diet and health trends change over time, the goal of this survey study was to collect data on the members of the movement and compare the survey responses from five years earlier. In addition, we surveyed people who have left the movement to determine why they left and if they follow a particular diet now. Broadly, we hypothesized that participant demographics would remain the same while lifestyle characteristics (i.e., how they participate in the movement) would change. The survey was distributed online through various platforms (social media, blog posts, and mailing lists). A total of 1506 (54% female) participants completed the survey and a majority (75%) were still a member of the movement. Overall, numerous participant responses differed from the 2013 survey (18 questions; pl0.05 for all). One of the main changes between survey years was a general aging of the participants as demonstrated by an increase in participant age, income, and education level. This suggests that the movement is not capturing new and/or younger individuals. Further, the main reason participants left the paleo movement was a change to a new specific diet (16%; two most reported diets: low-carbohydrate and ketogenic diet), although 39% of participants who left do not currently follow any particular diet. We conclude by hypothesizing reasons for the changes and potential implications for the future of the movement.


This study investigates the use of multi-criteria decision making in waste management and selection of the site location and proper wastewater collection and processing system in Varzeqan Town. Moreover, the effect of the decision-making method employed on ranking the final alternatives will be evaluated. Different factors are involved in the selection of wastewater treatment construction sites. These factors, in turn, not only depend on the special location and time the decision is made but also have their own weights in the final decision. In this study, the environmental conditions in the study area are initially investigated to select one site from among five different alternatives proposed for the construction of the facility using the AHP method. Also, the AHP method is used to evaluate and select the suitable collection and treatment method from among the four non-conventional options including Septic Tank Effluent Gravity, Septic Tank Effluent Pressure, Vacuum Sewerage System, and Simplified Sewerage for this region based on the special geographical and geotechnical conditions. The results indicate that the barren lands between Varzeghan Town and Dizaj Safar Ali Village are the best site for constructing the treatment facility and that the simplified sewarge system is the best collection system for the region.


Introduction Violence is an important public health problem that may be seen in every part of the life and has been increasing in the world. World Health Organization (WHO) defines violence as: "The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation". Violence exposure can lead to: Mental disorders such as anxiety, depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).Behavior, Cognitive and social problems such as social withdrawal, alienation, poor academic functioning. ∅ Physical effects such as cardiovascular strain, fatigue, reduced immune response. Age limit of Youth "Time in a person's life between childhood and adulthood. The term "youth" in general refers to those who are between the ages of 15 to 25." - World Bank Youth… those persons between the ages of 15 and 24 years." - United Nations General Assembly. Objective of the research paper: ∅ To estimate the prevalence of symptoms of psycho-social disorders and problems among youths due to exposure to violence in Iraq. Iraqi youth and violence For more than three decades, the Iraqi nation as a whole has been suffering from wars, sanctions and violence. The Iraqi children and youth have been so greatly affected by these dire conditions especially after 2003 and mostly deteriorated since 2006. Research documented that the violence is the main cause of death in men between the age of 15 and 59 years during three years after 2003 invasion. Pre-invasion mortality rates were 5.5 per 1000 people per year compared with 13.3 per 1000 people in the 40 months post-invasion (after 2003 war). A household survey of Iraq that conducted in 2006 has found that approximately 600,000 people have been killed in the violence of the war that began with the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and gunfire remains the most common reason for death, though deaths from car bombing. The 2006 bombing of the Askirya shrine in Samarra, and the widespread sectarian violence that followed, displaced 1.6 million persons within Iraq. In a survey which was conducted by the International Organization for Migration and the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration (2008) found that there are more than 177000 internally displaced families and the reasons most commonly given by internally displaced persons (IDPs) for displacement were direct threats to life (61%), presence of generalized violence (47%), and fear (40%). An estimated 1 million of Iraq's displaced persons were without adequate access to shelter and food, and an estimated 300000 are without access to clean water. The UNHCR estimated that Iraq has 1.13 million internally displaced persons in 2013, and a total population of concern of 2.2 million. Refugees International put the number at 2.8 million. The condition is much deteriorated after 10 June 2014, Mental disorders among Iraqi youth - Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a syndrome that develops after a person sees, involved in, or hears of an extreme traumatic stressor. The person acts to this experience with fear and helplessness, persistently relives the event, and tries to avoid being reminded of it. To make diagnosis, the symptoms must last for more than a month after the event and must significantly affect important areas of life such as family and work. The life time prevalence of PTSD is estimated to be about 8 percent of the general population. The more vulnerable categories for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) attacks are children and young people, females (widows and divorcees). Prevalence of PTSD among Iraqi youth: According to certain academic studies which were conducted in different regions of Iraq (that have experienced high levels of violence and military operations), about 25% of youth have symptoms of PTSD. The table (1) shows prevalence of PTSD among Iraqi youth Region PTSD % Year of study Baghdad 26.43% (males: 17–19 years) 2012 Baghdad 22.9% (18–24 years) 2010 Erbil* 26.5% *(Among youth of displaced families) 2008 Mosul 22.13% 2007 Diyala 27.4% (12–18 years) 2006 - Depression which is a common mental disorder, characterized by sadness, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite, feelings of tiredness, and poor concentration. The percentage of depressive symptoms among university student in Baghdad (2010) was more than 35%; the violence was the leading cause for symptoms of depression. A recent study which was conducted during 2013–2014, showing that percentage of youth (18–25 years) in Baghdad with depression feeling was 41%, among of them 16% had thoughts that would be better off dead, or of hurting in some way. Social problems: Exposure of violence and academic performance. Through a study which was conducted in 2010 on a sample of students from the University of Baghdad (for ages between 18–24 years) found that 30% of them had history of academic failure during their studies earlier, and there was a strong association between violence exposure and history of academic failure – among of these trauma exposure: threat of assault, kidnapping and displacement. Substance abuse Research documented that alcohol and drug abuse may have increased in Iraq since 2006–2007. This apparent increase may be due to increased availability of substances and more traumas experienced by the population. A study was conducted in 2009, showing that the prevalence of alcohol and drug abuse among youth (18–23 years) in Baghdad was 10.7% and 4.9 % respectively. Conclusion Iraqi youth are facing very real dangers of diseases, starvation, psychosocial - physical disorders and death due to military operations and terrorism. The real problem What has been mentioned of the figures is an alarm (snapshot) attempting to shed light on the current psychological and social problems which faced by the people especially the youth in Iraq. The important fact is the psychological effects may continue to next generations. The real problem is lack of wide national studies and statistics to document the effects of direct and indirect exposure to wars, military operations and violence against civilians, and thus lack of scientific programs for community development and therapeutic strategies at the official, local or international organizations levels. With ongoing violence, the health system is heavily focused on curative and trauma care, leaving public health programs less supported. Iraqis have witnessed a depletion of social capital, which led to social deprivation in most sectors of the society. Recommendation Urgent need for further wide scale national researches to explore the long term effect of violence exposure on Iraqi population. Establish programs for building resilience among most vulnerable groups (children, youth, and women) via cooperation of national and international organizations that concerned with such subject…Establish mental and social health support centers, especially in the governorates that exposed to high level of violence and military operations…Need the efforts of activists in the field of human rights -individuals and organizations - to claim for compensation about physical and psychological disorders that resulting from the US occupation of Iraq.


