This study was conducted to explore some antecedents and the consequences of corporate entrepreneurship which is an important factor of successful organizations in a structural equation model. For this purpose, a field study was executed on 411 managers who work in different firms which are members of Istanbul Chamber of Industry Organization. The structural equation modeling was used for analyzing the data. Results showed that the antecedents of corporate entrepreneurship those environment, organizational size and structure had significant effects on corporate entrepreneurship behaviors. In addition to this, it was found that corporate entrepreneurship behaviors had significant effects on perceptual organizational performance. Thus, with the help of correlations between the variables, the equation model was generally supported. With the examination of all results, it was found that it is possible to form a model in which the corporate entrepreneurship behaviors are in the center; environment, organizational size and structure are the antecedents and organizational performance is the consequence of Corporate Entrepreneurship. All these results were discussed in the light of the findings in the literature.


Change of paradigm governance of area which initialy sentralistis in a period of new order, going
to paradigm which is desentralistis and democratic in a period to reform, in its execution in local
storey level is not easy and oftentimes peep out some problem of which on the verge of have
never in anticipating previously. Consequence in applying of autonomous UU of the area bear
remarkable problem complexity in a number of area. The mentioned earn in seeing from
appearance various local political dynamics that happened in various area. One of the problem
which emerge is the hoisterous of discourse dissociation of area that happened either in level of
Province and also in level Sub-Province/town.
From some discourse dissociation of existing area, discourse of dissociation that happened in
Province central Kalimantan become one interesting problem to be studied. Some Sub-Province
in central Kalimantan of agreement to cut loose from central Kalimantan and form new Province
and namely Province is Province Kotawaringin. As for the Sub-Province is West Kotawaringin,
East Kotawaringin, Lamandau, Seruyan, and Sukamara.
Area dissociation is dissociation of Province or Sub-Province/town become two area or more.
Dissociation represent forming of otonomous area newly. On that account, forming of
otonomous area newly can mean also extension to power locus in area. In order to forming of
Province Kotawaringin, Body Worker of Forming of Province Kotawaringin (BP3K) as place of
to accomodate and facility all kinds of business and activity related to forming of Province
Kotawaringin. This Research is focussed by at preparation of BP3K in forming of Province
Kotawaringin. As for this research indicator aim to for just to descriptions where of which is
discourse appearance background forming of Province Kotawaringin and how far preparation of
BP3K in forming of Province Kotawaringin. This Research use type research of deskriptif with
approach qualitative. As for data collecting technique the used is interview method, observation,
and documentation.
Pursuant to research which have been conducted, there are some factor which is discourse
appearance background forming of Province Kotawaringin. As for the factor is: (a) There is no
him dissociation of Province in Island of Kalimantan. (b) Wide of region of central Kalimantan namely 153.564 Km2 or 1,5 times wide of Java. (c) Dynamics development of area in slowgoing
central Kalimantan enough, because availibility of less adequate infrastructure. (d) Apart capital
of regency to capital of Province too far, so that result development walk slowgoingly, service
become less maximal and is not effective and also difficult observation and operation. (e) the
Condition of interregional link in central Kalimantan is not adequate. (f) Do not its development
between region of central Kalimantan of south and upstate make jelaousy among some Sub-
Province exist in central Kalimantan. (g) 5 Sub-Province candidate of Province Kotawaringin
represent biggest contributor of APBD central Kalimantan namely 50%. (h) Desire reunite
Sultanate area exist in central Kalimantan.
While preparation of forming of Province Kotawaringin which have been conducted by BP3K is
to net aspiration most local society in the form of Decision of BPD for the Countryside of and
Forum Communications Sub-District or other name for Sub-District in region becoming regional
coverage candidate of Province or Sub-Province/town to be dissociated and collect Decree (SK)
DPRD Sub-Province/town pursuant to aspiration most local society.
See result of conducted research, conclusion of which can taken by is to forming of Province
Kotawaringin become a requirement which must is immediately fulfilled to remember mass
immeasurable which have been mentioned by above making the reason of strong to immediately
forming of a new Province. More than anything else discourse forming of Province
Kotawaringin is aspiration purification from most society of Kotawaringin wanting the existence
of change of chance to progress of development in central Kalimantan. Considering forming a
new area is not easy case because needing matured consideration and eat expense and time
which many. On that account, solidarity require to and spirit of hard work of BP3K to realize to
be formed of Province Kotawaringin. " NKRI Dead Price, Province Kotawaringin Set Price ".


The idea of the soul, though once common in discussions of human nature, is rarely considered in contemporary philosophy. This reflects a general physicalist turn; but besides commitment to various forms of materialism there is the objection that the very idea of the soul is incoherent. The notion of soul considered here is a broadly Aristotelian-Thomistic one according to which it is both the form of a living human being and something subsistent on its own account. Having discussed the conceptual issues of how the soul may be conceived of, and set aside certain neo-Cartesian lines of response to materialism, an argument to the existence of a non-material principle is presented. Certain implications are then explored leading to the conclusion that it is possible for the intellectual soul to survive the death of the body.


Since pre-Incan times, native Andean people had worshipped their ancestors, and the custom continued even after the arrival of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. Ancestor-worship however, did not exclude members of other cultures: in fact, the Andeans welcomed outsiders as ancestors. Invaders as Ancestors examines how this unique cultural practice first facilitated Spanish colonization and eventually undid the colonial project when the Spanish attacked ancestor worship as idolatry and Andeans adopted Spanish political and religious forms to challenge indigenous rulers. In this work, Peter Gose demonstrates the ways in which Andeans converted conquest confrontations into relations of kinship and obligation and then worshipped Christianized and racially .white. spirits after the Spaniards invaded, though the conquering Spaniards prevented actual kinship bonds with the Andeans by adhering to strict rules of racial separation. Invaders as Ancestors explores an alternative response to colonization beyond the predictable resistance narrative, presenting instead a creative form of transculturation under the agency of the Andeans. Invaders as Ancestors is a fascinating account of one of the most unusual transcultural encounters in the history of colonialism.


Housing is more than just basic shelter - it can be a valuable monetary asset, both to households and nations. This book draws on research by experts at the Inter-American Development Bank and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to examine the economic, social and legal dimensions of housing markets in Latin America. Using lessons learned from the region, the book shows how a developing country can move its housing sector to function more efficiently as a market, with more available financing and a greater role for private developers. An assessment tool is presented to help researchers analyze the effect on national housing markets of economic and demographic variables, tax structures, risk management and other factors.


The province of Zeeland is situated in the coastal zone of the Netherlands. The ground surface level is around or below mean sea level. Therefore seepage of brackish to saline groundwater is very common. Sea level rise as a result of climate change will very likely increase the pressure on the coastal groundwater system, leading to an increased salinization of the groundwater and surface water system. Still, freshwater agriculture is being practiced in large parts of the province. The vegetation extracts its fresh water from the unsaturated zone and thin rainwater lenses that 'float' on top of brackish and saline groundwater. Geophysical and hydrogeological data have been com-bined on two spatial scales to obtain a better insight into this fresh-brackish-saline groundwater distribution. This information is being used to: assess groundwater abstractions, plan landuse and improve the input of variable-density groundwater flow and coupled solute transport models. For over 6000 locations various types of data have been used to estimate the depth of the brackish-saline groundwater interface of 1000 mg [Cl -]/L. These types of data are both of geophysi-cal (vertical electrical soundings, EM34, geoelectrical well logs and electrical cone penetration tests) and of hydrological origin (water samples and abstraction wells). These data have been inter-preted and combined with knowledge on the distribution of geological units to make an estimation of the depth of the brackish-saline water transition for the whole province (~66 km × 63 km). In addition to the regional brackish-saline interface map, continuous vertical electrical soundings (CVES) have been executed to map the fresh-brackish-saline distribution on a local scale. The CVES profiles were made at eight different plots where brackish-saline water is occurring at shal-low depths (<5 m below the surface) according to the regional map and where freshwater agriculture is still being practised. Six of the eight sites have thin (0–3 m) brackish to slightly saline water lenses. At two sites up to 15 m thick brackish water lenses have been observed with CVES. The thickness of the brackish water lenses varies laterally over short distances. Sandy sediment and a higher topography are favourable factors for the development of such lenses.


In order to predict the occurrence of water repellency, which is a labile property, from field survey data obtained throughout the year, it is necessary to identify predictive relationships between water repellency and commonly measured soil properties. This paper evaluates these relationships for diverse soil assemblages. These soil assemblages include a set of reference soils from the south-west of Western Australia (an area of 250 000 km2), more intensively sampled suites of soils in several smaller soil{landscape associations within the south-west of Western Australia (≅1000 km2), soils from single farms (1-10 km2) and transects (≅0·001 km2), and single soil profiles (≅m2). The severity of water repellency was assessed by measuring water drop penetration time in seconds (WDPT) and was related to intrinsic properties of soils using log-transformed data. For the set of soils from the West Midland Sandplain the type of land use was also considered as a variable. There is a general tendency for WDPT to increase as organic matter content increases and decrease as the content of fine mineral material increases (clay, silt, very fine sand). However, there is no single soil property that is able to predict WDPT adequately. Furthermore, reliability of prediction decreases as the area of sampling increases. There appear to be no systematic differences in the capacity of organic matter from pasture or crop to induce water repellency, but increments of organic matter under bush increase water repellency at a greater rate than does organic matter from crop or pasture.


