This study aimed to evaluate 10 male and female children between the ages of 15-18, who had problems with static vertebral, chest, and kyphotic attitudes. After the evaluation, this study sought to treat the deficiencies by two different procedures: kinetotherapy and ham with auditiv feedback. Purpose of the study: The results of the two procedures were compared at the end, thus establishing a hierarchy on the effectiveness of correcting these deficiencies. Methods: During the study, we evaluated and then analyzed the angle of the column and the scapular-humeral belt deflection. These measurements were made in three different spatial times: initial, intermediate and final. Findings and results: The best results, the most effective procedure, was kinetotherapy, compared to the ham hearing procedure. In other words, for the angle of the column, in the case of the first experimental sample - kinetotherapy, there was a decreasing evolution from the initial to the final point of 9.0 degrees, and for the second experimental sample - 2 degrees. For the distance between the acromium-wall, in the case of the first experimental sample, there was also a descending evolution from the initial to the final one of 4.6 cm and the second of 3.2 cm. Conclusions and recommendations: The present study had as a general objective the investigation of the efficacy of two different procedures in order to correct the problems of static vertebral, cifotic and atypical attitudes, bringing statistically significant changes. After an ample analysis of these results, having as background source other studies, we have tried to understand why auditory feedback has had weaker results, being a last generation method that should improve the results. Based on previous data, we want to see if through a software system we can achieve the performance of other recovery methods, and besides, the system wants to be able to offer suggestions and set some measured values.


UNLABELLED
In the multiple object tracking task an observer tracks moving targets within a set of featurally identical objects. Because error rates increase as target load (number of tracked targets) increases, the task is frequently cited as evidence of commodity-like resources that limit attention and working memory, with ongoing debates focused on whether resource allocation is fixed or flexible. Here we challenge the common assumption that resources limit tracking performance in the first place, adducing evidence from eye tracking experiments and a probabilistic model. The model infers the positions of targets on the basis of noisy samples received at a rate of 12Hz (similar results obtain at 20Hz), and it uses a nearest-neighbor algorithm to address correspondences between tracked targets and packets of unlabeled samples (including from nontargets). The noise in received samples depends on the distance of the relevant object from fixation (following Bouma's law). As a result, fixation position greatly impacts performance. 20 participants completed tracking trials with loads between three and eight and several speed settings. The model then simulated each participant, assuming his or her actual fixations. Without fitting parameters and with the same settings (apart from fixations) under all conditions, the model produced speed and load effects that were significantly correlated with those of human observers. The model also captured trial-by-trial performance variance (controlling for load). And most strikingly, it accounted for between-subject variance, ranking participants as they ranked in practice.

IN SUMMARY
A model with a limited sampling rate and eccentricity dependent noise -but with neither fixed nor flexible resource limits- produces the typical load and speed effects taken as evidence of resources. Incorporating inter-observer fixation differences accounts for inter-observer differences in performance. These results suggest that MOT capacity limits are effective, not inherent, arising because of interactions between task parameters, fixation, and correspondence computations. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


This study analyses the macro and micro levels of policy implementation in Oman, and draws together the worlds of policy-makers and 'street-level bureaucrats'. It evaluates the implementation policy of the National Training Programme, along with its associated concepts, and investigates the obstacles encountered in the implementation. In addition, the study explores the perceptions of how barriers create obstacles to the implementation process in Oman. In Oman, National Human Resource Development (NHRD) is used to re-engineer many of the private sector jobs that are currently occupied by expatriates, in the hope that greater social and economic prosperity among the indigenous population will occur. To ensure the achievement of this goal, the Sultanate of Oman's Ministry of Manpower introduced the National Training Programme that seeks to develop the skills of Omani job-seekers, and which supports the Omanisation policy, by placing workers in the private sector. Since its introduction in 2003, the National Training Programme has attracted significant Government investment, yet the empirical understanding of the implementation process remains limited. Conceptually, the study is primarily based on public policy implementation theory, along with elements of evaluation and stakeholder theory. Empirically, the study is informed by the lived experience and views of representatives of the four stakeholder groups involved in implementing the policy, namely, the Ministry of Manpower, employers, training providers, and trainees. Conducted through insider research, the experience of 36 informants was gathered through semi-structured interviews, with the findings being analysed thematically using template analysis. This research addresses conflicting policy implementation theories, including 'top-down' implementation and policy network theory. Thus, in analysing the factors and barriers associated with policy implementation, the study makes a valuable contribution to public policy implementation theory. The study also showcases the culture of public policy implementation and how the inherent cultural challenges can impede national Human Resource Development. It was noted that the perceptions of the various stakeholders differ and that whilst the manpower planning, clarity and implementation structure functions are influential factors in the policy implementation, the mix of the trainees' motives to join the private sector, and employers' indifferent cooperation, emerged as challenging barriers to policy implementation. Key contributions to theoretical knowledge are made through extending the elements of public policy implementation theory, stakeholder theory and, to a lesser extent, elements of national Human Resource Development in an emerging economy – using Oman as case context. Furthermore, as a management tool, this study provides a map to facilitating Omanisation and promoting national skills development which is the aim of the government's NTP agenda. The need for a more structured implementation process to operationalise the training is emphasised. In addition, it contributes to effective networking of various stakeholders of NTP to achieve a more detailed and well informed practice of skills development across the private sector. Prior to this study, the evaluation element of the NTP in Oman was broadly absent. Based on this study therefore, future government policies relating to Omanisation would take into account the process of evaluating the outcomes of skill development programmes.


In 1849 the Philadelphia physician Samuel George Morton claimed that black people had smaller cranial capacities than white people.1 As Morton included raw data in his publications Stephen Jay Gould was able to reanalyse them 130 years after Morton's death.1,2 What Gould found was that there were no grounds for Morton's claims: the data had been manipulated to support the investigator's prior hypothesis.

By publishing his data in full Morton was unconsciously engaging in sharing data. While providing access to the full details and results of experiments has long been considered a characteristic ethos of science,3 discussion of the principles and practicalities has been more recent.*RF 2,4-7* Various benefits of sharing data can be identified.2,7,8 Firstly, as the collection of data generally constitutes the main cost of studies, the use of existing data to answer issues not directly addressed by the primary researchers represents an efficient use of resources. Sharing data can also reduce the burden imposed upon study participants, both for individuals and groups who are at risk of becoming overresearched. Secondly, replicating the findings of one study within other datasets increases their robustness. Thirdly, when an investigation is being planned, analysis of data from earlier studies can help in the formulation of the research question, …


After many decades of expansion, incomes and standards of living have never been better in many parts of the world. Yet, in the developed economies, there is anxiety over the loss of manufacturing jobs that once absorbed a large share of the labor force and created a middle class that formed the core of democracy. The vast majority of middle- income countries have not yet been able to make the transition to the high-income group despite decades of growth. Progress among low-income countries, particularly sub-Saharan African countries, in achieving productivity growth and structural transformation has been slow, and deindustrialization has occurred in some. Jobs, Industrialization, and Globalization examines the development problems pertinent to each of these groups of countries and explores solutions. The book's structural analysis reveals that, among the low- and middle-income countries, industrialization remains the major route, if not the only route, to creating jobs and raising incomes, while acquiring the necessary investment in human capital to reach the next stage of modernization. Among the low-income countries, it pays to shift resources from low- to high-productivity sectors and to create jobs in light manufacturing so that idle or laid-off workers can move there. Among the middle-income countries, global competition makes shifting production away from raw materials and commodities to manufactured goods essential; yet, the vertically specialized industrialization regime—the global value chains—is generating new challenges along the path to industrialization and requires a reappraisal of government policies. Among the advanced countries, such as the United States, modern industrialization involves shedding unskilled labor at an accelerating pace, partly because of automation and partly because of rising competition from abroad. More importantly, the future of modern manufacturing revolves around new technology, and there are many uncertainties. These countries require policy reform to protect workers and to keep a viable middle class that may serve as a foundation for democracy and prosperity.


