Land use change is a key component of regional environmental change. In mountain regions, where conditions for agriculture and human life are often difficult, land use trends are dominated by changes in the population's distribution across rural and urban areas and shifts in the main human activities. In the Argentinian puna—a high-elevation subtropical plateau of about 95,000 km2 situated above 3200 masl—land is chiefly used for grazing, mining, and tourism. In this article, we analyze trends in these land uses over the last 57 years in the context of climatic changes toward drier and warmer conditions. Since 1960, the human population grew from 80,000 to 130,000; but this increase largely occurred in the scattered urban centers, while the rural population decreased. The main livestock— sheep—showed a net decrease of around 100,000 animals (–18.5%), with numbers increasing between 1960 and 1980 and then dropping markedly. The number of mining operations declined during the 1970s and 1980s and then rose sharply, reaching a 30% increase since the 1990s. Simultaneously, structural wild vicuña populations increased from a few thousand to around 130,000. These results show that environmental changes over the past half century involved a major wildlife recovery associated with a change from widespread extensive grazing to intensive but spatially limited impacts around mining operations and growing urban centers. Tourism emerged as a new activity over the last decades, but the environmental impacts have been poorly studied. To promote local development and regional conservation, research priorities should include (1) empirical assessments of the ecological consequences of land use changes, such as grazing regimes shifting from domestic to wild herbivores, as well as the impacts of mining, tourism, and urbanization on wetlands and hydrological regimes; (2) modeling of future scenarios of mining and tourism expansion and resulting conflicts with environmental conservation; and (3) coproduction of knowledge about interactions among land uses, climate change, and the different decision-making agents.


The ability to use the recorded audio of a subject's voice to produce an open-domain synthesis system has generated much interest both in academic research and in commercial speech technology. The ability to produce synthetic versions of a subjects voice has potential commercial applications, such as virtual celebrity actors, or potential clinical applications, such as offering a synthetic replacement voice in the case of a laryngectomy. Recent developments in HMM-based speech synthesis have shown it is possible to produce synthetic voices from quite small amounts of speech data. However, mimicking the depth and variation of a speaker's prosody as well as synthesising natural voice quality is still a challenging research problem. In contrast, unit-selection systems have shown it is possible to strongly retain the character of the voice but only with sufficient original source material. Often this runs into hours and may require significant manual checking and labelling. In this paper we will present two state of the art systems, an HMM based system HTS-2007, developed by CSTR and Nagoya Institute Technology, and a commercial unit-selection system CereVoice, developed by Cereproc. Both systems have been used to mimic the voice of George W. Bush (43rd president of the United States) using freely available audio from the web. In addition we will present a hybrid system which combines both technologies. We demonstrate examples of synthetic voices created from 10, 40 and 210 minutes of randomly selected speech. We will then discuss the underlying problems associated with voice cloning using found audio, and the scalability of our solution.


This paper examines the impact of takeover law enforcement on corporate acquisitions. We use the European Takeover Directive as a natural experiment, which harmonizes takeover law across countries, while leaving its enforcement to the discretion of individual countries. We exploit this heterogeneity in enforcement quality across countries in a difference-in-differences-in-differences model, while employing an overall inductive research approach, following Karpoff and Whittry's (2018) recommendation. We find that acquirer returns increase in countries with improvements in takeover law, driven by better target selection and lower cost of financing. The increase in acquirer returns is lower in weak enforcement jurisdictions, which we identify by developing a novel Takeover Law Enforcement Index (TLEI). The findings show that takeover law can mitigate agency conflicts, but its true value depends on its enforcement. Our results are robust to a number of robustness tests.


The ability to map small-scale faults from seismic surveys depends upon resolution, noise content and acquisition/processing procedure. In addition, the geoscientist must possess a sound understanding of plausible geometries consistent with analyses of well data. The comparison of two seismic datasets from the Gullveig structure, northern North Sea, demonstrates that the lateral resolution of the data is strongly dependent on the signal-to-noise ratio. By combining a theoretical approach with statistics from well analyses, exemplified by data from the Gullfaks Field, it is possible to enhance our understanding of the limits of fault resolution on 3D seismic data.


Advances in wireless technology and portable computing along with demands for greater user mobility have provided a major movement towards development of ad-hoc networks. The main Method for evaluating the performance of MANET's is simulation. An extensive simulation is performed using NS-2 simulator and end to end delay, packet delivery ratio, packet loss ratio, throughput and jitter for Reactive protocols TORA,DSR and proactive protocol DSDV for TCP and CBR traffic patten are evaluated for different scenarios i.e. pause time, simulation time and no of nodes . At the end it is concluded that in case of TCP DSDV(Proactive) is best and in case of CBR DSR(Reactive) is best. Performance of TORA is average in all cases except packet loss.


We assess the long-run dynamic implications of market-based regulation of carbon dioxide emissions in the US Portland cement industry. We consider several alternative policy designs, including mechanisms that use production subsidies to partially offset compliance costs and border tax adjustments to penalize emissions associated with foreign imports. Our results highlight two general countervailing market distortions. First, following Buchanan (1969), reductions in product market surplus and allocative inefficiencies due to market power in the domestic cement market counteract the social benefits of carbon abatement. Second, tradeexposure to unregulated foreign competitors leads to emissions "leakage" which offsets domestic emissions reductions. Taken together, these forces result in social welfare losses under policy regimes that fully internalize the emissions externality. In contrast, market-based policies that incorporate design features to mitigate the exercise of market power and emissions leakage can deliver welfare gains.


City of the Mind is the second novel by Booker Prize winning author Penelope Lively. 'This is the city in which everything is simultaneous. There is no yesterday, nor tomorrow, merely weather, and decay, and construction.' In London's changing heartland, architect Matthew Halland is aware of how the past and the present blend. It stirs memories of his boyhood, the early years of his daughter Jane and the failed marriage that he has almost put behind him. Here too is the London of prehistory, of Georgian elegance, of the Blitz. But Matthew is occupied with constructing a new future for London in Docklands, and with it he begins to forge new beginnings of his own. "A glorious novel". (Observer). "The descriptions of the London Blitz are achingly real". (Sunday Telegraph). Penelope Lively is the author of many prize-winning novels and short-story collections for both adults and children. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize: once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger. Her other books include Going Back; Judgement Day; Next to Nature, Art; Perfect Happiness; Passing On; City of the Mind; Cleopatra's Sister; Heat Wave; Beyond the Blue Mountains, a collection of short stories; Oleander, Jacaranda, a memoir of her childhood days in Egypt; Spiderweb; her autobiographical work, A House Unlocked; The Photograph; Making It Up; Consequences; Family Album, which was shortlisted for the 2009 Costa Novel Award, and How It All Began. She is a popular writer for children and has won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award. She was appointed CBE in the 2001 New Year's Honours List, and DBE in 2012. Penelope Lively lives in London.


ABSTRACT This article investigated the effect of various aspects of employees' job involvement on their importance evaluation of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) for an organization. Anonymous questionnaires were used to collect data from 131 professors and clerical workers at a private Japanese university. Results showed that while affective and behavioral involvement had a significantly positive effect on evaluation of some OCB dimensions, cognitive involvement negatively affected helping behavior, contrary to the initial hypothesis. The effect of affective job involvement was partially moderated by employees' job category and gender. Professors valued OCB more than clerical workers when they were highly affectively job involved, although clerical workers were affectively job involved more than professors on average were. Keywords: organizational citizenship behavior, job involvement, Japanese organization 1. INTRODUCTION Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has been one of the most popular topics in organizational behavior (Organ, Podsakoff& MacKenzie, 2006). Although initially, Western researchers began paying attention to the importance of OCB, many Asian researchers, particularly Chinese researchers, have also focused on the OCB of their countries' employees. Compared to research in other Asian countries, Japanese researchers have unfortunately not shown great interest in OCB to date. Naturally, the boundary between formal job and extra job behaviors is ambiguous because Japanese tend to regard their organization as a quasi-family in a collectivistic context and do whatever an organization wants them to do as a formal job (Iwata, 1978; Yoshimura & Anderson, 1997). Japanese researchers might not consider it important to solely focus on and investigate the OCB of Japanese employees. However, this ambiguity in the boundary between formal and extra jobs was seen in a Western context (Morrison, 1994). Moreover, regardless of what Japanese employees think of the range of their work, it is still important to focus on OCB-like behaviors of these employees because Japanese organizations are actually affected by the extensive range of behaviors (Yoshimura & Anderson, 1997). This study investigated the effect of employees' job involvement on their importance evaluation of OCB using data collected from a private Japanese university (a juridical person). Job involvement refers to employees' attitudes toward their jobs and is one of the most specific factors relevant to work performance. Most Japanese organizations have a regular job rotation system that requires employees to change their jobs periodically to let them develop a comprehensive organizational perspective. Although this job rotation system is still functional in Japanese organizations, it might inhibit employees' job involvement because those employees cannot stay at one job for a long time. Therefore, it is important to examine the importance of job involvement in Japanese organizations, particularly how Japanese employees' job involvement influences their work-related positive behaviors or their evaluation of their behaviors. Despite the important findings of this previous research, the evidence that attitude toward a formal job (job involvement) influenced behaviors beyond a formal job (OCB) was not selfevident. Stated simply, job involved employees should try to spend as much time as possible doing their job, and higher levels of OCB might produce higher levels of role overload, job stress, and work-family conflict (Organ & Ryan, 1995; Bolino & Turnley, 2005). Thus, some explanation for the fact that employees devote at least some of their time and energy to OCB is needed. The discussions of many researchers were built upon two premises about job involved employees' perceptions: Job involved employees develop an organizational personality to do anything they can for organization, and they believe that their OCB contributes to organizational effectiveness. …


The approach outlined below is focused on a living theory methodology for improving practice and generating knowledge from questions of the kind 'How do I improve what I am doing?' It also includes a new epistemology for educational knowledge. The new epistemology rests on a living logic of educational enquiry and living standards of judgment (Laidlaw, 1996) that include flows of life affirming energy with values that carry hope for the future of humanity. The presentation emphasizes the importance of the uniqueness of each individual's living educational theory (Whitehead, 1989) in improving practice and generating knowledge. It emphasizes the importance of individual creativity in contributing to improving practice and knowledge from within historical and cultural opportunities and constraints in the social contexts of the individual's life and work. The web-based version of this presentation demonstrates the importance of local, national and international communicative collaborations for improving practice and generating knowledge in the context of globalizing communications. Through its multi-media representations of educational relationships and explanations of educational influence in learning it seeks to communicate new living standards of judgment. These standards are relationally-dynamic and grounded in both improving practice and generating knowledge. They express the life-affirming energy of individuals, cultures and the cosmos, with values and understandings that it is claimed carry hope for the future of humanity.