The high level of technical detail included in standards specifications can make it difficult to find the correlation between the standard specifications and the theoretical results. This book aims to cover both of these elements to give accessible information and support to readers. It explains the current and future trends on communication theory and shows how these developments are implemented in contemporary wireless communication standards.Examining modulation, coding and multiple access techniques, the book is divided into two major sections to cover these functions. The two-stage approach first treats the basics of modulation and coding theory before highlighting how these concepts are defined and implemented in modern wireless communication systems. Part 1 is devoted to the presentation of main L1 procedures and methods including modulation, coding, channel equalization and multiple access techniques. In Part 2, the uses of these procedures and methods in the wide range of wireless communication standards including WLAN, WiMax, WCDMA, HSPA, LTE and cdma2000 are considered.An essential study of the implementation of modulation and coding techniques in modern standards of wireless communication Bridges the gap between the modulation coding theory and the wireless communications standards material Divided into two parts to systematically tackle the topic - the first part develops techniques which are then applied and tailored to real world systems in the second part Covers special aspects of coding theory and how these can be effectively applied to improve the performance of wireless communications systems


With the development of world economy and growing population as well, demand for energy in the world has a constant growth. Gases as the industrial product have a significant market position. All commercial gases, which are sold in the world market, can be conditionally divided into three parts: 1 natural (natural (methane)) gas, 2 industrial (technical) gas and 3 petroleum gases.
Marketing logistics is modern concept for the distribution process and have significant role in the latest developments of the trade economy. Also, important part in the distribution of gas is transportation and storage. Depending on specific gas and his aggregate state possibility for his transport and storage (in all three states) exist. Nowadays, a significant role in the global
energy market holds natural gas (methane), with a trend of growing and important position on the basis of their available reserves.
So far, the most common form of methane transport to the consumer in the territory of the Balkans was through a pipeline in gaseous state. This article shows the the new potential strategies for supplying natural gas to the Balkan countries, market of the Balkan region and Central Europe. By using one of these strategies, the countries could be in the better possition in regards to use of natural gas as a source of energy. The new means of transportation of natural gas in compressed liquid and solid states by boats are presented as well as the possibilities of supplying the consumers with the natural gas by pipeline from the regions which did not supply the natural gas before. Therefore transport and storage of methane in the liquid state (at a temperature of-160C) reduces the volume of the active area 600 times as highly contributes to greater efficiency and better supply and distribution marketing logistics in the market. A new approach to the storage of methane provides a safer, more reliable, more efficient and cheaper supply the consumer with this fuel. This concept offers the possibility of supplying methane Balkan countries from different countries, regions and the delivery of other continents.
This paper present some new approaches, that provide opportunities to appropriate ways: production, storage and consumption of carbon-dioxide in the world, all contribute to the overall reduction of pollution, the greenhouse effect and global warming.


The changes of the tectonic boundary locations between the stable and unstable shelf on different version of the tectonic maps of Iraq is discussed. It is found that the location of the boundary varies due to philosophy and the type of the geological parameters. It is used the stratigraphic, geophysical, structural, geochemical, hydrological and others information in delineating the boundary. The deep crustal structures obtained by using gravity data show that the boundary shifted toward the west by about 100 km in southern Iraq. According to the review, and when taking in consideration all the geological and geophysical parameters from the lower crust to the earth surface, it is believed that the boundary is not a line but it is a tectonic crustal zone. This zone represents a transition zone between the main two regions of the platform in Iraq, and it is segmented to many subzones by transverse faults. In addition, it is believed that the data of the parameters of shallow geology confirm the eastern side of the main zone, while the lower crustal structures confirm the western side of the main zone.


ABSTRACT The nuclear hormone receptor estrogen receptor α (ERα) mediates the actions of estrogens in target cells and is a master regulator of the gene expression and proliferative programs of breast cancer cells. The presence of ERα in breast cancer cells is crucial for the effectiveness of endocrine therapies, and its loss is a hallmark of endocrine-insensitive breast tumors. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the regulation of the cellular levels of ERα are not fully understood. Our findings reveal a unique cellular pathway involving the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38MAPK)-mediated phosphorylation of ERα at Ser-294 that specifies its turnover by the SCFSkp2 proteasome complex. Consistently, we observed an inverse relationship between ERα and Skp2 or active p38MAPK in breast cancer cell lines and human tumors. ERα regulation by Skp2 was cell cycle stage dependent and critical for promoting the mitogenic effects of estradiol via ERα. Interestingly, by the knockdown of Skp2 or the inhibition of p38MAPK, we restored functional ERα protein levels and the control of gene expression and proliferation by estrogen and antiestrogen in ERα-negative breast cancer cells. Our findings highlight a novel pathway with therapeutic potential for restoring ERα and the responsiveness to endocrine therapy in some endocrine-insensitive ERα-negative breast cancers.


This article questions the conventional histories of international humanitarian law, which view international humanitarian law as the heir to a long continuum of codes of warfare. It demonstrates instead that the term international humanitarian law first appeared in the 1970s, as the product of work done by various actors pursuing different ends. The new idea of an international humanitarian law was codified in the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions. Nevertheless, many of the provisions of the Protocols remained vague and contested, and their status, together with the humanitarian vision of the law they outlined, was uncertain for some time. It was only at the end of the 20th century that international lawyers, following the lead of human rights organizations, declared Additional Protocol I to be authoritative and the law of war to be truly humanitarian. As such, this article concludes that international humanitarian law is not simply an ahistorical code, managed by states and promoted by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Rather, it is a relatively new and historically contingent field that has been created, shaped and dramatically reinterpreted by a variety of actors, both traditional and unconventional.


The design themes focus on the renovation, reuse and re-utilization of old and valuable buildings, now in disuse, and the rethinking of public places to be integrated into the urban context, now partly in ruins and without an active identity to enhance the past of the town. The summer school will explore the possibilities of conscious interventions in the historic center through contemporary sustainable architecture. Addressing the new buildings within the residual spaces, the re-utilization of buildings and interventions at the seam between the old core and the peripheral parts are the main goals of the projects developed by the participants during the two-week workshop.


The COVID-19 disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2, first detected in December 2019, is still emerging through virus mutations. Although almost under control in some countries due to effective vaccines that are mitigating the worldwide pandemic, the urgency to develop additional vaccines and therapeutic treatments is imperative. In this work, the natural polyphenols corilagin and 1,3,6-tri-O-galloy-β-d-glucose (TGG) are investigated to determine the structural basis of inhibitor interactions as potential candidates to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 viral entry into target cells. First, the therapeutic potential of the ligands are assessed on the ACE2/wild-type RBD. We first use molecular docking followed by molecular dynamics, to take into account the conformational flexibility that plays a significant role in ligand binding and that cannot be captured using only docking, and then analyze more precisely the affinity of these ligands using MMPBSA binding free energy. We show that both ligands bind to the ACE2/wild-type RBD interface with good affinities which might prevent the ACE2/RBD association. Second, we confirm the potency of these ligands to block the ACE2/RBD association using a combination of surface plasmon resonance and biochemical inhibition assays. These experiments confirm that TGG and, to a lesser extent, corilagin, inhibit the binding of RBD to ACE2. Both experiments and simulations show that the ligands interact preferentially with RBD, while weak binding is observed with ACE2, hence, avoiding potential physiological side-effects induced by the inhibition of ACE2. In addition to the wild-type RBD, we also study numerically three RBD mutations (E484K, N501Y and E484K/N501Y) found in the main SARS-CoV-2 variants of concerns. We find that corilagin could be as effective for RBD/E484K but less effective for the RBD/N501Y and RBD/E484K-N501Y mutants, while TGG strongly binds at relevant locations to all three mutants, demonstrating the significant interest of these molecules as potential inhibitors for variants of SARS-CoV-2.


