This thesis sets out to explore the under-researched field of New Zealand's Pacific media to yield insights into Pacific media and audiences, and what makes media 'ethnic'. It draws on theories about identity, practice and the audience, and a qualitative multi-method approach grounded in Pacific people's actual voices and practices. It breaks new ground on Pacific media, which have not been studied in such depth or from a broad audience perspective, and reveals that Pacific media are highly diverse and face considerable challenges, including a significant demographic shift among their intended audiences. It adds to the scholarship on ethnic media, first, by revealing tensions within Pacific media practice (including a tension between Pacific and journalistic fields), which helps to problematise scholarly assumptions about ethnic media, and, second, by suggesting a model of Pacific media as a media of identity negotiation. It finds that Pacific media are powerful symbolic referents of Pacific identity and key sites where producers and audiences negotiate community and belonging through various locative practices, often in ways that establish tighter connections than in mainstream media. This is notwithstanding that the range of 'Pacific' identities represented in Pacific media can be narrow and risk excluding New Zealand-born Pacific youth. This study further suggests that societal-wide ideas of journalism and publicness are more central to Pacific audiences' assessments of Pacific media than may have been accounted for to date. Pacific groups are positioned narrowly in New Zealand publicness, including by funders' whose focus on Pacific media in terms of ethnicity and culture tends to overlook audiences' demand for in-depth news, innovation and diverse content. This study concludes that viewing ethnic media within categories of ethnicity or culture (as do funders, scholars and, often, media producers) risks exaggerating the 'otherness' of ethnic minority groups. Instead, we need to reorient our efforts to categorise ethnic media away from a fixation on difference and towards people's actual media practices to better reflect people's multiple and complex realities.


This work deals with dedicated mailing and e-mail campaign to targeted art related media & organizations. Jack Pierson (b.1960) is one of the most influential American artists of today. Working with a wide range of different media - including photography, painting, drawing, books, installation and film, as well as wall and floor sculptures - Pierson is drawn to stardom, melodrama, loneliness and emotional narrative as subjects. Pierson infuses all his works with visual and literal references to lost love, sexual longing, faded glamor, evanescence and beauty. He is also concerned with the formal qualities of presentation and the number of aesthetic decisions required in achieving a balance between the narrative content of an artwork and its physical manifestation. This unique and visually arresting volume brings together a collection of Pierson's best work from a number of previous publications, all designed by Pierson himself and now out of print, reproduced as they were and in chronological order - with an introduction by the artist.


The economies of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan have become known as "East Asian Tigers," enjoyed a remarkable record of high and sustained economic growth over three decades from 1965 to the early 1990s. Their ability to achieve a speedy development with equity has intrigued many economists who attempted to understand the drive of growth. Most of this miraculous growth is believed due to a combination of fundamentally sound development policies, tailored interventions, and an unusually rapid accumulation of physical and human capital, as well as rapid intra-regional trade integration. Recently GARCH-type models have been applied to analyze growth rates of real gross domestic product (GDP) in developed and under-developed countries. However, few studies actually employ multivariate GARCH-type models such as the constant conditional correlation (CCC) model by Bollerslev (1990), dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) model by Engel (2002) and varying correlation MGARCH (VC-MGARCH) by Tse and Tsui (2002) for such purposes. Other studies using such models concentrate on interactions between real output and price, and between real output and stock performance. In this paper, we examine both the GARCH-type effect and the conditional correlation of the real GDP growth rates for Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong. We use the well-established exponential GARCH model of Nelson (1991) to capture the possibly asymmetric conditional volatility in the real GDP growth rates. And the conditional variance and covariance matrix is linked by using CCC-MGARCH and VC-MGARCH models. Our findings are consistent with findings by Ho and Tsui (2003) in which the negative real GDP shocks seem to have greater influence on future volatilities as compared to positive shocks of the same magnitude. Moreover, we apply the MISCC algorithm by Sanso et al. (2004) to identify the potential structural break points. We find support for structural breaks in conditional variance, and the quality of the estimation results will be improved if the structural breakpoints are counted in estimation, Our findings have important implications to both academics and macroeconomic policy-makers.With the presence of asymmetric volatility, the policy-makers need to be more pro-active in formulating their economic stimulating policy during periods of negative impacts. This is because, when negative shocks happen, investors would normally have negative sentiment and over-react to the shocks, which can make the already-sinking economy even worse. In addition, the existence of persistence in volatility implies that, when the volatility is high at certain time, it is very likely that this volatility will persist. Thus, when negative shocks occur, there would be an additional effect caused by both asymmetry and persistence in volatility, namely asymmetry causes higher volatility which then, as a result of volatility persistence, would intensify the problem. During the time of positive impacts, the economies may face a quick overheating problem due to investors' over-reaction. Therefore an appropriate counter-cyclical policy measures have to been made by the government to respond to the adverse impact of negative shocks and to stabilise the macroeconomic environment. The ability to identify breakpoints would provide policy-makers with additional information to identify the causes of the volatility and help to stabilize the macroeconomy. Finally, the findings also indicate that negative economic disturbances arising from one economy may spill over to another one through the strong economic linkages. As such, international economic policy co-ordination would become imperative to ameliorate the effect of shocks originating from other economy.


Two new highly modular carbohydrate-based, pseudodipeptide and thioamide ligand libraries have been synthesized for the rhodium- and ruthenium-catalyzed asymmetric transfer hydrogenation (ATH) of prochiral ketones. These series of ligands can be prepared efficiently from easily accessible D-xylose and D-glucose. The ligand libraries contain two main ligand structures (pseudodipeptide and thioamide) that have been designed by making systematic modifications to one of the most successful ligand families developed for the ATH. As well as studying the effect of these two ligand structures on the catalytic performance, we also evaluated the effect of modifying several of the ligand parameters. We found that the effectiveness of the ligands at transferring the chiral information in the product can be tuned by correctly choosing the ligand components (ligand structure and ligand parameters). Excellent enantioselectivities (ees up to 99%) were therefore obtained in both enantiomers of the alcohol products using a wide range of substrates.


Dynamic load balancing both within and between constituent subsystems is required to achieve ultrascalability in coupled multiphysics and multiscale models. Interconstituent dynamic load balancing requires runtime resizing-or malleability-of subsystem processing element (PE) cohorts. In our previous work, we developed and introduced the Malleable Model Coupling Toolkit with a load balance manager implementing and providing a runtime load-balancing algorithm using PE reallocation across subsystems. In this paper, we extend that work by adding the ability to adapt to coupled models that have changing loads during execution. We evaluate the algorithm through a synthetic coupled-model benchmark that uses the LogP performance model as applied to parallel LU decomposition.


Objective Deaths and serious injuries among young drivers are an important public health concern. Road safety researchers and policy makers tend to focus on strategies to restrict the driving activities of young people. Other social research suggests the disadvantages experienced by young people in socially deprived groups are exacerbated by not having a driving licence or owning a car. In this qualitative study, we consider the views of young people from less affluent backgrounds in the south-west of England who took part in a brief intervention to encourage them to delay gaining a driving licence and car ownership. Methods Between September 2011 and January 2012, a researcher observed four training sessions involving 173 young people. Postintervention, digitally recorded focus groups were conducted at three venues involving 23 randomly selected young people. Data from the focus group transcripts were sorted into charts in relation to key research questions and scrutinised using constant comparison. Results These young people believed the ability to drive, and car ownership, could increase their independence, improve access to further education, widen their employment opportunities, and enable them to contribute to family or household responsibilities. Conclusions We argue there is a potential conflict between some strategies seeking to promote young driver safety and the impact this may have on equity and social disadvantage. Interdisciplinary work is required between professionals and researchers in transport, road safety, public health and social equity. Government policies should include low-cost, safe, reliable and attractive transport alternatives for young people in more deprived communities.


In 2013, The FNQ Explicit Teaching Project was implemented in an effort to improve learning outcomes for all students in Far North Queensland. The policy was developed to address perceptions of poor teaching quality brought about, in part, by Queensland's performance in the inaugural 2008 NAPLAN tests (Hardy, 2016). At the same time, teachers at the school where I was working were looking for ways to increase student participation and engagement in science lessons. Lyons and Quinn (2010) argue engaging and inclusive science teaching is more valued by students, and Carter et al. (2012) found that students perform well in learning situations that promote competence, engender autonomy, and encourage relatedness. Integrating new and emerging technologies into the classroom has the potential to make learning more engaging through individualised and cooperative learning opportunities (Chandra & Briskey, 2012; Chandra & Watters, 2012; O. L. Liu, Lee, & Linn, 2010; Lyons & Quinn, 2010; Rosen & Nelson, 2008; Sun & Looi, 2013). One approach used to integrate new technologies into classrooms is blended learning. Blended learning or hybrid learning is the combination of online and traditional face-to-face learning in a synergistic manner (De George-Walker & Keeffe, 2010; Francis & Shannon, 2013). Studies investigating the use of blended learning in secondary math and science have found that students generally have a positive perception of learning using the approach, leading to higher academic achievement and improved student engagement (Chandra & Briskey, 2012; Chandra & Watters, 2012; Yapici & Akbayin, 2012). However, much of research on blended learning has been conducted in universities, and few studies have explored student and teacher perceptions of using blended learning in secondary schools. To better understand the potential and pitfalls of blended learning, I chose to investigate the implementation of blended learning in two of my Year 10 Science classes.