The six papers in this theme issue of Pacific Conservation Biology were presented at a symposium organized by the WildCountry Science Council (see Recher 2003 for an account of WildCountry) at the Adelaide meeting of the Ecological Society of Australia in 2004. The symposium theme of ?dispersive fauna? is central to the philosophy and principles of WildCountry. The WildCountry philosophy is based on the argument that the long-term conservation of continental biodiversity is not possible with a system of spatially static conservation reserves by itself. Reserves form the core of WildCountry, but cannot fully sample continental biodiversity, nor allow for the full range of movements characteristic of the biota unless the total area set aside from development far exceeds what society would see as economically or politically acceptable. Because of these limits, a static and spatially limited reserve system cannot meet the challenge of ensuring the evolutionary viability of populations and species. A challenge that becomes increasingly difficult and urgent to resolve in the face of accelerating climate change and the loss and modification of habitat through land clearing, pastoralism, changed fire regimes, and the spread of weeds and feral animals among a myriad of environmental changes driven by human endeavour across the landscape. In my view, probably greater than 50% of the continent is the absolute minimum for a fixed system of reserves to meet the needs of biodiversity conservation, but see Archer (2002) who suggests a minimum of 20% may be required simply to meet the most basic evolutionary criteria.


A stimulated Brillouin fiber ring laser with a spectral width of 2 kHz and an intrinsic linewidth of less than 30 Hz has been demonstrated. Applications of such a laser include laser linewidth narrowing, microwave frequency generation, high-rate amplitude modulation, and optical inertial rotation sensing.


Creating and optimizing content- and dialogue-based recommendation processes and their GUIs (graphical user interfaces) manually is expensive and slow. Changes in the environment may also be found too late or even be overlooked by humans. We show how to generate such processes and their GUIs semi-automatically by using knowledge derived from unstructured data such as customer feedback on products on the Web. Our approach covers the whole lifecycle from knowledge discovery through text mining techniques to the use of this knowledge for semi-automatic generation of recommendation processes and their user interfaces as well as their comparison in real-world use within the e-commerce domain through A/B-variant tests. These tests indicate that our approach can lead to better results as well as less manual effort.


The Pleistocene paleooceanographic and paleoclimate development in the eastern Arctic Ocean is still widely unexplored: this is mainly due to contradictory stratigraphic models and relatively low contents of micropaleontological proxies such as foraminifers, coccoliths and diatoms that are tradionally used to unravel the history of surface and deep waters as well as sea-ice coverage. We have selected ODP Hole 910 for a paleoenvironmental study because presence of biogenic carbonate permits establishment of a relatively continuous stable oxygen isotope stratigraphy on planktic foraminifer Neogloboquadrina pachyderma sin. that is the basic stratigraphic tool in the Pleistocene. Furthermore, the Yermak Plateau is located in the path of inflowing relatively warm North Atlantic waters, and its sediments record the dynamic coupling between the northernmost branch of the Gulf Stream and the Arctic Ocean. Various micropaleontological, sedimentological and organic-geochemical methods are applied on the same sample set to reveal the synchroneity/ asynchroneity of change in the surface water regime and changes in the sediment supply and source areas.The revised chronostratigraphy indicates that the uppermost 20 m of Hole 910A range from Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 16 to MIS 2. Several stratigraphic age fixpoints support the interpretation of the stable oxygen isotope record that is punctuated by numerous short-term meltwater events. Organic-walled dinoflagellate cysts that have a preservation potential superior to most calcareous and biosiliceous microfossil groups are used to establish a biostratigraphy calibrated vs. the new chronostratigraphy, and to reconstruct the history of surface waters and sea-ice coverage and its interaction with the discharge of freshwater from Eurasia and the growth and decay of the northern Barents Sea ice sheets. Most dinoflagellate cyst samples analysed so far are productive suggesting that Atlantic water inflow into the Arctic Ocean was suppressed only for relatively short periods in the past 600,000 years. Presence of freshwater algae in a number of samples suggests some freshwater supply from the Laptev and Kara seas during certain intervals. Interpretations of the almost monospecific planktic foraminifer assemblages are biased because selective dissolution may have overprinted the paleorecord.The coarse sand fraction (250 to 2000µm) and the number of gravel particles (>2mm/10g) that characterise supply by icebergs do not show much variability, except for a pronounced maximum in MIS marine isotope stage 2 that is probably related to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Minor fluctuations of the gravel content might be related to glacial/interglacial transitions and the onset of glaciations in the adjacent northern Svalbard/Barents Sea.Mineralogical and geochemical parameters show some variability in the Pleistocene siliciclastic sediments of Hole 910A. Carbonate contents are principally low and range usually between 0 and 4%. Maximum values of 8 to 10% were measured in samples from MIS 2. The terrigenous minerals dolomite and siderite clearly dominate in most samples showing that only a rather small portion of bulk carbonate is of biological origin. Small fluctuations are obviously not related to glacial/interglacial cycles. Rock Eval pyrolysis and isotopic signatures of the organic matter (?13Corg) revealed that total organic carbon contents are predominately of terrestrial origin, and are obviously inversely correlated with carbonate contents.Finally, our study will provide reference stratigraphic data sets for interpreting the micropaleontological, sedimentological and organic-geochemical records of the new boreholes that will be drilled on the Lomonosov Ridge (Central Arctic Ocean) in the frame of the Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX, IODP) in summer 2004.


A Tour of the Subatomic Zoo: A guide to particle physics is a brief and ambitious expedition into the remarkably simple ingredients of all the wonders of nature. With hardly a mathematical formula, Professor Cindy Schwarz clearly explains the language and much of the substance of elementary particle physics for the 99% of students who do not aspire to a career in physics. Views of matter from the atom to the quark are discussed in a form that an interested person with no physics background can easily understand. College and university courses can be developed around this book and it can be used alone or in conjunction with other material. Even college physics majors would enjoy reading this book as an introduction to particle physics. High-school, and even middle-school, teachers could also use this book to introduce this material to their students. It will also be beneficial for high-school teachers who have not been formally exposed to high-energy physics, have forgotten what they once knew, or are no longer up to date with recent developments.


Background Due to the growing prevalence of type 2 diabetes, new dietary solutions are needed to help improve glucose and lipid metabolism in persons at high risk of developing the disease. Herein we investigated the effects of low-insulin-response grain products, fatty fish, and berries on glucose metabolism and plasma lipidomic profiles in persons with impaired glucose metabolism. Methodology/Principal Findings Altogether 106 men and women with impaired glucose metabolism and with at least two other features of the metabolic syndrome were included in a 12-week parallel dietary intervention. The participants were randomized into three diet intervention groups: (1) whole grain and low postprandial insulin response grain products, fatty fish three times a week, and bilberries three portions per day (HealthyDiet group), (2) Whole grain enriched diet (WGED) group, which includes principally the same grain products as group (1), but with no change in fish or berry consumption, and (3) refined wheat breads (Control). Oral glucose tolerance, plasma fatty acids and lipidomic profiles were measured before and after the intervention. Self-reported compliance with the diets was good and the body weight remained constant. Within the HealthyDiet group two hour glucose concentration and area-under-the-curve for glucose decreased and plasma proportion of (n-3) long-chain PUFAs increased (False Discovery Rate p-values <0.05). Increases in eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid associated curvilinearly with the improved insulin secretion and glucose disposal. Among the 364 characterized lipids, 25 changed significantly in the HealthyDiet group, including multiple triglycerides incorporating the long chain (n-3) PUFA. Conclusions/Significance The results suggest that the diet rich in whole grain and low insulin response grain products, bilberries, and fatty fish improve glucose metabolism and alter the lipidomic profile. Therefore, such a diet may have a beneficial effect in the efforts to prevent type 2 diabetes in high risk persons. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00573781


To support a high penetration of intermittent solar and wind power generation, many regions are planning to add new high capacity transmission lines. These additional transmission lines strengthen grid synchronization, but will also increase the grid's short circuit capacity, and furthermore will be very costly. With a highly interconnected grid and variable renewable generation, a small grid failure can easily start cascading outages, resulting in large scale blackout. We introduce the "digital grid," where large synchronous grids are divided into smaller segmented grids which are connected asynchronously, via multileg IP addressed ac/dc/ac converters called digital grid routers. These routers communicate with each other and send power among the segmented grids through existing transmission lines, which have been repurposed as digital grid transmission lines. The digital grid can accept high penetrations of renewable power, prevent cascading outages, accommodate identifiable tagged electricity flows, record those transactions, and trade electricity as a commodity.