The article concerns the development of the public events programme "Now You Can Go" that the author organised in collaboration with six feminist curators, artists and researchers, Angelica Bolletinari, Giulia Casalini, Diana Georgiou, Laura Guy, Irene Revell and Amy Tobin, in London, 2015. It discusses the programme's exploration of early moments of feminist thinking, art and activism, particularly those from 1970s and 1980s Italy. Inspired by the name of Carla Lonzi's 1980 book Vai Pure (Now You Can Go), the programme engaged with the implications of Lonzi's tactics of withdrawal and renunciation: of art criticism, feminist leadership, and – as outlined in Vai Pure – romantic complementarity with a man.

The essay explains how "Now You Can Go" also traced the legacy and current relevance of the practices of the Libreria delle Donne di Milano [Milan Women's Bookshop] collective, Diotima in Verona, Cooperativa Beato Angelico in Rome, international Wages for Housework, and feminist thinkers including Adriana Cavarero, Silvia Federici, Lea Melandri and Luisa Muraro. Considering why this legacy has been under-translated and overlooked, Reckitt highlights the radicalism of Italian feminist stances on sexual difference, non-assimilation, and politicized relations between women. She discusses the artist Claire Fontaine's formulation of Human Strike and its relationship to Italian feminist theory and practice.

Reckitt highlights aspects of the "Now You Can Go" programme, including debates around social reproduction and gendered caring labour; the rehabilitation of women artists into the market and canon; and translating feminisms across time, place, context, and language. In approaching Italian feminism as a living archive that resonates in the present, she shows how the programme emphasised embodied experience, intimacy, dialogue and participation above spectacle and representation.

Reflecting on what it means both to curate feminist context, and to curate as feminists, Reckitt underscores the need for attention to be paid to behind-the scenes, infrastructural conditions. In this context she describes her curatorial role as establishing a framework that seeks to engender collective exploration and subjective awakening.


Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Tier 1 methodologies commonly underpin project‐scale carbon accounting for changes in land use and management and are used in frameworks for Life Cycle Assessment and carbon footprinting of food and energy crops. These methodologies were intended for use at large spatial scales. This can introduce error in predictions at finer spatial scales. There is an urgent need for development and implementation of higher tier methodologies that can be applied at fine spatial scales (e.g. farm/project/plantation) for food and bioenergy crop greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting to facilitate decision making in the land‐based sectors. Higher tier methods have been defined by IPCC and must be well evaluated and operate across a range of domains (e.g. climate region, soil type, crop type, topography), and must account for land use transitions and management changes being implemented. Furthermore, the data required to calibrate and drive the models used at higher tiers need to be available and applicable at fine spatial resolution, covering the meteorological, soil, cropping system and management domains, with quantified uncertainties. Testing the reliability of the models will require data either from sites with repeated measurements or from chronosequences. We review current global capability for estimating changes in soil carbon at fine spatial scales and present a vision for a framework capable of quantifying land use change and management impacts on soil carbon, which could be used for addressing issues such as bioenergy and biofuel sustainability, food security, forest protection, and direct/indirect impacts of land use change. The aim of this framework is to provide a globally accepted standard of carbon measurement and modelling appropriate for GHG accounting that could be applied at project to national scales (allowing outputs to be scaled up to a country level), to address the impacts of land use and land management change on soil carbon.


Nonlinear optical absorption in silver nanosol was investigated at selected wavelengths (456 nm, 477 nm and 532 nm) using open aperture Z-scan technique. It was observed that nature of nonlinear absorption is sensitively dependent on input fluence as well as on excitation wavelength. Besides, the present sample was found to exhibit reverse saturable absorption (RSA) and saturable absorption (SA) at these wavelengths depending on excitation fluence. RSA is attributed to enhanced absorption resulting from photochemical changes. SA observed for fluence values lower and higher than those corresponding to RSA are, respectively, attributed to plasmon bleach and saturation of RSA.


Two molecules with different conformations appear in the asymmetric unit of fenamic acid crystal (Z′ = 2). The two conformations have higher energies, and they dimerize via asymmetric O–H⋯O hydrogen bonds. For the predicted crystal (Z′ = 1), the symmetric O–H⋯O hydrogen bonds form between the lower energy conformers. Quantum mechanical calculations were carried out to elaborate the existence of higher energy conformers and their special arrangements. The asymmetric O–H⋯O hydrogen bonds in the crystal (Z′ = 2) are even stronger than the symmetric O–H⋯O hydrogen bonds in the predicted crystal (Z′ = 1), which is an important reason that the crystal with Z′ = 2 is observed. Additionally, intricate intermolecular interactions, that is, many adjacent molecules interacting with the substituted and unsubstituted benzene groups of higher energy conformers, also come into play, and these interactions cooperate and stabilize the conformers. A comparison of these intermolecular interactions in the crystal (Z′ = 2) with those in the predicted crystal (Z′ = 1) was made. The potential factors holding the two higher energy conformers together as a packing motif have been discussed in detail. We expect that the results could shed light on the understanding of the origin of the Z′ = 2 structure and other higher Z′ structures.


Regular monitoring of wetlands is an essential element of management for 'wise use'. Indeed, the Ramsar convention requires routine monitoring in order to detect changes in the ecological character at listed sites. However, there are few examples of monitoring of tropical wetlands on a sustained basis in the world. In the present study, we quantified land use/land cover changes in the lone Ramsar site, the Kolleru Wildlife Sanctuary of Andhra Pradesh, India between 1977 and 2007 using remote sensing and GIS techniques. It was found that there was a significant increase in aquaculture farming (158.5 sq km) from 1977 to 2000, which put the habitat of flora and fauna in adverse conditions. The natural function of lake was being restored after the demolition of fishponds ordered by the Honorable Supreme Court of India in 2006. This study highlights the firsthand information to the user community after demolition, and offers suggestions for the future conservation of the lake. We suggest that remote sensing and GIS tools have a significant role in meeting the reported requirements for the CBD 2010 target.


Tables on web pages contain a huge amount of semantically explicit information, which makes them a worthwhile target for automatic information extraction and knowledge acquisition from the Web. However, the task of table extraction from web pages is difficult, because of HTML's design purpose to convey visual instead of semantic information. In this paper, we propose a robust technique for table extraction from arbitrary web pages. This technique relies upon the positional information of visualized DOM element nodes in a browser and, hereby, separates the intricacies of code implementation from the actual intended visual appearance. The novel aspect of the proposed web table extraction technique is the effective use of spatial reasoning on the CSS2 visual box model, which shows a high level of robustness even without any form of learning (F-measure ≈ 90%). We describe the ideas behind our approach, the tabular pattern recognition algorithm operating on a double topographical grid structure and allowing for effective and robust extraction, and general observations on web tables that should be borne in mind by any automatic web table extraction mechanism.


A collection of 215 specimens of different stadia of the African millipede Epibolus pulchripes allowed studying its post-embryonic development, with special attention drawn to (i) the number of segments and ocelli at each stadium and (ii) the development of the copulatory organs of males and females. Laboratory rearing of adult E. pulchripes from Kenya revealed some aspects of reproduction, from the structure of the adult reproductive organs to mating behaviour and oviposition, as well as the first stadia of post-embryonic development. Based on histological observations and scanning electron microscopy, the position of the copulatory organs during mating and the function of the different parts of the reproductive organs are hypothesized.