We investigate possible tests of CPT invariance on the level of event rates at neutrino factories. We do not assume any specific model but phenomenological differences in the neutrino-antineutrino masses and mixing angles in a Lorentz invariance preserving context, such as could be induced by physics beyond the standard model. We especially focus on the muon neutrino and antineutrino disappearance channels in order to obtain constraints on the neutrino-antineutrino mass and mixing angle differences; we found, for example, that the sensitivity \m(3)-(m) over bar (3)\less than or similar to1.9x10(-4) eV could be achieved.


Fertility change is distinct from other forms of social and economic change because it directly alters the size and composition of the next generation. This paper studies how changes in population composition over the fertility transition feed back into the evolution of average fertility across generations. Theory predicts that changes in the relationship between human capital and fertility first weaken and then strengthen fertility similarities between mothers and daughters, a process that first promotes and then restricts aggregate fertility decline. Consistent with these predictions, microdata from 40 developing countries over the second half of the 20th century show that intergenerational fertility associations strengthen late in the fertility transition, due to the alignment of the education-fertility relationship across generations. As fertility approaches the replacement level, the strengthening of these associations reweights the population to raise aggregate fertility rates, pushing back against aggregate fertility decline.


The resolution of Dyson-Schwinger equations leads to the freezing of the QCD running coupling (effective charge) in the infrared, which is best understood as a dynamical generation of a gluon mass function, giving rise to a momentum dependence which is free from infrared divergences. We calculate the interquark potential for heavy mesons by assuming that it is given by a massive One Gluon Exchange potential and compare with phenomenologyical fits inspired by lattice QCD. We apply these potential forms to the description of quarkonia and conclude that, even though some aspects of the confinement mechanism are absent in the Dyson Schwinger formalism, the results for the spectrum are surprisingly accurate. We discuss explanations for this outcome.


Coronary artery disease (CAD) remains a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in the United States. CAD can be a long term, recurrent health problem placing a heavy burden on the afflicted individual. Although the mean age of individuals experiencing their first clinical sYmptoms of CAD is usually reported to be in the fifth or sixth decade of life, individuals may also experience sYmptoms of disease at an earlier age when actively engaged in career, family, and vigorous leisure activities. There is a sparsity of experiential information and nurses need to be sensitive to the psychosocial impact of this experience on daily living. This study proposes to examine the lived experience of one middle-aged man with unstable CAD using qualitative research methods.


The 2011 monsoon season was exceptionally heavy, leading to extensive and long-lasting flooding in the Chao Phraya river basin. Flooding was exacerbated by rapid expansion of urban areas into flood plains and was the costliest natural disaster in country's history, with direct damages estimated at US$ 45 billion. The present study examines the flood behavior in 2011 and flood impact from changing climate. Two generations of the global climate model (GCM), ensembles CMIP3 and CMIP5, are statistically downscaled through historical 20th century and future projections. The majority of GCMs overestimate the dry spell (in June and July) and underestimate the peak precipitation (in May and September). However, they can simulate the mean precipitation reasonably well. Use of the Multi Model Mean shows continuously increased precipitation from near-future to far-future while the Multi Model Median shows increased precipitation only for the far-future. These findings in changing precipitation are assessed by flood simulation. With several adaptation measures, flood in the lower Chao Phraya river basin cannot be completely avoided. One of the best practices for a high flood risk community is to raise the house with open space in the first floor. This is promoted as one resilient approach in Thailand.


Current efforts to minimize energy losses and maximize energy savings for heating of all houses are most often gained by insulating facades and replacing windows. However, these measures can have a significant negative impact on human health and these problems can occur in buildings with a high concentration of people, such as school buildings. The aim of this paper is to analyse the results of measurements of air temperature, relative air humidity and carbon dioxide in winter period in the classrooms of two universities, Estonian University of Life Sciences (EULS) in Tartu and Czech University of Life Sciences (CULS) in Prague. The measurements have carried out in 2017 2018 in eight classrooms of the EULS and two classrooms of the CULS. The external and internal temperature, relative humidity and concentration of carbon dioxide have measured in the classrooms during a few days in the winter period. In the lecture rooms of CULS, when the air conditioning was off, the levels of CO2 exceeded the recommended levels about two times. The average internal temperature and CO2 concentrations in the classrooms of EULS follows the norms and refers on good ventilation. The extremely low relative humidity in the classrooms of EULS at 17.1 2.6% refers to a high risk of allostatic load and respiratory symptoms among students. It is important to pay attention on regular ventilation and relative air humidity control in the teaching rooms, especially with high number of students to prevent seasonal sickness of upper respiratory tract.


The effect of genetic mutations that can alter cellular redox state-affected signaling through the receptor tyrosine kinase to Ras to mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway can be studied in vivo by analyzing genetic interactions in the Drosophila eye and wing. Selenoproteins are characterized by the presence of selenocysteine and are involved in controlling the cellular levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Moery et al. studied how mutations in a key enzyme in the biosynthesis of selenoproteins, selenophosphate synthetase (sps1), affected MAPK signaling stimulated by the Sevenless (Sev) receptor in the eye and the Drosophila epidermal growth factor receptor (DER) in the wing. Loss of the sps1 gene suppresses the rough eye phenotype caused by activated forms of the kinases Sev, Raf, and MAPK, but does not suppress the rough eye phenotype associated with the activated guanosine triphosphatase Ras. In the wing, loss of sps1 in combination with activated DER or Raf restored wild-type vein formation. Increasing cellular ROS by expression of a mutant catalase gene also suppressed the activated MAPK signaling, supporting the interpretation that the Ras to MAPK pathway is inhibited by ROS in vivo. The regulation by ROS appeared to be specific for the Ras-MAPK pathway because no change in phenotype was observed with activated insulin, Notch, Wnt, or DPP (a Drosophila transforming growth factor-β receptor pathway). The authors point out that these results differ from those obtained in cultured cells and suggest that the prolonged elevation in ROS in the Drosophila mutants may have a different effect than the acute elevations in ROS in the cultured cell experiments. M. Morey, F. Serras, J. Baguñà, E. Hafen , M. Corominas, Modulation of the Ras/MAPK signalling pathway by the redox function of selenoproteins in Drosophila melanogaster. Dev. Biol. 238, 145-156 (2001). [Online Journal]


