This paper presents matching logic, a first-order logic (FOL) variant for specifying and reasoning about structure by means of patterns and pattern matching. Its sentences, the patterns, are constructed using variables, symbols, connectives and quantifiers, but no difference is made between function and predicate symbols. In models, a pattern evaluates into a power-set domain (the set of values that match it), in contrast to FOL where functions and predicates map into a regular domain. Matching logic uniformly generalizes several logical frameworks important for program analysis, such as: propositional logic, algebraic specification, FOL with equality, and separation logic. Patterns can specify separation requirements at any level in any program configuration, not only in the heaps or stores, without any special logical constructs for that: the very nature of pattern matching is that if two structures are matched as part of a pattern, then they can only be spatially separated. Like FOL, matching logic can also be translated into pure predicate logic, at the same time admitting its own sound and complete proof system. A practical aspect of matching logic is that FOL reasoning remains sound, so off-the-shelf provers and SMT solvers can be used for matching logic reasoning. Matching logic is particularly well-suited for reasoning about programs in programming languages that have a rewrite-based operational semantics. 1998 ACM Subject Classification D.2.4 Software/Program Verification; D.3.1 Formal Definitions and Theory; F.3 LOGICS AND MEANINGS OF PROGRAMS; F.4 MATHEMATICAL LOGIC AND FORMAL LANGUAGES


The intersex movement in the past two decades has challenged social, medical, and academic conceptions of sex and gender. In the same period, genetic studies of sex determination, largely derived from research on intersex conditions, has revolutionized long-standing theories of sex determination. This current molecular genetics research is upending ancient sexist prejudices in biology. It also elucidates the dizzying complexity of biological sex that is well beyond simplistic sex binarism and involves multiple interactions between genes and environment.


Personal health records (PHRs) are touted as a new convenience technology for consumers. It enables the patients to create a health information of their own in a centralized way, which alleviate the storage, access and sharing of health data in the cloud environment. By storing the health information in the cloud various security issues should arise such us authorization, key management and efficient user revocation, therefore, before outsourcing the PHR in the cloud, it is a promising method to encrypt the PHR using Attribute Based Encryption. Existing cryptographic schemes are planned for single owner settings, here, dealt with multiple owner scenarios which reduce the key management complexity for owners and users. Enhancing the MA-ABE scheme to handle efficient and ondemand user revocation, and prove its security. The experimental results will show the security and efficiency of the proposed system.


It is widely recognized that while high and sustained economic growth is critical for poverty reduction, there are other policy interventions that may also be significant in a 'growth plus' approach to poverty reduction. This volume brings together a series of case studies on the poverty impact of alternative interventions in a broad range of Asian economies. The measures examined within the book cover trade liberalization both in general and in a specific market, infrastructure investment (particularly in roads), population policies, cash transfers, microfinance, employment guarantee programs and contract farming. The countries covered include the Philippines, Lao PDR, Pakistan, India and Thailand. While the results illustrated by the contributors are mixed, they demonstrate the potential for further progress in poverty reduction.


Using a large news corpus and machine learning algorithms we investigate the role played by the media in the expectations formation process of households, and conclude that the news topics media report on are good predictors of both inflation and inflation expectations. In turn, in a noisy information model, augmented with a simple media channel, we document that the time series features of relevant topics help explain the time-varying information rigidity among households. As such, we provide a novel estimate of state dependent information rigidities, and present new evidence highlighting media's role for understanding inflation expectations and information rigidities. JEL-codes: C11, C53, D83, D84, E13, E31, E37


As feature size approaches molecular dimensions and the number of devices per chip reaches astronomical values, VLSI manufacturing yield significantly decreases. This motivates interests in new computing models. One such model is called error tolerance. Classically, during the postmanufacturing test process, chips are classified as being bad (defective) or good. The main premise in error-tolerant computing is that some bad chips that fail classical go/no-go tests and do indeed occasionally produce erroneous results actually provide acceptable performance in some applications. Thus, new test techniques are needed to classify bad chips according to categories based upon their degree, of acceptability with respect to predetermined applications. One classification criterion is error rate. In this paper, we first describe a simple test structure that is a minor extension to current scan-test and built-in self-test structures and that can be used to estimate the error rate of a circuit. We then address three theoretical issues. First, we develop an elegant mathematical model that describes the key parameters associated with this test process and incorporates bounds on the error in estimating error rate and the level of confidence in this estimate. Next, we present an efficient testing procedure for estimating the error rate of a circuit under test. Finally, we address the problem of assigning bad chips to bins based on their error rate. We show that this can be done in an efficient, hence cost-effective, way and discuss the quality of our results in terms of such concepts as increase effective yield, yield loss, and test escape


ABSTRACT Using sport domains to teach young people a wide range of life skills is not new, however there has been a recent emergence of research on life skills transfer, particularly from a sport environment into other life domains (e.g. school or work). As research in this field is still in its infancy, how younger adolescents effectively learn life skills or transfer skills into other life domains is still not fully understood. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the life skill learning and transfer experiences of 20 male participants (12–13 years of age) in a school context. The Transfer-Ability Programme (TAP) was delivered in a state funded secondary school in London, UK, where the participants attended the programme directly after teaching hours, once weekly, for one academic year. The programme was a multi-faceted intervention, which sought to explicitly teach male participants life skills through sporting activities and facilitate transfer opportunities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 participants, one parent and one teacher at the end of programme and analysed using a thematic approach. Findings suggest that the use of explicit strategies and group discussions aid the learning and transfer of life skills. However, school-based, life skills programmes of a similar nature should consider increasing participant autonomy during the programme development stage in order to maximise the personal value and relevance placed on the life skills. Partnerships across the whole school environment also need to be evident in order to provide frequent opportunities for skill transfer.


By adapting the general flame-acoustic interaction theory developed in Wu et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 497, 2003, pp. 23–53), a systematic analysis is carried out for the interaction of a stable premixed flame in a duct with vortical disturbances superimposed on the oncoming mixture. A small-amplitude vortical perturbation, assumed to be a convecting gust with a frequency ω, induces a hydrodynamic field in the vicinity of the flame, causing an initially planar flame to wrinkle. The unsteady heat release resulting from the increased surface area of the wrinkling flame then generates a sound wave with frequency 2ω. When 2ω coincides with the natural frequency of an acoustic mode of the duct, a flame-acoustic resonance takes place, through which the flame-induced sound may attain an amplitude sufficiently large to modulate the flame through the unsteady Rayleigh–Taylor effect. A novel evolution system is derived to describe this two-way coupling for two cases: (a) a flame with a fixed mean position and (b) a moving flame. Numerical solutions show that for (a), the mutual flame-acoustic interaction initiates a violent subharmonic parametric instability, and the flame-acoustic system quickly evolves into a fully nonlinear regime, which probably corresponds to a state of self-sustained oscillation. This finding presents a peculiar instability scenario: a small-amplitude vortical perturbation may, by initiating acoustic-flame resonance, completely destabilize an otherwise stable planar flame. For a moving flame, the flame-acoustic resonance is of transient nature. The acoustic pressure gains substantially, but the parametric flame instability is induced only when the vortical disturbance exceeds a finite threshold.


Eastern gamagrass [Tripsacum dactyloides (L.)] has the potential to contribute as a warm-season component in grazing systems and conservation plantings, but its seeds exhibit a strong dormancy that reduce germination and successful stand establishment. A 3-yr study was conducted on Typic Hapudult soils to determine the influence of fungicide seed treatment [Captan (N-trichloromethylthio-4-cyclo-hexene-1,2-dicarboximide), 5.6 g a.i, kg -1 seed] and winter planting date (November-February) on germination, stand establishment, and herbage mass of eastern gamagrass. Eastern gamagrass was planted with and without fungicide seed treatment at monthly intervals between November and May. The May plantings (stratified and nonstratified seeds) served as controls. Fungicide seed treatment had no effect on initial or subsequent stands of eastern gamagrass. Winter plantings resulted in initial stands that were equal or superior to stands established from planting stratified seeds in May (5.9 vs. 3.4 plants m 2 , respectively). Significant seed carry-over effects were observed from spring (April and May) plantings, with an average of 8.8 seedlings m -2 germinating in spring of the second year compared with 1.7 seedlings m -2 for winter treatments. Herbage mass for spring plantings (March, April, and May) was depressed up to 75% compared with winter plantings. Planting in November, December, or January is an effective alternative to planting stratified seeds in May in the southern Piedmont.


Relying only on manual planning methods or computer software based on heuristic algorithms will lead to mine schedules that are not the optimal global solution. The objective of this paper is to develop a practical optimisation framework to schedule production for caving operations. We present two Mixed–Integer Linear Programming (MILP) formulations for the long–term production scheduling of block caving. First, we solve the problem at the drawpoint level. Then, we aggregate drawpoints into larger units referred to as clusters. The formulations are developed, implemented and verified in the TOMLAB/CPLEX environment. The production scheduler aims to maximise the Net Present Value (NPV) of the mining operation while the mine planner has control over the development rate, vertical mining rate, lateral mining rate, mining capacity, maximum number of active drawpoints and advancement direction. Application and comparison of the models for production scheduling using real mine data over 15 periods are presented.