The effect of different essential oils (oregano and thyme) and packing (aerobic packing, modified atmosphere packing, and vacuum packing) treatments on the growth of Escherichia coli O157:H7 was studied using nonlinear regression of modified-Gompertz and logistic equations to generate the best fit. Parameters of nonlinear modified-Gompertz and logistic models of E. coli O157:H7 in trout samples treated with the different essential oils and packing treatments were matched satisfactorily. Both the modified-Gompertz and logistic models showed a good fit to all the growth curves as evaluated by using mean percentage error, mean bias error, root mean square error, modeling efficiency, and χ2 as well as the correlation coefficients (R) between the experimental and predicted values. Generally, higher values of R2 and modeling efficiency values were obtained with the modified Gompertz model. However, both models resulted in similar absolute values of mean bias error, root mean square error, mean percentage error, and χ2. The growth of E. coli O157:H7 was remarkably delayed by the essential oils and packing treatments. These treatments can be used in the protection of fish and fishery products from microbial risks and the fish can also be aromatized with the essential oils. Based on the obtained results in this study, it can be concluded that the modified Gompertz and logistic models can be used effectively to predict the effect of plant essential oils on growth potential of E. coli O157:H7 in fish products to be stored under aerobic, modified atmosphere packing, and vacuum packing conditions.


Modern datacenter applications demand high throughput (40Gbps) and ultra-low latency (< 10 μs per hop) from the network, with low CPU overhead. Standard TCP/IP stacks cannot meet these requirements, but Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) can. On IP-routed datacenter networks, RDMA is deployed using RoCEv2 protocol, which relies on Priority-based Flow Control (PFC) to enable a drop-free network. However, PFC can lead to poor application performance due to problems like head-of-line blocking and unfairness. To alleviates these problems, we introduce DCQCN, an end-to-end congestion control scheme for RoCEv2. To optimize DCQCN performance, we build a fluid model, and provide guidelines for tuning switch buffer thresholds, and other protocol parameters. Using a 3-tier Clos network testbed, we show that DCQCN dramatically improves throughput and fairness of RoCEv2 RDMA traffic. DCQCN is implemented in Mellanox NICs, and is being deployed in Microsoft's datacenters.


In its third year of existence, ABB Electric was approaching the break-even point when it was confronted with a 50 percent drop in total industry sales of electrical equipment. The only way the firm could survive was to take customers from established major competitors. The firm developed a new type of marketing information system utilizing multiattribute choice modeling. It identified the current perceptions of customers on ABB's products versus various competitor's products. First, ABB used this information on what customers most want from products to devise strategies for taking customers and market segments from competitors. Second, the models' predictive accuracy enabled ABB to organize to meet the customer needs as the low-cost producer. Third, the information guided the firm in selecting new products that were preferred by customers and for which ABB had long-term cost advantages. ABB survived, grew, and now is the dominant firm in its industry.


Mosquito-borne arboviruses are a considerable threat to human and animal health across the world. Many of them are classed as emerging or remerging pathogens and the incidence of disease for a number of serious viral infections has increased as they expand their geographical and host ranges. As with other invertebrates, mosquitoes lack the adaptive immune response present in vertebrates and instead rely on their innate immune defences to modulate viral infections. Nevertheless, in contrast to vertebrates, arboviral infections in their arthropod vector are non-pathogenic and have no cytopathic effect or detrimental impact on their survival. The response considered to be the most important for antiviral defence in mosquitoes is RNA interference (RNAi) which is a sequence-specific, RNA silencing mechanism. Most of what is known about antiviral RNAi in arthropods has been established in Drosophila as the model insect organism. These studies have benefited from an extensive range of genetic mutants, molecular tools, reporter assays and genetic profiling. The absence of these tools for use in mosquito research is a substantial deficit for arboviral studies in their natural vector system and must be rectified in order to fully understand the influence vector immunity has on virus transmission. This thesis discusses the development of a 'molecular tool-box' for advancing the acquisition of knowledge in this area.
Efficient RNAi gene silencing and its effect on the antiviral RNAi response was established in vitro using Semliki Forest virus (SFV) as model arbovirus. This assay determined that knock-down of Argonaute-2 had the most substantial impact on virus replication compared to the knockdown of other RNAi proteins. In addition, the limited detection of virus-derived small RNAs, key molecules of the antiviral RNAi response by Northern blot analysis provides further support to previous evidence that SFV may circumvent the antiviral response by sequestering its genomic RNA, resulting in restricted access by the RNAi machinery and preventing the generation of large quantities of virus-derived small RNAs. However, some SFV-derived small RNAs are known to be produced and these have been shown to generate a pattern of 'hot' and 'cold' spots along the full-length coding sequences. This thesis has determined that this pattern is not exclusive to viral-derived dsRNA trigger molecules but is also exhibited following the treatment of mosquito cells in culture with non-viral dsRNA. This implies that all exogenous dsRNA is processed by RNAi in a similar manner.
This study has also characterised the presence of an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP) encoded by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. RdRPs are important for the amplification and spread of the RNAi signal in other organisms such as plants and worms; however, only one study suggested the existence of one in Drosophila. Although, this project proposed the presence and transcription of a homologue of the Drosophila RdRP in the Aedes aegypti-derived Aag2 cell line, protein knockdown assays revealed that it has no effect on virus replication in vitro; suggesting that it does not function as an RdRP.
Due to the lack of antibodies against the major RNAi proteins Dicer-1, Dicer-2, Argonaute-1 and Argonaute-2 in mosquitoes, these were designed and screened which allowed the identification of several candidates for the detection of the proteins in mosquito cells in culture. Further to this, recombinant forms of the RNAi initiator protein Dicer-2 and the slicer protein Argonaute-2 were successfully generated and tested in vitro using different promoters to establish their use for future temporal and spatial kinetic studies. It was concluded that of the promoters tested the most successful for the expression of these reporter constructs was the subgenomic promoter of SFV. On the other hand a second promoter, the PUb promoter, may prove more suitable in the future.
Finally, this project studied the antiviral capabilities of a non-haematophagous mosquito cell line which would not come across an arboviral infection by traditional blood- feeding routes. Instead the mosquito larvae sustain their adult life stages by feeding on the larvae of other species which may be vertically infected. A cell line derived from Toxorhynchites amboinensis was characterised and was shown to carry out RNAi if induced by dsRNA suggesting that they are able to mount an antiviral response to acquired infections. This study also determined that the cell line contains an endogenous insect specific virus and, although the source of this is unknown, it adds an interesting new dimension to mosquito antiviral immunity.
This thesis enhances RNAi research in Aedes mosquitoes by presenting novel molecular tools and reporter assays which will be highly valuable for facilitating future investigations. The studies performed also add to what is already understood regarding the interaction between SFV and mosquito antiviral immunity through the RNAi response.


One of the pillars for sound Software Project Management is reliable effort estimation. Therefore it is important to fully identify what are the fundamental factors that affect an effort estimate for a new project and how these factors are inter-related. This paper describes a case study where a Bayesian Network model to estimate effort for healthcare software projects was built. This model was solely elicited from expert knowledge, with the participation of seven project managers, and was validated using data from 22 past finished projects. The model led to numerous changes in process and also in business. The company adapted their existing effort estimation process to be in line with the model that was created, and the use of a mathematically-based model also led to an increase in the number of projects being delegated to this company by other company branches worldwide.