Presently lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6) is the dominant Li-salt used in commercial rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) based on a graphite anode and a 3-4 V cathode material. While LiPF6 is not the ideal Li-salt for every important electrolyte property, it has a uniquely suitable combination of properties (temperature range, passivation, conductivity, etc.) rendering it the overall best Li-salt for LIBs. However, this may not necessarily be true for other types of Li-based batteries. Indeed, next generation batteries, for example lithium-metal (Li-metal), lithium-oxygen (Li-O2), and lithium-sulfur (Li-S), require a re-evaluation of Li-salts due to the different electrochemical and chemical reactions and conditions within such cells. This review explores the critical role Li-salts play in ensuring in these batteries viability.


Utilization of biological fertilizer such as; Rhizobakteri as the air nitrogen resistance used for increase availability element of N and P in the ground that represents correct alternative. The ability of Rhizobakteri as bacteria types of nitrogen resistance and increasing absorption P separately has many tested. Some research result about Rhizobakteri shows that amount of N was tied from the air through symbiosis was 40 to 70% from all N needed to the growth of soybean (Yutono, 1985). This research used Rhizobakteri as biological and organic fertilizer to increase availability and absorption N and P and also variety of soybean plant.
The objective of this research is to learn and role the treatment influence of organic fertilizer and biological fertilizer combination (Rhizobakteri) to the growth of plant and result of soybean of Seulawah variety.
The research was conducted in the Laboratory Garden of Agronomy Muhammadiyah University of Malang, whereas research time during in Mei 2008 until finish. The research used Group Random Design factorial consists of two factors with three times repetition. The first factor was organic fertilizer and the second factor was biological fertilizer combination type Rhizobakteri. The first factor including organic fertilizer (P) with three levels that were P1 = fertilizer of chicken house, P2 = fertilizer of goat house, P3 = fertilizer of cow house. Factor II include combination of biological fertilizer type Rhizobakteri (R) with five level R0 = Control, R 1 = IMRG 5 + IMRG 19, R 2 = IMRG 5 + IMRG 30, R 3 = IMRG 19 + IMRG 30, R 4 = IMRG 5 + IMRG 19 + IMRG 30.
Perception done by 2 the way of that is non destructive and destructive. Perception parameter cover: Highly of crop, Amount of crop leaf, wide of leaf, amount of polong, heavy 100 seed, heavy run dry crop brangkasan, result of seed per check, and rate irrigate crop.
Pursuant to result of perception happened interaction between treatment of Organic fertilizer and biological fertilizer combination ( Rhizobakteri) at parameter high of crop with combination between fertilizer of goat house + IMRG 5 + IMRG 19 + IMRG 30 equal to 48,14 cm, while other perception parameter not happened interaction between treatment of Organic fertilizer and biological fertilizer combination.
So that can be concluded that giving combination among fertilizer of goat house and biological fertilizer combination (IMRG 5 + IMRG 19 + IMRG 30) giving influence and role to parameter highly of crop to the growth of plant and result of soybean of Seulawah variety.


A low-cost, potentially compact and robust microwave frequency reference can be constructed by use of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers and coherent population-trapping resonances in Cs vapor cells. Fractional frequency instabilities of 2×10-11/τ/s have been achieved with a minimum of 7×10-13 at τ=1000 s. The performance of this device as a function of external parameters such as light intensity, optical detuning, and cell temperature is discussed. The dependence of the dark-line resonance signal on these parameters can be understood largely by means of a simple, three-level model. The short-term stability depends critically on the optical detuning, whereas the long-term stability is limited currently by line shifts due to drifts in cell temperature.


For under-constrained and redundant parallel manipulators, the actuator inputs are studied with bounded variations in parameters and data. Problem is formulated within the context of force analysis. Discrete and analytical methods for interval linear systems are presented, categorized and implemented to identify the solution set, as well as the minimum 2-norm least square solution set. The notions of parameter dependency and solution subsets are considered. The hyperplanes that bound the solution in each orthant characterize the solution set of manipulators. While the parameterized form of the interval entries of the Jacobian matrix and wrench produce the minimum 2-norm least square solution for the under-constrained and over-constrained systems of real matrices and vectors within the interval Jacobian matrix and wrench vector, respectively. Example manipulators are used to present the application of methods for identifying the solution and minimum norm solution sets for actuator forces/torques.Copyright © 2017 by ASME


"The Arabian Nights" has become a synonym for the fabulous and the exotic. Every child is familiar with the stories of Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba. Yet very few people, even specialists in oriential literature, have a clear idea of when the book was written or what exactly it is. Far from being a batch of stories for children, "The Arabian Nights" contains hundreds of narratives of all kinds - fables, epics, erotica, debates, fairy tales, political allegories, mystical anecdotes and comedies. It is a labyrinth of stories within stories. Widely held in contempt in the Middle East for its frivolity and occasional obscenity, the work has nevertheless had a major influence on European and American culture, to the extent that the story collection must be considered as a key work in Western literature. A full understanding of the writings of Voltaire, Dickens, Melville, Proust and Borges, or indeed of the origins of science fiction, is impossible without some familiarity with the stories of the "Nights". This companion aims to guide the reader into this labyrinth of storytelling. It traces the development of the stories from prehistoric India and Pharaonic Egypt to modern times, and explores the history of translation and imitation. Above all, it uses the stories as a guide to the social history and counter-culture of the medieval Near East and the world of the storyteller, the snake charmer, the burglar, the sorcerer, the drug-addict, the treasure hunter and the adulterer.


We have identified a nuclear factor expressed in pro-B-, pre-B-, and B-cell lines that binds to two sites within the murine immunoglobulin heavy-chain (IgH) 3' alpha enhancer (3' alpha E). These sites were defined by oligonucleotide competition in an electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) and methylation interference footprinting. The 3' alpha E-binding factor is indistinguishable from NF-HB (B-lineage-specific nuclear factor that binds to the IgH gene) and the B-lineage-specific transcription factor BSAP by several criteria, including similar cell type distribution of binding activity, cross-competition of binding sites in EMSA, similar protein size as demonstrated by UV cross-linking, and sequence identity of one of the 3' alpha E-binding sites with a BSAP-binding site within the promoter of the sea urchin late histone gene H2A-2.2. These observations indicate that 3' alpha E is one of the mammalian targets for NF-HB (BSAP). Transient-transfection assays with chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene constructs containing 3' alpha E and mutant 3' alpha E, in which one of the NF-HB binding sites was inactivated by site-specific mutagenesis, showed ca. five- to sixfold-enhanced activity of mutated 3' alpha E over parental 3' alpha E in B-cell lines (NF-HB+), while no significant difference was observed in plasmacytoma cells (NF-HB-). We conclude from these observations that NF-HB (BSAP) acts as a repressor of the mouse IgH 3' alpha E.


The adoption process is renowned for its difficulties, however gay and lesbian couples face unique, additional challenges when choosing parenthood through adoption. The Adoption and Children's Act (2002), Equality Act (2006) and the Sexual Orientation Regulations act (2007) are some of the recent policy changes aimed at 'smoothing out' the adoption process for same-gender couples (Cosis-Brown & Kershaw, 2008). Resultantly, there appear to be more cases of gay adoption than ever before (Equality Britain, 2005), however, anecdotal evidence suggests that across the UK the practice of recruiting and supporting gay and lesbian adopters is inconsistent. Whilst some local authorities encourage and emphasise the importance of stability and high quality care for vulnerable looked after children regardless of parental sexuality (Mallon, 2007); yet case studies of gay and lesbian couples seeking adoption demonstrate the unique challenges they encounter in the adoption process because of religious views (Hicks, 2005) or the attitudes towards same gender parenting of adoption panels and social workers within an unspoken hierarchy (Ahmed, 2008; Dennis, 2006). Government's drive towards adoption (Unwin and Misca, 2013) of children in care as a favoured alternative should lead to recognition of same-gender couples as an under-utilised resource of potential adopters to be used in the best interest of the children who are looked after.
The poster will present the results of research undertaken by the authors during 2012-13 highlighting how research on same-gender parenthood over the past decades has influenced the recent developments in the adoption policy and practice in the UK and worldwide. The poster will identify areas of potential barriers encountered in translating these policy changes in the current practice of adoption with a particular focus on professionals' attitudes towards same-gender couples as potential adopters.


Every day in prison settings around the world, young people are held in solitary confinement. They are alone for up to twenty-three hours a day in unfurnished cells. They do not see, have physical contact with, or speak to other people. The cells are small, often no larger than a horse's stable, and are illuminated by artificial light. Food is passed through narrow openings in heavy metal doors. These adolescents are denied education, counseling, and other services that are necessary for their growth, rehabilitation and well-being. If a parent were to confine her child under similar conditions, it would be abuse; yet when the government does so, often for weeks and months without due process, it is condoned. The paradox of solitary confinement is that it is not reserved only for the most culpable offenders. Juvenile and immigration detention centers as well as adult jails and prisons place adolescents in isolation to protect them — arguably — from each other or from adults; when they are perceived to be a threat; and to punish them for misconduct and rule-breaking. These rationales for the solitary confinement of youth fail to recognize, however, that prolonged isolation harms young people in ways that are often more profound than its impact on adults. This Article is the first to provide a comprehensive comparative analysis of the solitary confinement of youth in the United States and across the globe. The Introduction describes a typical scenario under which an adolescent may be subjected to isolation and explores why the practice persists today despite widespread condemnation. Part I reviews the literature detailing the varieties of harm that young people suffer as a result of solitary confinement. Part II discusses the rationales that correctional facilities use to justify solitary confinement and the prevalence of the practice internationally. Part III analyzes the history of solitary confinement and the legal response within the U.S. and the international community. Part IV addresses strategies for reform, including legislation, federal regulations, and litigation; the adoption of best practice standards; and the role of the juvenile defender and other advocates for incarcerated youth. The Appendix presents the author's original research documenting the current practices of the fifty-seven countries that legally condone or employ the solitary confinement of youth.