Loughran (2002) wrote that "Teacher-researchers can be characterised as those practitioners who attempt to better understand their practice, and its impact on their students, by researching the relationship between teaching and learning in their world of work" (Loughran, 2002, p. 3). As a reflective practitioner my goal was to look deeply at my own teaching practice and its impact on my students as a means of self-reflection to guide improvements in my teaching practice. To do this I needed to examine both my own and my students' perceptions of blended learning in secondary science. I conducted the study in a public secondary school in Far North Queensland with two, Year 10 science classes using a convergent mixed methods strategy of inquiry. During the study I collected and analysed qualitative and quantitative data including pre- and post-test scores, student surveys using the Web-based Learning Environment Instrument (WEBLEI), student focus-group interviews, in-class observations from a third party (explicit teaching coach), and teacher-researcher observation and reflections.

My results contribute to our understanding of factors that influence student and teacher perceptions of blended learning, and elucidate the potential and pitfalls of using blended learning in secondary science. Results from the pre-test and post-test comparison demonstrated that blended learning had a positive effect on my students' achievement in secondary science, and the qualitative data indicates that my students felt that blended learning had a positive influence on their achievement. My research shows that students valued blended learning features which allowed them to learn at their own pace, prioritise specific topics, catch up at home on missed lessons, revise past lessons, access online text-books, access self-marking quizzes, and learn using engaging learning objects. Interestingly, my research revealed mixed perceptions of blended learning with the majority of students (62%) indicating that they learned more with blended learning, but only 55% indicating that they enjoyed learning in this modality. From a teacher-researcher perspective, I found that the Explicit Teaching Model – FNQ provided a sound framework for structuring and planning secondary science unit using blended learning. While it was initially very time consuming to design lessons and quizzes, in the long run I feel this would be alleviated by the ability to re-use content with only slight modification in subsequent iterations. My research fills a gap by providing insight into using explicit teaching as a framework for planning and implementing blended learning in secondary science and demonstrates the value of high level practitioner research.


Consistently positive carbon isotopic values were obtained from in situ peloids, ooids, and stromatolitic carbonate within Neoproterozoic glacial successions in northern Namibia, central Australia, and the North American Cordillera. Because positive values continue upward into the immediately overlying postglacial cap carbonates, the negative isotopic excursions widely observed in those carbonate rocks require an explanation that involves a short-term perturbation of the global carbon cycle during deglaciation. The data do not support the ecological consequences of complete coverage of the glacial ocean with sea ice, as predicted in the 1998 snowball Earth hypothesis of P.F. Hoffman et al. In the snowball Earth hypothesis, the postglacial cap carbonates and associated −5‰ negative carbon isotopic excursions represent the physical record of CO2 transfer from the high- p CO2 snowball atmosphere (∼0.12 bar) to the sedimentary reservoir via silicate weathering in the snowball aftermath. Stratigraphic timing constraints on cap carbonates imply weathering rates of ∼1000 times preglacial levels to be consistent with the hypothesis. The absence of Sr isotopic variation between glacial and postglacial deposits and calculations of maximum weathering rates do not support a post-snowball weathering event as the origin for cap carbonates and associated isotopic excursions.


This article proposes an anthropology of affirmative action that is embedded in analysis of the wider political economic transformations in which affirmative action policies emerge. It is argued that this historically situated approach enables analysis of the relative effects of affirmative action on processes of socio-economic marginalization. The focus of the article is on the combination of preferential treatment policies and the provision of education as a state-led response to historical marginalization. These policies are explored in the context of Adivasis (tribal or indigenous peoples) in Jharkhand State, India. The analysis shows how, despite improvement in absolute educational outcomes among Adivasis as a result of these policies, inequalities in relative outcomes are being reproduced and are widening. This is explained in part by market led-gains within the private education sector for more advantaged sections of society that outweigh the predominately state-led improvements for Adivasis. The analysis demonstrates the limitations of contemporary affirmative action in affecting the relative position of socio-economically marginalized groups in contexts where the state is losing some of its universal features and ambition.


The problem of minimizing the transfer time along a given Cartesian path for redundant robots can be approached in two steps, by separating the generation of a joint path associated to the Cartesian path from the exact minimization of motion time under kinematic/dynamic bounds along the obtained parameterized joint path. In this framework, multiple suboptimal solutions can be found, depending on how redundancy is locally resolved in the joint space within the first step. We propose a solution method that works at the acceleration level, by using weighted pseudoinversion, optimizing an inertia-related criterion, and including null-space damping. Several numerical results obtained on different robot systems demonstrate consistently good behaviors and definitely faster motion times in comparison with related methods proposed in the literature. The motion time obtained with our method is reasonably close to the global time-optimal solution along same Cartesian path. Experimental results on a KUKA LWR IV are also reported, showing the tracking control performance on the executed motions.


This report discusses the need for cost transparency into pharmaceutical research and development and, specifically, transparency into the costs of clinical trials funded by the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH), and proposes a set of legislative, administrative, and other reforms to achieve that goal. Section II — Introduction — provides an overview of current barriers to global access to medicines and how cost transparency into pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) at the NIH and among other drug developers—philanthropic, academic, and industry — can address some of those barriers. Current obstacles to global access to medicines include increasingly high prices charged by pharmaceutical companies and diminishing financial incentives for these companies to develop drugs for diseases that primarily affect small or poor populations. Transparency into four key components of the pharmaceutical market — drug prices, R&D and manufacturing costs, pre-clinical and clinical trial data, and the landscape of patents and other intellectual property — is increasingly being emphasized by advocates as a necessary ingredient in the effort to expand and protect access to affordable, accessible, effective, and safe medicines. Section III — The Case for Clinical Trial Cost Transparency at the NIH — explains why the policies proposed in this paper target disclosure of disaggregated clinical trial costs at the NIH. Cost transparency into R&D and, particularly, clinical trials, is essential for policymakers to address drug pricing for two reasons: (1) to evaluate the pharmaceutical industry's claims that the high costs of R&D justify the extraordinarily high prices of medicines, and (2) to design policy mechanisms that can incentivize innovation without the monopoly pricing associated with the patent system. This paper focuses on clinical trials in particular because they are often the most expensive aspect of pharmaceutical R&D. Many arguments have been raised against cost transparency into R&D by various stakeholders; though they are worth careful consideration, none of these arguments outweigh the arguments in favor of transparency. This paper focuses on the NIH because it is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world. As a governmental agency, it spends billions of taxpayer dollars each year, which in itself would justify close oversight by Congress and the public. Transparency into NIH's costs of running clinical trials would provide an important comparison to the cost estimates released by industry-funded studies. Section IV — The Ideal: What Data is Needed?—presents the list of disaggregated clinical trial cost data points that should be disclosed by the NIH. Existing studies of pharmaceutical R&D costs use undisclosed, self-reported data from pharmaceutical companies, proprietary databases, or certain publicly available data. None of these are sufficient to present a full picture of clinical trial costs. We discuss an array of potential data points and ultimately propose the following list, based on three considerations: (1) primary drivers of clinical trial costs, (2) administrative ease of collecting and disclosing data, and (3) importance of data points in understanding overall cost. Costs we recommend should be reported for each study overall, per patient, and per year: — Personnel costs (including salary and benefits) — Administrative staff — Clinical staff — Materials and supplies — Clinical procedures — Site management — Site monitoring costs — Site retention — Other — Central laboratory — Equipment — Other direct costs — Publication Costs — Subawards/Consortium/Contractual Costs C Other — Indirect costs Section V — Existing Disclosure by the NIH Is Insufficient — describes existing ways the NIH shares a limited amount of information with the public and explains the legal sources for that information sharing. Clinical trial sponsors must register applicable trials on ClinicalTrials.gov and submit certain results to the NIH for publication upon trial completion. The NIH is required by statute to administer ClinicalTrials.gov and enforce compliance with the required submissions. Secondly, the NIH maintains RePORTER, a database containing information about NIH research grants, as required by statute. RePORTER records generally include lump-sum grant awards but not disaggregated costs. The NIH also publishes some aggregated data about its research grant awards in the Data Book and certain information about intramural research studies in the intramural database. Lastly, the NIH is required by statute to submit triennial reports to Congress containing certain information, and some institutes and centers within the NIH apparently publish regular reports voluntarily. None of these existing tools accomplishes the clinical trial cost disclosure advocated for in Section IV. Section VI — Options for Reform and Top Recommendations — recommends requiring disclosure on ClinicalTrials.gov of the clinical trial cost data outlined in Section IV. ClinicalTrials.gov is the natural home for specific clinical trial cost data because the website is already structured to collect and display detailed information about each registered trial, and only small changes would be necessary to include cost data. We propose achieving this reform by amending 42 U.S.C. § 282(j), which currently governs ClinicalTrials.gov, in two ways: (1) require that the NIH post the cost data that it possesses for any clinical trial funded in whole or in part by the NIH, and (2) require that all sponsors of clinical trials that receive NIH funding submit the proposed cost data to the NIH to be posted on ClinicalTrials.gov upon study completion. As a next-best or complementary reform, we recommend two improvements to RePORTER: (1) a clearer connection between clinical trials and RePORTER records, and (2) further disaggregating cost information in existing RePORTER records. Congress should amend 42 U.S.C. § 282b, the statute that governs RePORTER, to require these improvements. Lastly, we propose improvements to the Data Book, intramural database, and NIH reports that would help create a clearer picture of clinical trial costs than currently exists, but these improvements are not our main focus, as they would not achieve the reporting goals we lay out in Section IV. Section VII — Arguments Against R&D Cost Transparency — addresses two arguments against reform and concludes that neither should stand in the way of the NIH disclosing this data. The first argument we address is that the administrative burden associated with additional reporting is too high. We believe that cost disclosure will not be especially burdensome because the NIH already requires its grantees to report disaggregated costs, which means grantees already track and the NIH already possesses disaggregated cost data on extramural research. Though we know less about how the NIH tracks its intramural research costs, it is reasonable to expect it to at least do so on the same level it requires of grantees. Finally, the societal benefits of sharing cost information far outweigh potential added costs of reporting. The second argument we address is that cost information on NIH-funded clinical trials is a trade secret or confidential commercial information. Cost data on intramural research conducted exclusively by the NIH, a government agency, cannot be considered a trade secret or confidential commercial information. For extramural grants, HHS and NIH rules, court decisions, and FOIA precedent all agree that clinical trial cost information does not qualify as a trade secret or confidential commercial information and can be disclosed. This suggests that the agency is well within its legal authority to disclose detailed clinical trial cost information. We also address a related argument, primarily raised by industry, that even if it is not legally protected information, disclosure of costs will harm the competitive position of drug developers. We doubt this is the case, because much of this information is already available through publicly disclosed SEC filings. As applied to the NIH, we recognize that grantees compete for grants and awards but believe it is fair to require such reporting for researchers who receive public funding.