Ensuring that kindergarten children have a solid foundation in early numerical knowledge is of critical importance for later mathematical achievement. In this study, we targeted improving the numerical knowledge of kindergarteners (n = 81) from primarily low-income backgrounds using two approaches: one targeting their conceptual knowledge, specifically, their understanding of numerical magnitudes; and the other targeting their underlying cognitive system, specifically, their working memory. Both interventions involved playing game-like activities on tablet computers over the course of several sessions. As predicted, both interventions improved children's numerical magnitude knowledge as compared to a no-contact control group, suggesting that both domain-specific and domain-general interventions facilitate mathematical learning. Individual differences in effort during the working memory game, but not the number knowledge training game predicted children's improvements in number line estimation. The results demonstrate the potential of using a rapidly growing technology in early childhood classrooms to promote young children's numerical knowledge.


We studied the fit of the Global Lung Function Initiative (GLI) all-age reference values to Norwegians, compared them with currently used references (European Community for Steel and Coal (ECSC) and Zapletal) and estimated the prevalence of obstructive lung disease. Spirometry data collected in 30 239 subjects (51.7% females) aged 12–90 years in three population-based studies were converted to z-scores. We studied healthy non-smokers comprising 2438 adults (57.4% females) aged 20–90 years and 8725 (47.7% female) adolescents aged 12–19 years. The GLI-2012 prediction equations fitted the Norwegian data satisfactorily. Median±sd z-scores were respectively 0.02±1.03, 0.01±1.04 and −0.04±0.91 for forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC) and FEV1/FVC in males, and −0.01±1.02, 0.07±0.97 and −0.21±0.82 in females. The ECSC and Zapletal references significantly underestimated FEV1 and FVC. Stricter criteria of obstruction (FEV1/FVC GLI-2012 LLN. Corresponding comparison regarding myocardial infarction showed a four-fold higher risk for women. The GLI-2012 reference values fit the Norwegian data satisfactorily and are recommended for use in Norway. Correspondingly, the FEV1/FVC GLI-2012 LLN identifies higher risk of obstructive characteristics than FEV1/FVC <0.7. GLI-2012 all-age reference values for spirometric indices fit Norwegians aged 12–85 years http://ow.ly/WP9D3034svA


There is an extended concern for how to quantify the fluxes of greenhouse gasses (GHG) and how they are related to climate change and land use. Efforts have already been done, mostly regarding carbon (C) compounds, but there is still much to be done especially to understand regulating factors and interactions with the Nitrogen cycle. NitroEurope is a large project for the integrated European research into the N cycle. This study shares its aim, to improve the understanding the physics involved in the fluxes of the reactive N (Nr). More specifically, the patterns of some physical and biological processes related to Nr have been studied for two wetlands, one in the proximity of Edinburgh and the other in the North of Finland. flush A common model setup has been used for both of them, since they are both peat soils. The differences applied to achieve appropriate performances give insights of their nature. The presence of snow is a major factor that governs the behavior of the site in Finland. The scaling of existing models for the estimation of heat transfer in the soil of the Scottish site is also critical, such as its groundwater level. The sites represent different climatic conditions, but for CO 2 fluxes they showed similar behavior and response to governing meteorological conditions. Using the GLUE method in combination with a process oriented ecosystem model, some further insights have been gained for the regulation and control of green house gas emissions from the two sites.


An analytic expression is derived for the angle-dependent polarimetric bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) of a glossy coating consisting of a Lambertian reflector covered by a specular dielectric layer. This model conforms to all the requirements of a real BRDF and explains the angular dependence of the polarized BRDF measurements of a glossy paint. Two common assumptions about the properties of paint coatings are shown to be incorrect: Multiple scattering by paint pigments will seldom completely depolarize the reflected energy, and, even when it does, the first surface and the volume scattering cannot be completely separated based on polarization alone. Guidelines for using the model to separate first-surface and volume scattering components are proposed.


My main interests are origin and evolution of kimberlites, magmas that form deep beneath the continents and transport diamonds to the surface of the Earth, and how these magmas react with the diamonds they carry. Natural diamonds have various surface features produced as a result of partial dissolution during ascent in kimberlite magma or during residence in their mantle source. These surface features vary a lot on diamonds recovered from different magmatic sources. I use diamonds to study kimberlites. Most traditional diamond studies look inside diamonds to find clues to their origin and related processes in the subcratonic mantle. At the same time, diamond surface keeps an equally important record of the recent (kimberlite) history and possibly of the diamond destroying processes in the subcontinental mantle. In my research, I combine experimental studies at high pressure and temperatures with studies of natural diamond parcels to examine the process of diamond resorption, how we can use surface features on diamonds to determine crystallization conditions of kimberlites, how we can predict the degree of diamond preservation in different kimberlite pipes. The character of diamond resorption is determined by the composition of fluid present in the magma. Therefore, the main direction of my studies is to develop methods for investigating fluid phase of diamond-bearing magmas in order to describe fluid systems of kimberlites from the mantle source to their eruption at the surface. My research has also an economical application through development of geochemical tools for predicting the preservation and quality of diamonds recovered from kimberlites.


The influence of electrode surface roughness on the breakdown field strength in SF6 gas and mixtures is investigated. A coaxial electrode configuration is used to represent a practical gas insulated cable. With the use of an approximate formula for the effective ionization coefficient and the streamer discharge criterion, it is possible to calculate the breakdown field strength both in SF6 and in mixtures. The factors influencing the deterioration of the dielectric strength of SF6 gas and mixtures with air, C02 and N2 are discussed. A comparison between results obtained for SF6 gas is presented. The results confirm that increased electrode surface roughness leads to reduced breakdown voltages of compressed gas insulated systems.


Arch Med Interna 2014 36(3):133-136 Objectives: find out the two-year survival of patients diagnosed with Multi - form Glioblastoma (MGB) treated with Temozolamide funded by the National Resource Fund (FNR), and evaluate the safety of therapy and prognostic fac- tors. Methodology: cohort of patients with MGB, treated with Temozolamide between May 2009 and December 2011. Data source: database of the FNR. Results: the 81 patients included had a median overall survival of 18 months; 33% of them were still alive at two years. The multivariate analysis found that the patient's age and functional status were the risk factors for mortality. Eight patients had severe adverse effects. Discussion: Presentation of the first national results related to the combined therapy of MGB. Survival was similar to that reported in the international reference studies and greater than that described for radiation therapy alone. Benefits were greater in young pa- tients presenting with a good functional capacity before starting therapy. The safety of therapy was deemed acceptable.


Ascl1 (Mash1) is a bHLH transcription factor essential for neural differentiation during embryogenesis but its role in adult neurogenesis is less clear. Here we show that in the adult brain Ascl1 is dynamically expressed during neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus subgranular zone (SGZ) and more rostral subventricular zone (SVZ). Specifically, we find Ascl1 levels low in SGZ Type-1 cells and SVZ B cells but increasing as the cells transition to intermediate progenitor stages. In vivo genetic lineage tracing with a tamoxifen (TAM) inducible Ascl1CreERT2 knock-in mouse strain shows that Ascl1 lineage cells continuously generate new neurons over extended periods of time. There is a regionally-specific difference in neuron generation, with mice given TAM at postnatal day 50 showing new dentate gyrus neurons through 30 days post-TAM, but showing new olfactory bulb neurons even 180 days post-TAM. These results show that Ascl1 is not restricted to transit amplifying populations but is also found in a subset of neural stem cells with long-term neurogenic potential in the adult brain.