The traditional wisdom is that management should serve the interests of the corporation and the stockholders who own it by maximizing stockholder wealth. But a significant number of legal scholars argue that management duty should be more broadly construed to include other constituencies (stakeholders), such as employees, creditors, customers, suppliers, and the community at large. The broader view of management duty means that management has more discretion and that stockholders will seldom have recourse if management fails to maximize profits. Nevertheless, many states have adopted so-called other constituency statutes permitting management to consider such other interests. The difference between the two views of management duty depends on how one defines a reasonable stockholder. If management duty is measured by the interests of a diversified stockholder, management's duty is to maximize profits even at the risk of bankrupting the firm. If management duty is measured by the interests of an undiversified stockholder, the duty is to maximize profits and to minimize risk. Because rational investors diversify, most commentators have assumed that fiduciary duty should be construed as if owed to a diversified stockholder. The thesis here, however, is that (i) it is impractical to measure fiduciary duty by reference to diversified stockholders because management itself is often a significant undiversified investor in the business, and (ii) diversified stockholders will, in any event, prefer management to behave as if it owes its duty to undiversified stockholders. Thus, in practice, management duty should be seen as owed to the corporation but not necessarily to the stockholders.


Aircraft pitch control is fundamental for the performance of micro aerial vehicles (MAVs). The purpose of this paper is to establish a simple experimental procedure to calibrate pitch instrumentation and classical control algorithms. This includes developing an efficient pitch angle observer with optimal estimation and evaluating controllers under uncertainty and external disturbances.,A wind tunnel test bench is designed to simulate fixed-wing aircraft dynamics. Key elements of the instrumentation commonly found in MAVs are characterized in a gyroscopic test bench. A data fusion algorithm is calibrated to match the gyroscopic test bench measurements and is then integrated into the autopilot platform. The elevator-angle to pitch-angle dynamic model is obtained experimentally. Two different control algorithms, based on model-free and model-based approaches, are designed. These controllers are analyzed in terms of parametric uncertainties due to wind speed variations and external perturbation because of sudden weight distribution changes. A series of experimental tests is performed in wind-tunnel facilities to highlight the main features of each control approach.,With regard to the instrumentation algorithms, a simple experimental methodology for the design of optimal pitch angle observer is presented and validated experimentally. In the context of the platform design and identification, the similitude among the theoretical and experimental responses shows that the platform is suitable for typical pitch control assessment. The wind tunnel experiments show that a fixed linear controller, designed using classical frequency domain concepts, is able to provide adequate responses in scenarios that approximate the operation of MAVs.,The aircraft orientation observer can be used for both pitch and roll angles. However, for simultaneousyaw angle estimation the proposed design method requires further research. The model analysis considers a wind speed range of 6-18 m/s, with a nominal operation of 12 m/s. The maximum experimentally tested reference for the pitch angle controller was 20°. Further operating conditions may require more complex control approaches (e.g. scheduling, non-linear, etc.). However, this operating range is enough for typical MAV missions.,The study shows the design of an effective pitch angle observer, based on a simple experimental approach, which achieved locally optimum estimates at the test conditions. Additionally, the instrumentation and design of a test bench for typical pitch control assessment in wind tunnel facilities is presented. Finally, the study presents the development of a simple controller that provides adequate responses in scenarios that approximate the operation of MAVs, including perturbations that resemble package delivery and parametric uncertainty due to wind speed variations.


This paper presents a novel approach for precision contour tracking through combining feedback PID and feedforward position domain ILC (PDILC) control for a multi-axis manipulation system. Traditional control approaches in time domain suffer from poor synchronization of relevant motion axes and result in restriction for contour tracking tasks. In the proposed PID & PDILC design, a 2-DOF system is treated as a master–slave cooperative motion system. The position information of the master motion axis is integrated into the PDILC controller of the slave motion axes, which makes the PDILC learn from contour errors instead of individual axis errors. The selection and tuning of parameters for the PID and PDILC were conducted based on the computation in a lifted matrix format of the stability and convergence conditions. The performance of the PID & PDILC controller was evaluated by comparisons with PID and cross-coupled ILC controller through experiments on a multi-axis precise positioning stage. The proposed PID & PDILC design enhances the precision contour tracking of the


Introduction Obesity is a growing epidemic fuelled by unhealthy behaviours and associated with significant comorbidities and financial costs. While behavioural interventions produce clinically meaningful weight loss, weight loss maintenance is challenging. This may partially be due to failure to target stress and emotional reactivity. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) reduces stress and emotional reactivity and may be a useful tool for behaviour change maintenance. This study seeks to provide a mechanistic understanding for clinical trials of the benefits of MBSR for weight loss maintenance by examining changes in functional connectivity (FC) and the association of these changes with clinical outcomes. Methods and analysis Community-dwelling individuals (n=80) who intentionally lost ≥5% of their body weight in the past year will be recruited and randomised to an MBSR programme or educational control. FC using resting-state functional MRI will be measured at baseline and 8 weeks. Psychological factors, health behaviours, body mass index and waist circumference will be measured at baseline, 8 weeks and 6 months post intervention. A 12-month telephone follow-up will assess self-reported weight. Analyses will characterise FC changes in response to MBSR in comparison with a control condition, assess the relationship between baseline FC status and pre–post MBSR changes in FC and investigate the association of FC change with changes in psychological factors and weight loss maintenance. Ethics and dissemination The University of Massachusetts Medical School Institutional Review Board has approved this study, Declaration of Helsinki protocols are being followed, and patients will give written informed consent. The Independent Monitoring Committee will monitor protocol adherence. Results from the study will be disseminated to the medical community at conferences and submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals when the last patient included has been followed up for 12 months. Trial registration number NCT02189187.


We introduce a novel stochastic growth process, the Record-driven growth process, which originates from the analysis of a class of growing networks in a universal limiting regime. Nodes are added one by one to a network, each node possessing a quality. The new incoming node connects to the preexisting node with best quality, that is, with record value for the quality. The emergent structure is that of a growing network, where groups are formed around record nodes (nodes endowed with the best intrinsic qualities). Special emphasis is put on the statistics of leaders (nodes whose degrees are the largest). The asymptotic probability for a node to be a leader is equal to the Golomb-Dickman constant ω = 0.624 329. . ., which arises in problems of combinatorical nature. This outcome solves the problem of the determination of the record breaking rate for the sequence of correlated inter-record intervals. The process exhibits temporal self-similarity in the late-time regime. Connections with the statistics of the cycles of random permutations, the statistical properties of randomly broken intervals, and the Kesten variable are given.


The authority of the saints is, in a sense, presupposed by the tradition, and yet, formulating this presupposition proves to be awkward. This dissertation is an exploration into the nature, the grounding and the limits of the authority of the saints, with reference to the theology of the saints in the work of Hans urs von Balthasar. My argument is that, in his use of the saints, Balthasar does not merely interpret the saints as a resource for theologians and for the Magisterium. For Balthasar, theology and the Magisterium are there to serve the saints, since the saints are the real witnesses whose testimony requires dynamic paraphrase and vigorous rendition. My argument will be that Balthasar wants to avoid the theory of multiple teaching offices, but that – while avoiding the theory of multiple offices – also attributes to the saints an authority that is analogical to that of the Magisterium. Balthasar uses the saints, not only to teach other theologians but also to teach the official Magisterium, thus handling the saints as if they were themselves a Magisterium. Four dimensions – the existential, the epistemological, the pneumatological and the ecclesiological – are identified and used to elucidate the nature, the grounding and the function of the authority of the saints. It will be argued that authority of the saints is grounded within each one of these dimensions and that these are the dimensions within which the saints function authoritatively. I will defend my own construal of Balthasar, argue for the credibility of Balthasar's defence of the authority of the saints, as well as, locate and criticise some of the contradictions that are found in Balthasar in this regard, and identify some of the consequences of Balthasar's position concerning the authority of the saints, for his own theology, for theology in general, and for the Church.


A greedy randomized adaptive search procedure (GRASP) is a metaheuristic for combinatorial optimization. It is a multi-start or iterative process, in which each GRASP iteration consists of two phases, a construction phase, in which a feasible solution is produced, and a local search phase, in which a local optimum in the neighborhood of the constructed solution is sought. Since 1989, numerous papers on the basic aspects of GRASP, as well as enhancements to the basic metaheuristic have appeared in the literature. GRASP has been applied to a wide range of combinatorial optimization problems, ranging from scheduling and routing to drawing and turbine balancing. This is the first of two papers with an annotated bibliography of the GRASP literature from 1989 to 2008. This paper covers algorithmic aspects of GRASP.


Sanctions are a common method to discourage free-riding in the provision of public goods. However, we can usually only sanction those who are detected performing the bad act of free-riding. There has been considerable research on the type of sanctions imposed, but this research almost always automatically detects everyone's actions and broadcasts them to the group. This is akin to assuming that a group always has a police force or motivated peer reporting to detect and announce the actions of bad actors. However, in many situations bad acts go undetected and unknown to others. We use a lab experiment to compare public good contribution decisions in an environment where we relax the assumption that detection is automated. The common result that sanctions and the likelihood of detection share an inverse relationship continues to be found in our results. However, free-riders are unwilling to pay for detection when sanctioning is conducted at the group level, because a criminal does not want to fund the police who will catch his bad acts. But, when detection is conducted among peers, free-riders are willing to pay to detect other individuals that free-ride.