Release document of an oil and gas lease between the Roxana Petroleum Corporation and Carl Harton and his wife Christiane Harton. The document states that the petroleum company is relinquishing 70 acres of property in Wharton County, along with all rights, to the Hartons. Signatures were made on the bottom by the vice-president of the corporation and a notary.
When closed, on the back, the top quarter of the document condenses the document into two lines of text that read, "Release of Oil and Gas Lease Roxana Petroleum Corporation To."


Coalition formation is an essential component for multi-agent systems in environments where tasks can be too complicated or resource intensive to be completed efficiently by a single agent. By forming coalitions, agents are able to work together and combine resources to complete a task that would not otherwise be possible. We propose a mechanism for forming stable, overlapping coalitions of self-interested agents. Current coalition formation algorithms tend to assume that coalitions cannot overlap, meaning that an agent can only be a member of one coalition at any given time; their restrictions prevent the system from efficiently allocating all of the agents' resources.


Air-conditioning (AC) is an important sub-system in electric vehicles (EVs). AC is responsible for the highest energy consumption among all the auxiliary systems. As the energy is delivered by the batteries, the power consumption for air-conditioning can imply a significant reduction of the vehicle autonomy. Given the actual state of the art and the temperature and power requirements, electrically driven compressors are the most feasible solution. However, vapour-compression systems are reaching their maximum efficiency. Using innovative technologies can improve the performance of standard systems and hereby increase the vehicle autonomy. This paper presents the first steps in the design of a magnetocaloric air-conditioner for an electric minibus. The system will include two reversible magnetocaloric heat pumps, one in the front part of a minibus and one on the rear. The heat rejection system of the power electronics will be coupled to the air-conditioning system. In order to assist the design of the system, a dynamic model has been developed for the cabin, the hydraulic loops and heat exchangers, and the magnetocaloric units. An integrated design of the complete system is necessary, as it will work under dynamic conditions which depend on the thermal load in the cabin. In this paper, the operation conditions of the magnetocaloric units are presented and the design of the magnetocaloric air-conditioner is discussed. This work has been developed under the frame of the European Project ICE which aims to develop an innovative mobile air-conditioning system for EVs based on a magnetocaloric heat pump.


With high rates of child labour as a result of extensive poverty in Peru, measures are needed to protect children from exploitation. The conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme Juntos provides enrolment subsidies to incentivise sending children to school, with an indirect goal of keeping them out of the labour market. Previous research however indicates that Juntos beneficiary children engage in more unpaid labour than expected. Using ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions, we therefore test the effect of the programme on unpaid labour and whether a gender differential in the effect exists. Propensity score matching allows us to confirm our initial OLS results that show that Juntos participation results in increased unpaid child labour, with a particularly strong effect for beneficiary boys. Using these results, we focus testing on our primary data in order to understand the mechanisms behind this effect. Through OLS regressions we find that investment of the Juntos transfer in the family business increases the incidence of unpaid labour, especially for boys. We conclude that unpaid child labour is strongly affected by cash transfers and wish to initiate a discussion regarding the effectiveness of CCT programmes in countries with high school enrolment rates.


Web crawling is the problem of keeping a cache of webpages fresh, i.e., having the most recent copy available when a page is requested. This problem is usually coupled with the natural restriction that the bandwidth available to the web crawler is limited. The corresponding optimization problem was solved optimally by Azar et al. [2018] under the assumption that, for each webpage, both the elapsed time between two changes and the elapsed time between two requests follow a Poisson distribution with known parameters. In this paper, we study the same control problem but under the assumption that the change rates are unknown a priori, and thus we need to estimate them in an online fashion using only partial observations (i.e., single-bit signals indicating whether the page has changed since the last refresh). As a point of departure, we characterise the conditions under which one can solve the problem with such partial observability. Next, we propose a practical estimator and compute confidence intervals for it in terms of the elapsed time between the observations. Finally, we show that the explore-and-commit algorithm achieves an $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{T})$ regret with a carefully chosen exploration horizon. Our simulation study shows that our online policy scales well and achieves close to optimal performance for a wide range of the parameters.


From the mid-1930s, Australian physicists, though few in number, sought to join the exciting new field of research then opening up in experimental nuclear physics. Such research was already, however, largely based on the use of particle accelerators, and to acquire one demanded money and resources on a scale unprecedented in Australian scientific experience. Australian attempts during the period 1935––1960 to build accelerators or to acquire them by other means are described. The difficulties that Australian physicists faced in this connection and the strategies by which they sought to overcome them are considered. Three stages of development are identified: an initial period of small-scale initiatives in the 1930s, a postwar period of ""do-it-yourself"" accelerator building, and finally a growing practice of buying machines ""off the shelf"" from commercial suppliers.


During the last three decades several field and laboratory investigations have been conducted in which the waves generated by a wide variety of vessels have been measured. There is a need to synthesize the data published from these studies and to develop general ship wave prediction methods for designers. To complete this task some additional ship wave data must be collected. This paper initiates the effort to develop these prediction methods. A summary and critique of available data are given. Then, the appropriate portion of these data is employed to develop a ship wave height predictor model that gives the maximum ship wave height as a function of ship speed and displacement, water depth, and distance from the sailing line. This is an interim model that is quite applicable but can be improved pending additional data. Finally, planned future efforts to further develop design wave prediction methods are discussed.


We consider a sorting machine consisting of two stacks in series where the first stack has the added restriction that entries in the stack must be in decreasing order from top to bottom. The class of permutations sortable by this machine are known to be enumerated by the Schroder numbers. In this paper, we give a bijection between these sortable permutations of length $n$ and Schroder paths -- the lattice paths from $(0,0)$ to $(n-1,n-1)$ composed of East steps $(1,0)$, North steps $(0,1)$, and Diagonal steps $(1,1)$ that travel weakly below the line $y=x$.


We develop a Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm for estimating finite-horizon discrete choice dynamic programming (DDP) models. The proposed algorithm has the potential to reduce the computational burden significantly when some of the state variables are continuous. In a conventional approach to estimating such a finite-horizon DDP model, researchers achieve a reduction in estimation time by evaluating value functions at only a subset of state points and applying an interpolation method to approximate value functions at the remaining state points (e.g., Keane and Wolpin 1994). Although this approach has proven to be effective, the computational burden could still be high if the model has multiple continuous state variables or the number of periods in the time horizon is large. We propose a new estimation algorithm to reduce the computational burden for estimating this class of models. It extends the Bayesian MCMC algorithm for stationary infinite-horizon DDP models proposed by Imai, Jain and Ching (2009) (IJC). In our algorithm, we solve value functions at only one randomly chosen state point per time period, store those partially solved value functions period by period, and approximate expected value functions nonparametrically using the set of those partially solved value functions. We conduct Monte Carlo exercises and show that our algorithm is able to recover the true parameter values well. Finally, similar to IJC, our algorithm allows researchers to incorporate flexible unobserved heterogeneity, which is often computationally infeasible in the conventional two-step estimation approach (e.g., Hotz and Miller 1993; Aguirregabiria and Mira 2002).


Quality of courses is an interesting subject for many professors at the Faculties or Schools of the University of Costa Rica. The decision to improve courses requires information from students and professors as well as information from academic performance results. The present article gathers the results of the evaluation of ten courses from the major in Pharmacy of the University of Costa Rica. Results reflect that there is no relationship between the professional profile of the major and the didactic activities used in the evaluated courses. In other words, this evaluation reflects that changes must be done in the courses in order to put into practice pedagogical-oriented ideas, such as critical and creative thinking, decision making, problem research, and problem solution.


It is a common misconception that individuals with schizophrenia are significantly more dangerous and violent than individuals free of mental illness. This stigmatization may lead to harsher sentences when people with schizophrenia are involved in criminal activities and sentenced by a jury. This study presented four conditions to which participants were randomly assigned, alone or in a group of three, and were asked to sentence a defendant, either with or without schizophrenia. It was hypothesized that group deliberations would result in more lenient sentences for defendants with schizophrenia as compared to individual deliberations. Furthermore, it was predicted that both group and individual deliberations would result in harsher sentences for defendants with schizophrenia than defendants who were described as free of mental illness. Results revealed that defendants with schizophrenia were sentenced in a more lenient manner than defendants with no mental illness. However, several additional findings indicated an indirect negative attitude toward the mentally ill defendant.