This article discusses the results of a literature review that has assessed the impact of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) legislation in 28 countries (27 in Africa and Yemen) where FGM is concentrated. Evidence on the impact of FGM legislation was available on prevalence of FGM; changes in societal attitudes and perceptions of FGM; knowledge and awareness of FGM legislation and consequences, and the impact on medicalization. While the majority of countries have adopted legal frameworks prohibiting FGM, these measures have been ineffective in preventing and/or in accelerating the abandonment of the practice. Anti-FGM laws have had an impact on prevalence in only two countries where strict enforcement of legal measures has been complemented by robust monitoring, coupled with robust advocacy efforts in communities. Owing to poor enforcement and lax penalties, legal measures have had a limited impact on medicalization. Similarly, legal frameworks have had a limited impact on societal attitudes and perceptions of FGM, with evidence suggesting rigid enforcement of FGM laws has in some instances been counterproductive. Although evidence suggests legislation has not influenced the decline in FGM in the majority of countries, legal frameworks are nevertheless key components of a comprehensive response to the elimination and abandonment of the practice, and need to be complemented by measures that address the underlying socio-cultural norms that are the root of this practice.


Introduction and Objectives BTS guidelines suggest the diagnostic test for pneumonia (in hospital) is a CXR. Since management should be commenced within 4 h of arrival the initial interpretation of the CXR is most often performed by junior doctors. Consultants review patients and their CXRs within 24 h of admission and a radiologist's report is issued at a later time point but diagnosis dependent decisions—whether to admit, risk stratification and whether to give antibiotics—fall to junior doctors. We measured the inter-observer agreement within groups of doctors involved at key points in CAP diagnosis and management. Methods 24 admission CXRs from patients attending a large teaching hospital between February and April 2011 with a suspected diagnosis of CAP were collected on a radiology computer workstation. Eleven reporting radiologists, eight attending consultants and twenty-two junior doctors from a range of acute medical specialties were recruited. All 41 recruits independently interpreted the CXRs, answering "yes" or "no" for presence of pneumonic infiltrate. Agreement within groups was tested using the Fleiss-Cuzick extension of Cohen's κ statistic (abbreviated here as κ). Results Agreement (κ scores) for each group of doctors are shown in Abstract P251 figure 1. Radiologists had moderate agreement (κ 0.52, CI 0.49 to 0.55), junior doctors had moderate agreement (κ 0.47, CI 0.45 to 0.48) and attending consultants fair agreement (κ 0.34, CI 0.30 to 0.38).Abstract P251 Figure 1 Consistency between doctors when reporting CXRs in the context of possible CAP (κ with 95% CI). Conclusions In the context of possible pneumonia, the CXR was not consistently reported by any group. Junior doctors were more consistent than attending consultants and radiologists were most consistent. A possible explanation for these differences is that junior doctors, by necessity, have developed similar ideas of what they will consider pneumonic where as consultants who less frequently make the initial diagnostic decision vary in their criteria for diagnosing pneumonia. This study does not present a "gold standard" interpretation and therefore does not address the issue of accuracy but it does raise questions about to what extent the CXR ever be regarded as a "reliable" diagnostic test.


Current scientific applications have been producing large amounts of data. The processing, handling and analysis of such data require large-scale computing infrastructures such as clusters and grids. In this area, studies aim at improving the performance of data-intensive applications by optimizing data accesses. In order to achieve this goal, distributed storage systems have been considering techniques of data replication, migration, distribution, and access parallelism. However, the main drawback of those studies is that they do not take into account application behavior to perform data access optimization. This limitation motivated this paper which applies strategies to support the online prediction of application behavior in order to optimize data access operations on distributed systems, without requiring any information on past executions. In order to accomplish such a goal, this approach organizes application behaviors as time series and, then, analyzes and classifies those series according to their properties. By knowing properties, the approach selects modeling techniques to represent series and perform predictions, which are, later on, used to optimize data access operations. This new approach was implemented and evaluated using the OptorSim simulator, sponsored by the LHC-CERN project and widely employed by the scientific community. Experiments confirm this new approach reduces application execution time in about 50 percent, specially when handling large amounts of data.


A new global dataset of derived indicators has been compiled to clarify whether fre- quency and/or severity of climatic extremes changed during the second half of the 20th century. This period provides the best spatial coverage of homogenous daily series, which can be used for calcu- lating the proportion of global land area exhibiting a significant change in extreme or severe weather. The authors chose 10 indicators of extreme climatic events, defined from a larger selection, that could be applied to a large variety of climates. It was assumed that data producers were more inclined to release derived data in the form of annual indicator time series than releasing their origi- nal daily observations. The indicators are based on daily maximum and minimum temperature series, as well as daily totals of precipitation, and represent changes in all seasons of the year. Only time series which had 40 yr or more of almost complete records were used. A total of about 3000 indicator time series were extracted from national climate archives and collated into the unique dataset described here. Global maps showing significant changes from one multi-decadal period to another during the interval from 1946 to 1999 were produced. Coherent spatial patterns of statistically signif- icant changes emerge, particularly an increase in warm summer nights, a decrease in the number of frost days and a decrease in intra-annual extreme temperature range. All but one of the temperature- based indicators show a significant change. Indicators based on daily precipitation data show more mixed patterns of change but significant increases have been seen in the extreme amount derived from wet spells and number of heavy rainfall events. We can conclude that a significant proportion of the global land area was increasingly affected by a significant change in climatic extremes during the second half of the 20th century. These clear signs of change are very robust; however, large areas are still not represented, especially Africa and South America.


High school students with 1 to 5 years' smoking experience have excessive cough, sputum production, and shortness of breath. When maximum expiratory flow is plotted against maximum expired volume, the curves of nonsmokers and smokers differ in shape. The smokers have lower flow rates at mid-vital capacity and at lower lung volumes. This probably reflects small airway obstruction in the smokers.


Despite the wealth of innovation in the orthopaedic sciences, few technologies translate to clinical use. By way of a 2-day symposium titled "AAOS/ORS Translating Orthopaedic Technologies into Clinical Practice: Pathways from Novel Idea to Improvements in Standard of Care Research Symposium," key components of successful commercialization strategies were identified as a passionate entrepreneur working on a concept aimed at improving patient outcomes and decreasing the cost and burden of disease; a de-risking strategy that has due recognition of the regulatory approval process and associated costs while maximizing the use of institutional, state, and federal resources; and a well thought-out and prepared legal plan and high quality, protected intellectual property. Challenges were identified as a lack of education on the scale-up and commercialization processes; few opportunities to network, get feedback, and obtain funding for early stage ideas; disconnect between the intellectual property and the business model; and poor adoption of new technologies caused in part by un-optimized clinical trials. By leveraging the network of professional orthopaedic societies, there exists an opportunity to create an enlightened community of musculoskeletal entrepreneurs who are positioned to develop and commercialize technologies and transform patient care.


RI B ER I / L A C H M AY ER ( ED S. ) P hi lo so p hi ca l o r Po lit ic al F ou nd at io n of C on st it ut io na l L aw ? What kind of discourse is likely to build up constitutional norms? How do legal-philosophical insights get along with competing political claims? This book presents the main conclusions from the CITC (Congreso Internacional de Teoría Constitucional) in Córdoba, Argentina. While addressing the very foundations of Constitutional Law, leading scholars from Europe and America got together to debate legal and political issues which impinge upon institutional design and polity assessment, political representation and rights protection. Not to mention other vexing challenges such as the proper latitude of judicial review, the threatening phenomena of untamed emergency powers and the current international dimension of supra-national statebuilding. Beyond governance and human rights discourse, the core content of this book is concentrated on shedding some light on which theoretical and/or political conditions could better stand and give shelter to civil obedience and constitutional patriotism.