In this paper we propose a method based on (2, 1)-mixed-norm penalization for incorporating a structural prior in FDOT image reconstruction. The effect of (2, 1)-mixed-norm penalization is twofold: first, a sparsifying effect which isolates few anatomical regions where the fluorescent probe has accumulated, and second, a regularization effect inside the selected anatomical regions. After formulating the reconstruction in a variational framework, we analyze the resulting optimization problem and derive a practical numerical method tailored to (2, 1)-mixed-norm regularization. The proposed method includes as particular cases other sparsity promoting regularization methods such as ℓ1-norm penalization and total variation penalization. Results on synthetic and experimental data are presented.


Customer satisfaction and cost saving are the benefits of quality service, whether in private sector firms or public sector organisations. Since customer-facing employees are supported by a chain of internal work units, quality improvement in internal services has a positive influence on external customers. Better management of critical success factors is believed to yield direct improvements in service quality. The identification of critical success factors for quality internal IT services would, therefore, be an important step towards public sector improvements in Hong Kong. The methodology used in this research was an exploratory case study with three Delphi cycles. A list of 13 critical success factors identified in prior private sector research was presented to participants to rank according to these factors' criticality and relevance in the public sector. Participants were interviewed to ensure that their views were understood. The results were then presented to a smaller group of participants in the first Delphi cycle to explore the meaning of the displayed patterns and for possible classification according to criticality. The proposed criticality was presented in the second Delphi cycle to form coherent views. The results suggest that some of the 13 critical success factors are transferable from private sector firms to public sector organisations, namely Management Commitment, Customer Management and Corporate Culture. The results also reveal that the two factors of Organisational Structure and Employee Empowerment are incompatible with public sector culture and therefore non-critical. The criticality of the other eight factors was found to be inconclusive as participants generally agreed that the number of critical success factors should be kept low to be manageable. In addition, participants agreed that whether internal quality service was required by the management of public sector organisations should also be considered as a critical success factor. This is in contrast with the private sector where quality would normally be considered as a key objective by default. The question of finding an alternative to the traditional cost model of internal service, where those who receive the services are not those who pay for them, was debated extensively between participants. This controversial issue was found to warrant further study. Finally a model for how to apply critical success factors is proposed for further investigation. The results of this research are significant because there was no prior research into the identification of critical success factors in internal services of the public sector. The results provide first-time insights and will help administrators to better understand critical success factors and quality internal services for improving and delivering public services.


Although the development of Standard English has received considerable scholarly attention, many questions as to its emergence and the processes involved in its spread remain unsolved. Traditional accounts of the development of written Standard English tend to trace its beginnings back to a single time and place in history, i.e. the political and economic importance of the metropolis and the prestige that was associated with it are frequently used as explanatory factors for the dissemination and nation-wide acceptance of a London-based Standard variety.These claims are, however, often based on small sets of data or an imprecise interpretation of textual history. What is more, other factors such as the role of language and dialect contact through trade and migration, the development of literacy and different literacy practices, text type conventions, as well as the role of other prominent urban centres have to date often been marginalised. This dissertation therefore takes a different angle on the development of Standard English by taking into account the role of another urban centre – Bristol, which was the second most important port town next to London and also produced a substantial amount of texts. Based on a newly compiled corpus of civic records and personal writings from Bristol during the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods, this dissertation sheds new light on standardisation processes, notably linked to factors such as literacy, migration and text types. Employing quantitative and qualitative methods, the study takes a historical sociolinguistic angle and is concerned with the development of three different linguistic features: relative pronouns, third person indicative present tense markers, and the replacement of graphs like thorn by digraph th. The results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses suggest that Standard written English did not emerge at a single location from which it subsequently spread, nor did it develop at a single point in time. Rather, the development of Standard written English should be seen as a set of complex ongoing processes which took place simultaneously in several larger urban centres where text production and literacy levels were high. The most notable processes that were identified in this study are supralocalisation and the levelling away of regional and minority forms. These processes were steered by internal linguistic factors and they were thrusted by social factors, including text type conventions and demographic movements such as trade and migration, as well as by the development of literacy amongst a highly geographically mobile elite group of writers. This study has shown that in order to explain standardisation several factors need to be considered. In addition to factors such as prestige and overt language planning, one also needs to consider linguistic factors, demography, as well as the general social and historical context in which a supra-local variety developed. Studies that are being carried out in parallel sub-projects of the project Emerging Standards: Urbanisation and the Development of Standard English, c.1400-1700 will also shed more light on how linguistic standardisation processes played out in other urban settings.


Irene Lane is a green travel expert who has written and spoken extensively about eco-certifications and how travelers can choose vacations that support communities socially, economically and environmentally. She is a featured writer for the Huffington Post and her blog articles and short pieces also have been published in other media outlets. Ms. Lane is the only person in the United States who can certify a green travel destination under the internationally-accredited Biosphere certification and she is the founder of Greenloons [2], which provides sustainable travel tips as well as a carefully curated collection of green travel experiences.


Background: This valuable collaboration between Adelaide and Bali was first convened by Prof. I G. Surya, the late Prof. Made Kornia and Associate Prof. John Svigos in May 2011 at Sanglah General Hospital, Bali-Indonesia. This is a three day clinical meeting consisting of a daily Plenary Session for formal presentations running along with a Concurrent Session predominantly for "hands on" and interactive teaching. The meeting has a multidisciplinary focus which is in tune with contemporary Maternal Fetal Medicine practice and consists of obstetricians, midwives, neonatologists and obstetric anaesthetists from both cities sharing their respective experiences. From an initial modest meeting with 80 registrants this has now grown to over 300 registrants in 2015. A fourth day was trialed in 2014 in which a Field Day was incorporated into the program and enabled the overseas participants to gain some first hand experience in the workings of an orphanage (Anak Anak Bali Kids), a midwife obstetric unit (Bumi Sehat) and a level two hospital (Sanjiwani Hospital, Gianyar). Further Field Days are anticipated at future meetings. The Visiting Faculty from Australia are predominantly from the Women's and Children's Hospital with input from The Lyell McEwin Hospital both in Adelaide, The Royal North Shore Hospital and the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney and the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth. The broader strategic aspects of the collaboration have seen the rotation of three MFM Trainees from the Trigonum (Denpasar, Surabaya and Malang) through Adelaide for two months in 2011 and 2012 as part of their MFM training. Unfortunately AusAID funding has not been forthcoming for further rotations to occur but in 2016 a multidisciplinary group from Sanglah General Hospital will be making a one week visit to the Women's and Children's Hospital as a forerunner to further visits. Meantime the collaborations with the Dr. Soetomo Hospital, Surabaya and the Saiful Anwar Hospital, Malang are being further strengthened with members of the Visiting Faculty also visiting the MFM units at these hospitals prior to the BICCM. The Convenors for the 2016 BICCM meeting in May will be Dr. Ryan Mulyana assisted by Dr Jaya Kusuma, Feto Maternal Division, Sanglah General Hospital and Dr Rosalie Grivell assisted by Associate Prof John Svigos, MFM Service, Women's and Children's Hospital.


Natural rubber (NR) composites were prepared by the incorporation of rattan (Calamus Manan) powder at filler loadings in the range of 0 to 30 phr into a natural rubber matrix with a laboratory size two roll mill. The particle size of rattan powder was less than 180 µm. The biodegradation of the rattan powder-filled natural rubber (NR) composites were investigated as a function of filler loading and a silane coupling agent. A soil burial test was carried out for six months, and the degradation of the NR compound and the NR composites was evaluated through tensile testing. Morphological properties were determined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to evaluate the degradation of the samples after six months of soil exposure. The results indicate that the tensile strength, elongation at break, and stress at 100% elongation (M 100) all decreased after soil burial testing due to the biological attack by microbes onto the sample. Improvement in tensile properties was seen with the addition of the silane coupling agent due to better adhesion between the rattan filler and the rubber matrix. The deterioration in tensile properties due to the biodegradation process was confirmed by SEM and FTIR studies.


This research explores the experiences and perceptions of senior executives and managers who have made one or more transitions between the public, private, academic and third sectors in the UK. The personal experience of inter-sector transition is an under-researched phenomenon, particularly in the UK. This interpretative qualitative study aims to enhance understanding of inter-sector transition and to identify the challenges and enablers of a successful transition.

The context for this research is the increased blurring between the organisational sectors, as many parts of the public sector decline in size, the role of the private and third sectors in service delivery become more significant, and hybrid partnerships increase. The influence of New Public Management, which has introduced private sector practices into the public, academic and third sectors is also a factor in potentially reducing the difference between the sectors. In the researcher's work environment, recruitment of personnel from outside the academic sector is increasing. The professional implications for the study are to understand the factors which enable a smooth and successful transition, in order that individuals achieve job satisfaction and that the organisation benefits from their productivity as soon as possible.