Degree Name MA (Master of Arts) Program Sociology Date of Award 5-2014 Committee Chair or Co-Chairs Dr. Martha Copp Committee Members Dr. Kelly Foster, Dr. Joseph Baker Abstract Over the past 30 years, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) groups have called for children's books to include LGBTQ characters and themes to help children understand our multifaceted social world. Few LGBTQ characters have appeared in children's literature. This qualitative study analyzes the text and images of 29 children's books published between 1972 and 2013 that have any LGBTQ characters. Books featuring lesbian and gay characters often presented them as conforming to heteronormative standards to find fulfillment. The majority of books with gender-deviant characters focused on boys harassed by other characters for their conventionally feminine behaviors. Surprisingly few books in this inclusive sample depicted any nonwhite characters. This study concludes by offering recommendations for how authors of children's books could approach this genre without reinforcing other long-standing inequalities tied to gender, race, class, and sexuality. Document Type Thesis unrestricted Recommended Citation Toman, Lindsay A., "Queering the ABCs: LGBTQ Characters in Children's Books" (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 2350. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/2350 Copyright Copyright by the authors.  Download


Sensor data validation has become an important issue in the operation and control of energy production plants. An undetected sensor malfunction may convey inaccurate or misleading information about the actual plant state, possibility leading to unnecessary downtimes and, consequently, large financial losses. The objective of this work is the development of a novel sensor data validation method to promptly detect sensor malfunctions. The proposed method is based on the analysis of data regularity properties, through the joint use of Continuous Wavelet Transform and image analysis techniques. Differently from the typical sensor data validation techniques which detect a sensor malfunction by observing variations in the relationships among measurements provided by different sensors, the proposed method validates the data collected by a given sensor only using historical data collected from the sensor itself. The proposed method is shown able to correctly detect different types and intensities of sensor malfunctions from energy production plants.


Positioning is a fundamental issue for mobile robots. Therefore, a performance analysis is suitable to determine the behavior of a system, and to optimize its working. Unfortunately, some systems are only evaluated experimentally, which makes the performance analysis and design decisions very unclear. In [4], we have proposed a new angle measurement system, named BeAMS, that is the key element of an algorithm for mobile robot positioning. BeAMS introduces a new mechanism to measure angles: it detects a beacon when it enters and leaves an angular window. A theoretical framework for a thorough performance analysis of BeAMS has been provided to establish the upper bound of the variance, and to validate this bound through experiments and simulations. It has been shown that the estimator derived from the center of this angular window provides an unbiased estimate of the beacon angle. This document complements our paper by going into further details related to the code statistics of modulated signals in general, with an emphasis on BeAMS. In particular, the probability density function of the measured angle has been previously established with the assumption that there is no correlation between the times a beacon enters the angular window or leaves it. This assumption is questionable and, in this document, we reconsider this assumption and establish the exact probability density function of the angle estimated by BeAMS (without this assumption). The conclusion of this study is that the real variance of the estimator provided by BeAMS was slightly underestimated in our previous work. In addition to this specific result, we also provide a new and extensive theoretical approach that can be used to analyze the statistics of any angle measurement method with beacons whose signal has been modulated. To summarize, this technical document has four purposes: (1) to establish the exact probability density function of the angle estimator of BeAMS, (2) to calculate a practical upper bound of the variance of this estimator, which is of practical interest for calibration and tracking (see Table 1, on page 13, for a summary), (3) to present a new theoretical approach to evaluate the performance of systems that use modulated (coded) signals, and (4) to show how the variance evolves exactly as a function of the angular window (while remaining below the upper bound).


We constructed a series of BspMI cassettes that simplify the introduction of specific point mutations in the polymerase domain of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 reverse transcriptase. A series of point mutants were constructed by using these cassette vectors. The RNA-dependent DNA polymerase and RNase H activities of 20 point mutations in the conserved portion of the polymerase domain were assayed. All the mutations analyzed are conservative substitutions of evolutionarily conserved amino acids. The mutations were divided into four classes. The first class has little effect on either polymerase or RNase H activity. The second class affects RNase H but not polymerase activity, while the third class has a normal RNase H activity with diminished polymerase activity. The fourth class affects both activities.


The Relay is widely used in civil, industrial and military equipment. The Relay is considered to be one of the indispensable actuators for electric power and control flying objects and systems. Relays reliability strongly influences the system reliability. The mathematical model of the servo is introduced including the electrical, magnetic and dynamic parts. Simulations, using Matlab and Simulink, were performed. An improvement to the mathematical model has been carried through simulation which reflected on the results gained. Results of the effect and influence of magnetic materials and some important mechanical parameters like stiffness, viscosity, and copper insulator thickness, on the dynamic performance of the servo were presented. The results can lead to improving the servo performance and get the right design of parameters and right choice of materials.


Is the online trade with second-hand products changing individual consumer behaviour? What is the sustainability potential of this activity? How can daily energy-consuming routines at the workplace be changed? Do major changes in the course of people's lives represent opportunities to modify their consumer behaviour towards greater sustainability? These are only some of the research questions studied in the focal topic "From Knowledge to Action - New Paths towards Sustainable Consumption" which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the "Social-ecological Research Programme" (SOF). This book gives an insight into the research results of the ten project groups. Their diversity highlights that there is much more to "sustainable consumption" than the simple purchase of organic or fair trade products.In addition, overarching conceptual and normative issues were treated across the project groups of the focal topic. Developed collaboratively and moderated by the accompanying research project, the results of the synthesis process are also presented here, as for example how the sustainability of individual consumer behaviour can be evaluated,or which theories of action are particularly useful for specific consumer behaviour phenomena.


We utilise and develop Whittle's restless bandit formulation to analyse a simple class of inventory routing problems with direct deliveries. These routing problems arise from the practice of vendor-managed inventory replenishment and concern the optimal replenishment of a collection of inventory holding locations controlled centrally by a decision maker who is able to monitor inventory levels throughout the network. We develop a notion of location indexability from a Lagrangian relaxation of the problem and show that (subject to mild conditions) the locations are indeed indexable. We thus have a collection of location indices in closed form, namely, real-valued functions of the inventory level (one for each location), which measure in a natural way (namely, as a fair charge for replenishment) each location's priority for inclusion in each day's deliveries. We discuss how to use such location indices to construct heuristics for replenishment and assess a greedy index heuristic in a numerical study where it performs strongly. A simpler approximate index analysis is available for the case in which the demand at each location is Poisson. This analysis permits a more explicit characterisation of the range of holding cost rates for which (approximate) location indexability is guaranteed.


e11074 Background: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (C) plus trastuzumab (H) improves pathologic complete response (pCR) rate over C alone. Whether pCR after CH is predictive of survival is not known. We evaluated long-term (LT) follow-up of survival and cardiotoxicity outcomes from neoadjuvant trials of CH for HER2+ breast cancer.  Methods: Patients (pts) with HER2+ stage II-III breast cancer were enrolled on 2 neoadjuvant phase 2 trials between 1999-2003. Treatment consisted of either 12 wks paclitaxel/H (TH) with optional adjuvant C, or 12 wks vinorelbine/H (NH) with optional adjuvant C+/-H x 40 wks. pCR was defined as absence of invasive disease in breast and lymph nodes at surgery. LT follow-up on recurrence, survival, and cardiotoxicity endpoints was performed through chart review.   Results: Of 88 enrolled pts, 78 were confirmed HER2+ and completed CH without progression (TH 32 pts, NH 46 pts). Median age was 45y. 63% were hormone receptor (HR) +, 37% HR-. 15 (19%) had pCR at surgery, 7 (22%) with TH, and 8 (17%) with NH. Optional adjuvant anthracycline-based C was received by 99% of pts, with adjuvant H in 72% of NH pts. Median duration of follow-up is 8.3y (10.2y, TH, and 7.8y, NH). 22 pts have recurred (5 local, 15 distant, and 2 both sequentially) and 15 have died from breast cancer for a total of 21 disease-free survival (DFS) events. In pts with pCR, 4-year DFS was 93.3% (95% CI 61-99); in those without pCR, 75.4% (CI 63-84). Without adjuvant H, 4-year DFS in pts with pCR had too few events to estimate, in those without pCR 72.2% (CI 55-84). In patients who received adjuvant H, 4-year DFS in those with pCR was 85.7% (CI 33-98), in those without pCR 80.4% (CI 59-91). Of 27 pts with ejection fraction (EF) recorded during follow-up, 1 experienced symptomatic cardiac toxicity while receiving H for metastatic disease.    Conclusions: LT prognosis in this cohort with stage II-III HER2+ disease and neoadjuvant CH exposure was favorable, and LT cardiotoxicity was rare. Trends suggest pts with pCR experience better outcomes than those without pCR. However, adjuvant H may confound the interaction between neoadjuvant response and LT DFS. For HER2+ tumors, as for ER+ tumors, the prognostic value of pCR may be limited by the availability of effective adjuvant therapies.