I develop a theory of spatial diffusion of the rule of law, where "space" is conceptualized as shared memberships in economic international organizations (IOs). I argue that the rule of law diffuses as a result of economic competition and socialization. Outside evaluators, such as international leaders, activists, and most importantly, international firms and investors, often assess states' attractiveness as a business venue by comparing them to similar states. The natural reference group for such comparisons is not just geographical neighbors, but also states with shared memberships in economic IOs. Responding to this evaluation, states identify members of their own reference groups and view them as competition for investment. As a result, states within the same reference groups converge on issues related to lowering domestic economic risks, which are referred to by the umbrella term "domestic rule of law." The resulting process of policy convergence is further aided by socialization. Socialization may involve emulation of policies of similar states or "active" learning through norm entrepreneurs, who use the reference groups for both evaluation and access to their target audiences. I capture the theorized spatial processes using a multiparametric spatiotemporal autoregressive model (m-STAR) and find support for the prediction.


Abstract We study the effect of birth order on personality using Swedish population data. Earlier-born men are more emotionally stable, persistent, socially outgoing, willing to assume responsibility, and able to take initiative than later borns. Firstborn children aremore likely to bemanagers and to be in occupations requiring leadership ability, social ability, and Big Five personality traits.We find a significant role for the sex composition within the family. When investigating possible mechanisms, we find that negative effects of birth order are driven by postnatal environmental factors. We also find evidence of lower parental human capital investments in later-born children.


It is proposed that a cognitive map encoding the relationships between entities in the world supports flexible behaviour, but the majority of the neural evidence for such a system comes from studies of spatial navigation. Recent work describing neuronal parallels between spatial and non-spatial behaviours has rekindled the notion of a systematic organisation of knowledge across multiple domains. We review experimental evidence and theoretical frameworks that point to principles unifying these apparently disparate functions. These principles describe how to learn and use abstract, generalisable knowledge and suggest map-like representations observed in a spatial context may be an instance of general coding mechanisms capable of organising knowledge of all kinds. We highlight how artificial agents endowed with such principles exhibit flexible behaviour and learn map-like representations observed in the brain. Finally, we speculate on how these principles may offer insight into the extreme generalisations, abstractions and inferences that characterise human cognition.


The difficulties educational institutions experience when attempting to reach distant learners are well documented. While there appear to be no simple solutions, electronic delivery systems are being used more and more frequently to solve this problem. Since a delivery system is only as good as the programming it delivers, however, selecting a delivery system represents only one piece of the distant education puzzle. This article goes beyond that question and examines two other pieces of the puzzle - faculty development and evaluation. While the primary focus is on evaluation, we begin with a discussion of faculty development because of the symbiotic relationship between the two areas: Appropriate faculty development leads to positive evaluations; at the same time, integrating information gleaned from evaluations improves the process of faculty development. The University of Wyoming's distance education program has used multiple delivery systems - including audio teleconferencing, audiographics and two-way video - successfully for several years. We contend that the success of this program is directly attributable to four indispensable elements: faculty development, class-by-class feedback forms, midterm feedback sessions, and end-of-course evaluations by both students and faculty. * Trained Faculty Required Because it is generally accepted that teaching via technology is different than teaching face-to-face,[1,2] we believe that faculty development is prerequisite to any evaluation program. In other words, distance education should begin with instructors who have prepared properly. Based on that assumption, the faculty development program for teaching distance education courses at the University of Wyoming includes three major components: recruitment and pre-course discussions with faculty, pre-semester seminars/workshops, and on-going coaching.[3] * Recruitment & pre-course discussions. Every effort is made to recruit faculty who have been successful in face-to-face courses. For example, several instructors who have taught via telecommunications have also received campus teaching awards. Potential instructors are also identified by discussions with department heads and deans. After a faculty member has been recruited to teach a technology-based course, a meeting is set with an instructional designer. While there are many purposes for this meeting, specific items discussed include the goals of the course, preferred teaching strategies of the instructor, and the use of media and alternative teaching strategies. With this information, both the instructional designer and instructor explore teaching methods and course software that will accomplish the instructor's objectives and develop a course that is amenable to delivery via a variety of technologies. * Pre-semester seminars/workshops. Before the semester begins, all faculty who will be teaching via technology have the opportunity to attend a workshop that focuses on both technical and instructional issues. First, the technical aspects of the technology are explained and each faculty member can experiment with it, "hands on." Activities can range from using microphones in an audio teleconferencing system to being videotaped in the video classroom. Secondly, instructional designers work with faculty members concerning specific instructional methods that have been successfully utilized when teaching via technology. Veteran technology instructors also share their experiences concerning both the capabilities and limitations of teaching via a telecommunications system. For example, veteran instructors have recommended that new instructors take time to get to know their students, to establish a good learning environment, to allow each student to experience the technology, and to provide visual representations of concepts. * On-going coaching. We have found that faculty have many concerns throughout the semester when teaching via telecommunications. …


We report a case of extramammary Paget's disease with underlying adenocarcinoma simulating breast carcinoma of the vulva. An 82-year-old woman was found to have a 5 x 3-cm bulky tumor located in the left labium major, infiltrating to the clitoris, left labium minor, and left lateral tissue of the vulva. Small biopsy of the vulva showed intraepidermal proliferation of Paget cells. The patient underwent wide local excision of the vulvar tumor and dissection of left inguinal lymph nodes. Histopathological examination of the resected specimens revealed that Paget cells were distributed singly or tended to form small nests in the epidermis, and that association of these cells with the underlying carcinoma invading to the subcutis could be seen. The underlying carcinoma was composed of squamoid solid nests with central necrotic debris, mimicking 'comedocarcinoma' of the breast. In other areas, the tumor cells were present in tubular formations and solid cords reminiscent of invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast. Immunohistochemically, the Paget cells and the underlying carcinoma cells were positive for carcinoembryonic antigen, epithelial membrane antigen, estrogen receptors, and glandular keratins except for CK 20. We speculate that our case is vulvar Paget's disease presenting as a manifestation of underlying breast carcinoma of the vulva, which might have arisen from either the ectopic breast tissue or anogenital mammary-like glands.


Software-defined networking (SDN) is a new paradigm for operating and managing computer networks. SDN enables logically-centralized control over network devices through a "controller" software that operates independently from the network hardware, and can be viewed as the network operating system. Network operators can run both inhouse and third-party SDN programs (often called applications) on top of the controller, e.g., to specify routing and access control policies. SDN opens up the possibility of applying formal methods to prove the correctness of computer networks. Indeed, recently much effort has been invested in applying finite state model checking to check that SDN programs behave correctly. However, in general, scaling these methods to large networks is challenging and, moreover, they cannot guarantee the absence of errors. We present VeriCon, the first system for verifying that an SDN program is correct on all admissible topologies and for all possible (infinite) sequences of network events. VeriCon either confirms the correctness of the controller program on all admissible network topologies or outputs a concrete counterexample. VeriCon uses first-order logic to specify admissible network topologies and desired network-wide invariants, and then implements classical Floyd-Hoare-Dijkstra deductive verification using Z3. Our preliminary experience indicates that VeriCon is able to rapidly verify correctness, or identify bugs, for a large repertoire of simple core SDN programs. VeriCon is compositional, in the sense that it verifies the correctness of execution of any single network event w.r.t. the specified invariant, and can thus scale to handle large programs. To relieve the burden of specifying inductive invariants from the programmer, VeriCon includes a separate procedure for inferring invariants, which is shown to be effective on simple controller programs. We view VeriCon as a first step en route to practical mechanisms for verifying network-wide invariants of SDN programs.


ABSTRACT This article examines the lives and power exercised by female slaveholders in the frontier lowlands of the Pacific coast of Colombia during the first half of the nineteenth century. Utilizing records from the Independence era to the abolition of slavery in 1852, it explores the varied economic activities, wealth management strategies, and administrative methodologies of lowlands mistresses in order to demonstrate their centrality in the preservation of slavery in Colombia's Pacific frontier. The article argues that the possession of enslaved people was a powerful if contentious avenue for women to assert rights during a period of political instability and transition.