Abstract: Ozone is an important atmospheric constituent due to its role as both a green house gas and an oxidant. Ozone can be good or bad depending upon where it resides. Interactions between ozone and climate naturally occur not only in the stratosphere, but also at the Earth's surface (troposphere). In this study, the amount of surface ozone (SOZ) concentration in air was measured at the two sites of southern TamilNadu [Kottar (8.1739° N, 77.4389° E) and Suchindrum (8.1550° N, 77.4650° E)] influenced by almost same meteorological conditions for one year from February 2014 to January 2015 using a portable Aeroqual S200 and S300 monitor. A lucid global day-night variation was observed for SOZ concentration. Summer months recorded the maximum SOZ of 56 ppb. The least values of SOZ were observed during Northeast monsoon for both the sites. The maximum rate of change of SOZ was found around 4.6 ppb which can be compared well with Delhi and Gadanki. A difference of 2.01 ppb was observed in the mean of daily average surface ozone concentration between the two sites. Statistical t-test was performed in this study which reveals that this difference is due to the difference in the levels of precursor gas emissions and vegetation between the two sites.


Recent results suggest that the use of ensembles in statistical mechanics may not be necessary for isolated systems, since typically the states of the Hilbert space would have properties similar to those of the ensemble. Nevertheless, it is often argued that most of the states of the Hilbert space are nonphysical and not good descriptions of realistic systems. Therefore, to better understand the actual power of typicality it is important to ask if it is also a property of a set of physically relevant states. Here we address this issue, studying if and how typicality emerges in the set of matrix product states. We show analytically that typicality occurs for the expectation value of subsystems' observables when the rank of the matrix product state scales polynomially with the size of the system with a power greater than 2. We illustrate this result numerically and present some indications that typicality may appear already for a linear scaling of the rank of the matrix product state.


In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay's first paragraph. "George Frideric Handel's Messiah has been an oratorio that has attracted me to its music since the beginning of high school. Every year in December my high school performs selections from Messiah as a community event. In my sophomore year of high school my chorus class studied Messiah and its origins. [I feel that] Handel's work is attractive to me because it gives life to Biblical events. I have never read the Holy Bible straight through, but I have learned that Handel took the exact words from the Holy Bible and put them to music to create his Messiah. This particular oratorio still has relevant messages for our world today because it is timeless. The oratorio, Messiah, can speak to those who may not understand words on a page, but receive them when to music." This research paper is available in Verbum: http://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/verbum/vol4/iss1/12


We studied North Island robins over 7 breeding seasons following their reintroduction to Tiritiri Matangi Island. All robins bred in their first year if a mate was available. They usually retained pair bonds for life but some females switched mates within or between breeding seasons. There were 2 instances of sequential polyandry, where a female laid a clutch with a new male while her previous mate was rearing her fledglings. The 1st clutches were usually laid in early September and the last clutches in late December or early January. Mean clutch size was 2.3 eggs, and clutches were largest in the middle of the breeding season. Females reared a maximum of 3 broods per year, and a maximum of six fledglings. Females that survived the breeding season fledged an average of 2.48 young, and 51% of clutches found before hatching fledged at least one young. Juveniles were fed for 47 weeks after fledging, and stayed in the natal territory for 7-10 weeks. Dispersing juveniles were often chased when entering other territories, but there were 4 instances of juveniles being fed by unrelated lone males. The juvenile survival rate declined as the population grew. Permanent territories were restricted to patches with a canopy of at least 6 m, totalling about 13.4 ha, and the breeding population levelled off at 65 in the 5th year. The decline in juvenile survival was similar for males and females, suggesting that both sexes needed to compete for territories even though there were always males without mates because of an initial bias in sex ratio. Males had delayed plumage maturation whereby they appeared similar to females or juveniles until after their first breeding season. We suggest this could be advantageous for territory acquisition because male territory holders cannot be preferentially aggressive toward juvenile males. Armstrong, D.P.; Ewen, J.G.; Dimond, W.J.; Lovegrove, T.G.; Bergstrom, A,; Walter, B. 2000. Breeding biology of North Island robins (Petroica australis longipes) on Tiritiri Matangi Island. Notornis 47(2): 106-1 18.


This paper analyzes the response of earnings to payroll tax rates using a cohort-based reform in Greece. All individuals who started working on or after 1993 face permanently a much higher earnings cap for payroll taxes, creating a large and permanent discontinuity in marginal payroll tax rates by date of entry in the labor force for upper earnings workers. Using full population administrative Social Security data and a Regression Discontinuity Design, we estimate the long-term incidence and effects of marginal payroll tax rates on earnings. Standard theory predicts that, in the long run, new regime workers should bear the entire burden of the payroll tax increase (relative to old regime workers). In contrast, we find that employers compensate new regime workers for the extra employer payroll taxes but not for the extra employee payroll taxes. We do not find any evidence of labor supply responses around the discontinuity, suggesting low efficiency costs of payroll taxes. The non-standard incidence results are the same across firms of different sizes. Tax incidence, however, is standard for older workers in the new regime as they bear both the employee and employer tax. Those results, combined with a direct small survey of employers, can be explained by social norms regarding seniority-based pay which create a growing wedge between pay and productivity as workers age.


This book contains the refereed proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Business Information Systems, BIS 2016, held in Leipzig, Germany, in July 2016. The BIS conference series follows trends in academia and business research; thus the theme of the BIS 2016 conference was Smart Business Ecosystems". This recognizes that no business is an island and competition is increasingly taking place between business networks and no longer between individual companies. A variety of aspects is relevant for designing and understanding smart business ecosystems. They reach from new business models, value chains and processes to all aspects of analytical, social and enterprise applications and platforms as well as cyber-physical infrastructures. The 33 full and 1 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 87 submissions. They are grouped into sections on ecosystems; big and smart data; smart infrastructures; process management; business and enterprise modeling; service science; social media; and applications.


Land use patterns are believed to affect transportation, while low-capacity land-use management is often seen as one of the primary institutional barriers to sustainable transport. Examining the case of Beijing, this paper aims to contribute more evidence in relation to these issues. Over the past decades China's megacities have witnessed a dramatic transition in land use from traditional compact development to sprawling development due to rapid urbanization. This study found that this transition has tended to increase car usage and thus worsen the emission of pollutants by transport in Beijing when growth of income and other socioeconomic factors are taken into account. It is apparent that compact land-use policies need to be reintroduced to reduce car use. However, there are several institutional barriers related to the reintroduction of compact development in the current context of transition from a centrally planned system to a market system in China's cities. In particular, increasing fragmentation in the realm of land-development management has created serious challenges to the implementation of compact land-development policies. Therefore, institutional capacity building is needed to enable compact land-use policies to control local sprawl and promote sustainable transport.


Abstract The endemic Lake Malaŵi cichlid genus Otopharynx is increased from 14 species to 20 by the description of six new species collected from inshore sandy or intermediate rocky/sandy areas or trawled in depths to 59 m. Otopharynx alpha is distinguished from congeners by its unique melanin pattern with suprapectoral spot discrete but supraanal and precaudal spots connected to form a stripe, and by its distinctively shaped pharyngeal bone with numerous small, crowded teeth. Otopharynx mumboensis, thought to be endemic to Mumbo Island, is separated from most congeners by a suprapectoral spot placed entirely below the upper lateral line, and from all others by the combination of 13 gill rakers, pharyngeal bone with posterior margin nearly straight, crowns of all pharyngeal teeth in the median columns broadened and flattened, head length 30.9–32.2% SL, body depth 35.5–36.1% SL, and lower jaw 35.7–36.2% HL. Otopharynx styrax has a more elongate body (depth 24.3–28.6% SL) than any congener. Otopharynx aletes can be diagnosed by the combination of a suprapectoral spot overlapping the upper lateral line, seven or eight vertical bars below the dorsal-fin base, 10 or 11 gill rakers, 34–36 scales in the lateral line, lower pharyngeal bone with molariform posteromedian teeth, and caudal peduncle length 1.6–2.0 times its depth. Otopharynx panniculus is diagnosed by the combination of a prominent square suprapectoral spot spanning subdorsal bars 3 to 4, no dorsal midline spots, 13–15 gill rakers, 31–33 scales in the lateral line, 15 or 16 dorsal-fin spines, absence of a lacrimal notch, and slightly enlarged teeth in the median columns of the lower pharyngeal bone. Otopharynx peridodekamost closely resembles O. panniculus and shares the loss of the lacrimal notch, but has 34–35 scales in the lateral line and 11–13 gill rakers. Photographs of living or freshly collected specimens of five of the new species are provided.


Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) is a euryhaline species, occupying fully marine habitats (35 psu) in the North Atlantic, as well as brackish waters (<20 psu) such as in the adjacent Baltic Sea. We co-reared Atlantic purebreds and Atlantic/Baltic F1 hybrids in two salinity regimes (16 and 35 psu) in a common garden experiment for 3 years until their first maturity. This setup enabled for the first time a direct comparison between adults and their larval siblings at respective salinity regimes in terms of larval growth indicated by otolith microstructure. We validated that otolith microstructure analysis of adult otoliths is reflecting the experienced otolith growth during the larval stage. No major selection in terms of otolith growth had taken place during the juvenile stage, except for one experimental group. Surviving adult Atlantic purebreds reared at 16 psu had higher otolith growth compared to their larval stages. The validation that otolith microstructure analyses of adult herring can reliably be extracted and used to examine larval growth even after several years adds strong support for further use of such analyses. Among the parental generation, Baltic herring had a faster initial otolith growth than Atlantic herring. The growth of their laboratory-reared F1 progeny was intermediate compared to their parents. In general, larval growth of both Atlantic purebreds and Atlantic/Baltic hybrids reared in 16 psu was significantly larger than for those herring reared at 35 psu. There was no significant difference in larval growth between Atlantic purebreds and Atlantic/Baltic hybrids reared at 35 psu, but hybrid larval growth was significantly higher compared to larval growth of Atlantic purebreds at 16 psu. This was not reflected at the adult stage where purebreds were ultimately larger than hybrids (Berg et al., 2018). This indicates the influence and importance of environmental and genetic factors throughout the life of Atlantic herring, along with genetic contributions to phenotypic variability.


As the countries achieve international prominence, and the focus on post-Communist transition fades away, labeling them the "stans" fails to capture the vital economic and political differences that each nation faces. How each country deals with their individual challenges will determine their course of development. ********** In the late 1990s, the West did little but complain about the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia. Often lumped together as the "stans," Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were known for their human rights violations and high levels of corruption. The agenda of post-Communist transformation seemed to have faded away in these countries. On 11 September 2001, everything changed, and the strategic importance of Central Asia became evident. Contrary to popular perception, Central Asia is currently the most dynamic part of the world, with an average growth rate of no less than 10 percent in 2001. As the West became serious about the region, the vital differences between each country became apparent. Economically, the five countries differ in structure, level of development and indebtedness; politically, although all five countries are considered authoritarian, the differences in pluralism are great. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are full-fledged dictatorships, while Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan can be described as mildly authoritarian. This article aims to bring forth the major features of Central Asian economies, providing insights into the current economic problems facing each nation. Differences in political pluralism have influenced these countries' economic systems and their operation. Central Asia is replete with oil and other natural resources, which has attracted foreign interest and represents great economic opportunity. However, all five countries suffer from pernicious corruption, and all but Kazakhstan have a high level of foreign debt that accumulated quickly after independence. Problems of trade have emerged as the most pressing concern for the region and should become more urgent in the future. DIFFERENCES IN POLITICAL PLURALISM MATTER Politics plays an important role in economic reform, and in post-Communist countries, the correlation between economic reform and political pluralism is uniquely strong. Although political pluralism encourages checks on power that help control governments, allowing the economy to thrive, these states stifled economic growth through excessive state ownership, regulation and taxation. All five countries are still authoritarian--the current Central Asian presidents, with the exception of Kyrgyzstan's president Askar Akayev, were first party secretaries in Soviet times--though their differences are striking. Turkmenistan has a truly frightening dictator, President Saparmurat Niyazov, who was appointed First Party Secretary of the republic's Communist Party in 1985 to strengthen Moscow's control over the area. When the Soviet Union collapsed, he severed his ties with the Communist Party but maintained dictatorial powers, naming himself Turkmenbashi, leader of all Turkmen. He has since declared himself president-for-life and indulges in a Stalinist personality cult, littering the country with golden statues of himself and building palaces in his honor. Turkmenistan has almost no civil society, and the opposition has fled abroad. An alleged attempt on Turkmenbashi's life in late November 2002 led to the sentencing of 56 people in televised show trials. The current situation in Uzbekistan is only mildly better. Oddly enough, Uzbekistan's dictator, Islam Karimov, was appointed First Party Secretary in 1989 as part of Mikhail Gorbachev's reform plan. Karimov, like Niyazov, retained power as a dictator even after retiring from the Communist Party. He struggled to control Uzbekistan's strong liberal and Islamist oppositions by imprisoning thousands. In January 2002 he asked, for the second time, to prolong his current term of office to seven years. …


An historic publishing event! Endorsed by the Louvre and for the first time ever, every painting from the world's most popular museum is available in one stunning book. All 3,022 paintings on display in the permanent painting collection of the Louvre are presented in full color in this striking, slipcased book. Comes with an enclosed, supportive DVD-ROM.The Louvre is the world's most visited art museum, with 8.5 million visitors annually, and houses the most celebrated and important paintings of all time. For the first time ever, The Louvre: All the Paintings collects all 3,022 paintings currently on display in the permanent collection in one beautifully curated volume.Organized and divided into the four main painting collections of the museum- the Italian School, the Northern School, the Spanish School, and the French School- the paintings are then presented chronologically by the artist's date of birth.Four hundred of the most iconic and significant paintings are illuminated with 300-word discussions by art historians Anja Grebe and Vincent Pomarede on the key attributes of the work, what to look for when viewing the painting, the artist's inspirations and techniques, biographical information on the artist, the artist's impact on the history of art, and more. All 3,022 paintings are fully annotated with the name of the painting and artist, the date of the work, the birth and death dates of the artist, the medium that was used, the size of the painting, the Louvre catalog number, and the room in the Louvre in which the painting is found.The DVD-ROM is easily browsable by artist, date, school, art historical genre, or location in the Louvre. This last feature allows readers to tour the Louvre and its contents room by room, as if they were actually walking through the building.DVD-ROM System Requirements: DVD-ROM runs on a PC (Windows 2000/XP or later) and MAC (OSX 10.4.8 or later) running the following browser software Internet Explorer 7 or 8; Firefox 3.6 and above; or Safari 5.0 and above.


Background: 600 000 deaths worldwide are estimated to be directly or indirectly attributable to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Objectives: To determine: (1) the mortality rate; and (2) risk factors for death in children with severe RSV infection. Setting: 20-bed, regional, multidisciplinary, tertiary, paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) in a university-affiliated children's hospital. Methods: Cohort study of all children with severe RSV infection covering eight consecutive RSV seasons (1999–2007), using PICU admission as a marker of severity. Results: Of the 406 RSV-positive patients that were admitted to PICU: 98.5% required mechanical ventilation; 35 children died—median age 5.1 months (interquartile range (IQR) 2.4–13.6), length of PICU stay 16 days (IQR 8–31) and 371 survived—median age 2.5 months (IQR 1.2–9), length of PICU stay 5 days (IQR 4–9). The overall PICU RSV mortality was 8.6% with a standardised mortality ratio of 0.76. During the study period 2009 RSV-positive patients were admitted to the children's hospital, giving a hospital RSV mortality rate of 1.7%. Of the deaths, 18 were directly RSV related (RSV bronchiolitis-related mortality PICU 4.4% and hospital 0.9%) as the patients were still RSV positive when they died and 17 children died from non-pneumonitis causes after becoming RSV negative. All of the RSV deaths had pre-existing medical conditions — chromosomal abnormalities 29%, cardiac lesions 27%, neuromuscular 15%, chronic lung disease 12%, large airway abnormality 9%, and immunodeficiency 9%. Nineteen children (56%) had pre-existing disease in two or more organ systems (relative risk (RR) 4.38). Predisposing risk factors for death were pre-existing disease (RR 2.36), cardiac anomaly (RR 2.98) and nosocomial/hospital-acquired RSV infection (RR 2.89). There is an interaction effect between pre-existing disease, nosocomial/hospital-acquired RSV infection and mortality (p<0.001). Conclusions: Pre-existing disease/comorbidity, in particular multiple pre-existing diseases and cardiac anomaly, is associated with a significantly higher risk of death from severe RSV infection. Nosocomial/hospital-acquired RSV infection is an additional major risk factor for death in children with severe RSV infection.


Queen for a Day connects the logic of Venezuelan modernity with the production of a national femininity. In this ethnography, Marcia Ochoa considers how femininities are produced, performed, and consumed in the mass-media spectacles of international beauty pageants, on the runways of the Miss Venezuela contest, on the well-traveled Caracas avenue where transgender women ( transformistas ) project themselves into the urban imaginary, and on the bodies of both transformistas and beauty pageant contestants ( misses ). Placing transformistas and misses in the same analytic frame enables Ochoa to delve deeply into complex questions of media and spectacle, gender and sexuality, race and class, and self-fashioning and identity in Venezuela.

Beauty pageants play an outsized role in Venezuela. The country has won more international beauty contests than any other. The femininity performed by Venezuelan women in high-profile, widely viewed pageants defines a kind of national femininity. Ochoa argues that as transformistas and misses work to achieve the bodies, clothing and makeup styles, and postures and gestures of this national femininity, they come to embody Venezuelan modernity.