The study adopts a qualitative methodology, drawing on grounded theory methods for the collection and analysis of data. Fifteen managers and senior executives from a range of professions and sectors participated in in-depth interviews. The findings suggest that enablers of a successful transition are familiarity with the destination sector prior to transitioning, work values which align with those of the destination organisation, appropriate professional skills, and mentoring support. The main challenges to a successful transition are organisational cultures, the questioning of professional identity and issues of self-esteem. In addition to enhancing the understanding of transition enablers and challenges, the contribution to professional practice is demonstrated through practical guidelines for line managers, which will assist with inductions of new starters from outside the sector. The key limitations of the research are identified as being the size and characteristics of the sample, together with the lack of triangulation from participants' managers or reports concerning the success of the transition. Recommendations for future research are to broaden the sample so that particular characteristics may be explored in more detail, such as age, gender and professional background. There is also scope for further research into the leadership characteristics which lend themselves to successful inter-sector transitions.


Law enforcement agencies regularly collect crime scene information. There exists, however, no detailed, systematic procedure for this. The data collected is affected by the experience or current condition of law enforcement officers. Consequently, the data collected might differ vastly between crime scenes. This is especially problematic when investigating volume crimes. Law enforcement officers regularly do manual comparison on crimes based on the collected data. This is a time-consuming process; especially as the collected crime scene information might not always be comparable. The structuring of data and introduction of automatic comparison systems could benefit the investigation process. This thesis investigates descriptive and predictive models for automatic comparison of crime scene data with the purpose of aiding law enforcement investigations. The thesis first investigates predictive and descriptive methods, with a focus on data structuring, comparison, and evaluation of methods. The knowledge is then applied to the domain of crime scene analysis, with a focus on detecting serial residential burglaries. This thesis introduces a procedure for systematic collection of crime scene information. The thesis also investigates impact and relationship between crime scene characteristics and how to evaluate the descriptive model results. The results suggest that the use of descriptive and predictive models can provide feedback for crime scene analysis that allows a more effective use of law enforcement resources. Using descriptive models based on crime characteristics, including Modus Operandi, allows law enforcement agents to filter cases intelligently. Further, by estimating the link probability between cases, law enforcement agents can focus on cases with higher link likelihood. This would allow a more effective use of law enforcement resources, potentially allowing an increase in clear-up rates.


To develop a foundational understanding of collaboration, it is useful to think of it in terms of goals. Collaboration means joint effort toward a group goal. Group goals, however, are different than the internal goals of group members. For example, an automobile designer who wants international acclaim may collaborate with a machinist who wants financial security and an entrepreneur who wants to found and sell a company to build a fine custom sports car. It is important to note that none of them wants a car. Indeed, none can get what they want until they get rid of the car they have agreed to build. Thus, group members agree to work toward common goals, but only in service of their individual internal goals.


: In this work, studying the structural and optical Nano crystalline SnO 2 thin films grown on cleaned glass substrates by using sol- gel (dip coating) technique. It is worthy to say that the thickness of the deposited film was of the order of (300-400)nm . The films are annealed in air at , 300 ◦ C, 400 ◦ C and 500 ◦ C temperatures for 60 minutes. The films that are analyses by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) , atomic force microscopy and optical absorption spectroscopy technique. The size of crystalline was observed, as well as, so as to increase with increasing annealing temperature . XRD analysis reveals that the whole films are polycrystalline with tetragonal structure with preferred orientation of (110),(101),(200) and (211) . The increase of annealing temperature leads to raise the diffraction peaks and decrease of FWHM. The atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) results showed that the average grain size was increase with the increase in annealing temperature. Spectra of transmittance and absorbance was recorded at wavelengths range (300-1000)nm .The optical properties showed high transmission at visible regions. The optical band gap energy was found to be (3.5 , 3.75 , 3,87) eV at annealing temperature (300,400,500 )°C respectively.


In this work, the development of a probabilistic approach to robust control is motivated by structural control applications in civil engineering. Often in civil structural applications, a system's performance is specified in terms of its reliability. In addition, the model and input uncertainty for the system may be described most appropriately using probabilistic or "soft" bounds on the model and input sets. The probabilistic robust control methodology contrasts with existing H∞/μ robust control methodologies that do not use probability information for the model and input uncertainty sets, yielding only the guaranteed (i.e., "worst-case") system performance, and no information about the system's probable performance which would be of interest to civil engineers. The design objective for the probabilistic robust controller is to maximize the reliability of the uncertain structure/controller system for a probabilistically-described uncertain excitation. The robust performance is computed for a set of possible models by weighting the conditional performance probability for a particular model by the probability of that model, then integrating over the set of possible models. This integration is accomplished efficiently using an asymptotic approximation. The probable performance can be optimized numerically over the class of allowable controllers to find the optimal controller. Also, if structural response data becomes available from a controlled structure, its probable performance can easily be updated using Bayes's Theorem to update the probability distribution over the set of possible models. An updated optimal controller can then be produced, if desired, by following the original procedure. Thus, the probabilistic framework integrates system identification and robust control in a natural manner. The probabilistic robust control methodology is applied to two systems in this thesis. The first is a high-fidelity computer model of a benchmark structural control laboratory experiment. For this application, uncertainty in the input model only is considered. The probabilistic control design minimizes the failure probability of the benchmark system while remaining robust with respect to the input model uncertainty. The performance of an optimal low-order controller compares favorably with higher-order controllers for the same benchmark system which are based on other approaches. The second application is to the Caltech Flexible Structure, which is a light-weight aluminum truss structure actuated by three voice coil actuators. A controller is designed to minimize the failure probability for a nominal model of this system. Furthermore, the method for updating the model-based performance calculation given new response data from the system is illustrated.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Saccular intracranial aneurysm is a common disease that may cause devastating intracranial hemorrhage. Hemodynamics, wall remodeling, and wall inflammation have been associated with saccular intracranial aneurysm rupture. We investigated how saccular intracranial aneurysm hemodynamics is associated with wall remodeling and inflammation of the saccular intracranial aneurysm wall. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Tissue samples resected during a saccular intracranial aneurysm operation (11 unruptured, 9 ruptured) were studied with histology and immunohistochemistry. Patient-specific computational models of hemodynamics were created from preoperative CT angiographies. RESULTS: More stable and less complex flows were associated with thick, hyperplastic saccular intracranial aneurysm walls, while slower flows with more diffuse inflow were associated with degenerated and decellularized saccular intracranial aneurysm walls. Wall degeneration (P = .041) and rupture were associated with increased inflammation (CD45+, P = .031). High wall shear stress (P = .018), higher vorticity (P = .046), higher viscous dissipation (P = .046), and high shear rate (P = .046) were associated with increased inflammation. Inflammation was also associated with lack of an intact endothelium (P = .034) and the presence of organized luminal thrombosis (P = .018), though overall organized thrombosis was associated with low minimum wall shear stress (P = .034) and not with the flow conditions associated with inflammation. CONCLUSIONS: Flow conditions in the saccular intracranial aneurysm are associated with wall remodeling. Inflammation, which is associated with degenerative wall remodeling and rupture, is related to high flow activity, including elevated wall shear stress. Endothelial injury may be a mechanism by which flow induces inflammation in the saccular intracranial aneurysm wall. Hemodynamic simulations might prove useful in identifying saccular intracranial aneurysms at risk of developing inflammation, a potential biomarker for rupture.


Research and practice during the last 20 years has shown that urban agriculture can contribute to minimising the effects of climate change by, at the same time, improving quality of life in urban areas. In order to do so most effectively, land use and spatial planning are crucial so as to obtain and maintain a supportive green infrastructure and to secure citizens' healthy living conditions. As people today trend more towards living in green and sustainable city centres that can offer fresh and locally produced food, cities become again places for growing food. The scope of urban agriculture thereby is to establish food production sites within the city's sphere; for example, through building-integrated agriculture including concepts such as aquaponics, indoor agriculture, vertical farming, rooftop production, edible walls, as well as through urban farms, edible landscapes, school gardens and community gardens. Embedded in changing urban food systems, the contribution of urban agriculture to creating sustainable and climate-friendly cities is pivotal as it has the capacity to integrate other resource streams such as water, waste and energy. This article describes some of the current aspects of the circular city debate where urban agriculture is pushing forward the development of material and resource cycling in cities.


Emission source contributions of tropospheric ozone (O3) were comprehensively investigated by using the higher‐order decoupled direct method (HDDM) for sensitivity analysis and the ozone source apportionment technology (OSAT) for mass balance analysis in the comprehensive air‐quality model with extensions (CAMx). The response of O3 to emissions reductions at various levels in mainland China, Korea, and Japan were estimated and compared with results calculated by the brute force method (BFM) where one model parameter is varied at a time. Emissions were assessed at three receptor sites in Japan that experienced severe pollution events in May 2009. For emissions from China, HDDM assessed O3 response with a bias of only up to 3 ppbv (a relative error of 4.5%) even for a 50% reduction but failed to assess a more extreme reduction. OSAT was reasonably accurate at 100% reduction, with a −4 ppbv (−7%) bias, but was less accurate at moderate ranges of reduction (∼50–70%). For emissions from Korea and Japan, HDDM captured the nonlinear response at all receptor sites and at all reduction levels to within 1% in all but one case; however, the bias of OSAT increased with the increasing reduction of emissions. One possible reason for this is that OSAT does not account for NO titration. To address this, a term for potential ozone (PO; O3 and NO2 together) was introduced. Using of PO instead of O3 improved the performance of OSAT, especially for emissions reductions from Korea and Japan. The proposed approach with PO refined the OSAT results and did not degrade HDDM performance.