Three years after the exhilarating collapse of centralized Communism, Russia still has a long way to go before it will be a free and democratic country. Even optimists claim the country borders on the ungovernable. Democratic reformers are paralyzed by division into competing factions in the parliament. The old nomenklatura still have a chokehold on the country; they have new business cards, but they are still in power. While there has been enormous liberalization in elections, religious freedom, and privatization, there is still no rule of law, no clear definition of property rights, and in much of the country no real democracy. Bureaucratization is actually worse than it was under the Communists. MAFIA IN THE "WILD EAST" Russian society has largely disintegrated to a Hobbesian rule. Organized crime touches at least half of all economic transactions. Criminals are in collusion with the old KGB and Communist Party structures, comprising a multilevel network known as the mafia. Some segments specialize in forging documents, reconnaissance, executions, or illegal currency transactions; others traffic in drugs and weapons. Competing gangs battle each other in shootouts, giving today's Russia its "Wild East" character. Those who refuse to do business with the mafia may discover their kiosk burned down the next day, a car bomb waiting for them, or an assassin's bullet. Confiscatory tax rates have not only stunted entrepreneurial impulses, they serve as a serious inducement to tax evasion and collusion with the mafia. Businesses pay at least 55 percent of net income, and can incur rates as high as 120 percent. Members of law enforcement and tax collection agencies are paid off to collaborate, making an extremely effective net for coercing cooperation. A contract for mafia protection is cheaper and more reliable than counting on the corrupt police or the choked courts for justice. Mafia fees have become a normal price of doing business. But, "once you are in, the only way to end the relationship is to die," as one Russian put it baldly. Faced with chaos bordering on anarchy, a quarter of Russia's voters chose ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky's party in the last election. He appealed to their frustration at the economic disintegration following Communism's collapse, as well as their yearning for respected status abroad. Alexander Solzhenitsyn has called Zhirinovsky "an evil caricature of a Russian patriot." His fisticuffs in parliament, bullyboy blustering, and threats to nuke enemies amuse Russians used to grey politicians. But Zhirinovsky is not to be dismissed as merely a buffoon. Diplomatic sources and analysts from Russia, Germany and America have confirmed that Zhirinovsky did not simply appear like a comet on Russia's political horizon. In the last days of the Gorbachev era, substantial sums of money were reportedly funneled to establish his party as a new political home in the event that the communist structure would collapse. Indeed it did, and the allegations since of KGB funding refuse to go away. "Zhirinovsky was a KGB creature from the very outset," claims an official from Russia's Ministry of the Interior. Collaborating with the KGB are the old military-industrial complex, the core of directors of state-owned companies, and segments of the army, who have thrown their support behind Zhirinovsky to regain their old power. PROMISING SIGNS Even if, as observers predict, Zhirinovsky's personal popularity drops sharply, his fascist ideology has deep roots in the Russian population. Fascism's appeal, however, may diminish in the light of promising signs on Russia's economic horizon. Inflation, which threatened to escalate into hyperinflation, has been tamed to a monthly rate below 10 percent this July and August, down from last year's monthly high of 35 percent, defusing some of the more dangerous political volatility. Voucher privatization has put 60 percent of industry into private hands over the past two years. …


ABSTRACT Personal values, as motivational constructs, are likely to influence the types of social behaviours in which people engage. However, most of the research examining the relationship between personal values and social and ethical issues has focused on the relationship between one or two values and a very small range of attitudes or behaviours. The current paper focuses on Schwartz's value theory to suggest some methodological changes to advance our understanding of how individuals make such decisions. ARTICLE Introduction Personal values indicate what is important to us in our lives, guide our behaviour, and reflect real differences between cultures, social classes, occupations, religions, and political orientations. Numerous studies across many disciplines (e.g., marketing, management, social psychology, sociology, political science, education, social work, law, economics) have confirmed the impact values can have on people's perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours, including consumer purchasing (e.g., buying environmentally friendly products and those made in their country). Values have also been related to a range of social issues, including people's disposition toward altruistic or philanthropic behaviour, organ donation registration, ethical decision making and attitudes, including bribery, coercion, deception, theft, and unfair discrimination, and environmental attitudes and behaviour. The current paper focuses on one of the leading value theories, proposed by Schwartz (1992), which is discussed in the next section, as this theory has been well supported empirically, and has a relatively limited set of basic values and a theoretically derived structure between these values that add insight to our understanding of many types of behaviour. Specifically, we address the way in which personal values may potentially combine to influence the nature and types of behaviours people are likely to undertake. Schwartz's Value Theory Schwartz defined 10 basic values according to the goals that underlie them (see Table 1). Data from hundreds of samples in more than 80 countries support their existence and the relationships between them, as is illustrated in Figure 1. It is the theoretical relationships between the values, identified by a quasi-circumplex that differentiates Schwartz's (1992, 1994) theory from other values theories. This critical aspect has the potential to significantly add to our understanding of how values motivate different behaviours. The Relationship between Values and Behaviour The structure of interrelations between the basic values helps our understanding of how behaviours or attitudes are grounded in the values that oppose them and those that favour them. Indeed, the theory suggests an order of association of the 10 basic values with other variables, suggesting value-expressive attitudes and behaviours, such as those of interest to social marketers, are likely to be influenced by the relative importance attached to a range of values, rather than by the importance of any single value. Further, different combinations of values are likely to lead to different value-expressive attitudes and behaviour. As illustrated in Figure 1, adjacent values express compatible motivations, whereas conflicting values express opposing motivations. For instance, the pursuit of self-direction is likely to conflict with the pursuit of security (which is on the opposite side of the quasi-circumplex structure), because attaining one is likely to block the attainment of the other. As an example, pursuing stimulation may encourage risktaking behaviour, but this threatens and undermines security values that emphasize safety, harmony, and stability, such that those who place a high importance on stimulation and a very low importance on security are likely to take the most risks. Further, the relative importance attached to a range of values, rather than the importance of any single value, is likely to influence behaviour. …


In malaria endemic areas, fever is commonly caused by malaria infection but it may be a manifestation of several childhood diseases for example bacterial and viral illnesses. Malaria microscopy is the gold standard for diagnosis of malaria although other diagnostic platforms do exist for example rapid diagnostic tests. The World Health Organization recommends parasitological diagnosis by microscopy or rapid diagnostic test for all children under the age of 5 years. However, in malaria endemic areas, parasitological diagnosis is not always available and presumptive treatment based on clinical diagnosis is practised. It is believed that clinical diagnosis based on integrated management of childhood illnesses has resulted in over-diagnosis of malaria, neglect of other co-infections and escalation of cost of medical management of malaria in endemic areas. This retrospective study carried out statistical assessment of the impact of parasitological diagnosis of malaria by microscopy on: mortality, malaria incidence rate, over-diagnosis of malaria and cost of medical management of illnesses in febrile children aged under 5 years. Linear, logistic and Cox regression models were applied. Software R version 2.15.0 and GraphPad Prism version 5 were used in the analysis. In-patient records reviewed were 400 and 626 for the years 2009 and 2011 respectively. The results showed that malaria incidence rate significantly declined from 60.29% in 2009 to 52.14% in 2011 (P = 0.0147, OR=0.72). Malaria infection was associated with anaemia (P=0.0002, OR=2.982). Furthermore, a logistic regression model demonstrated that malaria was significantly associated with chills (P=0.00519, OR=18.59), vomiting (P=0.02463, OR=1.5771), convulsion (P=0.015077, OR=1.7653) and splenomegaly (P=0.008044, OR=3.0105). It was unlikely to present with diarrhoea (P=0.000685, OR=0.4958), oedema (P=0.013662, OR=0.2032), abdominal pain (P=0.002901, OR=0.1482), malnutrition (P<0.0001, OR=0.1206) and other infections (P<0.0001, OR=0.1258), but highly likely in malnourished children given other infections (P=0.002212, OR=4.8984). It was independent of pallor (P=0.115991, OR=1.4023), dyspnoea (P=0.0751, OR=0.654) and chest retraction (P=0.0735, OR=0.3955). Malaria over-diagnosis decreased from 50.64% in 2009 to 22.43% in 2011 in overall (P<0.0001, OR=0.2818) and insignificantly in children with negative microscopy (P=0.2865, OR=0.8388). A Cox model indicated that death hazard was greater in 2011 than in 2009 (P=0.0393, HR=1.9391). The hazard declined with increasing age (P=0.023, HR=0.729) and lower among malaria in-patients (P = 0.0119, HR=0.5146). Cost of medical management in 2011 increased (P<0.0001) and reduced for malaria treatment (P=0.0295). This study concluded that parasitological diagnosis was associated with reduced malaria incidence rate, over-diagnosis and treatment cost resulting in better survival experience of malaria in-patients. However, mortality risk and medical management cost were elevated in 2011. The results provide valuable insight into the rapidly evolving dynamics of malaria epidemiology, quality of clinical care afforded by diagnosis-based treatment and a clinical model for prediction of malaria in endemic areas lacking diagnostic equipments.