We do not have a full understanding of the mechanisms underlying plasticity in the human brain. Mouse models have well controlled environments and genetics, and provide tools to help dissect the mechanisms underlying the observed responses to therapies devised for humans recovering from injury of ischemic nature or trauma. We aimed to detect plasticity following learning of a unilateral reaching movement, and relied on MRI performed with a rapid structural protocol suitable for in vivo brain imaging, and a longer diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) protocol executed ex vivo. In vivo MRI detected contralateral volume increases in trained animals (reachers), in circuits involved in motor control, sensory processing, and importantly, learning and memory. The temporal association area, parafascicular and mediodorsal thalamic nuclei were also enlarged. In vivo MRI allowed us to detect longitudinal effects over the ~25 days training period. The interaction between time and group (trained versus not trained) supported a role for the contralateral, but also the ipsilateral hemisphere. While ex vivo imaging was affected by shrinkage due to the fixation, it allowed for superior resolution and improved contrast to noise ratios, especially for subcortical structures. We examined microstructural changes based on DTI, and identified increased fractional anisotropy and decreased apparent diffusion coefficient, predominantly in the cerebellum and its connections. Cortical thickness differences did not survive multiple corrections, but uncorrected statistics supported the contralateral effects seen with voxel based volumetric analysis, showing thickening in the somatosensory, motor and visual cortices. In vivo and ex vivo analyses identified plasticity in circuits relevant to selecting actions in a sensory-motor context, through exploitation of learned association and decision making. By mapping a connectivity atlas into our ex vivo template we revealed that changes due to skilled motor learning occurred in a network of 35 regions, including the primary and secondary motor (M1, M2) and sensory cortices (S1, S2), the caudate putamen (CPu), visual (V1) and temporal association cortex. The significant clusters intersected tractography based networks seeded in M1, M2, S1, V1 and CPu at levels > 80%. We found that 89% of the significant cluster belonged to a network seeded in the contralateral M1, and 85% to one seeded in the contralateral M2. Moreover, 40% of the M1 and S1 cluster by network intersections were in the top 80th percentile of the tract densities for their respective networks. Our investigation may be relevant to studies of rehabilitation and recovery, and points to widespread network changes that accompany motor learning that may have potential applications to designing recovery strategies following brain injury.


Aquaculture is a rapidly expanding food production sector, facing the challenge of growth both increasing its efficiency and reducing its negative impact on the environment. Metagenomics is an emerging tool in aquaculture that helps to understand the complex host (fish-shellfish)-microbiota-pathogen-environment relationship underlying disease outbreaks, monitoring the dynamics of microbial diversity in farmed animals subject to different environmental conditions or perturbations. As Chile takes an important share of world aquaculture market, this chapter reviews the actual and potential applications of metagenomics to support a sustainable expansion and diversification of Chilean aquaculture. The focus is on (i) the role and function of the gut microbiota in the proper immunostimulation and disease control and (ii) the role of metagenomics in monitoring environmental microbial biodiversity and dynamics in relation to disease persistence and ecosystem stability. We conclude that despite the importance of the aquaculture sector in Chile, the application of metagenomics to deal with disease control and ecosystem preservation is still an emerging field of study. Understanding host (fish-shellfish)microbiota-pathogen-environment diversity of interactions in a more holistic view, i.e., the holobiome approach, could be key to develop rational strategies to improve productivity by increasing resistance to diseases and reducing the use of antibiotics and their negative environmental impact.


Cybersecurity is an issue of foremost interest for policymakers in the world's governments, corporations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), academic institutions, and other associations. However, remedy for the myriad cyberthreats and vulnerabilities continues to elude technologists and policymakers alike. In this paper, we consider the concept of cyberrisk intelligence, a general concept of understanding the varied phenomena that impact an organization's capacity to secure its digital communications and resources from eavesdropping, theft, or attack. We also consider the deeper economics of information held and transmitted in digital form and how those economics may alter thinking on risk modeling. Finally, we offer guidance on how organizations and entire sectors of business activity may want to alter their thinking on cybersecurity issues beyond a technological framing to include an informational perspective aligned with business activities.


Many applications in computer vision require comparisons between two images of the same scene. Comparison applications usually assume that corresponding regions in the two images have similar colors. However, this assumption is not always true. One way to deal with this problem is to apply a color mapping to one of the images. In this paper we address the challenge of computing color mappings between pairs of images acquired under different acquisition conditions, and possibly by different cameras. For images taken from different viewpoints, our proposed method overcomes the lack of pixel correspondence. For images taken under different illumination, we show that no single color mapping exists, and we address and solve a new problem of computing a minimal set of piecewise color mappings. When both viewpoint and illumination vary, our method can only handle planar regions of the scene. In this case, the scene planar regions are simultaneously co-segmented in the two images, and piecewise color mappings for these regions are calculated. We demonstrate applications of the proposed method for each of these cases.


This study was undertaken to characterize the molecular and pathological mechanisms of pulmonary vascular remodeling in a patient who developed chronic lung allograft dysfunction and recurrent pulmonary hypertension (PH) 22 years after undergoing a right single lung transplantation for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Histopathologic examination of the explanted lungs at the time of retransplantation showed characteristics of diffuse vascular remodeling combined with features of acute and chronic thromboemboli and evidence of bronchiolitis obliterans in the right lung allograft. In contrast, the native left lung demonstrated pulmonary arterial changes in keeping with PAH associated with disseminated pulmonary ossification. Real-time polymerase chain reaction and Western blot—performed on the first lung allograft, the native lung, and the new donor lung—demonstrated increased expression of apoptotic-related gene and protein levels in the lung allograft compared with the native PAH lung and the donor lung. Localization of cell apoptosis determined by triple immunostaining for caspase 3, CD31, and smooth muscle actin was positive in the pulmonary endothelial cells but not the smooth muscle cells of the lung allograft, while no positive staining was detected for cell death in the native PAH lung. The presence of PH in the lung allograft 22 years after transplantation was associated with upregulation of apoptotic markers and evidence of apoptotic endothelial cell death compared with the native lung and donor lung.


Analyses of a set of 47 fossil and 4 modern skulls using phylogenetic geometric morphometric methods corroborate and refine earlier results. These include evidence that the African Iwo Eleru skull, only about 12,000 years old, indeed represents a new species of near human. In contrast, the earliest known anatomically modern human skull, Qafzeh 9, the skull of Eve from Israel/Palestine, is validated as fully modern in form. Analyses clearly show evidence of archaic introgression into Gravettian, pre_Gravettian, Qafzeh, and Upper Cave (China) populations of near modern humans, and in about that order of increasing archaic content. The enigmatic Saldahna (Elandsfontein) skull emerges as a probable first representative of that lineage, which exclusive of Neanderthals that, eventually lead to modern humans. There is also evidence that the poorly dated Kabwe (Broken Hill) skull represents a much earlier distinct lineage. The clarity of the results bode well for quantitative statistical phylogenetic methods making significant inroads in the stalemates of paleoanthropology.


BACKGROUND
This document updates the American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society/Japanese Respiratory Society/Latin American Thoracic Association guideline on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis treatment.

METHODS
Systematic reviews and, when appropriate, meta-analyses were performed to summarize all available evidence pertinent to our questions. The evidence was assessed using the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation) approach and then discussed by a multidisciplinary panel. Predetermined conflict-of-interest management strategies were applied, and recommendations were formulated, written, and graded exclusively by the nonconflicted panelists.

RESULTS
After considering the confidence in effect estimates, the importance of outcomes studied, desirable and undesirable consequences of treatment, cost, feasibility, acceptability of the intervention, and implications to health equity, recommendations were made for or against specific treatment interventions.

CONCLUSIONS
The panel formulated and provided the rationale for recommendations in favor of or against treatment interventions for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.


Mobile Internet environments will offer a whole new range of services that might revolutionize our way of life. However, with these new technologies and services new risks to the users privacy arise, and both legal and technical privacy safeguards are needed to protect the user. This paper discusses privacy and privacy risks in the mobile Internet and presents the result of the PiMI prototype project, in which one browser built-in, and one proxy- based P3P user agent for mobile Internet environments have been developed. The PiMI prototype enhances the users control over the dissemination of user and user-device related information and thus protects their right for informational self-determination.


In this paper we propose and analyse a multispacecraft approach to the problem of deflection of a NEO object. The Electrostatic Tractor is a concept where deflection occurs because of a satellite and the asteroid electrically charged interaction. Although the physical laws which describe this phenomenon are well established, a number of practical questions are still being investigated. There are technological uncertainties as well, as it is not clear by now how a satellite can sustain the voltage required for this objective with few fluctuations and interactions with the satellite subsystems. Some authors, like E. Messerchmidt [1] provide some calculations arguing that a bigger spacecraft will be needed with a number of specifications to isolate the other subsystems. Some models have been proposed so far, but none can predict exactly which will be the behaviour of the satellite-asteroid interaction. Therefore, it is advisable to think in a system formed by a number of satellites, which may co-ordinately contribute to the overall generated power. Given that a number of real-time complex decisions will have to be made in the approach phase to the asteroid as well, we propose a multisatellite solution. The dynamics of the entire multi-body system are simulated and analyzed in order to predict its time of response and adaptability. We propose a distributed control system with an artificial intelligence agent in every satellite, who will be capable of automatically drive the behaviour of every satellite. As the real composition and electrical response of the asteroid is far from being totally predictable, such an approach will have a better margin of success and a fast response to every possible deviation from the models from which the system had been designed. A number of different swarm intelligence strategies are simulated and analyzed in this paper using state-of-theart numerical simulators platforms such as Matlab and Simulink. In conclusion, electrostatic tractor is capable of deflecting a NEO like the Apophis asteroid, and the multisatellite concept with distributed artificial intelligence control allows counteracting the uncertainties existing in current models.


Generating decent employment is key to the creation of a new social contract and social cohesion in Sub-Saharan Africa. The crucial question is, thus, how can more decent jobs be created? Much of the extant research has focused on the role of states and businesses in shaping employment relations. In this paper, we draw attention to a third type of actor that has been largely absent in the literature on the determinants of employment relations in developing countries: financial institutions. Based on data from 38 interviews of Kenyan manufacturing firms, financiers and labour representatives before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, we examine the relationship between the patience of capital and labour relations. In particular, the evidence presented in this paper suggests that access to more patient sources of capital may help to enhance the quantity and quality of jobs in African countries. We discuss three mechanisms through which this occurs. Our paper contributes to the growing body of research on patient capital (which largely focuses on developed countries) by extending it to the context of lower income African countries; it also speaks to the broader debates about how to enhance the contribution of finance capital to social cohesion.