Now that many credentialing exams are being routinely administered by computer, new computer-based test designs, along with item response theory models, are being aggressively researched to identify specific designs that can increase the decision consistency and accuracy of pass–fail decisions. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of optimal and nonoptimal multistage test (MST) designs, linear parallel-form test designs (LPFT), and computer adaptive test (CAT) designs on the decision consistency and accuracy of pass–fail decisions. Realistic testing situations matching those of one of the large credentialing agencies were simulated to increase the generalizability of the findings. The conclusions were clear: (a) With the LPFTs, matching test information functions (TIFs) to the mean of the proficiency distribution produced slightly better results than matching them to the passing score; (b) all of the test designs worked better than test construction using random selection of items, subject to content constraints only; (c) CAT performed better than the other test designs; and (d) if matching a TIF to the passing score, the MST design produced a bit better results than the LPFT design. If an argument for the MST design is to be made, it can be made on the basis of slight improvements over the LPFT design and better expected item bank utilization, candidate preference, and the potential for improved diagnostic feedback, compared with the feedback that is possible with fixed linear test forms.


We propose a theoretical framework for doing speech recognition with segmental conditional random fields, and describe the impleme-nation of a toolkit for experimenting with these models. This framework allows users to easily incorporate multiple detector streams into a discriminatively trained direct model for large vocabulary continuous speech recognition. The detector streams can operate at multiple scales (frame, phone, multi-phone, syllable or word) and are combined at the word level in the CRF training and decoding processes. A key aspect of our approach is that features are defined at the word level, and can thus identify long span phenomena such as the edit distance between an observed and expected sequence of detection events. Further, a wide variety of features are automatically constructed from atomic detector streams, allowing the user to focus on the creation of informative detectors. Generalization to unseen words is possible through the use of decomposable consistency features [1, 2], and our framework allows for the joint or separate training of the acoustic and language models.


A simple mathematical model of thick‐section stainless steel cutting with a high power chemical oxygen–iodine laser (COIL) is presented and compared with experimental results obtained with a 10‐kilowatt COIL at the U.S. Air Force's Phillips Laboratory. This model uses a lumped‐parameter technique to relate the cutting kerf depth with various process parameters and can be used to predict scaled laser materials processing performance to very thick sections. The model is similar to an empirical model developed by researchers in Japan, but includes predictive capabilities for thick metal cutting at very low velocities. The effects of various process parameters such as laser power, spot size and dimensions, and processing speed in the cutting depth are discussed and demonstrated. Finally, the ramifications of this model on thick‐section processing of metals are presented, with emphasis on potential applications of COIL to high‐speed, thick stainless steel cutting.


This article provides an overview of the "trade and environment" interface in the WTO and proposes a new paradigm for making progress. The article reviews recent developments in WTO adjudication and negotiations and examines the institutional interplay of international trade and biosafety with particular reference to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. The article also points to several pro-environmental initiatives that could be taken by the WTO. Part I provides a brief review of the history of environment linkage in trade policy, beginning in 1923. Part II offers a general survey of WTO rules and policies with implications for the environment. Part III looks at the environmental components of the WTO's Doha Round negotiations. Part IV uses the example of biosafety to show why the traditional paradigm of the WTO as a trade-only agency needs to be replaced by a new paradigm.


Bungarus flaviceps (red-headed krait) venom presents an intravenous LD50 of 0.32 μg/g and exhibits enzymatic activities similar to other Bungarus toxins. ELISA cross-reactions between anti-Bungarus flaviceps and a variety of elapid and viperid venoms were observed in the current study. Double-sandwich ELISA was highly specific, since anti-B. flaviceps serum did not cross-react with any tested venom, indicating that this assay can be used for species diagnosis in B. flaviceps bites. In the indirect ELISA, anti-B. flaviceps serum cross-reacted moderately with three different Bungarus venoms (9-18%) and Notechis scutatus venom, but minimally with other elapid and viperid toxins. The results indicated that B. flaviceps venom shares common epitopes with other Bungarus species as well as with N. scutatus. The lethality of the B. flaviceps venom was neutralized effectively by antiserum prepared against B. candidus and B. flaviceps toxins and a commercial bivalent elapid antivenom prepared against B. multicinctus and Naja naja atra venoms, but was not neutralized by commercial antivenoms prepared against Thai cobra, king cobra and banded krait. These data also suggested that the major lethal toxins of B. flaviceps venom are similar to those found in B. multicinctus and B. candidus venoms.


ABSTRACT The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) Tat protein activates transcription elongation by stimulating the Tat-activated kinase (TAK/p-TEFb), a protein kinase composed of CDK9 and its cyclin partner, cyclin T1. CDK9 is able to hyperphosphorylate the carboxyl-terminal domain (CTD) of the large subunit of RNA polymerase during elongation. In addition to TAK, the transcription elongation factor Spt5 is required for the efficient activation of transcriptional elongation by Tat. To study the role of Spt5 in HIV transcription in more detail, we have developed a three-stage Tat-dependent transcription assay that permits the isolation of active preinitiation complexes, early-stage elongation complexes, and Tat-activated elongation complexes. Spt5 is recruited in the transcription complex shortly after initiation. After recruitment of Tat during elongation through the transactivation response element RNA, CDK9 is activated and induces hyperphosphorylation of Spt5 in parallel to the hyperphosphorylation of the CTD of RNA polymerase II. However, immunodepletion experiments demonstrate that Spt5 is not required for Tat-dependent activation of the kinase. Chase experiments using the Spt5-depleted extracts demonstrate that Spt5 is not required for early elongation. However, Spt5 plays an important role in late elongation by preventing the premature dissociation of RNA from the transcription complex at terminator sequences and reducing the amount of polymerase pausing at arrest sites, including bent DNA sequences. This novel biochemical function of Spt5 is analogous to the function of NusG, an elongation factor found in Escherichia coli that enhances RNA polymerase stability on templates and shows sequence similarity to Spt5.


Recently, for increasing smoothies shelf life, food industries used thermal processing, which has been shown in some studies to affect the sensorial and physic-chemical properties of these products. Color, flavor, texture and physico-chemical properties of food products have an important role in correlation with taste, sensory perception and consumer acceptance. These are critical quality attributes affecting the acceptability of fruits, fresh or processed, thus being of major concern in product design. The aim of this study is to observe the influence of chilling storage on color, pH and acidity of some products based on mixtures of pressed and squeezed fruits without adding preservatives or stabilizers. For this purpose, some mixtures of several pressed fruit like apples-pears, peaches-mango and sour cherry –bananas were purchased from a local market. These mixtures were stored in climate chamber at 5 0 C, the color, pH and acidity being analyzed throughout the 27 days chilling storage period. During chilling storage the lightness index, L, yellowness index, b and the redness index, a, were measured and it was observed color changes for all of fruit smoothie samples. pH and acidity values, showed that the fruit smoothie samples registered insignificant changes in this comparative study between the same samples after different chilling storage period.


The WHO/UNAIDS "Global summary of the AIDS epidemic" released in December 2009, estimates that 33 million of people are living with HIV, 2.7 million were newly infected and 2.0 million of people died of AIDS in the last year. After more than two decades of research an effective preventive or therapeutic vaccine against HIV remains elusive and immunological correlates of protection remain unknown.
T-cell mediated immunity is considered to play an important role in controlling HIV infection and progression to AIDS. Several candidate vaccines against HIV aiming to stimulate cellular immune responses are investigated in phase I to phase III clinical trials and assays enabling for a reliable, informative and sensitive measurement of CD4 and CD8 T-cell need to be implemented. Among the most promising vaccine candidates is recombinant modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA), a live viral vector system for the delivery of HIV-derived antigens. Several vaccination trials have made use of the modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) as delivery vector.
At present, the IFN-γ-based ELISPOT assay is considered as a gold standard and preferred primary assay in vaccine trials. However, despite its high sensitivity the measurement of the sole IFN-γ production provides limited information on the quality of the immune response. Polychromatic flow-cytometry-based assays as intracellular cytokine staining (ICS) offer the possibility to detect several markers on the same cell. Several findings from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies investigating different grades of HIV control highlight the importance of developing assays able to simultaneously measure several parameters on a single-cell level and strongly suggest the use of flow cytometry to monitor immune responses. In this work polychromatic flow-cytometry based assays were developed, optimized, and standardized for T-cell immunomonitoring purposes. In addition, these ICS based methods were compared with ELISPOT assays performed in two different experienced laboratories. The comparative study provided evidence that by the use of a special analysis system, the sensitivity of the ICS could be increased up to levels comparable to the sensitivity of the ELISPOT assay.
The established polychromatic ICS together with a polychromatic CFSE-based proliferation assay were applied to a re-evaluation study of a vaccination trial using recombinant MVA expressing HIV-1-Nef (MVA-nef) in HIV-1 infected HAART treated individuals. In this study, the impact of the immunologic intervention with MVA-nef on the specific anti-Nef T-cell immune response was investigated in regard to cytokine production (IFN-γ and IL-2), chemokine production (MIP-1β), activation and differentiation marker expression (CD154 and CD45RA, respectively) and proliferative potential. Vaccine-induced polyfunctionality and proliferative capacity, which were associated with nonprogressive HIV-1 infection in several studies, were detectable by combining the two immune assays. By means of short-term ICS, a significant increase of polyfunctional Nef-specific CD4 T cells expressing IFN-γ, IL-2 and CD154 was observed following vaccination, whereas changes in the quality of the CD8 T-cell response could not be observed. Only the additional use of a long-term polychromatic CFSE-based proliferation assay revealed vaccine-induced Nef-specific CD8 as well as CD4 T cells with proliferative capacity. The correlation between the vaccine-induced IL-2 production by CD4 T cells and the increase of proliferating Nef-specific CD8 T cells suggests a causal link between these two functions. The insight gathered in this reevaluation study exceeded by far the information obtained in the original work using a simple IFN-γ-based immune assay. These results highlight the importance of combining sophisticated immunomonitoring tools to unravel concealed effects of immunologic interventions and support the use of the poxvirus-derived MVA vector to stimulate effective HIV-specific T-cell responses. From a technical point of view, these findings are important to guide the choice for suitable immune assays able to characterize the phenotype and function of specific T-cells in a highly sensitive way.