ABSTRACT The District Attorney's office of Santa Clara County, California has observed long durations for their prosecution processes. It is interested in assessing the drivers of prosecutorial delays and determining whether there is evidence of disparate treatment of accused individuals in pre-trial detention and criminal charging practices. A recent report from the county's civil grand jury found that only 47% of cases from 2013 were resolved in less than year, far less than the statwide average of 88%. We describe a visualization tool and analytical models to identify factors affecting delays in the prosecutorial process and any characteristics that are associated with disparate treatment of defendants. Using prosecutorial data from January through June of 2014, we find that the time to close the initial phase of prosecution (the entering of a plea), the initial plea entered, the type of court in which a defendant is tried and the main charged offense are important predictors of whether a case will extend beyond one year. Durations for prosecution are found not significantly different for different racial and ethnic population, and do not appear as important features in our modeling to predict case durations longer than one year. Further, we find that, in this data, 81% of felony cases were resolved in less than one year, far greater than the value reported by the civil grand jury.p


The boundaries of the Ottoman Empire span several centuries on a vast expanse, across the ancient continents of the world, with different races, diverse peoples and multiple faiths, and the Ottoman Empire was one of the forces that influenced the course of international politics at the time, and then it was weakened by the political balance and administrative, which was governed by the laws of the sultan between the central authority on the one hand, and those who carry out that policy from Baswat and Pikatagwat... and others on the other hand.
The weakness is growing in state institutions and despite repeated attempts by some sultans to restore power and prestige to the body of the sprawling empire, it has achieved little or nothing.
The first reformist calls were inspired by the spirit and principles of Islam in remedying the imbalance, and the reformers advocated the necessity of applying Islamic law within the various institutions, to return to its prosperous past, and on that basis the pioneering attempts were based on Islam and its basic principles at a stage where it did not expand The Ottoman Empire in the European-style quotation, as the European superiority was not as impressive as the Ottomans and pushed them to quotation, and the Ottomans were preparing themselves a major state during the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century, and during that stage many of the leaders of the movement tried Reform in the Ottoman Empire, doing self-reliant reforms not on the quotation from the West, including Shaykh al-Islam Saad Eddin Effendi, Osman II, Murad IV and others.
      The nature of the research required it to be divided into an introduction, six axes and a conclusion, the first axis addressed the beginning of the Ottoman retreat since 1683, and the signs of weakness experienced by the Ottoman state, as well as the emergence of European supremacy during that era, and the emergence of a number of early Ottoman reformers and their role in the beginnings The reform process.
The second theme was devoted to the ways in which they showed Salim III in the reform, which led to his eventual execution, and the third axis was devoted to the study of the reign of Sultan Mahmud II at an important stage of the nineteenth century, with the appearance of a number of eminent personalities in Egypt and Iraq, as well as some changes of Europe.
The fourth axis touched upon the Ottoman organizations, the efforts of a number of Ottomans and their influence on Western culture, which led to the promulgation of a number of important decrees (orders), including the line of Sharif kolkhanf in 1839 and the decree of Humayun in 1856, and a number of laws including the Land Law of 21 April 1858 The law of the Tarabo of 14 January 1859, as well as the state law of 1864, and its interpretation in the stabilization of the new correctional grounds.
    The fifth axis dealt with a brief presentation of the results of the movement of Ottoman organizations, and its influence in the Arab States, especially the state of Baghdad, and devoted the sixth (last) to the features of the Iraqi reformist Midhat Pasha, the most important administrative works in the state of Baghdad, as well as giving a brief presentation Of the subsequent changes to the reign of Medhat Pasha until the early 20th century.
In conclusion, we tried to show the most important conclusions reached through the research hubs, seeking reference to several related sources including a number of research and university messages as well as the use of the International Information Network (Internet), and these sources can be identified through the margins Search or list of sources.


SummaryRemoval of the mandibular glands from workers of Apis mellifera capensis did not interfere with their becoming reproductively dominant in a group of Apis mellifera mellifera workers. Activation of the ovaries of the mellifera workers was inhibited in the presence of Cape bees either with or without their mandibular glands. Gas chromatography plus mass spectrometry confirmed that the main component of the mandibular glands was (E)-9-oxo-2-decenoic acid (75% by weight).


The semi-supervised learning usually only predict labels for unlabeled data appearing in training data, and cannot effectively predict labels for testing data never appearing in training set. To handle this out-of-sample problem, many inductive methods make a constraint such that the predicted label matrix should be exactly equal to a linear model. In practice, this constraint is too rigid to capture the manifold structure of data. Motivated by this deficiency, we relax the rigid linear embedding constraint and propose to use an elastic embedding constraint on the predicted label matrix such that the manifold structure can be better explored. To solve our new objective and also a more general optimization problem, we study a novel adaptive loss with efficient optimization algorithm. Our new adaptive loss minimization method takes the advantages of both L1 norm and L2 norm, and is robust to the data outlier under Laplacian distribution and can efficiently learn the normal data under Gaussian distribution. Experiments have been performed on image classification tasks and our approach outperforms other state-of-the-art methods.


The study reports the factors militating against the production of local rice in Ghana with a mediating effect of open innovation to boost rice production. This study employs a cross-sectional survey to gather the views of 250 rice farmers. A self-administered survey questionnaire was used to collect the data. The data was analyzed using AMOS 20.0 software package. Findings from the study indicate that land tenure system, inadequate infrastructure and water control system are the factors militating against the production of local rice in Ghana. Moreover, the study found a negative relationship between land tenure system and output of rice. However, the study shows that there is a direct and positive relationship between open innovation and output of rice production in Ghana. The study, therefore, recommends that, infrastructure is provided in the rice producing areas to enhance rice production by investing in the area of road networks, rice-milling equipment such as pre-cleaners, destoners that separate stones and heavy impurities from grains, hullers, polishers, paddy separators, aspirators and graders to ensure post-harvest product quality.


Should power, medical gases, and monitoring and communications systems be located in a headwall or a ceiling-mounted boom in intensive care unit (ICU) rooms? Often, only the financial costs could be determined for the options, whereas data regarding its potential influence on teamwork, safety, and efficiency are lacking. Hence, purchase decisions are more arbitrary than evidence based. This study simulated care delivery in settings with a traditional headwall and a ceiling boom. Observed were the way the following elements were managed and the extent either system affected flexibility, ergonomics, and teamwork: tubing for intravenous fluids, medical gases, and suction drainage; monitoring leads and equipment power cords; and the medical equipment itself. Simulation runs involving 6 scenarios were conducted with the voluntary participation of 2 physicians, 2 nurse practitioners, 2 respiratory therapists, and 4 registered nurses at a children's tertiary care center in December 2007. Analysis suggests that booms have an advantage over headwalls in case of high-acuity ICU patients and when procedures are performed inside patient rooms. However, in case of lower-acuity ICU patients, as well as when procedures are not typically conducted in the patient room, booms may not provide a proportionate level of advantage when compared with the additional cost involved in its procurement.


With increased pressure to redistribute animal manure in order to lower the environmental pressure from agriculture, it seems obvious to consider processing slurry into nutrient rich fractions which can easily be transported. In this paper, an overall analysis of four different separation technologies is presented. The four technologies are Decanter, Funki Manura 2000, Green Farm Energy and Staring. These technologies are all implemented on a full scale in Denmark. In this paper both the economic and environmental aspects are considered, looking at the entire chain from stable to the field. The total investments range from 50,000 to 4 million Euros and the total net costs are from 1 to 7 Euros per tonne for the four different technologies. One of the clear environmental benefits is a better utilisation of phosphorus, but using phytase in feeding is a cheaper first step when reducing phosphorus surplus. Improved nitrogen utilisation is only apparent with the Staring and Green Farm Energy concepts. The conclusion is that the Funki Manura 2000 system is too expensive and the Decanter system a fairly cheap way to reduce phosphorus levels, but other benefits are limited. Staring and Green Farm Energy show the greatest potential, but these systems have not been running long enough to validate the expected results included in this paper.


Optimistic initialisation is an effective strategy for efficient exploration in reinforcement learning (RL). In the tabular case, all provably efficient model-free algorithms rely on it. However, model-free deep RL algorithms do not use optimistic initialisation despite taking inspiration from these provably efficient tabular algorithms. In particular, in scenarios with only positive rewards, Q-values are initialised at their lowest possible values due to commonly used network initialisation schemes, a pessimistic initialisation. Merely initialising the network to output optimistic Q-values is not enough, since we cannot ensure that they remain optimistic for novel state-action pairs, which is crucial for exploration. We propose a simple count-based augmentation to pessimistically initialised Q-values that separates the source of optimism from the neural network. We show that this scheme is provably efficient in the tabular setting and extend it to the deep RL setting. Our algorithm, Optimistic Pessimistically Initialised Q-Learning (OPIQ), augments the Q-value estimates of a DQN-based agent with count-derived bonuses to ensure optimism during both action selection and bootstrapping. We show that OPIQ outperforms non-optimistic DQN variants that utilise a pseudocount-based intrinsic motivation in hard exploration tasks, and that it predicts optimistic estimates for novel state-action pairs.


We consider the approximation of some highly oscillatory weakly singular surface integrals, arising from boundary integral methods with smooth global basis functions for solving problems of high frequency acoustic scattering by three-dimensional convex obstacles, described globally in spherical coordinates. As the frequency of the incident wave increases, the performance of standard quadrature schemes deteriorates. Naive application of asymptotic schemes also fails due to the weak singularity. We propose here a new scheme based on a combination of an asymptotic approach and exact treatment of singularities in an appropriate coordinate system. For the case of a spherical scatterer we demonstrate via error analysis and numerical results that, provided the observation point is sufficiently far from the shadow boundary, a high level of accuracy can be achieved with a minimal computational cost. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. MSC: 65D30; 41A60; 65R20; 35J05


Our knowledge about large scale distribution of harpacticoids in the deep sea is still very limited. Mainly because of two reasons: concerning meiofauna the oceans in general are undersampled
2) each time sampling the deep sea we find a lot of new species, which will never be described and just get numbers valuable for the single study.
So the studies get stuck in ecological analyses and are in taxonomical terms not comparable to others. That is the reason why the present study focuses on two supraspecific taxa to cover a large geographical range.
This study shows the species distribution of the taxa Mesocletodes Sars, 1909 and Eurycletodes Sars, 1909 in the deep sea and on two seamounts in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean between Azores (38°40'N) and Cape of Good Hope (34°50'S). The material studied was collected during the cruises of RV Meteor DIVA 1 (2000), DIVA 2 (2005), OASIS (2003) and M42/3 (1998). 9 deep sea stations between 2800m and 4500m depth and the summits of Seine Seamount (200m) and Great Meteor Bank (400m) were sampled using multicorer, boxcorer and epibenthos-sledge.
Questions we tried to answer with this study are:
 Are there geographical barriers in the deep sea?
 Are there any barriers for the distribution of harpacticoid copepods?
 Are seamounts colonized from the deep sea?