High-contrast imaging facilitates the direct detection of protoplanetary disks in scattered light and self-luminous exoplanets on long-period orbits. The combined power of extreme adaptive optics and differential imaging techniques delivers high spatial resolution images of disk morphologies down to several astronomical units from the star. The distribution of the small dust grains in the disk surface provides important clues about the processes that drive disk evolution and the shaping effects of embedded planets on their circumstellar environment. The scattered light is also imprinted by the properties of the dust particles through their color and angle of scattering. In this thesis, a new scattering radiative transfer code for exoplanet atmospheres is presented which is used to predict the polarization signal from young gas giants with atmospheric cloud variations and circumplanetary disks. Furthermore, four protoplanetary disks are studied in scattered light with the SPHERE instrument at the Very Large Telescope. Intriguing substructures and brightness asymmetries are revealed in all disks including shadows, spiral arms, gaps and cavities. The structure and dynamics of the innermost disk regions are investigated with shadows that are cast on the outer disk while the detected spiral arms, gaps and cavities are used as tracers for embedded planets. The disk structure and dust properties are quantified with three-dimensional radiative transfer simulations. Additionally, a numerical method is developed that allows for a more precise determination of the scattering phase function of the dust by considering the geometry of the disk surface.


The first chapter of this thesis explores the link between a government's political power and its choice between patronage and meritocracy in the recruitment and promotion of state bureaucrats. Evidence suggests that where political power is concentrated, governments are less likely to renounce patronage. A theoretical analysis suggests two reasons for this negative correlation. First, under patronage, governments can ensure bureaucratic competence only when they are powerful, while meritocracy guarantees competence regardless of the distribution of power. Secondly, a weak government introduces meritocracy to prevent the new incoming government from exerting its political influence over the composition of bureaucracy via patronage. The second chapter (joint paper with Maitreesh Ghatak) examines why not-for-profits are most active in mission-based sectors and why they are able to attract more motivated workers. Francois (2000) argues that choosing not-for-profit status enables the firm's manager to commit to a hands-off policy, and consequently to use worker's intrinsic motivation more effectively. However, it can be shown that this is not always in the interest of the manager and that it is never in the interest of the worker. Not-for-profits only emerge if there is an oversupply of motivated labour. The third chapter studies the role of political neutrality as a norm for state bureaucrats. The norm of political neutrality can be interpreted as an agreement to keep the bureaucrat's preferences hidden. Drawing on a theoretical analysis of the conflict of interest between bureaucrat and politician, this chapter shows that having no information on the bureaucrat's political views can improve the communication between politician and bureaucrat. This way, political neutrality can improve public decision making.


In the late nineteenth century, child welfare advocates in both England and Australia were publicly debating the benefits of foster care over institutional placement of children and in the process revealed a great deal about how they understood the role of the family in society. This article examines a range of concerns around foster care that emerged from this nineteenth-century literature and offers reflections on how this resonates with public perceptions of foster care in the early twenty-first century. It argues that while popular conceptions of who might make an appropriate foster carer have changed in some ways, largely in line with shifting and broadening notions of acceptable domesticity, fundamental concerns remain in public understandings about what should motivate people to become foster carers and whether foster care should be understood as family formation or a therapeutic service.


During the recent Dialog State Tracking Challenge (DSTC), a fundamental question was raised: "Would better performance in dialog state tracking translate to better performance of the optimized policy by reinforcement learning?" Also, during the challenge system evaluation, another nontrivial question arose: "Which evaluation metric and schedule would best predict improvement in overall dialog performance?" This paper aims to answer these questions by applying an off-policy reinforcement learning method to the output of each challenge system. The results give a positive answer to the first question. Thus the effort to separately improve the performance of dialog state tracking as carried out in the DSTC may be justified. The answer to the second question also draws several insightful conclusions on the characteristics of different evaluation metrics and schedules.


Recent studies have highlighted adversarial examples as ubiquitous threats to the deep neural network (DNN) based speech recognition systems. In this work, we present a U-Net based attention model, UNetAt, to enhance adversarial speech signals. Specifically, we evaluate the model performance by interpretable speech recognition metrics and discuss the model performance by the augmented adversarial training. Our experiments show that our proposed U-NetAt improves the perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ) from 1.13 to 2.78, speech transmission index (STI) from 0.65 to 0.75, shortterm objective intelligibility (STOI) from 0.83 to 0.96 on the task of speech enhancement with adversarial speech examples. We conduct experiments on the automatic speech recognition (ASR) task with adversarial audio attacks. We find that (i) temporal features learned by the attention network are capable of enhancing the robustness of DNN based ASR models; (ii) the generalization power of DNN based ASR model could be enhanced by applying adversarial training with an additive adversarial data augmentation. The ASR metric on word-error-rates (WERs) shows that there is an absolute 2.22 % decrease under gradient-based perturbation, and an absolute 2.03 % decrease, under evolutionary-optimized perturbation, which suggests that our enhancement models with adversarial training can further secure a resilient ASR system.


"Do you want to quit your job and be your own boss?" I Can Help You Make it Happen... Thousands of people all over the world make good money online. It's time you joined them! This is a step-by-step workbook, designed to help you get an online business up and running more quickly and easily than you ever thought possible. By reading my Laptop Lifestyle books and answering the questions found within this workbook, you will be ready to start your new online business and earn the money you deserve. I'll take you step-by-step through my "Laptop Lifestyle" process, including: -How to Choose a Profitable Product to Sell -Designing a Web Site that Brings in Big Money (Even While You're Sleeping!) -Making people interested in what you're selling -Driving Traffic for your Web Site -Getting Other People to Sell Your Products for You! "Forget the Hype... This is Real!" If you're ready to start making money online (and stop just talking about it!), this book is for you. Follow my Laptop Lifestyle process and it will work for you. It's both simple and easy. You'll also learn: -How to build a real business in just a few hours per week -How to avoid the pitfalls that kill 98% of online businesses -How to find hungry buyers and get the most money from them -How to build customer loyalty (and get repeat business!) -How to avoid giving up on your dream The Laptop Lifestyle is waiting! Let's go... Christopher King is a former musician turned online marketer. He splits his time between Toronto, Canada and Key West, Florida. He can be reached online at PrepareToQuit.com.


Naruto is a ninja-in-training with a need for attention, a knack for mischief and, sealed within him, a strange, formidable power. His antics amuse his instructor Kakashi and irritate his teammates, intense Sasuke and witty Sakura, but Naruto is serious about becoming the greatest ninja in the village of Konohagakure!


In a developing Drosophila melanogaster embryo, mRNAs have a maternal origin, a zygotic origin, or both. During the maternal–zygotic transition, maternal products are degraded and gene expression comes under the control of the zygotic genome. To interrogate the function of mRNAs that are both maternally and zygotically expressed, it is common to examine the embryonic phenotypes derived from female germline mosaics. Recently, the development of RNAi vectors based on short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) effective during oogenesis has provided an alternative to producing germline clones. Here, we evaluate the efficacies of: (1) maternally loaded shRNAs to knockdown zygotic transcripts and (2) maternally loaded Gal4 protein to drive zygotic shRNA expression. We show that, while Gal4-driven shRNAs in the female germline very effectively generate phenotypes for genes expressed maternally, maternally loaded shRNAs are not very effective at generating phenotypes for early zygotic genes. However, maternally loaded Gal4 protein is very efficient at generating phenotypes for zygotic genes expressed during mid-embryogenesis. We apply this powerful and simple method to unravel the embryonic functions of a number of pleiotropic genes.


What data will be collected, processed or generated during the RAGE project? Following what methodology and standards? And what data will be shared and/or made openly available, and how will it be curated and preserved? These issues are typically described in a Data Management Plan (DMP), outlining how research data is handled during the project and after the project is completed. The RAGE DMP specifically provides guidelines on ethics, data protection and open research data access to RAGE researchers involved in WP5 (Case experiments) and WP8 (Validation). Ethics and data protection are especially relevant in view of the games and audiences targeted by RAGE. Therefore, RAGE is one of the participating projects in the EU open research data pilot, an initiative under Horizon 2020 that aims at improving and maximising the access to and re-use of research data created in European projects.This document is the third and final iteration of the DMP.


Constructing novel chiral inorganic nanomaterials is an emerging branch in chirality research. In this work, by employing a solid magnesiothermic reaction at 500-600 °C, we reduced chiral SiO2 nanofibers with average diameter ∼10 nm into chiral Si nanoplates with a size of about several hundred nm. The chirality of the as-prepared Si was judged by the pair of signals with a mirror relationship between 400-500 nm that appeared on the solid-state diffuse reflectance circular dichroism (DRCD) spectra for the l- and d-form Si. Furthermore, the chirality was also confirmed by induced vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) signals corresponding to the absorption bands in the infrared range of achiral organics (polyvinylpyrrolidone K90 and trimethoxyphenylsilane) absorbed onto chiral Si. The as-used SiO2 nanofibers possessed an ultra high-temperature (up to 900 °C) resistant chirality, which would be due to the asymmetric arrangement of Si and O atoms in small chiral domains (<10 nm) on the Si-O-Si network of SiO2. During the removal of oxygen atoms from Si-O-Si by Mg atoms, the arrangement of newly formed Si-Si bonds as well as the growth of Si crystals were still templated without racemization from the chiral information in SiO2. Consequently, the subnano/nano-scale (<10 nm) chiral information was in situ transferred via the so-called self-transfer mechanism, even though there was no retention of the outward shapes of the length-scale nanofiber SiO2 reactants in the Si products. This work offers a feasible chemical method to prepare chiral Si using abundant SiO2 raw materials.