Design: Unblinded multicentre randomised trial.

Allocation: Web-based block randomisation stratified by centre and gestation, either above or below 28 weeks.

Setting: Eight neonatal intensive care units in the northwest of England.

Patients: Five hundred forty-four infants born before 30 weeks' gestation and aged less than 2 weeks old were randomised at first extubation attempt to nasal continuous positive airway pressure (nCPAP) (272 infants) or nasal biphasic positive airway pressure (nBiPAP) (272 infants). Two infants per arm were excluded after randomisation as they did not meet the eligibility criteria. All received surfactant postintubation. Infants with major congenital malformations, upper respiratory tract abnormalities, neuromuscular disease, significant cranial ultrasound abnormalities and those extubated within 7 days of laparoscopy were excluded from the study. All infants were required to be loaded with caffeine and show respiratory effort persistently above the ventilator rate and satisfactory blood gases on minimal ventilation prior to extubation.

Intervention: Participants were randomised between extubation to nBiPAP or nCPAP at equivalent mean airway pressures (MAPs) of 6 cm H2O. For biphasic positive airway pressure (BiPAP), that was a baseline pressure of 4 cm H2O, peak 8 cm H2O, I-time of 1 s and a rate of 30. After 48 hours of stability, MAP was weaned by 1 cm H2O per 48 hours until a MAP of 4 cm H2O was reached. Time off pressure support was allowed once 4 cm H2O was reached, and no fixed weaning regime was followed.

Outcomes: The primary outcome measure was extubation failure in the first 48 hours postextubation. No crossover was allowed, and rescue treatment was provided by increasing MAP pressure back to 6 cm H2O or by reintubation.

The main results are displayed …


Washington DC is the political capital of the country, nestled within a working city. It is under international scrutiny everyday, acting as the face we show the world. A recent development in the center city showed the world our view on future urban development, as the historic Chinatown was completely demolished to make way for new condos and a convention center, leaving a single street for nostalgia. Is this how we should think about our cities futures? As architects, we often become obsessed with the details of our designs, forgetting the larger forces that impact these projects, or that they may have on the areas around them. Instead of being a part of a united system, they act as islands in a sea of infill, separate from the daily life of the people around them. This form of design is unacceptable. Design needs to be approached simultaneously from several different lenses in order to have a positive impact on its environment. Starting with the formation of Washington DC, the first planned city in the United States, I began to study the different forces that impact the development of a urban center. Washington DC is the result of two antagonistic forces pushing against each other in the form of private economic development and symbolic design. I contended that the best way to approach future development in the city, was to use both these forms of design together, creating a plan that was both financially viable and symbolically significant. To test this, I decided to look at an area in the Southeast of the District. Anacostia and Buena Vista are a larger neighborhood on the brink of development. Most current proposals are either too small to aid the area [ bringing some district offices ] or too insensitive to the current population [ the gentrification of a historically black and low income region ]. My particular site in the area is a large block of land which contains the existing metro station for the neighborhoods, as well as acting as a transportation hub for the Southeast. However, due to political issues, it was built a distance away from the actual neighborhood center. I chose to give look at this area, and gave the community something it lacks and needs no matter what income of people reside there, while also promoting both tourism and economic growth. A public market. It would act as both an attractor to the area, but would also act to feed and employ the current population in a place already easily accessible by metro and bus. It makes the area a destination, as well as a integral part of the daily life of its citizens. But while adding a market may solve the food desert issue facing the region, a single building, no matter how large it may be, cannot solve the issues of an area. Real and lasting change has to happen on all scales of development. To begin to think as a urban designer, I had to first understand the profession and its role in rethinking urban development. Then, using the knowledge gathered through research, I was able to finally think of how an urban designer would begin to approach the neighborhood beyond my particular site. This allowed me to consider how my project would act as just a small piece in a larger project to connect the surrounding areas to the rest of the city with the additions of civic structures, retail, and open space. Yet most importantly, the neighborhoods would still retain the very thing that makes them unique, their character. The end goal was to look at design from all different scales and lenses in order to create an approach to future urban development as cities continue to grow. And with this project, I believe I have created a viable answer.


We have shown that the EBV oncoprotein, latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1), induces a constellation of tumor-invasiveness factors. Fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-2 is angiogenic as well mitogenic. Although FGF-2 does not contain a hydrophobic signal sequence for secretion, FGF-2 is released extracellularly. However, the mechanism by which FGF-2 is released is unclear. Here we show first that LMP1 induces in epithelial cells the expression of FGF-2 mRNA and protein through both LMP1 COOH-terminal activation domains, CTAR 1 and CTAR 2, which can activate nuclear factor (NF)-kappaB signaling and also the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway. Coexpression of IkappaBalpha (S32A/S36A), which cannot be phosphorylated and prevents NF-kappaB activation, with LMP1 inhibited induction of FGF-2 by LMP1, which suggests that LMP1 induces FGF-2 via NF-kappaB signaling. Moreover, unlike phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate LMP1 also induced the release of the M(r) 18,000 isoform of FGF-2 protein. Transfection of Ad-AH cells with LMP1 deletion mutants lacking either CTAR 1 or CTAR 2 also induced the release of the protein. Secretion was confirmed in 293 cells, which do not contain detectable endogenous FGF-2 protein, cotransfected with FGF-2 and LMP1. Finally, Na(+)/K(+)-ATPase participates in FGF-2 release, independently of the classical endoplasmic reticulum/Golgi pathway. In this study, the release of M(r) 18,000 FGF-2 protein was partially suppressed by ouabain, which inhibits the activity of Na(+)/K(+)-ATPase alpha1 subunit, but not by Brefeldin A, which inhibits the endoplasmic reticulum/Golgi-dependent secretory pathway. In contrast, the release of M(r) 18,000 FGF-2 protein was almost completely inhibited by IkappaBalpha (S32A/S36A). These results suggest that FGF-2 release is independently mediated by NF-kappaB signaling, not simply a consequence of induction itself. Thus, NF-kappaB signaling is involved in induction of expression and release of FGF-2 by LMP1.