Scleroderma is a chronic connective tissue disease with unknown etiology.
Vitamin D, a necessary hormone that plays a particular function in the calcium and phosphate
homeostasis, is involved in etiology of this disorder. Klotho, co-receptor of fibroblast growth factor 23
(FGF-23), can interfere in calcium and phosphate metabolism. The purpose of this study was to
determine the relationship of VDR gene polymorphisms (BsmI, TaqI) and serum Klotho levels with
scleroderma susceptibility.
Materials & Methods: 90 subjects (60 scleroderma patients and 30 controls) were studied. The BsmI
and TaqI polymorphisms of VDR were determined by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment
length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method using restriction enzymes BsmI and TaqI. Serum Klotho
and vitamin D levels were analyzed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).
Results: No significant difference was seen in the genotype frequencies of TaqI polymorphism between
the groups (p=0.904), but a significant difference was found between the Scleroderma patients and
control groups in BsmI polymorphism frequencies (P = 0.037). Serum levels of Klotho and 25(OH) D
in scleroderma patients were lower than those in healthy controls (p˂0.001). There was no significant
difference in serum FGF-23 levels between patients and controls (p=0.202).
Conclusion: The results indicate that the BsmI polymorphism in the VDR gene as well as Klotho and
vitamin D levels may be associated with the etiology of scleroderma. Further studies are required to
apply these associations


At stressed operating conditions, critical contingencies can initiate loss of synchronism and trigger cascading events. Controlled islanding is the last line of defense to stabilize the whole system. This paper presents a decision tree assisted scheme to determine the timing of controlled islanding in real time by using phasor measurements. In addition, a slow coherency based approach is used to determine where to island. This scheme is tested on the operational model of the Entergy system and a severe N-2 outage case is used to demonstrate the phenomenon of cascading events due to protective relay actions. The results show that training one decision tree only for a specified critical contingency that can potentially cause cascading events can yields high prediction accuracy. Being aware of loss of synchronism in real time, operators can implement controlled islanding at carefully designed transmission interfaces and rapidly stabilize each island. Thus a significant amount of load is still served compared to uncontrolled system islanding.


This study aims to fulfill two theoretical gaps; proposing an integrated model that consists of components and consequence of brand equity. We first categorize brand equity in four principal and different perspectives that have been addressed by academics: firm, consumer, integrated, and internal perspective. Second we theorize consumerbased brand equity as four continuum dimensions (i.e. awareness, perceived quality, social image, emotional attachment) as sources which could generate a positive consumer behavior responses (i.e. Word Of Mouth behavior). A survey method was conducted to assess the predictive ability of CBBE sources. The result shows that brand awareness, perceived quality, social brand image, and brand emotional attachment all together constitute a value added by the brand to the product, and all dimensions contribute positively and significantly to WOM behavior as expected.


Enhancing publications has a long history but is gaining acceleration as authors and publishers explore electronic tablets as devices for dissemination and presentation. Enhancement of scholarly publications, in contrast, more often takes place in a Web environment and is coupled with presentation of supplementary materials related to research. The approach to enhancing scholarly publications presented in this article goes a step further and involves the interlinking of the "objects" of a document: datasets, supplementary materials, secondary analyses, and post-publication interventions. This approach connects the user-centricity of Web 2.0 with the Semantic Web. It aims at facilitating long-term content structure through standardized formats intended to improve interoperability between concepts and terms within and across knowledge domains. We explored this conception of enhancement on a small set of books prepared for traditional academic publishers. While the project was primarily an exercise in development, the conclusion section of the article reflects on areas where conceptual and empirical studies could be initiated to complement this new direction in scholarly publishing.


In 2005, India amended its Patents Act, 1970 to introduce TRIPS compliant product patent regime. Generally speaking, law and policy makers in India during the time of the amendment were confronted with two major concerns viz. the future of the Indian pharmaceutical industry and access to affordable medicines in India and other developing countries. To address these concerns India along with many other developing countries attempted to incorporate TRIPS flexibilities in their domestic law. However, the success of the TRIPS flexibilities in addressing the question of access to affordable medicines mainly depends on three factors: a) the incorporation of flexibilities in the domestic law; b) the manufacturing capability of a country; and c) the political will to use the public interest safeguards provided in the domestic law. There are only a few countries like India, which satisfy the above-mentioned conditions to a certain extent. This article examines whether these premises hold true after five years into the implementation of the TRIPS compliant patent system in India. In this context the paper identifies and analyzes the legal, policy and institutional challenges that India is currently facing in the implementation of TRIPS flexibilities. It also identifies the main legal, policy and institutional disconnect in the implementation of TRIPS flexibilities in India. It argues that to effectively use TRIPS flexibilities to address access to affordable medicines require changes in three areas viz. law, policy and institutions. It clearly shows that mere incorporation of TRIPS flexibilities in the domestic legislation alone is not enough and the domestic legislation needs to be complemented with policy and institutional


In many circumstances it is unsatisfactory to measure portfolio performance using time-weighted rates of return. There are well known problems with performance attribution analysis using time-weighted returns in a multi-interval context, and it is impossible to measure the contribution of a portfolio's manager to the wealth of an individual investor. This paper shows that measurement of outcomes in terms of value solves the problems of multi-interval attribution analysis and enables precise customised assessment to be made of the manager's contribution for each investor. Working with values is also simple and transparent.


[1] High-resolution numerical simulations of the northern Gulf of Mexico region using the Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) were employed to investigate the dynamical processes controlling the fate of the Mississippi River plume, in particular the conditions that favor cross-marginal transport. The study focuses on the effects of topography, wind-driven and eddy-driven circulation on the offshore removal of plume waters. A realistically forced simulation (nested in a data-assimilative regional Gulf of Mexico HYCOM model) reveals that the offshore removal is a frequent plume pathway. Eastward wind-driven currents promote large freshwater transport toward the shelf break and the DeSoto Canyon, where eddies with diameters ranging from 50 to 130 km interact with the buoyant plume and effectively entrain the riverine waters. Our estimates show that the offshore removal by eddies can be as large as the wind-driven shelf transport. The proximity of eddies to the shelf break is a sufficient condition for offshore removal, and shelf-to-offshore interaction is facilitated by the steep bottom topography near the delta. Strong eddy-plume interactions were observed when the Loop Current System impinged against the shelf break, causing the formation of coherent, narrow low-salinity bands that extended toward the gulf interior. The offshore pathways depend on the position of the eddies near the shelf edge, their life span and the formation of eddy pairs that generate coherent cross-shelf flows. This study elucidates the dynamics that initiate a unique cross-marginal removal mechanism of riverine low-salinity, nutrient-rich waters, allowing their export along connectivity pathways, induced by a large-scale current system.


Fibroblastic reticular cells (FRCs), the T-cell zone stromal cell subtype in the lymph nodes, create a scaffold for adhesion and migration of immune cells, thus allowing them to communicate. Although known to be important for the initiation of immune responses, studies about FRCs and their interactions have been impeded because FRCs are limited in availability and lose their function upon culture expansion. To circumvent these limitations, stromal cell precursors can be mechanotranduced to form mature FRCs. Here, we used a library of designed surface topographies to trigger FRC differentiation from tonsil-derived stromal cells (TSCs). Undifferentiated TSCs were seeded on a TopoChip containing 2176 different topographies in culture medium without differentiation factors, then monitored cell morphology and the levels of ICAM-1, a marker of FRC differentiation. We identified 112 and 72 surfaces that upregulated and downregulated, respectively, ICAM-1 expression. By monitoring cell morphology, and expression of the FRC differentiation marker ICAM-1 via image analysis and machine learning, we discovered correlations between ICAM-1 expression, cell shape and design of surface topographies and confirmed our findings by using flow cytometry. Our findings confirmed that TSCs are mechano-responsive cells and identified particular topographies that can be used to improve FRC differentiation protocols.


Objectives To evaluate the efficacy and safety of intravenous iron, focusing primarily on its effects on haemoglobin, requirement for transfusion, and risk of infection. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials investigating the safety and efficacy of intravenous iron therapy. Data sources Randomised controlled trials from Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials from 1966 to June 2013, with no language restrictions. Eligibility criteria for selecting studies Eligible trials were randomised controlled trials of intravenous iron compared with either no iron or oral iron. Crossover and observational studies were excluded. Main outcome measures Change in haemoglobin concentration and risk of allogeneic red blood cell transfusion (efficacy) and risk of infection (safety). Results Of the 75 trials meeting the inclusion criteria, 72 studies including 10 605 patients provided quantitative outcome data for meta-analysis. Intravenous iron was associated with an increase in haemoglobin concentration (standardised mean difference 6.5 g/L, 95% confidence interval 5.1 g/L to 7.9 g/L) and a reduced risk of requirement for red blood cell transfusion (risk ratio 0.74, 95% confidence interval 0.62 to 0.88), especially when intravenous iron was used with erythroid stimulating agents (ESAs) or in patients with a lower baseline plasma ferritin concentration. There were no significant interactions between the efficacy of intravenous iron and type or dose administered. Intravenous iron was, however, associated with a significant increase in risk of infection (relative risk 1.33, 95% confidence interval 1.10 to 1.64) compared with oral or no iron supplementation. The results remained similar when only high quality trials were analysed. Conclusions Intravenous iron therapy is effective in increasing haemoglobin concentration and reducing the risk of allogeneic red blood cell transfusion and could have broad applicability to a range of acute care settings. This potential benefit is counterbalanced by a potential increased risk of infection.