[Synthesis and Terahertz Applications of Large-Area Monolayer Graphene] by Minjie Wang Monolayer graphene, successfully isolated in 2004 for the first time, is the first member of the class of materials called two-dimensional (2D) materials. It consists of a 2D honeycomb lattice of sp2-bonded carbon atoms, possessing extraordinary mechanical, chemical, and physical properties. The unique band structure and gate tunability of graphene are expected to result in novel highfrequency (THz) and optical phenomena. In this thesis work, we used two different ways to grow graphene on a copper foil via chemical vapor deposition (CVD). One method synthesized continuous, large-size monolayer graphene, while the other method created signalcrystal graphene with no domain boundaries. We transferred grown graphene from copper foil to SiO2/Si substrates by the wet-etch method with four types of copper etchants that are commonly used by researcher: HNO3, FeCl3, (NH4)2S2O8, and a commercial copper etchant. Further tests and analysis showed that the commercial copper etchant is the best for transfer purposes from the perspective of structural integrity, amount of residues, and doping carrier concentration. We conducted strain-dependent THz transmission measurements of graphene on a polyimide substrate (Kapton) using a strain-controllable mechanicaloptical testing system. Experimental results showed that THz transmittance of graphene changes significantly with strain up to ~30%, but no reversible change of THz transmittance was observed. On the other hand, by using a recently proposed total internal reflection (TIR) geometry, we demonstrated significant enhancement of THz-wave absorption in monolayer graphene. Our scheme allowed the incident THz beam to be reflected by graphene four times at varying incidence angles, both below and above the critical angle for TIR. We observed extremely large THz absorption, especially for spolarized radiation. The experimental results are quantitatively consistent with our calculations, incorporating realistic values of carrier scattering time and Fermi energy.


Background Treatment of dural arteriovenous fistula involving the transverse-sigmoid region with cortical reflux is complex and treatment options may require sacrifice of the fistulous segment of the sinus. Objective To review our results in this subset of patients and describe current endovascular decision-making and approaches. Methods We reviewed cases of endovascular sinus sacrifice for dural fistulas at our institution from 2007 to 2012. Demographic, decision-making, technical and outcome data were collected. Results Seven patients were identified who underwent endovascular sinus sacrifice for treatment of dural fistula during this 4-year period. Determination of the fistulous sinus segment was based on the pattern of cortical drainage. Endovascular access to the sinus was achieved by transarterial, transvenous or via open surgery in one case. Complete cure of the target fistula was obtained in all cases. One patient had transient post-procedure headache. There were no hemorrhages, new neurological deficits or signs of increased intracranial pressure. Six of the seven patients had angiographic follow-up at least 6 months after treatment with no recurrence. Conclusions Fistulas of the transverse-sigmoid sinuses with cortical reflux may require sacrifice of the parent sinus for cure. Defining the fistulous segment and occluding this segment deliberately, completely and precisely is essential for cure. Several modalities and approaches can be used to achieve this. For properly selected patients, cure of the lesions can be achieved with this method with low risk of morbidity.


Objective: To explore the national survey of pharmacy leadership at the Ministry of Health with emphasis on pharmacy Professional development. Methods: It is a ninety days cross-sectional national survey of pharmacy leadership practice at Ministry of Health. The survey modified from self-assessment of 360 leadership and with pharmacy leadership literature. The electronic format of the survey through survey monkey system and distributed through emails. All analysis is done through survey monkey system. The survey divided into for several parts for analysis, and discussion. Part one: practice management, part two: planning and organizations, part three: communications strategies, part four: problem-solving and decision making, part five: performances management, part six; working environment, and part seven: professional development. The study explored the part number seven: National Survey of Pharmacy leadership: Professional development. Results: The survey distributed to one hundred hospitals, the response rate, was forty-two hospitals (42%) with seventy-pharmacy leaders. The gender distribution of responders was Male 43 (63.24%) and female 25 (36.76%) while the nationality was Saudi 69 (98.57%) and non-Saudi 1 (1.43%). Most responders were in age range (25-34) years 30 (55.12%) and (35-44 years) 26 (38.24%). The average score Developing Other skills was 2.6 (86.46%) with the highest score was the leader open to receiving feedback 2.69 (89.65%). While average score Coworker Development skills were 2.56 (85.32 %) with the highest score was Reviews others' work for quality and provides feedback 2.66 (88.65%). The average score Continual Improvement skills was 2.6 (86.65%) with the highest score was Open to the suggestions from others 2.75 (91.65). While the Leading the Change needed skills average score was 2.57 (85.65%) with the highest score was Supports hospital's efforts to implement changes that needed to enhance pharmacy care. 2.71 (90.32%). Conclusion: The professional development skills of pharmacy leader was acceptable with a specific limit at Healthcare origination in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Targeting to improve the pharmacy leader's skills; the Continuous Professional Development program for pharmacy leadership implementation at all Ministry of Health organization is highly recommended. Key word: Pharmacy leadership, Professional development, Ministry of health, Saudi arabia.


This study concerns a generic model-free stochastic optimization problem requiring the minimization of a risk function defined on a given bounded domain in a Euclidean space. Smoothness assumptions regarding the risk function are hypothesized, and members of the underlying space of probabilities are presumed subject to a large deviation principle; however, the risk function may well be nonconvex and multimodal. A general approach to finding the risk minimizer on the basis of decision/observation pairs is proposed. It consists of repeatedly observing pairs over a collection of design points. Principles are derived for choosing the number of these design points on the basis of an observation budget, and for allocating the observations between these points in both prescheduled and adaptive settings. On the basis of these principles, large-deviation type bounds of the minimizer in terms of sample size are established.


There is wide agreement that breastfeeding mothers require adequate support for their breastfeeding efforts if they are to achieve a satisfying and successful breastfeeding experience. During the critical period immediately following birth, the postpartal nurse has a significant role to play in the initiation and establishment of breastfeeding. The purpose of this research was to describe the nature of postpartal nursing support for breastfeeding in hospital and to assess the maternal perception and satisfaction with the quality of this support. House's (1981) conceptualization of social support was used to provide the framework for the study. -- This descriptive, exploratory study surveyed a non-random sample (n=40) of primiparous breastfeeding mothers at an urban hospital over a three month period. Two standardized interview schedules were developed to yield the desired information. -- The results revealed that mothers generally felt they received adequate emotional support for breastfeeding, although a substantial proportion reported that the nurses did not spend time with them during their initial breastfeeding sessions. The majority of mothers felt that they received adequate instrumental support in the area of demonstration of techniques of breastfeeding. The results indicated that the instrumental component of modifying the hospital environment to facilitate a positive breastfeeding experience was inadequate. Practices such as rooming-in, demand feeding and the early initiation of breastfeeding were not encouraged by nurses. The majority of mothers received informational support regarding various topics of breastfeeding. However, several mothers reported that they did not receive information on avoiding formula supplements and criteria for assessing the adequacy of the milk supply. Conflicting advice was a predominant source of complaint. Appraisal support behaviors by nurses were reported less frequently than the other categories of support. -- Emotional and instrumental support behaviors by nurses were found to be most helpful to the mothers' early breastfeeding experiences in hospital. Informational support tended to be more helpful to the mothers after discharge from the hospital. -- The data indicated that the large majority (95%) of mothers expressed satisfaction with the quality of nursing support received for breastfeeding in hospital. However, their satisfaction with the quality of nursing support was significantly lower when measured in the follow-up at two to three weeks. -- The findings from this study suggest that nurses need to have a clear understanding of the various types of support offered to and perceived as helpful by breastfeeding mothers. Nurses would then be able to prepare mothers for realistic breastfeeding experiences and assist those mothers who without adequate support might otherwise choose to discontinue breastfeeding prematurely.