Crude oil and petroleum products are widespread water and soil pollutants resulting from marine and terrestrial spillages. International statistics of oil spill sizes for all incidents indicate that the majority of oil spills are small (less than 7 tonnes). The major accidents that happen in the oil industry contribute only a small fraction of the total oil which enters the environment. However, the nature of accidental releases is that they highly pollute small areas and have the potential to devastate the biota locally. There are several routes by which oil can get back to humans from accidental spills, e.g. through accumulation in fish and shellfish, through consumption of contaminated groundwater. Although advances have been made in the prevention of accidents, this does not apply in all countries, and by the random nature of oil spill events, total prevention is not feasible. Therefore, considerable world-wide effort has gone into strategies for minimising accidental spills and the design of new remedial technologies. This paper summarizes new knowledge as well as research and technology gaps essential for developing appropriate decision-making tools in actual spill scenarios. Since oil exploration is being driven into deeper waters and more remote, fragile environments, the risk of future accidents becomes much higher. The innovative safety and accident prevention approaches summarized in this paper are currently important for a range of stakeholders, including the oil industry, the scientific community and the public. Ultimately an integrated approach to prevention and remediation that accelerates an early warning protocol in the event of a spill would get the most appropriate technology selected and implemented as early as possible - the first few hours after a spill are crucial to the outcome of the remedial effort. A particular focus is made on bioremediation as environmentally harmless, cost-effective and relatively inexpensive technology. Greater penetration into the remedial technologies market depends on the harmonization of environment legislation and the application of modern laboratory techniques, e.g. ecogenomics, to improve the predictability of bioremediation.


The internet is a technology that has become an enormous part of people's daily lives. Over the last decades, internet connectivity has improved tremendously and is available everywhere such as homes, offices, travels and schools. Today, empirical studies report that access to information can influence the academic performance of students. However, studies on internet use among Senior High School Students are limited in the Wa Municipality making it uncertain whether Senior High School Students in the Wa Municipality use internet and the impact it makes in their academic performance. Hence, this study investigates the internet use and its impact on Senior High School students in the Wa Municipality. Primary data were obtained from a random selection of 314 Senior High School Students who are in their third year. The data were collected using a questionnaire and then analysed using descriptive statistics, chi-square and ANOVA. The results indicate that sources of internet to Senior High School Students include the School Information Communication Laboratory, mobile phones, household internet facilities, and public internet cafes. Besides, students' access to internet was found to have a positive influence on their academic performance. However, different uses of the internet among students do not influence their academic performance. The study concludes that availability of different internet sources to students does not grant all of them immediate access. It is therefore, recommended that Heads of Senior High School should liaise with policy makers and management of Ghana Education Service to provide internet infrastructure in schools. This is relevant because provision of internet infrastructure in schools is a key strategy to promoting academic performance.


It could be the most photographed snack in the history of the galaxy. Either late this year or early next, the giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way, known as Sagittarius A*, will devour a blob of gas hurtling toward it at more than 2000 kilometers per second. A vast array of telescopes in space and on the ground is poised to record the feast, which could rouse the Milky Way9s gravitational and reveal why the massive body appears to have been on a near-starvation diet for centuries. But before astronomers can attempt to answer these questions, they must nail down several basic properties about the parcel of gas known as G2: its origin, mass, and orbit.


The United States is on the verge of a new era in transportation, requiring a new legal regime. Over the coming decades, there will be a revolution in driving, as manually-driven cars are replaced by automated vehicles. There will then be a radically new world of auto accidents: most accidents will be caused by cars, not by drivers. Thus far, however, proposals for reform have failed to address with precision the distinctive issues that will be posed during the long transitional period in which automated vehicles share the roadway with conventional vehicles, or during the succeeding period that will be dominated by accidents between automated vehicles. A legal regime for this new era should more effectively and sensibly promote safety and provide compensation than the existing tort doctrines governing driver liability for negligence and manufacturer liability for product defects will be able to do. In a world of accidents dominated by automated vehicles, these doctrines will be anachronistic and obsolete. We present a proposal for a more effective system, adopting strict manufacturer responsibility for auto accidents. We call this system Manufacturer Enterprise Responsibility, or "MER." In describing and developing our proposal for MER, we present the first detailed, extensively analyzed approach that would promote deterrence and compensation more effectively than continued reliance on tort in the coming world of accidents involving automated vehicles.


Abstract A number of Danish studies on the history of mental disability have been published in recent years, yet little attention has been devoted to the issue of euthanasia. It has been assumed that the Danes generally opposed radical German ideas about euthanasia of people with disabilities, especially after 1945. This article, however, will contend that a breeding ground for euthanasia was created during the early twentieth century and that many Danes were influenced by Nazi propaganda in the 1940s. Debates about euthanasia of people with mental disabilities continued way up to the 1970s. In fact, discussions about euthanasia or 'mercy killing' (medlidenhedsdrab) had their heyday in the years after World War II. Actual cases of 'mercy killing' of mentally disabled children appeared in this period. This article will argue that knowledge about the past is important in light of current debates in Europe about similar issues.


Recent immigration policies have created massive uncertainty for international students to obtain F-1 visas. Yet, before the COVID-19 pandemic, student visa applicants already faced an approximately 27 percent refusal rate that varies by time and region. Using data on the universe of SAT takers between 2004 and 2015 matched with college enrollment records, we examine how the anticipated F-1 visa restrictiveness influences US undergraduate enrollment outcomes of international students. Using an instrumental variables approach, we find that a higher anticipated F-1 student visa refusal rate decreases the number of international SAT takers, decreases the probability of sending SAT scores to US colleges, and decreases international student enrollment in the US. The decreases are larger among international students with higher measured academic achievement. We also document academic achievement of international students and show that over 40 percent of high-scoring international SAT takers do not pursue US college education.


From assistant to professional – the professionalization of interpretation in Norway The title "interpreter" is not a professional title in Norway; Norwegian legislation only applies to "sworn interpreters" authorized by the Directorate of Integration and Diversity (IMDi). The interpreter authorization scheme is one of the steps that have been taken to guarantee the quality of the interpreters and their services. Another step has been the creation of the National Register of Interpreters, which provides the public with access to qualified interpreters. However, the register is not flawless and may exclude well-qualified interpreters. The register has five qualification categories with different sets of requirements; the only problem is that the interpreter's access to the different courses that enables the interpreter to enter the register is limited. This problem could be remedied easily by means of the official exams for the grant of the title "sworn interpreter", but regretfully the exams, as well as the necessary courses to advance from category to category in the register, are not available in all language combinations or on a frequent basis. The distinction between an "interpreter" and a "sworn interpreter" may not be the quality, as much as the professional title and having access to education. In this context, the importance of licensing or professionalization linked to the phenomenon of trust becomes evident. The foreign and native speaker have to communicate through an interpreter, they need to trust the interpreter in order to get their message through, but why anyone should do that without a guarantee that the interpreter is qualified is another question. Mainly non-professional interpreters perform interpretation in the public sector and several studies show that the interpreters lack linguistic and professional skills to do their job satisfactory. This problem should not be ignored, but rather properly addressed by establishing a professional graduate degree to ensure the quality of the interpreter and consolidate the status of the interpreter as a professional in the public sector in Norway. However, this is only one side of the problem, it is also necessary to promote and ensure the use of qualified labour in the public sector.


Biomethane potential (BMP) tests are a valuable tool to design different parts of full-scale anaerobic digestion plants. Recent inter-laboratory studies have shown that the results of BMP tests can vary considerably and a comparison of BMP test norm protocols showed that the procedures are not rigorously defined, thus leaving room for interpretation. The goals of the present study were to develop a test protocol based on the existing ones but defining all steps precisely and to test the influence of the origin of the inoculum and its adaptation to the test substrate. The results showed that the amount of methane produced per gram of substrate volatile solids added varied only slightly with the different inocula used and that adaptation to the substrate did not increase the methane production from complex substrates. The reproducibility of the tests was good and tests with cellulose showed a methane production close to the theoretical methane yield. Future efforts will be directed to the comparison of BMP estimations with biogas production of full-scale installations from the same organic substrates.