Artistic Judgement sketches a framework for an account of art suitable to philosophical aesthetics. It stresses differences between artworks and other things; and locates the understanding of artworks both in a narrative of the history of art and in the institutional practices of the art world. Hence its distinctiveness lies in its strong account of the difference between, on the one hand, the judgement and appreciation of art and, on the other, the judgement and appreciation of all the other things in which we take an aesthetic interest. For only by acknowledging this contrast can one do justice to the importance regularly ascribed to art. The contrast is explained by appealing to an occasion-sensitive account of understanding, drawn from Charles Travis directly, but with Gordon Baker (and Wittgenstein) as also proximate rather than remote. On this basis, it argues, first, that we need to offer accounts of key topics only as far as questions might be raised in respect of them (hence, not exceptionlessly); and, second, that we should therefore defend the view that the meaning of artworks can be changed by later events (the historical character of art, or forward retroactivism) and that art has an institutional character, understood broadly on the lines of Terry Diffey's Republic of Art. Besides providing a general framework, Artistic Judgement also explores the applications of the ideas to specific artworks or classes of them.


Much offinancial regulation and supervision is devoted to ensuring the safety and soundness of financial institutions. Such microand macroprudential policies are almost always formulated as capital requirements, leverage constraints, and other statutory restrictions designed to limit the probability of extreme financial loss to some small but acceptable threshold. However, if the risks of a financial institution's assets vary over time and across circumstances, then the efficacy of financial regulations necessarily varies in lockstep unless the regulations are adaptive. We illustrate this principle with empirical examples drawn from thefinancial industry, and show how the interaction of certain regulations with dynamic loss probabilities can have the unintended consequence of amplifying financial losses. We propose an ambitious research agenda in which legal scholars and financial economists collaborate to develop optimally adaptive regulations that anticipate the endogeneity ofrisk-taking behavior.


This work addresses the problem of direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation, where true DOAs are not on the sampling grid when sparse signal recovery concept is adopted. To estimate DOAs exploring its sparse property, a basis is usually required. However, off-grid issue persists even when a large basis is constructed. To handle such an off-grid DOAs estimation problem, off-grid problem is remodelled such that it is represented by an offset matrix, which is a sparse matrix. A direct estimate of the offset matrix is developed to compensate the off-grid by utilizing the fact that the offset matrix is a sparse matrix. Through exploring the sparsity of the DOAs and the offset matrix, an approach that simultaneously recover the unknown DOA and offset matrix is presented to achieve final DOA estimation. Numerical studies are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.


On 12 November 2001, the European Incoherent Scatter (EISCAT) high-frequency (HF) radio wave transmitter facility, operating in O-mode at 5.423 MHz with 550 MW effective radiated power, produced artificial optical rings which appeared immediately at transmitter turn-on and collapsed into blobs after ∼60 s while descending in altitude. A similar descent in altitude was observed in the EISCAT ultra high frequency (UHF) ion line enhancements. Likewise, the stimulated electromagnetic emission (SEE) spectra changed as the pump frequency approached the fourth electron gyroharmonic due to pump-induced variations in electron concentration. Optical recordings were made from Skibotn at 630.0 and 557.7 nm and from Ramfjord in white light. The altitude of the initial optical ring and steady state blob has been estimated by triangulation. The evolution in altitude of the optical emissions, ion line enhancements, and SEE spectra all show a similar morphology but are generally not at exactly the same height. Typically, the optical height is close to and a few kilometers below that of the radar backscatter but sometimes above it, both of which are above the SEE generation altitude. There is evidence that upper hybrid (UH) waves, which propagate perpendicular to the magnetic field line, and Langmuir (L) waves, which propagate parallel to the magnetic field line, act simultaneously to accelerate electrons even in the steady state.


We present KERMIT, a simple insertion-based approach to generative modeling for sequences and sequence pairs. KERMIT models the joint distribution and its decompositions (i.e., marginals and conditionals) using a single neural network and, unlike much prior work, does not rely on a prespecified factorization of the data distribution. During training, one can feed KERMIT paired data $(x, y)$ to learn the joint distribution $p(x, y)$, and optionally mix in unpaired data $x$ or $y$ to refine the marginals $p(x)$ or $p(y)$. During inference, we have access to the conditionals $p(x \mid y)$ and $p(y \mid x)$ in both directions. We can also sample from the joint distribution or the marginals. The model supports both serial fully autoregressive decoding and parallel partially autoregressive decoding, with the latter exhibiting an empirically logarithmic runtime. We demonstrate through experiments in machine translation, representation learning, and zero-shot cloze question answering that our unified approach is capable of matching or exceeding the performance of dedicated state-of-the-art systems across a wide range of tasks without the need for problem-specific architectural adaptation.


In this report, work carried out for the bridges division of the transport and Road Research Laboratory (TRRL) into the feasibility of detecting and mapping internal cracks within concrete structures caused by the alkali-silica reaction (asr) is described. A literature search was carried out and several techniques identified, and briefly described in this report. Three methods: ultrasonic technique, impulse radar technique and computerised tomography appeared to fulfil the criteria for the technique, which were: (1) the ability to detect and map cracks within concrete members and give their positions and orientations relative to the member's surface; (2) to discriminate between cracks, reinforcement irrespective of other embedded materials; and (3) be a non destructive technique. The ultrasonic technique was assessed using a commercial ultrasonic tester, wide and deep cracks could be defined, but ambiguous results were obtained for cracks whose depth gradually increased. The impulse radar technique, a medium cost solution, had operation advantages in rapid survey time, but would require modification to achieve higher resolution and hence determination of the crack dimensions. The radar showed a capability of imaging internal reinforcing. Computerised tomography, the slowest and most expensive technique met nearly all the technical requirements, and was shown to have high potential for imaging very small cracks, even when close together and near steel reinforcement.


A fast mutual information (MI) based stereo matching method is proposed that estimates the optimal intensity transfer function in a Bayesian framework. Previous MI-based stereo matching methods require several iterations, where each iteration includes both data cost computation and global energy optimisation such as dynamic programming and graph-cuts. These computations are redundant and time-consuming. In this Letter, a fast two-step MI-based stereo matching method by combining local feature correspondences and global statistics constraints is proposed. Experimental results show that the method is fast, yet generates results comparable with the original MI-based method.


STUDY QUESTION
CAN WE assess human prenatal cerebellar growth from the first until the third trimester of pregnancy and create growth trajectories to investigate associations with periconceptional maternal and fetal characteristics?

SUMMARY ANSWER
Prenatal growth trajectories of the human cerebellum between 9 and 32 weeks gestational age (GA) were created using three-dimensional ultrasound (3D-US) and show negative associations with pre-pregnancy and early first trimester BMI calculated from self-reported and standardized measured weight and height, respectively.

WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY
The cerebellum is essential for normal neurodevelopment and abnormal cerebellar development has been associated with neurodevelopmental impairments and psychiatric diseases. Cerebellar development is particularly susceptible to exposures during the prenatal period, including maternal folate status, smoking habit and alcohol consumption.

STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION
From 2013 until 2015, we included 182 singleton pregnancies during the first trimester as a subgroup in a prospective periconception cohort with follow-up until birth. For the statistical analyses, we selected 166 pregnancies ending in live born infants without congenital malformations.

PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS
We measured transcerebellar diameter (TCD) at 9, 11, 22, 26 and 32 weeks GA on ultrasound scans. Growth rates were calculated and growth trajectories of the cerebellum were created. Linear mixed models were used to estimate associations between cerebellar growth and maternal age, parity, mode of conception, geographic origin, pre-pregnancy and first trimester BMI, periconceptional smoking, alcohol consumption, timing of folic acid supplement initiation and fetal gender.

MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE
In total, 166 pregnancies provided 652 (87%) ultrasound images eligible for TCD measurements. Cerebellar growth rates increased with advancing GA being 0.1691 mm/day in the first trimester, 0.2336 mm/day in the second trimester and 0.2702 mm/day in the third trimester. Pre-pregnancy BMI, calculated from self-reported body weight and height, was significantly associated with decreased cerebellar growth trajectories (β = -0.0331 mm, 95% CI = -0.0638; -0.0024, P = 0.035). A similar association was found between cerebellar growth trajectories and first trimester BMI, calculated from standardized measurements of body weight and height (β = -0.0325, 95% CI = -0.0642; -0.0008, P = 0.045, respectively).

LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION
As the study population largely consisted of tertiary hospital patients, external validity should be studied in the general population. Whether small differences in prenatal cerebellar growth due to a higher pre-pregnancy and first trimester BMI have consequences for neurodevelopmental outcome needs further investigation.

WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS
Our findings further substantiate previous evidence for the detrimental impact of a higher maternal BMI on neurodevelopmental health of offspring in later life.

STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S)
This study was funded by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Erasmus MC University Medical Centre and Sophia Children's Hospital Fund, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (SSWO grant number 644). No competing interests are declared.