A firn aquifer in the Helheim Glacier catchment of Southeast Greenland lies directly upstream of a crevasse field. Previous measurements show that a 3.5-km long segment of the aquifer lost a large volume of water (26,000 – 65,000 m2 in cross section) between spring 2012 and spring 2013, compared to annual meltwater accumulation of 6000 – 15,000 m2. The water is thought to have entered the crevasses, but whether the water reached the bed or refroze within the ice sheet is unknown. We used a thermo-visco-elastic model for crevasse propagation to calculate the depths and volumes of these water-filled crevasses. We compared our model output to data from the Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM), which reveals the near-surface geometry of specific crevasses, and WorldView images, which capture the surface expressions of crevasses across our 1.5-km study area. We found a best fit with a shear modulus between 0.2 and 1.5 GPa within our study area. We show that surface meltwater can drive crevasses to the top surface of the firn aquifer (~20 m depth), whereupon it receives water at rates corresponding to the water flux through the aquifer. Our model shows that crevasses receiving firn-aquifer water hydrofracture through to the bed, ~1000 m below, in 10–40 days. Englacial refreezing of firn-aquifer water raises the average local ice temperature by ~4°C over a ten-year period, which enhances deformational ice motion by ~50 m/yr, compared to the observed surface velocity of ~200 m/yr. The effect of the basal water on the sliding velocity remains unknown. Were the firn aquifer not present to concentrate surface meltwater into crevasses, we find that no surface melt would reach the bed; instead, it would refreeze annually in crevasses at depths <500 m. The crevasse field downstream of the firn aquifer likely allows a large fraction of the aquifer water in our study area to reach the bed. Thus, future studies should consider the aquifer and crevasses as part of a common system. This system may uniquely affect ice-sheet dynamics by routing a large volume of water to the bed outside of the typical runoff period.


This thesis constitutes an ethnographic exploration of the ways in which conversion to
Pentecostalism contributes to redefining some of the principles of kinship in a
patrilineal society. It looks beyond notions of individualism often emphasised in studies
on Pentecostalism, in order to focus on people's relationships. In doing so, it explores
how relational ruptures brought about by conversion are accommodated along cultural
continuities. This study takes place in Pobe and Ikpinle, two semi-rural towns, in a
pluri-ethnic and pluri-religious setting with a majority Yoruba population, close to the
Beninese border with Nigeria.
Studies of Pentecostalism in Africa have emphasised kinship and family relations as one
of the areas where, upon conversion, the Pentecostal command to "break with the past"
and with "tradition" is most strongly expressed. Ruptures in these areas have been
explained as the result of the influence of Pentecostalism in shaping individualist
modern subjectivities. However, the ethnographic material presented here reveals that,
although discursively these ruptures are often articulated as radical, in practice they do
not always appear as such. Converts still depend on and cultivate their social
relationships with their kin. Through a process of breaking and re-making,
Pentecostalism opens a space for redefining forms of relating, through a selective reappropriation of certain cultural norms and values. The thesis also looks at some of the
dilemmas that Christian notions of kinship bring about in this context, and the specific
ways in which Pentecostals - compared to members of other Christian denominations - deal with them.
This thesis draws on anthropological studies and debates on funerals, time, descent,
marriage, gender, ethics and moral dilemmas, in order to explore how the Pentecostal
project of "breaking with the past" shapes different aspects of people's kinship. It aims
to contribute to the literature on the anthropology of Christianity by exploring the
complexities of this form of religion, as it appears in one of its denominational variants
in a pluri-religious setting.


The amount of information on the Internet is constantly growing and the challenge now is one of finding relevant information. Contextual information retrieval (CIR) is a critical technology for today's search engines to facilitate queries and return relevant information. Despite its importance, little progress has been made in CIR due to the difficulty of capturing and representing contextual information about users. Numerous CIR approaches exist today, but, to the best of our knowledge, none of them offer a similar service to the one proposed in this paper. This paper proposes an alternative framework for CIR from the World Wide Web (WWW). The framework aims to improve query results (or make search results more relevant) by constructing a contextual profile based on a user's behaviour, their preferences, and a shared knowledge base, and by using this information in the search engine framework to find and return relevant information.


This is an introduction to the functions withing the Bloomberg Terminal that allow to research equities and do company and industry analysis. Example used: Maersk and liner shipping industry


This paper shows the development of a model for an integrated gasifier and boiler unit. The feed to the gasifier is subject to composition changes that can disturb the entire operation of the system. As boilers need fuel feed with controlled composition, it is very important to develop a simulator for the system so that the operation can be investigated and a control system be further proposed. A simulator was developed based on models from the literature. Tests were performed in the system, first considering each unit separately and then integrated. The results provide a description of the behavior of the output variables of the boiler considering the presence the disturbances in the gasifier.


A new type of all-electric balancing network for photometric purposes is described, with which a single photo-tube or electron multiplier can be used to locate rapidly the center of a scale mark or spectrum line. This device is now in use on two automatic measuring engines, and is found to give results more reproducible than those involving setting by eye. It is far simpler to adjust and to use than the balanced-cell method previously described. As the enlarged image of a line passes at uniform speed across a slit behind which the multiplier is placed, the variation in light intensity produces a variable output current. The resulting voltage is applied after amplification to a delay network designed to give uniform delay and attenuation to all signals of frequency between 0 and 200 cycles per second. Input and output of this network are combined in phase which is opposite except for the delay, so that the voltage at any instant is balanced against the voltage produced 13 milliseconds previously. Thus, with proper mechanical delay, densities at points on a plate separated by as little as 20 microns can be compared, and a sharp signal is obtained at a position corresponding to the passage of the peak of a line across the slit. This pulse is used to fire a stroboscopic lamp which records instantaneously the reading of a dial which measures the position of the plate. Plates are usually scanned at 4 mm per second, and the positions of as many as 4000 lines can be recorded to within 1 micron or less in 120 seconds.


Artificial intelligence, or AI, promises to assist, modify, and replace human decision-making, including in court. AI already supports many aspects of how judges decide cases, and the prospect of "robot judges" suddenly seems plausible—even imminent. This Article argues that AI adjudication will profoundly affect the adjudicatory values held by legal actors as well as the public at large. The impact is likely to be greatest in areas, including criminal justice and appellate decision-making, where "equitable justice," or discretionary moral judgment, is frequently considered paramount. By offering efficiency and at least an appearance of impartiality, AI adjudication will both foster and benefit from a turn toward "codified justice," an adjudicatory paradigm that favors standardization above discretion. Further, AI adjudication will generate a range of concerns relating to its tendency to make the legal system more incomprehensible, data-based, alienating, and disillusioning. And potential responses, such as crafting a division of labor between human and AI adjudicators, each pose their own challenges. The single most promising response is for the government to play a greater role in structuring the emerging market for AI justice, but auspicious reform proposals would borrow several interrelated approaches. Similar dynamics will likely extend to other aspects of government, such that choices about how to incorporate AI in the judiciary will inform the future path of AI development more broadly.


Background: NKTR-214 is a novel immunostimulatory cytokine which provides a sustained and biased activation signal through the heterodimeric IL-2R receptor (IL2Rbg or CD122), resulting in significant expansion of CD8+ T and NK cells relative to regulatory T cells in the tumor microenvironment. As a single agent in preclinical tumor models, NKTR-214 significantly increases the intratumoral CD8T/Treg ratio (>400). Here we examine activity and pharmacodynamic effects of NKTR-214 alone and combined with immune checkpoint blockade in both a murine tumor model and in a human in vitro co-culture system. Methods: Mice bearing subcutaneous CT26 colon tumors were treated with single agent NKTR-214 (q9d), murine anti-CTLA-4 or anti-PD-1 (twice-weekly), or combinations of these agents. Serum cytokines were assessed by multiplex ELISA (Quansys). T cell clonality and infiltration were assessed in tumors 7 days after treatment initiation, with TCR V and J beta usage determined by ImmunoSEQ (Adaptive Biotechnologies). Effects on human cytokine and chemokine expression were examined by the BioMAP Combo ELECT (DiscoverX) in vitro system utilizing human fibroblasts or endothelial cells, PBMCs and either HT29 colon adenocarcinoma or HT1299 NSCLC cell lines. 1-PEG-IL2, the most active species of the NKTR-214 prodrug, or Keytruda (anti-PD-1) was added over a range of concentrations alone or in combination, with biomarkers assessed 48 hours later. Results: In tumor-bearing mice, NKTR-214 led to increases in serum IFNg as well as increases in the chemokine MCP-1 (CCL2), a chemoattractant of CD4 T, CD8 T and NK cells. Single-agent NKTR-214 led to significant tumor growth inhibition and 10% tumor free animals, while single-agents anti-CTLA-4 or anti-PD-1 lacked efficacy. Combination of NKTR-214 with checkpoint blockade was synergistic and led to greater tumor-free animals (67% in combination with anti-CTLA-4, 90% with anti-PD-1). NKTR-214 combined with anti-PD-1 was also more efficacious than the combination of anti-CTLA-4 and anti-PD-1. TCR repertoire analysis demonstrated superior increases in TIL clonality and infiltration with NKTR-214 compared to either anti-CTLA-4 or anti-PD-1 alone. NKTR-214 combined with either mode of checkpoint inhibition led to significant increases in both parameters, with the greatest effect occurring when combined with anti-PD-1. In the human BioMAP system, NKTR-214 active species led to significant increases in granzyme B, IFNg, IL-6, IL-17A and TNFa, while these markers were only modestly induced by Keytruda alone. When NKTR-214 was combined with Keytruda, additive and synergistic increases in these factors were found. In addition, the combination significantly decreased uPA in the fibroblast-HT29 system and MDC in the endothelial-HT1299 system, both factors associated with tumor progression. Conclusions: NKTR-214 delivers sustained signaling of the IL-2 pathway. Analysis of multiple immune markers in mice and human tumor-immune cell cultures provide mechanistic rationale for the increased T and NK cell activation in the tumor microenvironment after treatment with NKTR-214. When combined with anti-PD-1, significant increases in T cell receptor clonality, tumor infiltration and immune activation biomarkers are achieved - a significant finding, given that concomitant increase in clonality and infiltration has been correlated with favorable responses in the clinic. In vitro studies with human cells demonstrate the potentiation of immune activation markers associated with anti-tumor effects in combination with anti-PD-1, further suggesting these findings may be translatable from mouse to human. NKTR-214 is currently in a Phase 1 clinical trial to evaluate the pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and activity in an outpatient setting. Citation Format: John L. Langowski, Murali Addepalli, Laurie VanderVeen, Rhoneil Pena, Ravikumar Nutakki, Yolanda Kirksey, Ute Hoch, Jonathan Zalevsky, Stephen K. Doberstein, Deborah H. Charych. The CD122-biased immunostimulatory cytokine NKTR-214 combined with checkpoint blockade leads to mobilization of antitumor immunity and synergistic activity [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Second CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; 2016 Sept 25-28; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2016;4(11 Suppl):Abstract nr B057.