This paper focuses on a control approach for legged robots with fast gaits. The method consists in a sliding mode based control extended the consideration of system energy. The control objective is then to perform stable trajectories or controlled limit cycles (CLC), by means of energy regulation with respect to a shaped nominal representation (implicitly related to system trajectories). In this paper, we establish some theoretical results. Then, some capabilities of the approach are illustrated through examples related to spring-mass systems usually considered to characterize some legged robots behaviors.


Abstract Insect pollinators provide a critical ecosystem service by pollinating many wild flowers and crops. It is therefore essential to be able to effectively survey and monitor pollinator communities across a range of habitats, and in particular, sample the often stratified parts of the habitats where insects are found. To date, a wide array of sampling methods have been used to collect insect pollinators, but no single method has been used effectively to sample across habitat types and throughout the spatial structure of habitats. Here we present a method of 'aerial pan-trapping' that allows insect pollinators to be sampled across the vertical strata from the canopy of forests to agro-ecosystems. We surveyed and compared the species richness and abundance of a wide range of insect pollinators in agricultural, secondary regenerating forest and primary forest habitats in Ghana to evaluate the usefulness of this approach. In addition to confirming the efficacy of the method at heights of up to 30 metres and the effects of trap color on catch, we found greatest insect abundance in agricultural land and higher bee abundance and species richness in undisturbed forest compared to secondary forest.


We report a two-photon double-slit interference experiment. Two correlated photons, generated by spontaneous parametric downconversion and traveling in different directions, are made to pass through a double slit in such a way that the path of one photon can be identified with that of the other photon. No single-photon interference pattern is observed even if the path is not actually identified, but a spatial interference pattern appears in the joint detection counting rates of the photon pairs. It can easily be shown that these nonlocal phenomena cannot be exhibited by any kind of classical field.


Online reviews are an established way of reducing information asymmetry between consumers and sellers. The design of review systems is a detrimental factor for their success and substantially influences reviewing behavior as well as the content of reviews. The design might nudge the systems' user towards acting in a certain way or publishing specific information, e.g., by providing review guidelines or review templates. However, most of the design features analyzed in research implicitly assume that all their users are equal and do not consider their users' individual personality traits. In this study, we contribute to existing research by further investigating the heterogeneous impact of review templates on reviewing behavior in the light of different reviewer personality traits. To this end, we present an experimental study, which uncovers the moderating nature of the big five personality traits agreeableness and conscientiousness on the positive relationship between providing a feature-based review template and the review length. Thus, with this study we contribute to research on online review system design as well as user interface design considering users' personality traits. Our preliminary results suggest that practitioners need to take reviewers' traits into account when designing online review systems.


For non-ambulatory children with severe physical and cognitive disabilities (SPCD), being lifted and transported become more challenging with increasing size. Reduction in length and overall size for select children with SPCD can be accomplished by growth attenuation therapy (GAT), which reduces linear growth by administering hormones (eg, oestrogen) that accelerate epiphyseal closure. There are no reliable data describing attitudes and practices of paediatric endocrinologists regarding GAT for children with SPCD.

In collaboration with the Pediatric Endocrine Society (PES), an anonymous questionnaire about GAT was emailed to PES physician members (n=1100, 92% from the USA). Responses were stripped of identifiable information. Consent was implied by responding. The study received institutional review board exemption status at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Two hundred and eighty-four PES members responded …


Abstract This paper builds on the insights of Jerome Bruner by underlining the central importance of narratives explaining actions in terms of reasons, arguing that by giving due attention to the central roles that they play in our everyday understanding of others provides a better way of explicating the nature and source of that activity than does simulation theory, theory-theory or some union of the two. However, although I promote Bruner's basic claims about the roles narratives play in this everyday enterprise, I take issue with his characterization of the nature of narrative itself. In so doing, important questions are brought to the fore about what makes our understanding of narratives possible. In line with the idea that we ought to tell a developmental story that looks to the social arena for the source of narratives about reasons, I promote the idea that what is minimally required for becoming conversant in such everyday narratives need not be anything as sophisticated as a theory of mind or a capacity for simulation. The paper concludes using evidence concerning autism as a test case to help support this conclusion.


There is a story behind each letter of the alphabet. Why is X the Unknown or shorthand for a kiss? Which letter came last, historically, in the alphabet? (J). How did a few squiggles, invented a thousand years ago to denote sounds of a now vanished Semitic language, survive to become our letters today? While China and Japan rely mainly on scripts of ideograms, three-quarters of humanity uses some kind of alphabet. Chinese writing requires 2000 basic symbols (but there's no language barrier), where an alphabet needs typically less than 30. From A-Z, David Sacks provides answers to the most fascinating questions about the way we talk, write and think in a book which will also be illustrated graphically throughout - not just with variations of individual letters but with maps, charts and general narrative images.


The aggregation of consistent individual judgements on logically interconnected propositions into a collective judgement on the same propositions has recently drawn much attention. Seemingly reasonable aggregation procedures, such as propositionwise majority voting, cannot ensure an equally consistent collective conclusion. The literature on judgement aggregation refers to such a problem as the discursive dilemma. In this article we assume that the decision which the group is trying to reach is factually right or wrong. Hence, we address the question of how good various approaches are at selecting the right conclusion. We focus on two approaches: distance-based procedures and a Bayesian analysis. They correspond to group-internal and group external decision making, respectively. We compare those methods in a probabilistic model whose assumptions are subsequently relaxed. Our findings have two general implications for judgement aggregation problems: first, in a voting procedure, reasons should carry higher weight than the conclusion, and second, considering members of an advisory board to be highly competent is a better strategy than discounting their advice.


It's impossible not to think, even upon close inspection, that Olivo Barbieri's photographs aren't images of obsessively detailed architectural maquettes. The trees seem plastic, the cars resemble toys and the buildings look as though they would fall over if you so much as breathed on them. The Waterfall Project brings this unreal quality to landscape, specifically to such touristy waterfalls as Victoria (Zambia/ Zimbabwe), Iguazu (Argentina, Brazil), Khone Papeng (Laos/Cambodia) and Niagara (USA/Canada). In these disorienting images, the spectators on the crowded viewing platforms look like M & M's in a candy bowl, a cluster of toytown Pointillistic color against a backdrop of watery froth. The results are vertiginous and wonderfully bizarre. Critic Walter Guadagnini writes in the introduction: There is an evident technical expedient in this, and it is the choice to photograph from above, to place oneself in a privileged and anomalous condition. In the past, this expedient already gave rise to numerous readings, which range from acknowledging the historical roots of this perspective (going back all the way to Nadar's photographs from a hot-air balloon) up to the socio-political implications deriving from 9/11."


Autophagy is essential for the maintenance of cellular metabolism. Once autophagy is induced in cells, the isolation membrane forms a so-called phagophore. The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is one of several candidates for the membrane source for phagophores. Recently, LC3-positive isolation membranes were found to emerge from a DFCP1 (double FYVE domain-containing protein)-positive, ER-associated compartment called the omegasome. Although the GFP-tagged DFCP1 protein has been examined in cultured cells, little is known about the precise cellular and tissue distribution of this endogenous protein. To determine the expression of the endogenous DFCP1 protein, we produced antibodies specific to mouse DFCP1 protein. The antibody recognized both human and mouse DFCP1 proteins, both of which have molecular masses of approximately 87 kDa. In HeLa cells under normal conditions, immunoreactivity for DFCP1 was found dotted or tubular along Tom20-positive filamentous mitochondria and was only partially co-localized in the ER or Golgi apparatus. Moreover, under starved conditions, distinct DFCP1-positive structures became more dotted and scattered in the cytoplasm, while one part of the LC3-positive autophagosomes were immunopositive for DFCP1. These results indicate that an antibody raised against DFCP1 could be a useful tool in explaining the mechanism of phagophore formation from omegasome compartments.


Rotordynamics is a field under mechanics, mainly deals with the vibration of rotating structures. In recent days, the study about rotordynamics has gained more importance within Jet engine industries. The main reason is Jet engine consists of many rotating parts constitutes a complex dynamic system. While designing rotors of high speed turbo machineries, it is of prime importance to consider rotordynamics characteristics in to account. Considering these characteristics at the design phase may prevent the jet engine from severe catastrophic failures. These rotordynamic characteristics can be determined with the help of much relied Finite element method. Traditionally, Rotordynamic analyses were performed with specialized commercial tools. On the other hand capabilities of more general FEA software has gradually been developed over the time. As such developed and commonly used software is ANSYS. The aim of this thesis work is to build a RM12 Jet engine rotor model in ANSYS and evaluate its rotordynamic capabilities with the specialized rotordynamics tool, DyRoBeS. This work helps in understanding, modeling, simulation and post processing techniques for rotordynamics analyses of RM12 Jet engine rotor using ANSYS.