We present and compare two different approaches for performing rapid 3D geological modeling. The ad-hoc approach is based on a composition of many specialized modeling functions, while the generic approach provides one powerful, generic modeling function. Our experiences after developing these two approaches are that the solution space of 3D geological modeling is more extensive than we initially expected and most likely larger than for other modeling domains such as architecture. Further, more research is needed to investigate whether it is possible to find one well defined toolset of sketching metaphors that is able to cover all of geological modeling.


Cloud computing is an emerging commercial infrastructure paradigm that promises to eliminate the need for maintaining expensive computing facilities by companies and institutes alike. Through the use of virtualization and resource time sharing, clouds serve with a single set of physical resources a large user base with different needs. Thus, clouds have the potential to provide to their owners the benefits of an economy of scale and, at the same time, become an alternative for scientists to clusters, grids, and parallel production environments. However, the current commercial clouds have been built to support web and small database workloads, which are very different from typical scientific computing workloads. Moreover, the use of virtualization and resource time sharing may introduce significant performance penalties for the demanding scientific computing workloads. In this work, we analyze the performance of cloud computing services for scientific computing workloads. We quantify the presence in real scientific computing workloads of Many-Task Computing (MTC) users, that is, of users who employ loosely coupled applications comprising many tasks to achieve their scientific goals. Then, we perform an empirical evaluation of the performance of four commercial cloud computing services including Amazon EC2, which is currently the largest commercial cloud. Last, we compare through trace-based simulation the performance characteristics and cost models of clouds and other scientific computing platforms, for general and MTC-based scientific computing workloads. Our results indicate that the current clouds need an order of magnitude in performance improvement to be useful to the scientific community, and show which improvements should be considered first to address this discrepancy between offer and demand.


The Moebius group, i.e., the set of all transformations of the form w = (az -f b)fccz + d), a,b, c and d complex numbers such that ad — be Φ 0, and its connected subgroups have been extensively studied. Its one-parameter subgroups are easily determined; the subgroup generated by a pair of such one-para-meter subgroups or by their infinitesimal transformations will be defined in the usual manner. It is found that all except one, to within an inner automorphism, of the connected subgroups of the Moebius group can be generated by an appropriate pair of infinitesimal transformations. Further it is shown that the necessary and sufficient condition that a pair of infinitesimal transformations generate the entire Moebius group is that there is no Hermitian form that is left invariant by both of them. Simple criteria are given to determine whether a given pair of infinitesimal generators satisfy this condition.


We analyse the effect of substituting a weekly mathematics lesson in primary school grades 1–3 with a lesson in mathematics based on chess instruction. We use data from the City of Aarhus in Denmark, combining test score data with a comprehensive data set obtained from administrative registers. We use two different methodological approaches to identify and estimate treatment effects and we tend to find positive effects, indicating that knowledge acquired through chess play can be transferred to the domain of mathematics. We also find larger impacts for unhappy children and children who are bored in school, perhaps because chess instruction facilitates learning by providing an alternative approach to mathematics for these children. The results are encouraging and suggest that chess may be an important and effective tool for improving mathematical capacity in young students.


Permafrost soils and arctic wetlands methane emissions represent an important challenge for modeling the future climate. Here we present a process‐based model designed to correctly represent the main thermal, hydrological, and biogeochemical processes related to these emissions for general land surface modeling. We propose a new multilayer soil carbon and gas module within the Interaction Soil‐Biosphere‐Atmosphere (ISBA) land‐surface model (LSM). This module represents carbon pools, vertical carbon dynamics, and both oxic and anoxic organic matter decomposition. It also represents the soil gas processes for CH4, CO2, and O2 through the soil column. We base CH4 production and oxydation on an O2 control instead of the classical water table level strata approach used in state‐of‐the‐art soil CH4 models. We propose a new parametrization of CH4 oxydation using recent field experiments and use an explicit O2 limitation for soil carbon decomposition. Soil gas transport is computed explicitly, using a revisited formulation of plant‐mediated transport, a new representation of gas bulk diffusivity in porous media closer to experimental observations, and an innovative advection term for ebullition. We evaluate this advanced model on three climatically distinct sites : two in Greenland (Nuuk and Zackenberg) and one in Siberia (Chokurdakh). The model realistically reproduces methane and carbon dioxide emissions from both permafrosted and nonpermafrosted sites. The evolution and vertical characteristics of the underground processes leading to these fluxes are consistent with current knowledge. Results also show that physics is the main driver of methane fluxes, and the main source of variability appears to be the water table depth.


In this paper we look at school choice in primary schools in Germany. The data used is from Wuppertal, a major city in North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW), where school districts were abolished in 2008 to allow for free school choice. Here we look at the situation before 2008 to learn more about choice in the presence of school districts. Our analysis shows that it is not uncommon to visit a primary school that is not the assigned public school. Moreover, parents choose schools taking into account the distance to school, the quality and the socioeconomic composition of the school. Families from disadvantaged neighborhoods tend to send their children to the assigned school. A high percentage of migrants and/or economically disadvantaged families in the school district, however, induces parents to choose another school. Advantaged families make segregating choices, whereas the results for disadvantaged are not clear cut. The negative external effect of choice on the composition of the not chosen school is significant and the level of segregation in the primary schools is high and exceeds the level of residential segregation.


: This study investigates the effect of grandparental care on children's locus of control (LOC), which is an important non-cognitive skill that affects children's future development. We use data from the China Family Panel Studies, which is a nationally representative survey, and employ instrumental variables to address the endogeneity of family childcare choice. We find that children in the care of their grandparents have more external LOC than children in the care of their parents do; that is, they are more likely to attribute individual success to external factors, such as luck, fate, and family background. This finding is robust to different measures of grandparental care and different model specifications. We further examine the potential mechanisms underlying this effect. Grandparents have more external LOC than parents do, which can affect children's LOC through intergenerational transmission of LOC. Their parenting attitudes and styles are also different from parents' in that grandparents take less responsibility for children's academic performance than parents do and are less strict with children. In addition, grandparental care induces adverse effects on children's family environment.


This research was carried out to evaluate the impact of the adoption and implementation of the emerging concept of sustainable remediation to the practice of remediation in Nigeria. The study strategy was by desktop site risk assessment, conceptual site modelling, remediation options appraisal and sustainability assessment of a simulated petroleum-contaminated site (AIREGIN) in the Niger Delta of Nigeria coupled with stakeholder engagement. The literature available on the environmental and industrial geography of the Niger Delta was drawn upon in the creation of the simulated site for the assessment. Questionnaires were used to identify readily available remediation options for the treatment of petroleum-contaminated soil in Nigeria. The questionnaire, which was sent to thirty (30) respondents (ten (10) each from operators, regulators and contractors) identified eight remediation options (Monitored Natural Attenuation, Enhanced In-situ Bioremediation, Bio-piles, Composting, Land farming, Incineration, Thermal desorption and Excavation, retrieval and offsite disposal) as widely used in Nigeria and six (6) options (Bioventing, Phytoremediation, Soil flushing, Soil Vapour Extraction (SVE), Chemical Reduction and Oxidation and Soil washing) as easily importable into Nigeria. Remediation options appraisal carried out identified seven (7) options (Enhanced In-situ Bioremediation, Bio-piles, Composting, Landfarming, Incineration, Thermal Desorption and Bio-venting) as feasible for the site. This reflects the general practice in Nigeria, as most remediation projects are mostly biological and thermal treatments. Face to face and telephone interviews conducted with ten practitioners revealed a lack of knowledge, the existing legal framework, funding and incessant site re-contamination as major setbacks to the adoption of risk based land management in general and sustainable remediation in particular. The sustainability assessment and sensitivity analysis resulted in identifying Enhanced In-situ Bioremediation as the most sustainable remediation option for the AIREGIN site. The research identified as critical limitations to the implementation of sustainable remediation the lack of regulatory framework, lack of awareness and expertise, ambiguous target and intervention values leading to lack of consensus on remedial objectives, poor implementation of the existing risk assessment and options appraisal methods, lack of transparency and commitment in the implementation of existing regulatory regime and general lack of literature on sustainable remediation in Nigeria. The research has shown that existing legislation and guidelines in contaminated land management need to be revised to include sustainability assessment, the harmonization of the target and intervention values using scientific means to determine background values, extensive training and education of regulators; and the clear definition of the involvement and strategy of engagement of local communities in the remediation process by the Nigerian regulators. The impact of the adoption and implementation of sustainable development in Nigeria were viewed from legal, economic, social and environmental dimensions. It has been concluded that sustainable remediation brings to bear a structured and transparent means of deciding how to remediate contaminated lands and is implementable in Nigeria if the recommendations of this research are taken into consideration.


The need for efficient organization of files grows with the computer storage capabilities. However, a classical hierarchical file system offers little help in this matter, excepting maybe the case of links and shortcuts. OrcFS proposes a solution to this problem. By redefining several file system concepts, it allows the user to set custom metadata, in the form of '(property,value)' pairs, to express relationships between files. Using it, the system automatically creates a classified view of its components, in which those having similar characteristics are grouped together. A virtual hierarchy is generated, which provides multiple access paths to the same file. This assures that the data can be classified in a more flexible way and the navigation can be done more intuitively. The traditional concept of directory is extended, to accommodate the user-defined properties. In OrcFS, both classical navigation and query interrogation are possible. The enhanced system is compliant with the Linux's VFS interface, thus no changes need to be made to existing applications and they may be used in OrcFS. A prototype of the project was implemented in user-space using the FUSE library to reimplement system calls. The performed tests proved that even if introducing new data in the OrcFS implies some overhead, this is negligible compared with the gain obtained when searching for files in an immense file tree structure.