Because of their flexibility and cost effectiveness, software implementations of number-theoretic cryptographic algorithms (e.g., RSA and Diffie-Hellman) are often desired. In order to obtain the required level of performance (speed) on a selected platform, the developers turn to algorithm-level optimizations and assembly language programming. In this paper, we examine these implementation issues and propose a design methodology for obtaining high-speed implementations. We show that between the full assembler implementation and the standard C implementation, there is a design option in which only a small number of code segments (kernel operations) are written in assembler in order to obtain a significant portion of the speed increase gained by the full assembler implementation. We propose a small set of kernel operations which are as simple as a ·b+c, where the numbers a, b, c are 1-word integers. The results of our experiments on several processors are also summarized.


Among the growing literature on deliberative democracy there are two diverging streams of thought, each implying a different role for civil society. Micro deliberative theorists, with their focus on the procedural conditions for structured fora, encourage civil society to engage in collaborative practices, usually with the state. In contrast, macro deliberative democrats, who are interested in the messy and informal deliberation in the public sphere, advocate that civil society should work discursively outside and against the state. This article explores some of the implications of these conflicting roles, taking into account two observations from deliberative practice: first, that all micro deliberative fora are surrounded and impacted by their macro discursive context, and second, that some actors in civil society are more willing and capable of deliberating than others. To conceive of deliberative democracy as an entirely micro or macro enterprise is not only unrealistic, but potentially exclusive. The article advocates for a more viable and inclusive deliberative theory; one that integrates all kinds of deliberation from the micro to the macro. To this end, public deliberation is best conceptualised as an activity occurring in a range of discursive spheres that collectively engage a diversity of civil society actors.


The physical vulnerability of roads to debris flow is expressed through fragility functions that relate flow volume to damage probabilities. Fragility relationships are essential components of quantitative risk assessments (QRA) as they allow for the estimation of risk within a consequence-based framework. To the best of the Authors' knowledge this is the first time that fragility curves have been produced in order to provide the conditional
probability for a road to be in, or to exceed, a certain damage state for a given debris flow volume. Preliminary assessments were undertaken by means of a detailed questionnaire. A total of 47 returns were
received from experts in 17 countries: 32% academia, 51% the commercial sector and 17% governments. Fragility curves have been defined for three damage states (limited damage, serious damage and destroyed) for each of low speed and high speed roads in order to cover the typical characteristics of roads vulnerable to debris flow. The
probability of any given damage state being met or exceeded by a debris flow of a given volume (10 to 100,000m3) was derived from the mean of the responses received. Inevitably there was a degree of scatter in the results and the treatment of such variation, or 'experimental errors', was crucial to understanding the data and to developing the fragility curves. Both qualitative and quantitative methods of arriving at these preliminary fragility curves were utilised. The nature of the data is such that unless all respondents return that value the average probability at the largest flow volume cannot reach unity;
as a result the upper ends of each curve were forced to unity and in order to account for larger potential volumes manual extrapolation was undertaken to 1,000,000m3.
In addition to an assessment of the probabilities of given damage states being exceeded respondents to the questionnaire were polled as to their level of experience and confidence in their ability to provide a valid and coherent set of answers to the questions posed.


This paper examines the investment strategies of regulated companies in abatement technologies, market participants' trading behaviors, and the liquidity level in an inter-temporal cap{and{trade market using laboratory experiments. The experimental analysis is performed under varying market structures: the exclusive presence of regulated companies; the inclusion of subjects not liable for compliance with environmental regulations; the availability of plain vanilla options. In line with theoretical models on irreversible abatement investment, the first experiment shows that regulated companies trade permits at a premium. At the same time the existence of a strict enforcement structure effectively prompts investments in new technologies. The second experiment shows that the presence of non-regulated companies adds liquidity to the market and does not increase price volatility. The last experiment enables us to investigate the impact of the presence of cash-settled options contracts on the trading strategies of regulated companies. Their expected emissions appears to play a signifcant role in the choice of their options strategy.


Quality Management System (QMS) is a very important knowledge that is very crucial in any industrial organizations. It is very important for the industrial workers to know and understand the correct QMS knowledge & concept. Because of that it is very important for them to attend sufficient and relevant QMS training in order for them to attain the QMS knowledge. These training must be effective and have sufficient impact. For that purpose a new method is used in this research. The Kano's Model and SERVQUAL are been integrate into the House of Quality (HOQ) for the purpose of developing a QMS training course that would not only satisfy the requirement and needs of the industry but also unexpected factors towards the trainee that attend the course. By using this method we can see that the level of understanding for the training participant using this new model is higher compared to the level of understanding for the participant from the conventional QMS training program that been conducted by the training provider. With the increment in the level of understanding the level of effectiveness for doing QMS related job for the training participant would also be different. We can prove this by using the Kirkpatrick's Evaluation Model, whereby we would evaluate the trainee from the conventional QMS training program against the newly develop QMS training program. The evaluation would be based on their level of understanding and the level of effectiveness of doing QMS related jobs in their respective workplace. Keywords: quality management system, training, House of Quality (HOQ)


In June 2008, the US Supreme Court handed down its decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, ruling for the fi rst time that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution guaranteed an individual right to bear arms for the purposes of self-defence. Gun rights activists responded with joy that a majority of the Justices had endorsed a reading of the Amendment that they had advocated for nearly three decades. Gun control supporters expressed disappointment at the Court's ruling, which struck down what were the strictest gun laws in the nation, but also argued that Heller offered support for their position too. In fact, both leading presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, publicly offered their support for Heller.1 How could both sides in the seemingly Manichaean debate between greater gun rights and greater gun control claim support from the same ruling? Because, in reality, Heller offered something to both sides. While fi nding the Amendment protected an individual right to own fi rearms separate from militia participation, the Court also clearly stated that right was not unlimited, and it offered what one commentator called a "laundry list" of regulations on gun ownership and use that remained acceptable under the Second Amendment.2 Thus in answering one question (the scope of the right protected by the Amendment), the Court's ruling in Heller offered up an array of others (exactly what regulations were permitted), guaranteeing continued debate about guns in American society that ensured the Second Amendment would remain relevant well into the twenty-fi rst century.


To evaluate the promises of human cloning, both therapeutic and reproductive, we can start from two pertinent points of view: health and secular bioethics. Under the point of view of health, though public prevention and health promotion policies, adequate to objective existing conditions, they try to protect human population from unnecessary diseases. Secular bioethics seeks to understand the ethics of cloning through rational analysis, free from the moral implications of its use; and if the conclusion is that it is legitimate, to propose it like a tool to protect human health. In spite of their apparently very different functions, both therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning seek to respond to the challenge of unnecessary human suffering: therapeutic cloning, thanks to the technique that uses totipotent stem cells, seek to grow organs and tissues to eliminate avoidable suffering; reproductive cloning may also diminish forms of unnecessary human suffering and if can, therefore, to be considered a particular case of therapeutic approach.


As its interests have become deeply tied to the Middle East, the United States has long sought to develop a usable understanding of the people, politics, and cultures of the region. In "Imagining the Middle East," Matthew Jacobs illuminates how Americans' ideas and perspectives about the region have shaped, justified, and sustained U.S. cultural, economic, military, and political involvement there.Jacobs examines the ways in which an informal network of academic, business, government, and media specialists interpreted and shared their perceptions of the Middle East from the end of World War I through the late 1960s. During that period, Jacobs argues, members of this network imagined the Middle East as a region defined by certain common characteristics--religion, mass politics, underdevelopment, and an escalating Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict--and as a place that might be transformed through U.S. involvement. Thus, the ways in which specialists and policymakers imagined the Middle East of the past or present came to justify policies designed to create an imagined Middle East of the future. Jacobs demonstrates that an analysis of the intellectual roots of current politics and foreign policy is critical to comprehending the styles of U.S. engagement with the Middle East in a post-9/11 world.