Curcumin is the yellow-colored bioactive constituent of the perennial plant, Curcuma longa L., which possesses a wide range of physiological and pharmacological properties such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, neuroprotective and anti-diabetic activities. Anti-diabetic activity of curcumin may be due to its potent ability to suppress oxidative stress and inflammation. Moreover, it shows a beneficial role on the diabetesinduced endothelial dysfunction and induces a down-regulation of nuclear factor-kappa B. Curcumin possesses a protective role against advanced glycation as well as collagen crosslinking and through this way, mitigates advanced glycation end products-induced complications of diabetes. Curcumin also reduces blood glucose, and the levels of glycosylated hemoglobin in diabetic rat through the regulation of polyol pathway. It also suppresses increased bone resorption through the inhibition of osteoclastogenesis and expression of the AP-1 transcription factors, c-fos and c-jun, in diabetic animals. Overall, scientific literature shows that curcumin possesses anti-diabetic effects and mitigates diabetes complications. Here we report a systematical discussion on the beneficial role of curcumin on diabetes and its complications with emphasis on its molecular mechanisms of actions.


In recent years, web services have turned out to be an emerging feature that is transforming how the web is conceptualized. Rather than considering the Web as a huge collection of static pages, for many purposes the WWW can be better understood as a collection of entities that provide and use services. In this setting, graph-based representations for modelling trustworthiness in a provider-consumer framework for agents have proven to be an attractive approach. However, computing and mantaining the underlying graph may be a considerably complex task. This paper presents a first approach towards computing such service graphs automatically on the basis of so-called concept lattices. Our proposal is intended to enhance existing service-graph representations for modelling trust.


Greater 'responsiveness' to the needs of service users has been called for as a central policy aim. In the context of employment service provision, this includes responding to the needs of refugees, amongst whom there are high levels of unemployment (Department of Work and Pensions, 2005a, 2006). However, despite the policy rhetoric, there has been limited analysis of the concept and the factors that influence provider responsiveness to users' needs. While responsiveness has been conceived in terms of new lines of outwards accountability of providers to users, by directly responding to their needs and preferences (see Mulgan, 2000), there may be tensions between the performance systems in which providers operate and responsiveness in this respect. The thesis considers (1) refugees' experiences and perceptions of the responsiveness of the public employment service (Jobcentre Plus) and third sector providers of specialist services to their needs; and (2) these providers' experiences and perceptions of the factors influencing responsiveness to refugees' needs. The findings emphasise variation in the appropriateness of provision to refugees' English language needs, skills and interests. This is related to tensions between wider policy imperatives and organisational priorities in publicly-funded employment services; a performance system and incentive structure oriented towards short-term job outcomes; and directly responding to the needs of refugee clients. The thesis concludes by arguing that where upwards accountability to public funders and central government departments predominates in performance systems, the responsiveness of providers directly to refugees' needs is limited by these systems. In order to facilitate greater responsiveness to the employment-related needs of refugees, greater alignment between performance measures and refugees' needs is emphasised, as is the role of information to refugee users on service provision. In addition, means of facilitating the involvement of refugees in decision-making processes concerning the allocation of resources to address their needs are considered.


Alcohol dependence is a complex disorder with a substantial genetic contribution to susceptibility. The Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism is a multi-site study whose purpose is to detect, localize, and characterize genes contributing to this susceptibility. Previous linkage analyses of the trait of alcohol dependence in Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism have used affected sib-pair methods with a dichotomous phenotype definition. In contrast, the analysis in this paper uses a sex-adjusted and age-adjusted multiple threshold liability model. The use of such a model, in that it includes unaffected as well as as affected subjects and in that it utilizes the differential severity of a diagnosis scale, should heuristically be more powerful than a straight affected sib-pair analysis. Three regions of interest are found on chromosome 1 (lod 5.17), chromosome 4 (lod 3.46), and chromosome 8 (lod 4.31). The region on chromosome 1 near the marker D1S532 is in the region previously reported as linked to alcohol dependence and correlated phenotypes in this dataset. The region on chromosome 4 near the alcohol dehydrogenase gene cluster has been reported to be linked to alcohol dependence in other studies, as well as to the alcohol consumption phenotype 'Maximum Number of Drinks in a 24-Hour Period' in this dataset. The region on chromosome 8 near the marker D8S1988 is homologous to a section of rat chromosome 5 to which an alcohol consumption phenotype has been linked.


Extracted from text ... World-class
business: an
economic imperative
"Handle them carefully, for words have more power than
atom bombs."
Pearl Strachan, author
Management Today June 2006 5
Until about a decade ago, is was not necessary for South African firms to
become world-class. This situation has changed drastically since. It has
become almost imperative for any business operating internationally to
be regarded as world-class. Without this 'status' it is virtually impossible
to service and do business in the global markets - international competition
will not allow this to happen.
Management Today has become involved in an initiative to promote
world-class organisations in ..


A considerable number of systems have recently been reported in which
Brownian yet non-Gaussian dynamics was observed. These are processes characterised by a linear growth in time of the mean squared displacement, yet the probability density function of the particle displacement is distinctly non-Gaussian, and often of exponential(Laplace) shape. This apparently ubiquitous behaviour observed in very different physical systems has been interpreted as resulting from diffusion in inhomogeneous environments and mathematically represented through a variable, stochastic diffusion coefficient. Indeed different models describing a fluctuating diffusivity have been studied. Here we present a new view of the stochastic basis describing time dependent random diffusivities within a broad spectrum of distributions. Concretely, our study is based on the very generic class of the generalised Gamma distribution. Two models for the particle spreading in such random diffusivity settings are studied. The first belongs to the class of generalised grey Brownian motion while the second follows from the idea of diffusing diffusivities. The two processes exhibit significant characteristics which reproduce experimental results from different biological and physical systems. We promote these two physical models for the description of stochastic particle motion in complex environments.


Abstract An attempt has been made to assess new potential applications for the Bailén clays, traditionally used for manufacturing bricks, based on mineralogical, chemical, particle size, plasticity and firing results. Raw materials and mixtures used by the local factory were selected and tested with the addition of some diatomite, feldspar or kaolin. Based on their properties, clay materials from Bailén might be suitable for making porous red wall tiles, clinker, vitrified red floor tiles and porous light-coloured wall tiles by pressing; the first could be manufactured from the raw materials and mixtures currently used by the local manufactures. On the other hand, stoneware shaped by extrusion, such as perforated bricks, facing bricks and roofing tiles, can be also manufactured from the mixtures used at the factory if they contain 20-25% carbonate and small amounts of iron oxides; lightweight bricks require black and yellow clays with diatomite.


Abstract Psychiatric nurses often experience associative stigma. Associative stigma may impact psychiatric nurses' views of their professional identity which ultimately impacts the health care of individuals experiencing mental health concerns. Very little research has been conducted on associative stigma in the western Prairie Provinces, including Manitoba. The authors conducted a secondary analysis on the results of an explanatory sequential mixed methods research study to determine if psychiatric nurses in Manitoba are influenced by associative stigma. Three themes were identified through this analysis, specifically: (1) the perception that RPNs are not "Real" Nurses; (2) lack of recognition of specialized training; and (3) working with a stigmatized population. Associative stigma was intertwined in all of the participants' narratives indicating a need to dismantle associative stigma. Strategies to enhance the public perception of psychiatric nursing and decrease associative stigma within the profession are described.