For some years past the apple orchards in the northern
parts of this colony have almost ceased to be productive.
Every grower of apples there knows how liable his fruit is
to be worm-eaten; he finds basketsful of windfalls even
in the calmest weather, and he is aware that the cause of
the loss is a small grub which has fed upon the pulp of the
fruit. The ravages of this insect are not wholly confined
to the apple, but have in some cases extended to crops of
pears. This grub has made its appearance in some of the
gardens in the vicinity of Hobart Town; it is said to have
been observed here three years ago, and up to the present
time it has not been the cause of loss to any serious extent
in the Southern orchards. The history of these grubs, and
how and when they get into the apple may not be
generally known.


The tradeoff between visualizing or hiding the highest levels of the memory hierarchy, which impacts both performance and scalability, is examined by comparing a set of architectures from three major architecture families: stack, register, and memory-to-memory. The stack architecture is used as reference. It is shown that scalable architectures require at least 32 words of local memory and therefore are not applicable for low-density technologies. It is also shown that software support can bridge the performance gap between scalable and nonscalable architectures. A register architecture with 32 words of local storage allocated interprocedurally outperforms scalable architectures with equal sized local memories and even some with larger sized local memories. When a small cache is added to an unscalable architecture, their performance advantage becomes significant. >


The Oxford Friends and Family Empowerment (OFAFE) service is a carer support service that originated in a collaboration between the Oxfordshire Complex Needs Service and the national mental health charity Rethink. OFAFE provides support and education for adults supporting an individual with a personality disorder. This paper describes the background and operation of the OFAFE service, along with the early stages of the development of a similar service for young carers, the Young Friends and Family Empowerment (YFAFE) service.


Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are highly specialized, nanoscale messengers that deliver biological signals and in doing so mediate intercellular communication. Increasing evidence shows that within populations of EVs, important properties including morphology, membrane composition, and content vary substantially. This heterogeneity arises in response to the nature, state, and environmental conditions of the cell source. However, currently there are no effective approaches, which unequivocally discriminate differences between individual EVs, which critically hampers progress in this emerging scientific area. Measuring EV heterogeneity is paramount to our understanding of how EVs influence the physiological and pathological functions of their target cells. Moreover, understanding EV heterogeneity is essential for their application as diagnostics and therapeutics. We propose an innovative approach using resonance enhanced atomic force microscope infrared spectroscopy (AFM-IR) to identify the nanoscale structural composition of EVs, as demonstrated and validated using EVs derived from two types of placenta stem cells. The particular strength of this approach is that it is a label-free and ultra-high sensitivity technique that has the power to measure individual EV heterogeneity. New insights gained by this method into EV heterogeneity will have a profound impact not only on our basic understanding of EV biology but also on disease diagnostics and the emerging area of EV-therapies.


Synthetic gene production is an enabling technology for improved protein production since it can be used to produce totally novel gene sequences that are optimized for codon usage and other sequence features anticipated to facilitate improved protein expression in defined expression systems. Computer aided gene design algorithms of increasing sophistication, allow researchers to exploit the degeneracy of the genetic code to engineer expression optimized synthetic gene sequences and the overlapping oligonucleotides needed to manufacture the desired synthetic gene by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods. Low cost synthetic gene production is ushering in a new era of synthetic biology for improved protein production.

Keywords:

gene synthesis;
codon usage;
genetic code;
protein production;
gene design


Most of the past research on the problem of deadlock avoidance for complex resource allocation systems (RAS) has acknowledged the fact that the computation of the maximally permissive (optimal) deadlock avoidance policy (DAP) possesses super-polynomial complexity for most RAS classes, and therefore, it has resorted to solutions that trade off maximal permissiveness for computational tractability. In this work, we distinguish between the off-line and the on-line computation that is required for the effective implementation of the maximally permissive DAP, and we seek to develop representations of this policy that will require minimal on-line computation. The particular representation that we adopt is that of a compact classifier that will effect the underlying dichotomy of the reachable state space into safe and unsafe subspaces. Through a series of reductions of the derived classification problem, we are also able to attain extensive reductions in the computational complexity of the off-line task of the construction of the sought classifier.
In a first study of the aforementioned problem, we restrict our attention to a particular RAS class that is motivated by an ongoing project called Gadara. This particular RAS class accepts the separation of the safe and unsafe subspaces of its instantiations through a set of linear inequalities. We propose design procedures that will construct a classifier employing the minimum possible number of linear inequalities, and we formally establish their "completeness", i.e., their ability to provide an effective classifier for every instance of the considered RAS class. We also offer heuristics that, if necessary, can alleviate the computational effort that is necessary for the construction of the sought classifier.
We extend the aforementioned results to encompass more general RAS classes, where the sought dichotomy might not be represented by a set of linear inequalities. To this end, we propose new parametric and non-parametric classification schemes for this more complex case, and establish formally their completeness. We also provide effective and computationally efficient procedures for the synthesis of the sought classifiers.
A bottleneck in the developments described above is defined by the fact that they presuppose the availability of the enumerations of the RAS safe and unsafe subspaces. To address this obstacle, we propose a novel approach for the deployment of the maximally permissive DAP for RAS, that is based on the identification and the efficient storage of a critical subset of states of the underlying RAS state space. In particular, the proposed algorithm provides those critical states, while avoiding the complete enumeration of the RAS state space.
Furthermore, we extend the existing theory on maximally permissive deadlock avoidance, so that it can handle RAS with reader/writer (R/W) locks. A key challenge that is posed by this new RAS class stems from the fact that the underlying state space is not necessarily finite. We effectively address this obstacle by taking advantage of special structure that exists in the set of unsafe states and enables a finite representation of this set through its minimal elements.
Finally, we would like to mention that numerical experimentation demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed approaches, and establishes their ability to support the deployment of maximally permissive DAP for RAS with very large structure and state spaces. To the best of our knowledge, these experiments also establish the ability of the proposed methodology to effectively compute tractable implementations of the maximally permissive DAP for problem instances significantly beyond the capacity of any other approach currently available in the literature. Moreover, this is the first work to address the RAS with R/W locks.


The aim of this study was to determine the size distribution and flux of the mineral fraction collected in marine sediment traps in Mejillones Bay (23 degrees S) using image-based size analysis. In this bay the material settling in the water column is a mixture of biogenic particles and lithic grains. The sediments analyzed correspond to four samples collected in the austral spring of 2008. We used image-based size analysis because it presents several advantages, which makes it an ideal method to study fine marine sediments. This analysis also yielded important information about the aspect and the morphology of the particles. In order to analyze the lithic fraction only, different pretreatments were applied and size analyses were carried out with and without image information. Besides the main lithic components (quartz, feldspar, amphiboles, and micas), some nonlithic particles corresponding mainly to organic-matter remains were observed in the images, showing that the pretreatment was not fully effective. Biogenic silica and unexpected dark particles of probable anthropogenic origin were also detected. To avoid the influence of nonlithic grains in the analysis, the images were filtered based on the aspect of the particles using various discrimination tools. Before and after this removal, the size distributions of the samples were estimated and used to calculate the total flux. As compared to the flux of lithic particles, this total flux displays a systematic overestimation of up to 12%. As a consequence, using image-based size analysis allows not only enhancing the determination of the size distribution and flux but also controlling and improving the pretreatments protocols.