The Far North District Council (FNDC) has experienced a very high frequency of wet weather wastewater overflows resulting in community concerns and an abatement notice from the Northland Regional Council. Initial estimates to improve the situation also raised community concerns around the ability to fund improvements. FNDC commissioned a study to find the best value solutions to improve the network and reduce wet weather overflow frequencies to one spill per year or better. The investigations adopted two significant changes to a traditional approach when seeking solutions to network performance issues. Firstly the point of diminishing returns was established using a cost benefit approach. This included consideration of a wide range of options to identify the best value solutions. Secondly a long term rainfall series was used, rather than the use of design storms, which do not reliably reflect the performance of the system. A previously built and calibrated model was made available for this study. A verification process was undertaken to assess the reliability of the model and its limitations. This paper discusses the background to why these alternative approaches are preferred, as well as the outcomes. The paper also discusses the results of the different improvement types that are possible, given the interesting hydraulic attributes of the network. Significant cost efficiencies have been identified and put to FNDC for consideration.


Visual search is a fundamental human behavior, which has been proposed to include two component processes: inefficient search (Search) and efficient search (Pop-out). According to extant research, these two processes map onto two separable neural systems located in the frontal and parietal association cortices. In the present study, we use intracranial recordings from 23 participants to delineate the neural correlates of Search and Pop-out with an unprecedented combination of spatiotemporal resolution and coverage across cortical and subcortical structures. First, we demonstrate a role for the medial temporal lobe in visual search, on par with engagement in frontal and parietal association cortex. Second, we show a gradient of increasing engagement over anatomical space from dorsal to ventral lateral frontal cortex. Third, we confirm previous work demonstrating nearly complete overlap in neural engagement across cortical regions in Search and Pop-out. We further demonstrate Pop-out selectivity manifesting as activity increase in Pop-out as compared to Search in a distributed set of sites including frontal cortex. This result is at odds with the view that Pop-out is implemented in low-level visual cortex or parietal cortex alone. Finally, we affirm a central role for the right lateral frontal cortex in Search.


In this paper we have identified the sources of growth and its beneficiaries in Pakistan's large scale manufacturing sector using a simultaneous equation model. The use of such a model was necessitated since the Sims Test revealed endogeneity in the variables. We find the single equation estimates biased when compared with the ones obtained from the use of the simultaneous model. Using the latter estimates we find the contribution of capital much less, and the contribution of labor almost double as compared with the single equation estimates. The contribution of technological change declines just a little. The single equation estimates revealed constant returns to scale, while the simultaneous model indicated the presence of increasing returns. We find that every one per cent increase in productivity leads to a 0.6 per cent increase in wages and a 0.6 per cent decline in prices.


OBJECTIVE: To compare the incidence of and risk factors for cerebral palsy (CP) in moderately preterm (MP) (32+0–33+6 weeks) and late preterm (LP) (34+0–36+6 weeks) infants with those in very preterm (VP) (<32+0 weeks) and term infants (≥37 weeks). METHODS: The national register study included all live-born infants in Finland from 1991 to 2008. Infants who died before the age of 1 year, had any major congenital anomaly, or had missing data were excluded. A total of 1 018 302 infants were included in the analysis and they were analyzed in 4 subgroups (VP, MP, LP, and term) and 3 time periods (1991–1995, 1996–2001, and 2002–2008). RESULTS: By the age of 7 years, 2242 children with CP were diagnosed (0.2%). CP incidence was 8.7% in the VP, 2.4% in the MP, 0.6% in the LP, and 0.1% in the term group. The risk of CP was highest in the study period 1991–1995 in all groups. Factors predictive of an increased CP risk in the MP and LP groups included resuscitation at birth (odds ratio 1.60; 95% CI 1.01–2.53 and 1.78; 1.09–2.90), antibiotic treatment during the first hospitalization (1.63; 1.08–2.45 and 1.67; 1.13–2.44), 1-minute Apgar score <7 (1.70; 1.15–2.52 and 1.80; 1.21–2.67) and intracranial hemorrhage (7.18; 3.60–14.3 and 12.8; 5.58–29.2). CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of CP is higher in LP and MP infants compared with term infants. There is a nonlinear decrease in incidence over time and with increasing gestational age.


Combinatorial approaches in metabolic engineering can make use of randomized mutations and/or overexpression of randomized DNA fragments. When DNA fragments are obtained from a common genome or metagenome and packaged into the same expression vector, this is referred to as a DNA library. Generating quality DNA libraries that incorporate broad genetic diversity is challenging, despite the availability of published protocols. In response, a novel, efficient, and reproducible technique for creating DNA libraries was created in this research based on whole genome amplification using degenerate oligonucleotide primed PCR (DOP-PCR). The approach can produce DNA libraries from nanograms of a template genome or the metagenome of multiple microbial populations. The DOP-PCR primers contain random bases, and thermodynamics of hairpin formation was used to design primers capable of binding randomly to template DNA for amplification with minimal bias. Next-generation highthroughput sequencing was used to determine the design is capable of amplifying up to 98% of template genomic DNA and consistently out-performed other DOP-PCR primers. Application of these new DOP-PCR amplified DNA libraries was demonstrated in multiple strain enrichments to isolate genetic library fragments capable of (i) increasing tolerance of E. coli ER2256 to toxic levels of 1-butanol by doubling the growth rate of the culture, (ii) redirecting metabolism to ethanol and pyruvate production (over 250% increase in yield) in Clostridium cellulolyticum when consuming cellobiose, and (iii) enhancing L-arginine production when used in conjunction with a new synthetic gene circuit.


Conference management applications have been widely used as examples
for the study of conceptual schemas because of their manageable size
and diversity of cases. However, as far as we are concerned, the
conceptual schemas available only refer to the structural or static
part of these systems. Therefore we have considered useful and
necessary for our work to develop a whole specification, including the
behaviour of a conference management application. The conceptual
schema proposed in this paper is based on the study of the code of a
real existing product: MYREVIEW.
Additionally, this paper has also permitted to test or consolidate the
real application of some proposals. The first group consists on
alternate mechanisms to define integrity constraints and derived
elements proposed by Olive. The root of these proposals is the
definition of constraint and derived elements by means of operations.
Secondly, it aims at exploiting the benefits of modelling events as
entity types proposed by Olive. Finally, it also includes the
distinction between domain events, action request events and query
events in which Olive and Raventos are currently working.