Antihydrogen is the simplest neutral antimatter atom. Precision comparisons between hydrogen and antihydrogen would provide stringent tests of CPT (charge conjugation/parity transformation/time reversal) invariance and the weak equivalence principle. In the last few years, the ALPHA collaboration has produced, and trapped antihydrogen [1, 2]. Most recently, this collaboration has probed antihydrogen's internal structure by inducing hyperfine transitions in ground state atoms [3]. In this thesis, many details of the cold antihydrogen formation, trapping and measurements of antihydrogen performed in the ALPHA apparatus are presented, with a focus on antiproton cloud compression. Such compression is an important tool for the formation and trapping of cold antihydrogen, since it allows control of the radial size and density of the antiproton cloud. Compression of non-neutral plasmas can be achieved using a rotating time-varying azimuthal electric field, which has been called rotating wall technique. In this work, we have observed a new mechanism for compression of a non-neutral plasma, specifically where antiprotons embedded in an electron plasma are compressed by a rotating wall drive at a frequency close to the sum of the axial bounce and rotation frequencies (in a frequency range of 50 – 750 kHz). The radius of the antiproton cloud is reduced by up to a factor of 20 with the smallest radius measured to be ∼ 0.2 mm. We have studied antiproton cloud compression as a function of the rotating wall frequency, the duration of compression, the rotating wall amplitude, the numbers of electrons and antiprotons, the magnetic field and the shape of the potential well. The frequency range over which compression is evident is compared to the sum of the antiproton bounce frequency and the system's rotation frequency. It is suggested that bounce resonant transport is a likely explanation for the compression of antiproton clouds in this regime. ii


OBJECTIVE Leptin therapy improves insulin sensitivity in people with leptin deficiency, but it is not known whether it improves insulin action in people who are not leptin deficient. The purpose of the current study was to determine whether leptin treatment has weight loss–independent effects on insulin action in obese subjects with type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We conducted a randomized, placebo-controlled trial in obese subjects (BMI: 35.4 ± 0.6 kg/m2; mean ± SE) with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes. Subjects were randomized to treatment with placebo (saline), low-dose (30 mg/day), or high-dose (80 mg/day) recombinant methionyl human (r-Met hu) leptin for 14 days. Multiorgan insulin sensitivity before and after treatment was evaluated by using the hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp procedure in conjunction with stable isotopically labeled tracer infusions to measure glucose, glycerol, and fatty acid kinetics. RESULTS Low-dose and high-dose leptin treatment resulted in a threefold (P < 0.01) and 150-fold (P < 0.001) increase in basal plasma leptin concentrations, respectively. However, neither low-dose nor high-dose therapy had an effect on insulin-mediated suppression of glucose, glycerol, or palmitate rates of appearance into plasma compared with placebo. In addition, leptin treatment did not increase insulin-mediated stimulation of glucose disposal compared with placebo (14.3 ± 3.1, 18.4 ± 3.6, 16.7 ± 2.4 vs. 17.5 ± 2.5, 20.7 ± 3.0, 19.1 ± 3.3 μmol/kg body wt/min before vs. after treatment in the placebo, low-dose, and high-dose leptin groups, respectively). CONCLUSIONS r-Met hu leptin does not have weight loss–independent, clinically important effects on insulin sensitivity in obese people with type 2 diabetes.


Toxicity of Ocimum suave (Wild basil) crude oil extract on C. maculatus and test on seeds' viability, was determined in the laboratory using contact toxicity assay method of different concentration 0.02, 0.04, 0.06 and 0.08mg to 20ml of water and 0.00g/20ml of water (control). 20g of cowpea seeds were weighed into separate Petri dishes and 10 adult weevils were inoculated and replicated four times. Each treatment was observed for 96h and recorded after every 12h. The result indicated that the crude oil extract had significant difference (p 0.05) in the germination of treated cowpea seeds (Vigna unguiculata L) compared to the untreated control, which shows that the seeds still remained viable. This result showed that O. suave crude oil is effective in the protection of cowpea against cowpea bruchid Callosobruchus maculatus.


We provide a probabilistic interpretation of attention and show that the standard dot-product attention in transformers is a special case of Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) inference. The proposed approach suggests the use of Expectation Maximization algorithms for online adaptation of key and value model parameters. This approach is useful for cases in which external agents, e.g., annotators, provide inference-time information about the correct values of some tokens, e.g, the semantic category of some pixels, and we need for this new information to propagate to other tokens in a principled manner. We illustrate the approach on an interactive semantic segmentation task in which annotators and models collaborate online to improve annotation efficiency. Using standard benchmarks, we observe that key adaptation boosts model performance ($\sim10\%$ mIoU) in the low feedback regime and value propagation improves model responsiveness in the high feedback regime. A PyTorch layer implementation of our probabilistic attention model will be made publicly available here: https://github.com/apple/ml-probabilistic-attention.


During the Gulf War of 1991, the television coverage was frequently observed to be 'just like a video game'. This analogy primarily derived from the specific, 'bombs-eye' perspective of camera-equipped weapons, approaching their targets. The troubling nature of this coverage was said to derive from the viewer's sense of direct involvement: the argument was that viewers were able to marvel at the 'high tech' nature of the weapons, at a remove from the bloody reality on the ground. These criticisms of a vicarious aesthetic (dis)engagement were taken to also characterise the playing of computer games. At a time when we have once again been confronted by TV coverage of war in the Gulf, this paper revisits the TV war/computer games nexus, informed by research on players' engagements with games. It argues that comparisons between televised war and games have little to offer to those concerned with theorising games, at least in their current form. Research with players of games is, however, able to provide insights useful for theorising the fraughtness of watching televised war. Considered in this way, the analogy can be revealing. Drawing on previous research on players' aesthetic engagements with games, as well as a range of other sources, this paper re-considers televisual war spectatorship, in terms of the figures of proximity/distance; here and there; negotiations between different materialities and realities; and virtuality. It proposes these figures as bases around which a more productive dialogue on computer games and televisual war might be conducted.


Within the four-particle cluster approximation for the proton ordering model we study the influence of shear stress $\sigma_6$ on the phase transition, static dielectric, elastic and thermal properties of deuterated KD2PO4 type ferroelectrics. Thermodynamic potentials and physical characteristics of the crystals in the presence of stress $\sigma_6$ are calculated. Numerical analysis of the obtained results is performed, and the set of the theory parameters providing the best fit to the available experimental data is found. The $Tc-\sigma_6$ phase diagram is constructed; temperature dependences of the calculated quantities are studied, possible stress dependences are indicated. Influence of $\sigma_6$ stress is analogous to that of electric field conjugate to the order parameter.


Closed-form analytical expressions for the effective electrical (thermal) conductivity and elastic moduli of a wide class of three-dimensional isotropic particulate composites (dispersions) for all phase contrasts and volume fractions have been previously formulated. These property estimates were extracted from exact strong-contrast expansions that incorporate complete microstructural information. In this paper, we employ these analytical expressions to derive and apply ``cross-property maps'' that connect combinations of pairs of the aforementioned effective transport and elastic properties to one another for a wide class of dispersions in which the inclusions can have different shapes and sizes and are spatially distributed in a matrix with varying degrees of order/disorder. We illustrate cross-property maps for a variety of cases (e.g., incompressible or compressible composites with conducting/insulating inclusions that may be rigid or compliant or auxetic) for high inclusion volume fractions. All of the cross-property maps that involve the effective conductivity translate immediately into equivalent results for the effective dielectric constant, magnetic permeability, or diffusion coefficient because they are mathematically analogous. We discuss an example that enables us to design a disordered dispersion with desired values of the effective dielectric constant and effective Young's modulus. Cross-property maps and their extensions will facilitate the rational design of particulate media with different desirable multifunctional characteristics. Moreover, our investigation has implications for the application of machine-learning and other data-driven approaches for multifunctional materials discovery.


This document reflects the work that has been carried out in the project the last nine months, in which two of the today's most emergent technologies have been combined: Near Field Communication (NFC) and the social networks.
The project appeared from the will of the companies where the project has been carried out (IHG and nfc studio) of making a demonstration in the Mobile World Congress 2009 of a tool that allowed the combination of the two technologies quoted before. This demonstration was performed in the stand of the company NXP.
On one hand, the very short distance data transmission technology NFC has been used. This technology is already implemented to perform payments using the mobile telephone in public transport in many cities from all over the world, and a pilot test has already made in the Barcelona underground.
On the other hand, the social networks, and especially Facebook and Twitter, are becoming more important in our societies. If few months back they were only an additional way to be in touch with our friends, in the present they are an indispensable tool of communication: the great brands have their spaces there, the radio and television channels use them to provide interactivity to the programmes, and even some governments they have opened a new communication channel with the citizens using the social networks.
The result of the project is a system that allows, from the ease of use that provides NFC technology, to be able to send information to Twitter and Facebook avoiding the need to type the text by hand. When approaching the mobile phone to an information point, an application will be launched and will send a SMS to the social network to update the user status.
Besides, two additional functionalities have also been added: being able to know the song that is playing on any of the iCatFM radio channels and being able to issue a vote using the mobile telephone.


"Payments for environmental services (PES) are increasingly discussed as appropriate mechanisms for matching the demand for environmental services with the incentives of land users whose actions modify the supply of those environmental services. While there has been considerable discussion of the institutional mechanisms for PES, relatively little attention has been given to the inter-relationships between PES institutions and other rural institutions. This paper presents and builds upon the proposition that both the function and welfare effects of PES institutions depend crucially on the co-institutions of collective action (CA) and property rights (PR)... This paper presents a conceptual framework that clarifies the inter-linkages between property rights, collective action, payment for environmental services, and the welfare of smallholder land users. The framework is centered on concerns of function and welfare effects of PES. The functional perspective clarifies the effects of collective action and property rights institutions on the supply of environmental services. The welfare perspective considers smallholders as one of several potential sources of supply,sometimes directly competing against large landowners and public sector providers. from Author's Abstract