A nerve cell receives multiple inputs from upstream neurons by way of its synapses. Neuron processing functions are thus influenced by changes in the biophysical properties of the synapse, such as long-term potentiation (LTP) or depression (LTD). This observation has opened new perspectives on the biophysical basis of learning and memory, but its quantitative impact on the information transmission of a neuron remains partially elucidated. One major obstacle is the high dimensionality of the neuronal input-output space, which makes it unfeasible to perform a thorough computational analysis of a neuron with multiple synaptic inputs. In this work, information theory was employed to characterize the information transmission of a cerebellar granule cell over a region of its excitatory input space following synaptic changes. Granule cells have a small dendritic tree (on average, they receive only four mossy fiber afferents), which greatly bounds the input combinatorial space, reducing the complexity of information-theoretic calculations. Numerical simulations and LTP experiments quantified how changes in neurotransmitter release probability (p) modulated information transmission of a cerebellar granule cell. Numerical simulations showed that p shaped the neurotransmission landscape in unexpected ways. As p increased, the optimality of the information transmission of most stimuli did not increase strictly monotonically; instead it reached a plateau at intermediate p levels. Furthermore, our results showed that the spatiotemporal characteristics of the inputs determine the effect of p on neurotransmission, thus permitting the selection of distinctive preferred stimuli for different p values. These selective mechanisms may have important consequences on the encoding of cerebellar mossy fiber inputs and the plasticity and computation at the next circuit stage, including the parallel fiberPurkinje cell synapses.


Significant resources have been spent attempting to manage predators of the threatened piping plover (Charadrius melodus). Various nest predator species are active throughout the day and night while monitoring staff that might deter predators are usually present only during select hours of the day. Monitoring efforts are also uniform throughout the nesting season, while predator activity may not be. The purpose of this study was to identify potential critical periods throughout the 24-hr cycle and the breeding season of the piping plover to allow for more targeted allocation of resources for monitoring nest predators. Camera traps were installed near exclosed piping plover nests (N= 16) at Jones Beach State Park, New York during egg incubation. Potential nest predators were identified from camera observations, and visit frequencies were summarized by time and seasonal period. Red fox (n=12) were most prevalent from 03:00-06:00, while raccoon (n=8) visited primarily between 00:00-03:00. Avian predators (n= 39) including gulls, crows, and American oystercatcher visited nests mainly from 06:00-18:00. Visit frequency of mammals and oystercatcher did not vary seasonally, however, crows (n=13) only visited between 14 June and 5 July. Visitation amongst the different predator species had limited temporal overlap, with peak visitation times coinciding only for diurnal species. The mid-evening hours (21:00-23:59) had the lowest number of recorded predator visits. Major predator species often vary between sites, nonetheless, management activities during the breeding season may be optimized by incorporating the activity windows of their respective predator suite in their piping plover monitoring


—Nowadays, there are many queries issued to search engines targeting at finding values from structured data (e.g., movie showtime of a specific location). In such scenarios, there is often a mismatch between the values of structured data (how content creators describe entities) and the web queries (how different users try to retrieve them). Therefore, recognizing the alternative ways people use to reference an entity, is crucial for structured web search. In this paper, we study the problem of automatic generation of entity synonyms over structured data toward closing the gap between users and structured data. We propose an offline, data-driven approach that mines query logs for instances where content creators and web users apply a variety of strings to refer to the same webpages. This way, given a set of strings that reference entities, we generate an expanded set of equivalent strings (entity synonyms) for each entity. Our framework consists of three modules: candidate generation, candidate selection, and noise cleaning. We further study the cause of the problem through the identification of different entity synonym classes. The proposed method is verified with experiments on real-life data sets showing that we can significantly increase the coverage of structured web queries with good precision.


Gesture and Speech comprise the most important modalities of human interaction. There has been a considerable amount of research attempts at incorporating these modalities for natural HCI. This involves challenge ranging from the low level signal processing of multi-modal input to the high level interpretation of natural speech and gesture in HCI. This paper proposes novel methods to recognize the hand gestures and unvoiced utterances using surface Electromyogram (sEMG) signals originating from different muscles. The focus of this work is to establish a simple, yet robust system that can be integrated to identify subtle complex hand gestures and unvoiced speech commands for control of prosthesis and other computer assisted devices. The proposed multi-modal system is able to identify the hand gestures and silent utterances using Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and Integral RMS (IRMS) of sEMG respectively. Training of the sEMG features was done using a designed ANN architecture and the results reported with overall recognition accuracy of 90.33%.


In the past thirty years, defaults on corporate bonds have been substantially higher than the historical average. We show that this increase in credit risk can be largely attributed to an increase in the rate at which new and fast-growing firms displace incumbents (a phenomenon sometimes referred to as 'disruptive innovation'). Industries with a lager presence of firms newly listed on the stock market, as well as industries that receive funding from venture capital, have a higher loss of revenue market share for established firms and subsequently see a rise in corporate bond defaults. Patent filings by individuals as opposed to corporations also predict defaults. These results are not affected by inclusion of controls for industry exposure to offshore manufacturing.


The conventional view, as expounded by sticky-price models, is that price adjustment determines the PPP reversion rate. This study examines the mechanism by which PPP deviations are corrected. Nominal exchange rate adjustment, not price adjustment, is shown to be the key engine governing the speed of PPP convergence. Moreover, nominal exchange rates are found to converge much more slowly than prices. With the reversion being driven primarily by nominal exchange rates, real exchange rates also revert at a slower rate than prices, as identified by the PPP puzzle (Rogoff, 1996).


It is generally believed that the ancient Egyptians oriented their pyramids, temples, and other structures to the sun and stars. Yet the alignments of many sites are either unexplained or are not consistent with accepted historical timelines. Even if one knew nothing about the Egyptian civilization it can be readily determined that many sites are oriented astronomically. In a study of 650 locations throughout Egypt, we identify 113 sites that are aligned in the cardinal directions, or to solstices, or lunar standstills. Using a new shifted geographic pole alignment model based on Charles Hapgood's theory of crustal displacements and geographic pole shifts to test the remaining sites an additional 60 sites were found that could have been astronomically aligned relative to previous locations of the North Pole. We propose that when these sites were first established they were aligned relative to the location of the geographic pole at the time but are now misaligned to the current pole due to subsequent pole shifts. Based solely on their alignment we hypothesize that these sites were built tens of thousands of years ago under the earlier pre-dynastic reigns listed in the Turin Papyrus. Analyzing the geographic distribution of sites aligned to current and past poles reveals a difference in the alignment statistics between Upper and Lower Egypt that could be explained by a flood or other disaster following the last pole shift.


ASHRAE Guideline 36 (G36) publishes high-performance control sequences for Variable Air Volume (VAV) system operation. Retrofitting existing VAV control sequences to G36 promises to have a large potential for energy savings. However, it is difficult to estimate the savings accurately and the process of doing so can be costly and time-consuming. This paper evaluates the energy use of a multi-zone VAV system with terminal reheat using the G36 sequences and compares it to a group of baseline control sequences that represent existing practices. Spawn of EnergyPlus is used for the whole building simulation, where the envelope is modelled in EnergyPlus and the HVAC equipment and its pressure-flow network and the control sequences are modelled in Modelica. The comparison of the control sequences performance is further conducted in parametric studies. For a medium-sized commercial building, the G36 sequences provide a wide range of HVAC energy savings with an average of 31%.


The complete phase diagram for the poly(ethylene glycol) dimethyl ether 2000 (PEGDME2000) + Na2CO3 + H2O system at 298.15 K was determined. Experimental liquid−liquid equilibrium phase diagrams, tie lines, and plait points were obtained for the ternary system. Compositions of the liquid−liquid and the liquid−liquid−solid equilibria were determined from calibration curves of refractive index of the solutions, and atomic absorption (AA) and X-ray diffraction analyses were made on the solids. Binodal curves were described using the Merchuk equation at T = (288.15, 293.15, 298.15, 308.15, and 318.15) K, and the fitting parameters were obtained for the corresponding temperatures. The effects of temperature on the binodal curve were also studied, and it was observed that the area of the biphasic region increased slightly with increase in temperature. Also, the tie lines were fitted to both the Othmer−Tobias and Bancroft and Setschenow-type equations. Correlation coefficients for all equations are reported.