Introduction Abstract The present investigation was focused to formulate semi-solid capsules (SSCs) of hydrophobic drug telmisartan (TLMS) by encapsulating semi-solid matrix of its solid dispersion (SD) in HPMC capsules. The combinational approach was used to reduce the lag time in drug release and improvise its dissolution. SDs of TLMS was prepared using hot fusion method by varying the combinations of Pluronic-F68, Gelucire 50/13 and Plasdone S630. A total of nine batches (SD1-SD9) were characterized for micromeritic properties, in vitro dissolution behavior and surface characterization. SD4 with 52.43% cumulative drug release (CDR) in phosphate buffer, pH 7.4, in 120 min, t50% 44.2 min and DE30min 96.76% was selected for the development of semi-solid capsules. Differential scanning calorimetry of SD4 revealed molecular dispersion of TLMS in Pluronic-F68. SD4 was formulated into SSCs using Gelucire 44/14 and PEG 400 as semi-solid components and PEG 6000 as a suspending agent to achieve reduction in lag time for effective drug dissolution. SSC6 showed maximum in vitro drug dissolution 97.49 % in phosphate buffer, pH 7.4 with in 20 min that was almost a three folds reduction in the time required to achieve similar dissolution by SD. Thus, SSCs present an excellent approach to enhance in vitro dissolution as well as to reduce the lag time of dissolution for poorly water soluble drugs especially to those therapeutic classes that are intended for faster onset of action. Developed approach based on HPMC capsules provided a better alternative to target delivery of telmisartan to the vegetarian population.


The purpose of this chapter is to introduce a new research field within experimental jurisprudence — which we refer to as experimental longtermist jurisprudence — aimed at informing legal-philosophical, doctrinal, and policy debates relating to the long-term future, and in particular the interests of future generations. Historically, the interests of future generations have been neglected by legal systems, which fail to grant them democratic representation in the legislature, standing to bring forth a lawsuit in the judiciary, and serious consideration in cost-benefit analyses in the executive. Recently, this neglect has increasingly been called into question based on normative philosophical arguments relating to the value of future generations; empirical evidence relating to the severity of the risks faced by future generations relative to those faced by previous generations; and legal reforms attempting to codify the interests of future generations via constitutional provisions. Experimental longtermist jurisprudence uses methods from experimental psychology to help identify the source of this disconnect, and in turn to help determine the appropriate level and form of legal protection for future generations. In this chapter we (a) provide an overview of the substantive and methodological underpinnings of experimental longtermist jurisprudence; (b) introduce three research programs within experimental longtermist jurisprudence; and (c) discuss the normative implications of each of these three research programs


Despite the explosion of research on goal pursuit, relatively little is known about the shaping of goal progress by the simple experiences that characterize everyday life. Two literatures furnish competing predictions about the relationship between pleasant daily experiences (simple pleasures), unpleasant daily experiences (small annoyances), and day-to-day goal progress. A 6-day experience-sampling study revealed support for the favored integrative account. On a given day, a relatively high number of simple pleasures offset the negative relationship between the number of small annoyances and goal progress through a restoration of daily happiness rather than a reduction of daily stress. This study highlights the bright side of pleasurable experiences, indicating that goal progress can flourish in a life punctuated with frequent simple pleasures because they help offset daily irritations. As natural precursors to positive and negative affect, simple pleasures and small annoyances could be powerful predictors of important consumer outcomes.


INTRODUCTION
Known as the "great mimic," pheochromocytoma is rare and difficult to diagnose. When a pheochromocytoma begins to cause end-organ damage, it becomes pheochromocytoma multisystem crisis, an even more rare and deadly diagnosis.

CLINICAL FINDINGS
N.R., a 63-year old man, presented to the emergency department 1 day after receiving a cortisone injection for a nondisplaced wrist fracture. His chief concern was a "racing heart and chest pressure." N.R. was admitted to the telemetry unit after routine electrocardiography showed atrial fibrillation and elevated blood pressure. Symptoms quickly progressed, and N.R. was transferred to the intensive care unit where he received noninvasive positive pressure ventilation.

DIAGNOSIS
A computed tomography scan revealed a 7-cm right intra-adrenal mass, and an echocardiogram showed a markedly reduced ejection fraction. N.R. received a preliminary diagnosis of pheochromocytoma multisystem crisis, although confirmatory laboratory test results were pending. N.R. became progressively more hemodynamically unstable and his respiratory status worsened, and by the end of hospital day 2 he had been intubated and was receiving multiple vasoactive medications intravenously. On hospital day 7, N.R. was transferred to a facility for definitive surgical intervention.

CONCLUSION
This case represents the importance of timely interventions by nursing staff, clear communication between staff on different shifts, and real-time education by physicians to nursing staff. This collaborative milieu empowered nurses to use their experience and critical thinking to make clinical decisions in providing care.


INTRODUCTION Extensive collections of frogs from Queensland (reported in detail, Straughan, 1966) failed to include the species Cyclorana inermis (Peters), although Slevin (1955) recorded it as abundant in central Queensland. However a widely ranging species of ground Hyla (undescribed in that genus) occurred frequently in collections from central and northern Queensland. In all external features this species fitted the description of Cyclorana inermis given by Parker (1940: 17). In the present paper Peters' syntype of C. inermis (reg. no. RMNH 1888) in the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, Leiden, is examined, and compared with the apparently new species of Hyla. MATERIAL AND METHODS X-ray plates of the feet of the syntype were provided by the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historic X-rays of five specimens of Hyla sp. were made by the X-ray section of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy, University of Queensland. A further ten specimens were cleared and stained with Toluidine Blue and Alizarin Red S. to distinguish bone from cartilage. All measurements were made with vernier calipers to the nearest 0.1 mm or with an eyepiece micrometer to the nearest 0.01 mm. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Examination of the digits of the syntype of Cyclorana inermis by X-ray (plate 1) established the presence of intercalary cartilages and claw shaped terminal phalanges which are characters diagnostic of the family Hylidae in the Procoelous Anura. The osteology of the feet of the syntype is exactly the same as in all 15 specimens of Hyla sp. examined. In all other characters


The Oregon State University Agricultural Communications faculty prepares a monthly newsletter with information about communication methods and materials. In 1987 it evaluated the newsletter to determine effectiveness as a way to teach Extension workers to be better communicators. Following random selection procedures, a written questionnaire was sent to every third person who receives the newsletter. Statistically, the reponse was 100%. The one person who did not respond was no longer on the staff. Ninety percent of the respondents replied that the newsletter is useful and the length of the articles about right. Forty-nine percent use the annual index to look up previous articles. Respondents made suggestions, which the writers have followed, such as punching the newsletter for three-ring binders and printing on white rather than on colored paper. Respondents also suggested topics for future articles, upon which the writers are acting. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License. This research is available in Journal of Applied Communications: http://newprairiepress.org/jac/vol71/iss2/4 CommunicAids Aids Communication: Newsletter Teaches Oregon Extension Workers to Be Better Communicators


MEMS Vibratory Gyroscopes provides a solid foundation in the theory and fundamental operational principles of micromachined vibratory rate gyroscopes, and introduces structural designs that provide inherent robustness against structural and environmental variations. In the first part, the dynamics of the vibratory gyroscope sensing element is developed, common micro-fabrication processes and methods commonly used in inertial sensor production are summarized, design of mechanical structures for both linear and torsional gyroscopes are presented, and electrical actuation and detection methods are discussed along with details on experimental characterization of MEMS gyroscopes. In the second part, design concepts that improve robustness of the micromachined sensing element are introduced, supported by constructive computational examples and experimental results illustrating the material.


This research paper presents various methodologies developed in a STEP based Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP) system named "Finish Machining – CAPP" (FM-CAPP). It is developed to generate automatic process plans for finish machining prismatic parts. It is designed in a modular fashion consisting of three main modules, namely (i) Feature Recognition module (FRM) (ii) Machining Planning Module (MPM) and (iii) Setup Planning Module (SPM). The FRM Module analyses the geometrical and topological information of the inputted part in STEP AP 203/AP214 formats, and generates a text file with full dimensional details of features and machinable volumes. It is then passed on to the MPM for the selection of best suited machining process. Here, the selection is based on a 7 stage elimination strategy considering major manufacturing factors. After machining planning, the task of selecting the best suited setup is implemented in the SPM module. When these tasks are completed, the system generates the process-planning sheet containing the details of feature, finish cut machinable volume, machining processes with the cutting tool/ media, process parameters and the setup required for machining.


Mononuclear acyclic cobalt(II) complex [CoL](NO3)2, with the L = 3,3ʹ-dimethoxy-2,2ʹ-(propane-1,3-diyldioxy)dibenzaldehyde was synthesized and used as a precursor for preparation of the Co3O4 nanoparticles. The method was based on thermal decomposition of the cobalt(II) complex at 450 oC for 3 h in air atmosphere. The cobalt oxide nanoparticles were characterized using FT-IR, UV-Vis, XRD, SEM, and TEM techniques. The FT-IR and XRD results revealed that the Co3O4 nanopartcles were pure cubic and single phase. TEM image proved the formation of weakly agglomerated Co3O4 consisted of uniformaly shaped nanoparticles. The average particle size of the obtained Co3O4, derived from transmission electron microscopy data was approximately 17 nm, which is in agreement with that calculated by XRD. In addition, the optical spectrum indicated one direct band gap at 2.3 eV.