Despite growing appreciation of the need for research on autism in adulthood, few survey instruments have been validated for use with autistic adults. We conducted an institutional ethnography of two related partnerships that used participatory approaches to conduct research in collaboration with autistic people and people with intellectual disability. In this article, we focus on lessons learned from adapting survey instruments for use in six separate studies. Community partners identified several common problems that made original instruments inaccessible. Examples included: (1) the use of difficult vocabulary, confusing terms, or figures of speech; (2) complex sentence structure, confusing grammar, or incomplete phrases; (3) imprecise response options; (4) variation in item response based on different contexts; (5) anxiety related to not being able to answer with full accuracy; (6) lack of items to fully capture the autism-specific aspects of a construct; and (7) ableist language or concepts. Common adaptations included: (1) adding prefaces to increase precision or explain context; (2) modifying items to simplify sentence structure; (3) substituting difficult vocabulary words, confusing terms, or figures of speech with more straightforward terms; (4) adding hotlinks that define problematic terms or offer examples or clarifications; (5) adding graphics to increase clarity of response options; and (6) adding new items related to autism-specific aspects of the construct. We caution against using instruments developed for other populations unless instruments are carefully tested with autistic adults, and we describe one possible approach to ensure that instruments are accessible to a wide range of autistic participants. Lay summary Why is this topic important? To understand what can improve the lives of autistic adults, researchers need to collect survey data directly from autistic adults. However, most survey instruments were made for the general population and may or may not work well for autistic adults. What is the purpose of this article? To use lessons learned from our experience adapting surveys—in partnership with autistic adults—to create a set of recommendations for how researchers may adapt instruments to be accessible to autistic adults. What did the authors do? Between 2006 and 2019, the Academic Autism Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE) and the Partnering with People with Developmental Disabilities to Address Violence Consortium used a participatory research approach to adapt many survey instruments for use in six separate studies. We reviewed records from these partnerships and identified important lessons. What is this recommended adaptation process like? The adaptation process includes the following:  (1) Co-creating collaboration guidelines and providing community partners with necessary background about terminology and processes used in survey research;  (2) Collaboratively selecting which constructs to measure;  (3) Discussing each construct so that we can have a shared understanding of what it means;  (4) Identifying existing instruments for each construct;  (5) Selecting among available instruments (or deciding that none are acceptable and that we need to create a new measure);  (6) Assessing the necessary adaptations for each instrument;  (7) Collaboratively modifying prefaces, items, or response options, as needed;  (8) Adding "hotlink" definitions where necessary to clarify or provide examples of terms and constructs;  (9) Creating new measures, when needed, in partnership with autistic adults;(10) Considering the appropriateness of creating proxy report versions of each adapted measure; and(11) Assessing the adapted instruments' psychometric properties. What were common concerns about existing instruments? Partners often said that, if taking a survey that used the original instruments, they would experience confusion, frustration, anxiety, or anger. They repeatedly stated that, faced with such measures, they would offer unreliable answers, leave items blank, or just stop participating in the study. Common concerns included the use of difficult vocabulary, confusing terms, complex sentence structure, convoluted phrasings, figures of speech, or imprecise language. Partners struggled with response options that used vague terms. They also felt anxious if their answer might not be completely accurate or if their responses could vary in different situations. Often the surveys did not completely capture the intended idea. Sometimes, instruments used offensive language or ideas. And in some cases, there just were not any instruments to measure what they thought was important. What were common adaptations? Common adaptations included: (1) adding prefaces to increase precision or explain context; (2) modifying items to simplify sentence structure; (3) substituting difficult vocabulary words, confusing terms, or figures of speech with more straightforward terms; (4) adding hotlinks that define problematic terms or offer examples or clarifications; (5) adding graphics to increase clarity of response options; and (6) adding new items related to autism-specific aspects of the construct. How will this article help autistic adults now or in the future? We hope that this article encourages researchers to collaborate with autistic adults to create better survey instruments. That way, when researchers evaluate interventions and services, they can have the right tools to see if they are effective.


More than 90% of the nation's 1.2 million military children attend civilian-operated public schools. Education researchers, however, often overlook the educational experiences and needs of military children attending civilian-operated public schools (i.e., schools that are administered by and under the purview of local education agencies). This article is the first in an educational research journal to examine the intersections among state policy, school reform, and the educational experiences of military children. This article also highlights new data sources and funding opportunities for research on military students.


Many emerging applications in mobile ad hoc networks involve group-oriented communication. Multicast is an efficient way of supporting group oriented applications, mainly in mobile environment with limited bandwidth and limited power. For using such applications in an adversarial environment as military, it is necessary to provide secure multicast communication. Key management is the fundamental challenge in designing secure multicast communications. Multicast key distribution has to overcome the challenging element of "1 affects n" phenomenon. To overcome this problem, multicast group clustering is the best solution. This paper proposes an efficient dynamic clustering approach for QoS based secure multicast key distribution in mobile ad hoc networks. Simulation results shows the demonstration of Dynamic clustering approach have better system performance in terms of QoS performance metrics such as end to end delay, energy consumption, key delivery ratio and packet loss rate under varying network conditions.


On of the major difficulties faced by those who are fitted with prosthetic devices is the great mental effort needed during the first stages of training. When working with myographic prosthesis, that effort increases dramatically. In this sense, the authors decided to devise a mechanism to help patients during the learning stages, without actually having to wear the prosthesis all the time. The system is based on a real hardware and software for detecting and processing electromyografic (EMG) signal. The association of autoregressive (AR) models and a neural network is used for EMG pattern discrimination. The outputs of the neural network are then used to control the movements of a virtual prosthesis which mimics what the real prosthesis would be doing. This strategy resulted in rates of success of 100% when discriminating EMG signals collected from the upper arm muscle groups. The results show a very easy-to-use system which can greatly reduce the duration of the training stages.


The performance of peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) genotypes was assessed using three different adaptability and stability methods. Eighteen lines and two cultivars, Runner IAC 886 and IAC Caiapo, were evaluated for pod yield (PY) and one hundred kernel weight (HKW), in ten field trials in the State of Sao Paulo, using ecovalance, Eberhart & Russel and Lin & Binns methods. Significant differences for genotype (G), environment (E) and interaction (GxE) effects were observed for both variables. The lines L123, L137 and L150 were most productive and showed stable and predictable behavior. Lin & Binns methods was more sensitive for PY and HKW, while the Eberhart & Russel method was more useful for indicating lines with broad and specific adaptability to environmental conditions. Moreover, the Lin & Binns and Eberhart & Russel methods were more informative than ecovalance in predicting the behavior of genotypes for those two characteristics. Negative correlation between PY and Pi parameter, and positive correlation between dij and wI were found. Negative correlation was observed between one HKW and Pi, and between Pi and wi.


Introduction: To assess the possible determinants that lead public to choose plastic surgeons as hand surgery specialists. Methods: General public members (n = 701) were asked to choose one or two specialists that they perceived to be an expert in 11 hand surgery-related scenarios. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were applied to assess the possible determinants (sociodemographic data, source of reported information, and previous plastic surgery contact) of public choice of plastic surgeons as experts in the hand surgery-related scenarios. Results: A significantly (all p < 0.05) poor understanding of the role of plastic surgeons was seen in infectious hand injury, hand tumor, hand fracture, hand tendon injury, carpal tunnel syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis deformity, and dupuytren contracture. Age was a significant (all p < 0.05) determinant of plastic surgeon as a response pattern. Conclusion: Participants' age was a determinant of public choose plastic surgeons as experts in hand surgery area. ■ ABSTRACT


Ehrhart's conjecture proposes a sharp upper bound on the volume of a convex body whose barycenter is its only interior lattice point. Recently, Berman and Berndtsson proved this conjecture for a class of rational polytopes including reflexive polytopes. In particular, they showed that the complex projective space has the maximal anticanonical degree among all toric Kaehler-Einstein Fano manifolds. In this note, we prove that projective space is the only such toric manifold with maximal degree by proving its corresponding convex-geometric statement. We also discuss a generalized version of Ehrhart's conjecture involving an invariant corresponding to the so-called greatest lower bound on the Ricci curvature.


Agricultural systems with conventional tillage and intensive use of agrochemicals, especially those on high slopes and with shallow soils, have the potential to release pollutants. This study aimed at evaluating the soil, water and nutrient lost via agricultural runoff in large plots (small catchments) under conventional and organic farming of vegetables as well as under forest (control) system in a Cambisol in the Campestre catchment. Samples of runoff were collected biweekly for one year through a Coshocton wheel. The soil and water losses from the conventional farming were 218 and 6 times higher, respectively, than forest. Under organic farming the soil and water losses were 12 and 4 times higher, respectively, than forest. However the soil losses (0.5 to 114kgha −1 year −1 ) are considered low in agronomy but environmentally represent a potential source of surface water contamination by runoff associated pollutants. The concentrations and losses of all forms of phosphorus (P) were higher in the conventional system (9.5, 0.9 and 0.3mgL −1 of total P for conventional, organic and forest systems, respectively), while the organic system had the highest concentrations and losses of soluble nitrogen (4.7, 38.6 and 0.4mgL −1 of NO3-N, respectively). The percentage of bioavailable P was proportionally higher in the organic system (91% of total P lost was as bioavailable P), indicating greater potential for pollution in the short term.