The notion of relaxation is well understood for orthogonal projections onto convex sets. For general Bregman projections it was considered only for hyperplanes, and the question of how to relax Bregman projections onto convex sets that are not linear (i.e., not hyperplanes or half-spaces) has remained open. A definition of the underrelaxation of Bregman projections onto general convex sets is given here, which includes as special cases the underrelaxed orthogonal projections and the underrelaxed Bregman projections onto linear sets as given by De Pierro and Iusem [J. Optim. Theory Appl., 51 (1986), pp. 421--440]. With this new definition, we construct a block-iterative projection algorithmic scheme and prove its convergence to a solution of the convex feasibility problem. The practical importance of relaxation parameters in the application of such projection algorithms to real-world problems is demonstrated on a problem of image reconstruction from projections.


Objectives & Background Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is a common presentation to the Emergency Department. However there is marked inconsistency in how patients are managed. Professor Mark Baker, NICE's Director of Clinical Practice: "AF increases the risk of strokes by up to five times. It's estimated that the condition causes around 12,500 strokes each year…. Unfortunately only half of those who should be getting these drugs (anticoagulants), are. This needs to change." An audit of practice in December 2015 UHS ED revealed that only 10% had any documented stroke risk stratification. The aims of our Quality Improvement Project were: ▸ To provide a standardised, evidence based approach to the management of newly diagnosed AF in UHS ED. ▸ Reduce the admission rate of patients attending ED with AF. ▸ Improve patient safety by ensuring patients are appropriately risk stratified and anticoagulated. Methods ▸ Review of literature and current guidelines. NICE 2014, ESC 2012, AHA 2014. We created a pragmatic and evidence based 'Management of AF Pathway' agreed by ED/Cardiology/Pharmacy and Governance leads. The pathway went through several PDSA cycles. ▸ We created process maps looking at the journey of patients with AF to identify delays in investigation, diagnosis and treatment. If patients with new AF are treated in a timely manner successful rate/rhytm control can be achieved in a greater proportion within 4 hrs and therefore discharged with follow up. ▸ Clinician education and clear guidance with regard to risk stratification and anticoagulation. Results The results of this QuIP are: ▸ A locally agreed, evidence based approach to the management of newly diagnosed AF. Outcome 2 and 3 are represented by Run Charts demonstrating Discharge Rate over time and Risk Stratification/anticoagulation over time. ▸ Admission rates fluctuated around 60%. There was no significant change after implementation of changes. ▸ There was a huge change in numbers of patients risk stratified/anticoagulated. The initial rate was 10% increasing to 85% in the most recent data collected. Conclusion The management of AF is complex. However it is possible to create and implement a locally agreed, evidence based guideline which is well received by both ED physicians and Cardiology. We have demonstrated a marked improvement in stroke risk stratification/anticoagulation and therefore impacted on patient safety. Figure 1


Abstract:This article discusses methodological strengths and limitations of federally managed postsecondary data with American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) college student populations. To support understanding, we define fundamental research and measurement validity concepts associated with credible quantitative research. The validity concepts are then applied to dominant culture and AI/AN postsecondary persistence theories. Challenges of conducting scientifically valid research with AI/AN populations using large federally available datasets are considered within the described research and measurement validity frameworks. Our critique focuses on vital needs for culturally relevant constructs and AI/AN subpopulation-specific studies. Our discussion concludes with implications and policy recommendations for postsecondary research with AIs/ANs.


Amid intensifying international interconnectedness and simultaneous assertions that cities are positioned to supersede national governance, capital cities constitute collision points between political control and exclusion, wealth and poverty, as well as tradition and modernity. The ever-growing importance of cities as centres of political and economic power and as resources in developing countries is also increasingly prompting contenders to concentrate both peaceful and violent political campaigns in spaces of urban primacy. However, ensuing city-centred struggles are not only about resources and access to power but also take issue with the meanings and functions of the nation as a whole. It is argued that the result of such multi-layered conflicts in capital cities produce a kind of 'over-determination' of political deliberation, putting additional weight on already ambitious urban development and governance agendas. This is especially true in post-war capital cities, where resulting 'sovereign conflicts' at the fault lines of local, national and international institutions shape political and economic agendas in and for post-war capital cities. Supercharged with donor monies and reconstruction machineries, these cities once again become highly politicised arenas characterised by discrepancies in political as well as economic leverage among different stakeholders. Defying official language, they are governed neither exclusively locally nor jointly by local and national entities, but in fact via ad hoc axes of governance that revolve around shared short-term incentives and interests of national and international actors. Comparing recent politics and policies with historical data, this paper shows that in post-war Kabul it is the national-international axis that has the greatest influence over the formulation of policies geared toward alterations of existing institutions within the urban realm, excluding local interests and priorities. This constitutes a stark change compared to politics in Kabul prior to the Russian occupation and before, when the main fault lines of urban conflict ran between rivalling tribal and ethnic interests. Conversely, policymaking after 2001 has been even more concentrated 'above the heads' of the city's residents. This neglect of de facto equitable urban development serves to reinvigorate existing trigger factors of violent conflict in the urban realm, such as restricted public access to local policymaking and the urban land market, high rates of youth unemployment and poor urban services. Preventing 'over-determined' cities from inciting renewed large-scale violence therefore necessitates context-specific analyses of urban histories and their particular interfaces with the political economies of state creation and consolidation. Moreover, it requires candid assessments of opportunities as well as limitations of constructive political engagement at the city level as a decisive arena for brokering peace in developing countries.


We propose and experimentally evaluate a novel approach to measure atmospheric turbulence, in which imaging of light column technology is integrated into a differential motion method. In the approach, a large acquisition scene of the light column and a narrow field of view of one pixel of the charge-coupled device respectively allow high temporal and spatial resolutions, which offer the possibility of path-integrated turbulence strength measurement with multiple paths. In addition, we describe the measurement principle of the approach. Lastly, comparative experiment is performed to verify the feasibility of the approach.


In this paper I explore the way that technological developments have changed copyright's impact on the distribution of expressive opportunities. Traditionally, copyright has benefited even poorly-financed amateur speakers by creating a market mechanism by which their work can be financed; in this way copyright has been consistent with strands of First Amendment jurisprudence and communications policy that champion broad distribution of expressive opportunities. But when technology makes it possible for this class of speakers to communicate without copyright-driven financing, the burdens that copyright imposes on their creativity may outweigh the benefits. Unfortunately, while the distributive impacts of copyright are complicated by these technological changes, copyright law and scholarship have developed a focus on market failure that marginalizes distributive concerns. I propose, among other things, a modification of the fair use doctrine that may restore some of copyright's egalitarian cast.


Abstract Lagerstätten from the Precambrian–Cambrian transition have traditionally been a relatively untapped resource for understanding the paleoecology of the "Cambrian explosion." This quantitative paleoecological study is based on 10,238 fossil specimens belonging to 100 animal species, 11 phyla, and 15 ecological categories from the lower Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 3) Chengjiang biota (Mafang locality near Haikou, Yunnan Province, China). Fossils were systematically collected within a 2.5-meter-thick sequence divided into ten stratigraphic intervals. Each interval represents an induced time-averaged assemblage of various event (obrution) beds of unknown duration. Overall, the different fossil assemblages are taxonomically and ecologically similar, suggesting the presence of a single community type recurring throughout the Mafang section. The Mafang community is dominated by epibenthic vagile hunters or scavengers, sessile suspension feeders, and infaunal vagile hunters or scavengers represented primarily by arthropods, brachiopods, and priapulids, respectively. Most species have low abundance and low occurrence frequencies, whereas a few species are numerically abundant and occur frequently. Overall, in structure and ecology the Mafang community is comparable to the Middle Cambrian (Series 3, Stage 5) Burgess Shale biota (Walcott Quarry, Yoho National Park, British Columbia, Canada). This suggests that, despite variations in species identity within taxonomic and ecological groups, the structure and ecology of Cambrian Burgess Shale-type communities remained relatively stable until at least the Middle Cambrian (Series 3, Stage 5) in subtidal to relatively deep-water offshore settings in siliciclastic soft-substrate environments.


A fundamental building block for digital communication is the Public-key cryptography systems. Public-Key cryptography (PKC) systems can be used to provide secure communications over insecure channels without exchanging a secret key. Implementing Public-Key cryptography systems is a challenge for most application platforms when several factors have to be considered in selecting the implementation platform. The most popular public-key cryptography systems nowadays are RSA and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC). ECC is considered much more suitable than other public-key algorithms. It uses lower power consumption, has higher performance and can be implemented on small areas that can be achieved by using ECC. There is no subexponential-time algorithm in solving the Elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem. Therefore, it offers smaller key size with equivalent security level compared with the other public key cryptosystems. Finite fields (or Galois fields) is considered as an important mathematical theory. Thus, it plays an important role in cryptography. As a result of their carry free arithmetic property, they are suitable to be used in hardware implementation in ECC. In cryptography the most common finite field used is binary field o€i³o€i² oˆoo€«›o€¢"oˆ». Our design performs all basic binary polynomial operations in Galois Field (GF) using a microcode structure. It uses a bit-serial and pipeline structure for implementing GF operations. Due to its bit-serial architecture, it has a low gate count and a reduced number of I/O pins. The proposed design is implemented in Verilog HDL. Xilinx ISE is used for synthesis and simulation. The result of Verilog code is checked by using the previous written Matlab code.