H1 linker histones facilitate higher-order chromatin folding and are essential for mammalian development. To achieve high-resolution mapping of H1 variants H1d and H1c in embryonic stem cells (ESCs), we have established a knock-in system and shown that the N-terminally tagged H1 proteins are functionally interchangeable to their endogenous counterparts in vivo. H1d and H1c are depleted from GC- and gene-rich regions and active promoters, inversely correlated with H3K4me3, but positively correlated with H3K9me3 and associated with characteristic sequence features. Surprisingly, both H1d and H1c are significantly enriched at major satellites, which display increased nucleosome spacing compared with bulk chromatin. While also depleted at active promoters and enriched at major satellites, overexpressed H10 displays differential binding patterns in specific repetitive sequences compared with H1d and H1c. Depletion of H1c, H1d, and H1e causes pericentric chromocenter clustering and de-repression of major satellites. These results integrate the localization of an understudied type of chromatin proteins, namely the H1 variants, into the epigenome map of mouse ESCs, and we identify significant changes at pericentric heterochromatin upon depletion of this epigenetic mark.


In systems biology, analyzing simulation trajectories at multiple scales is a common approach when subtle, detailed behavior and fundamental, overall behavior of a modeled system are to be investigated at the same time. A variety of multiscale visualization techniques provide solutions to handle and depict data at different scales. Yet the mere existence of multiple scales does not necessarily imply the existence of additional information on each of them: Data on a more fine-grained scale may not always yield new details, but instead reflect the already known data from more coarse-grained scales - just at a higher resolution. Nevertheless, to be sure of this, all scales have to be explored. We address this issue by guiding the exploration of simulation trajectories according to information about the deviation of the data between subsequent scales. For this purpose, we apply different dissimilarity measures to the simulation data at subsequent scales to automatically discern heterogeneous regions that exhibit deviating behavior on more fine-grained scales. We mark these regions and display them alongside the actual data in a multiscale visualization. By doing so, our approach provides valuable visual cues on whether it is worthwhile to drill-down further into the multi-scale data and if so, where additional information can be expected. Our approach is demonstrated by an exploratory walk-through of stochastic simulation results of a biochemical reaction network.


Modelling and characterization of basic waveguiding structures in integrated photonics is important due to the large variety of established and emerging technologies used for fabrication. In this contribution we present a modelling and characterization approach for integrated silicon waveguides. We provide waveguide characteristics calculated from eigenmode simulation and optical measurement results.


Abstract. Deciphering the seismic character of the young lithosphere near mid-oceanic ridges (MORs) is a challenging endeavor. In this study, we determine the seismic structure of the oceanic plate near the MORs using the P-to-S conversions isolated from quality data recorded at five broadband seismological stations situated on ocean islands in their vicinity. Estimates of the crustal and lithospheric thickness values from waveform inversion of the P-receiver function stacks at individual stations reveal that the Moho depth varies between ~ 10 ± 1 km and ~ 20 ± 1 km with the depths of the lithosphere–asthenosphere boundary (LAB) varying between ~ 40 ± 4 and ~ 65 ± 7 km. We found evidence for an additional low-velocity layer below the expected LAB depths at stations on Ascension, Sao Jorge and Easter islands. The layer probably relates to the presence of a hot spot corresponding to a magma chamber. Further, thinning of the upper mantle transition zone suggests a hotter mantle transition zone due to the possible presence of plumes in the mantle beneath the stations.


This study focuses on the investigation of clay type effect on the final properties of semi-interpenetrated Salecan/poly(methacrylic acid)/clay hydrogel nanocomposites. Previous studies have indicated that the presence of clay in polymer composites leads to better swelling capacity and mechanical properties as functions of clay type. On the other hand, Salecan, which is a water soluble extracellular polysaccharide, was proved to assure greater flexibility to hydrogels. These properties recommend clay and Salecan for semi-interpenetrated hydrogels preparation with specific application in biomedicine. The purpose was to determine the most suitable type of clay as well as Salecan influence for developing the desired water retention/delivery ability and mechanically enhanced semi-interpenetrating polymer network (SIPN) nanocomposites. For our investigations, we have chosen commercially available montmorillonite (ClNa) and different commer - cial organomodified clay (Cl30B, Cl20A and Cl15A). Several analyses results (FTIR, TGA, DMA, XRD, microscopy and swelling studies) demonstrated that not only the presence of Salecan but also the clay type influenced the structure and properties of the final nanocomposites.


Study Design. Systematic literature review. Objective. A systematic review was designed to answer 3 primary research questions: (1) What is the most useful classification system for surgical and nonsurgical decision-making with regard to thoracolumbar (TL) spine injuries? (2) For a TL burst fracture with incomplete neurologic deficit, what is the optimal surgical approach and stabilization technique? (3) Is complete disruption of the posterior ligamentous complex an indication for surgical intervention for TL burst fractures? Summary of Background Data. Despite a long history of descriptive and clinical series, there remains considerable controversy and wide variation in the treatment of traumatic TL spine injuries. Methods. A comprehensive search of the English literature was conducted using Medline and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Standardized grading systems were used to assess the level of evidence and quality of articles impacting the research questions. Results. Recommendations for the primary research questions were as follows: (1) Thoracolumbar Injury Classification System seems to be the best system available for therapeutic decision-making for TL spine injuries (strength of recommendation: weak; quality of evidence: low). (2) There is no specific surgical approach in the case of a TL burst fracture with incomplete neurologic deficit that has any advantage with regard to neurologic recovery (strength of recommendation: weak; quality of evidence: low). (3) Complete disruption of the posterior ligamentous complex as determined collectively by morphologic criteria using plain radiographs and computed tomography is an indication for surgical intervention in TL burst fractures (strength of recommendation: strong; quality of evidence: low). Conclusion. Based on this systematic review of the literature only very low to moderate quality studies could be identified to address clinical questions related to TL spine trauma. These findings suggest the need for further study, including emphasis on higher quality studies.


The work described in this thesis is a theoretical investigation of the effects of band structure, strain, pressure, and growth orientation on the performance of semiconductor quantum well lasers. The effect of degenerate light- and heavy-hole bands on the carrier and current density and the differential gain are studied and compared with the non-degenerate case in semiconductor quantum well (QW) lasers. It is demonstrated that the presence of two degenerate bands at the valence band maximum will always lead to an increased threshold radiative current density compared to the case where only one band is significantly populated. When the two valence bands are separated by an energy E5, the current density decreases rapidly with increasing E5, with greater reductions being achieved for a given tensile than compressive strain. The effect of the second subband becomes less important with increasing E5, and the radiative current density reverts to that of the one valence band case, demonstrating the importance of maximising the subband energy separation to optimise laser characteristics. We investigate different formulations of the envelope function method and show that the accuracy of the calculated zone-centre confinement energies can be simply predicted by plotting the equivalent bulk band structure using the various formulations. We show how coupling to the conduction and spin-split-off bands can decrease the light-hole zone-centre energies and lead to significant differences in the calculated subband dispersion, with the effects being most pronounced for systems having a narrow band gap and small spin-orbit splitting energy. Since the loss mechanisms in a semiconductor laser are often strongly wavelength dependent and hydrostatic pressure can vary the band gap, the pressure dependence of the threshold current can then provide a clear picture of the dominant loss mechanisms in a given laser structure. The pressure dependence of the optical confinement factor, band structure, transparency and threshold carrier density, and the combined effect of these on both radiative- and non-radiative current contributions have been evaluated for lasers operating at a range of wavelengths. We investigate in particular the predicted pressure dependence of several Auger processes in long wavelength (1.5mum) lasers. It is found that the rate of decrease of phonon-assisted Auger recombination with pressure is close to that observed experimentally, implying that phonon-assisted Auger is the dominant loss mechanism. It is shown that although the transparency carrier density increases with pressure in all laser structures, the threshold carrier density, nth, can decrease in long wavelength single quantum well (SQW) lasers due to the pressure dependent parameters. The decrease of nth in the long wavelength SQW case results in a quicker decrease in the threshold current of a SQW laser compared to that of a multiple quantum well (MQW) laser, in agreement with experimental measurements. The optical properties of quantum well structures can also change with crystal orientation, and, therefore, the substrate orientation is an additional parameter which can be used in engineering the band structure. The effects of orientation on critical thickness and material parameters are reviewed for (001) and (111) oriented strained InGaAs QWs grown on GaAs substrates and their consequences for laser emission wavelength are investigated. Calculations are presented which show that a significant fraction of the piezoelectric field remains unscreened at laser threshold in (111) lasers, which, together with decreased HH1-HH2 separation, adversely affect the laser threshold characteristics in comparison to (001) oriented strained lasers.


Background
Film competitions can be a helpful method to understand issues of quality in health films. In this paper, we describe the development and use of explicit quality criteria to identify the 'best' films for the first ever international public health film competition.

Methods
A film selection committee encompassing a range of stakeholders was compiled. The committee drew up 10 explicit quality criteria to judge films drawing upon other film festival's selection criteria. These criteria were then applied to a broad range of health-related films entered into a film competition to select the 'best' film to screen.

Results
Eighty-four films from 20 different countries were submitted to the public health film competition. The originality of the subject covered by the film, the public health importance of the issue and story-telling approach in the film were found to be the most discriminatory criteria to select films.

Conclusion
Selection of health films for festivals can be undertaken using explicit quality criteria. There are a number of advantages to such an approach; however, explicit selection involves a large commitment of resources from film festival organizers and there is further research required to test the validity of the quality criteria applied to health-related films.