Abstract Previous published models for the stratigraphic evolution of the Middle Jurassic (Aalenian—Bathonian) Brent Group and its equivalents rely largely upon lithostratigraphy, with few reliable time lines for correlation across the Northern North Sea basin. To rectify this a new, largely well-based, multi-disciplinary regional study was undertaken, combining detailed biostratigraphic and sedimentological data from more than 450 wells across the whole of the Northern North Sea basin. A basin-wide sequence stratigraphy for the Middle Jurassic has been developed, comprising two tectono-stratigraphic units (J20, Aalenian—Late Bajocian and J30, latest Bajocian—Middle Callovian), subdivided into five sequences: J22 (Aalenian), J24 (Early Bajocian), J26 (Early—Late Bajocian), J32 (latest Bajocian—Late Bathonian) and J34 (latest Bathonian—Middle Callovian). The tectono-stratigraphic units developed in response to large scale (second order) tectonic processes: pre-rift thermal uplift (J20) and the onset of rifting (J30), whilst sequence development was controlled by a combination of changes in basin subsidence, sediment supply and eustatic sea level. A series of palaeogeographic and isopach maps outline the basin evolution and sedimentary response for each sequence. They describe a progressive basinward shift of the J22 and J24 depocentres in response to the thermal uplift; by the end of J26, sediment supply could not keep pace with increased basin subsidence caused by the crustal extension. J32 and J34 represent the first periods where active rifting can be clearly identified in the North Sea basin, with the development of tilted fault block geometries in the East Shetland Basin and Bruce—Beryl Embayment. Continued extension and rifting in these areas led to the development of an overall retrogradational system which extends through to the latest Jurassic. The study provides a model for North Sea basin evolution and a predictive sequence stratigraphic framework within which the local lithostratigraphy can be resolved and basin potential evaluated.


Abstract — To identify cryptic stages of marine brown macroalgae present in the "bank of microscopic forms", we incubated natural substrata of different geographical origins and isolated emerging Phaeophyceae into clonal cultures. A total of 431 clones were subsequently identified by barcoding using 5′-COI. A proportion of 98% of the isolates belonged to the Ectocarpales. The distribution of pairwise genetic distances revealed a K2P divergence of 1.8% as species-level cut-off. Using this threshold, the samples were ascribed to 83 different species, 39 (47%) of which were identified through reference sequences or morphology. In the Ectocarpaceae, 16 lineages of Ectocarpus fulfilled the barcode criterion for different species, while three putative new species were detected. In the Chordariaceae, numerous microthalli were microstages of known macroscopic taxa. A separate cluster contained Hecatonema maculans and other microscopic species. Taxa traditionally classified in Acinetosporaceae were split in two species-rich groups containing Pylaiella and Hincksia in one and Acinetospora in the other. Feldmannia species were present in both clusters. The present study shows that the germling emergence method is suited to reveal the diversity of hidden life-history stages, albeit with a bias towards early successional species.


In this study we have attempted to verify one of the implications of the Lucas (1973) hypothesis using two-digit industry-level panel data for the U.S. Manufacturing Sector. The hypothesis states that the higher the nominal demand volatility, the lower will be the impact of nominal changes on real variables. Unlike other studies, we use disaggregated panel data for nineteen industries, which are scattered throughout the country, and are subject to the same fiscal and monetary shocks. Another unique feature of this study is the use of price level data at the two-digit industry-level. As opposed to the use of overall price level data, which is common in the literature, we make use of the price level data at the two-digit industry-level. The results of our study support the Lucas hypothesis. Industries with low relative demand volatility transmit the effects of nominal demand shocks exclusively to output and industries with high relative volatility pass on the shocks directly to prices.

Finally, we tested for the relation between the real impact of the nominal aggregate disturbances and the relative volatility of industry demands. Our results show strong negative relation between them. That is, the higher the nominal demand volatility facing an industry, the less its impact would be on real output.


By the nineteenth century, scientism began to emerge as a worldview that sought to explain all phenomena through the scientific method to the exclusion of all other ways of knowing. These sentiments intensified with Charles Darwin's discovery of evolution by natural selection. At the turn of the twentieth century, scientific discoveries increased exponentially, giving rise to a strong confidence that science could indeed describe everything. By 1960, certain scientists grew so confident in science's descriptive ability that they started to advocate scientism. From 1963 to 2013, they advocated an antireligious, positivistic worldview through their popular works and warned of concurrent global conundrums such as the existence of nuclear weapons, global warming, and overpopulation. They envisioned a human future in space as a possible means to avoid earthly problems.


Economic conditions are linked to international peace and security. Financial crises, mismanagement of natural resources, food shortages, and climate change can create transnational effects, including conflict. The Security Council is the executive organ of the United Nations, with primary jurisdiction over the maintenance of international peace and security. This Article explores the extent to which the Security Council can and should assert jurisdiction over economic and financial issues. In the past decade, the economic dimensions of conflict, including the economic causes of war, economic agendas of state and nonstate actors, and economic measures for reconstruction have become central to the Security Council's work and to contemporary concepts of collective security. This Article argues that the Security Council's increasing engagement with economic and financial issues is proper and permissible under Article 39, provided that certain thresholds are met. For example, purely internal disruptions such as bankruptcies would be unlikely to rise to the level of a threat to peace and security, whereas the manipulation of natural resources destined for, or regulated by, international markets may well create threats within the Council's jurisdiction. The Security Council's enforcement jurisdiction under Article 41 has similarly evolved, shifting from the wholesale restriction of economic opportunities via trade embargoes and sanctions to the promotion of prospective measures such as good economic governance. If the Council's economic interventions continue, it will become a player of some significance in applying and developing international economic norms.Ultimately, the Security Council's jurisdiction over new threats to peace and security-including economic and financial issues-is a function of its legitimacy. Support for the Council's evolving economic jurisdiction will be highest if the Council adopts measures to improve its procedural and substantive legitimacy among member states. This Article thus situates its analysis within the context of democratic decision making and argues for a better delineation of economic responsibilities among the Security Council and other international entities, such as the IMF, the World Bank, the General Assembly, ECOSOC, and the Peacebuilding Commission.


TorchXRayVision is an open source software library for working with chest X-ray datasets and deep learning models. It provides a common interface and common pre-processing chain for a wide set of publicly available chest X-ray datasets. In addition, a number of classification and representation learning models with different architectures, trained on different data combinations, are available through the library to serve as baselines or feature extractors.


As the demand for services and products continues to increase in light of rapid population growth, it is vital to ensure the sustainability of the natural resources. Critical to this growth is the question of energy, water and food security. The systems representing these three resources are intrinsically interdependent where impact on any one of them will have a simultaneous impact in the remaining two. As such, there is a need to develop assessment tools that consider the interdependencies of energy, water and food (EWF) systems in order to ensure that system dynamics are understood and disturbances are avoided where possible. For instance, when evaluating the environmental performance of a food production system, aggregating the system in terms of its agriculture, water and energy components is critical to develop a lifecycle blueprint of the system. The EWF Nexus tool has been used to describe food security in Qatar from a local environment perspective. The tool is a culmination of well-established theories related to system design and analysis such as Industrial Ecology and LCA with emphasis on EWF inter-linkages. The modularity of the nexus model enables the integration of a variety of different technologies which promote the de-materialization of the system and the subsequent evaluation of different configurations. The basis of which is to identify and achieve maximum emission reduction. This paper reports recent work expanding the LCA modelling tool of the EWF Nexus developed by the authors (Al Ansari et al, 2015). Through the integration of greenhouse gas control technologies, sub-system analsysis and scenario development, the objective is to enhance the environmental performance of Qatar's food production system. Using de-materilization and waste minimisaiton strategies promoted by Industrial Ecology, the objective of EWF Nexus tool is to reduce environmental degradation in business as usual scenarios. This includes the integration of waste management strategies and technologies to reduce the overall life cycle environmental impact of the Qatar Food system. Waste management strategies and greenhouse gas control technologies are represented by additional sub-systems which convert waste material to energy and capture of CO2 from power generation. As part of the LCA, sub-system LCI models representing the EWF systems have been developed. The food portion of the nexus is represented by the production of fertilizers and agricultural activities such as the application of fertilizers and the raising of livestock. The livestock under management include broilers, dairy, beef, sheep and camels. The water portion of the nexus includes Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) and Reverse Osmosis (RO) for the production of water. Finally, the energy sub-system considers power generation from a combined cycle gas turbine plant (CCGT) and renewable energy from solar Photovoltaics (PV). Furthermore, a biomass integrated gasification combined cycle (BIGCC) is integrated to recycle solid waste into useful forms of energy to be re-used within the nexus. Finally, carbon capture (CC) technology is integrated to capture and recycle CO2 from both the CCGT and the BIGCC. The integration of CC with the BIGCC transforms the carbon neutral BIGCC process to a negative GHG emission technology with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). For the different scenarios and subsystem configurations considered, the global warming potential can be theoretically balanced (i.e. eliminated) through the integration of PV's, BIGCC and CC technology. The peak GWP, i.e. a fully fossil fuel dependent system, is recorded at 1.73 × 107 kg CO2 eq./year whilst the lowest achievable GWP is 2.18 × 107 when utilising a combination of PV, CC integrated with CCGT in addition to BECCS technology. The natural gas consumption to − 7.8 × 107 kg/year in the best case configuration achieving a credit. In the same scenario, the PV land footprint required is calculated to a maximum of 660 ha. The maximum theoretical achievable negative emission is 1.09 × 109 kg CO2/year.