Psychobiography and Life Narratives explores a number of exciting new approaches to the psychological understanding of individual lives. Eleven prominent scholars in personality and social, developmental, and clinical psychology have contributed chapters presenting innovative perspectives on discerning and developing the story of my life that each person tells and lives by. Five chapters show how differing psychobiographical approaches can illuminate the lives of Richard Nixon, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Eleanor Marx (Karl Marx's youngest daughter), author and feminist Vera Brittain, psychologist Henry Murray, and Sigmund Freud (whose peculiar relationship to Leonardo da Vinci shaped and distorted the first psychobiography every written). Two chapters concentrate on the analysis of life histories collected from contemporary American adults at mid-life crises, and the remaining three chapters provide bold new conceptual and methodological perspectives from which to view the study of individual lives and life stories. This landmark volume promises to make a major contribution to the growing literature on biography and personality. Contributors. Irving E. Alexander, James William Anderson, Leslie A. Carlson, Rae Carlson, Alan C. Elms, Carol Franz, Lynne Layton, Dan P. McAdams, Richard L. Ochberg, George C. Rosenwald, William McKinley Runyan, Abigail G. Stewart, Jacquelyn Wiersma, David G. Winter


A Margin Generative Adversarial Network (MarginGAN) is proposed for semi-supervised learning problems. Like Triple-GAN, the proposed MarginGAN consists of three components---a generator, a discriminator and a classifier, among which two forms of adversarial training arise. The discriminator is trained as usual to distinguish real examples from fake examples produced by the generator. The new feature is that the classifier attempts to increase the margin of real examples and to decrease the margin of fake examples. On the contrary, the purpose of the generator is yielding realistic and large-margin examples in order to fool the discriminator and the classifier simultaneously. Pseudo labels are used for generated and unlabeled examples in training. Our method is motivated by the success of large-margin classifiers and the recent viewpoint that good semi-supervised learning requires a ``bad'' GAN. Experiments on benchmark datasets testify that MarginGAN is orthogonal to several state-of-the-art methods, offering improved error rates and shorter training time as well.


Chemical and structural defense mechanisms have been reported to co-occur in algae and some soft corals. This study addressed the co-occurrence of chemical and structural defense mechanisms in 7 of the common gorgonian species found around Guam, specifically focusing on pat- terns of within-colony variation of these 2 modes of defense. Lipophilic crude extract and sclerite con- centrations were compared among the base, mid-axis and tip of multiple colonies of each species. Crude extract concentrations differed significantly among parts of Annella mollis, A. reticulata, Suber- gorgia suberosa, and Viminella sp. colonies. Sclerite concentrations differed significantly within colonies of Astrogorgia sp. and Villogorgia sp. Crude extracts and sclerites from the mid-axes and tips of the colonies were assayed in the field against natural assemblages of reef fishes. Extracts from the tips of 6 of the 7 species were unpalatable to fishes. Of these 6 species, extracts from the mid-axes of A. mollis, A. reticulata and S. suberosa, all of the family Subergorgiidae, deterred fish feeding. Chemical and structural defenses co-occurred in representatives of the families Plexauriidae (Astro- gorgia sp. and Villogorgia sp.) and Subergorgiidae (A. mollis and S. suberosa). Only 1 gorgonian coral, Viminella sp., appeared to rely primarily upon structural defenses rather than chemical defenses. To determine if size and shape were factors associated with sclerite structural defenses, a second set of feeding assays was conducted with powdered and whole sclerites from the unpalatable species. Fishes avoided the powdered sclerites from 4 of the 5 species when offered at natural con- centrations, suggesting that other properties remaining after the structural integrity of the sclerites was destroyed optimize the calcite skeletal elements for a defensive role.


Emerging communication technologies have changed both individuals and societies dramatically. With the diffusion of digital technologies in daily life, all users have been forced to create new identities for themselves. Thus, everybody had an additional self in virtual worlds. The users started to communicate with others through their self-made identities proving that technology started to shape our lives. Sometimes this new identity has reflected the real self of individuals while some other times it has been created with no actual reference to the realities of its holders in the physical world. However, one thing is clear: Most users of virtual environments have developed multiple identities and these identities have inherently transformed who they really are. Considering that the contemporary society is an increasingly network society, human beings try to accommodate their social needs through interaction with companions in the mediated environments whom they often don't know at all. Technology plays a mediating role in this sense among people who are temporary companions but actual strangers to each other. Moreover, people think that if they can accommodate their social needs through the net characters, whether they are real or not, then they ask themselves: "Can we escape from humans who demand intimacy and find risk-free virtual buddies?" The search in this regard has even prolonged to sensitive robots as social partners. This paper discusses how this inner transformation of identity has occurred and what the future holds for communication in the mediated landscape of the network society.


Network-on-Chip (NoC) has emerged as an alternative interconnecting paradigm in the state-of-the-art multi-core architectures. Its capability of parallel data transfer over various paths increases the possibility of resource contention and causes network congestion. How to avoid contention, as well as to optimize performance and energy consumption becomes a great challenge for system designers. In this paper, we consider spatial and temporal aspects of communication to avoid contention. In spatial aspect, we propose to utilize overlapped communication paths to estimate the degree of contention, such that they can be minimized in mapping stage. In temporal aspect, we sequentialize data transfer with potential contention by introducing additional latency. To optimize the design concerns with the corresponding constraint model, we further provide an efficient algorithm to search for better solutions for the problem, which integrates a local search process into a genetic algorithm and applies various heuristics in initialization and evolution process. Experimentations from random and real-case benchmarks demonstrate the efficiency of our method in multi-objective optimization and the effectiveness of our techniques in avoiding network contention, while keeping performance and energy consumption optimized.


This paper describes the elderly healthcare research project affected by a fall. The decision support system is proposed as knowledge management method, including knowledge engineering to acquiring the expert's heuristically diagnostic knowledge and sharing this knowledge to the physiotherapist in the form of tool and application at the right time. This paper outlines a Knowledge Management System (KMS) to diagnose falling patterns in elderly people using Motion Capture Technology. The idea is to integrate an appropriate procedure including case based reasoning and motion capture to provide a decision support system. The diagnosis information derived from the process of KMS helps support the physiotherapist to determine serious falling risks in the elderly and recommend guidelines for medical treatment. The evaluation result shows an efficient performance with 80.95% of precision when using the Assumption Attribute category criteria with KNNR=3. Furthermore, the result of KMS-EUCS shows a high satisfaction from the users with 97.50% of satisfaction in a community of practice scenario. This can confirm the successful of KMS approach within the falling risk screening procedure.


Advances in LGBTQ rights in the recent past—marriage equality, the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and the expansion of hate crimes legislation—have been accompanied by a rise in attacks against trans, queer and/or gender-nonconforming people of color. In Atmospheres of Violence, theorist and organizer Eric A. Stanley shows how this seeming contradiction reveals the central role of racialized and gendered violence in the United States. Rather than suggesting that such violence is evidence of individual phobias, Stanley shows how it is a structuring antagonism in our social world. Drawing on an archive of suicide notes, AIDS activist histories, surveillance tapes, and prison interviews, they offer a theory of anti-trans/queer violence in which inclusion and recognition are forms of harm rather than remedies to it. In calling for trans/queer organizing and worldmaking beyond these forms, Stanley points to abolitionist ways of life that might offer livable futures.


So, what is "philosophy"? And what does it have to do with adult education the one hand, it seems like a subject for elite academics, far removed from the everyday practices of adult educators. On the other hand, ask any adult educator what the purpose of education is, or what they are trying to do in class, and therein lies something of their espoused educational philosophy Look at their practice, and that tells you even more. One's educational philosophy is imbedded both in what one believes about teaching and learning, and what one actually does in their practice. All adult educators have an educational philosophy; we may not be able to articulate it well, but we all have a belief about what we should be doing in the adult education classroom. Further, adult learners in our classrooms also have an educational philosophy--a belief about what we should be doing. Sometimes these philosophical beliefs clash and result in conflict. Knowing one's educational philosophy and how it relates to our practice and to those beliefs of adult learns in our classrooms can help us better negotiate the everyday realities of life with adult learners. We believe that defining one's educational philosophy is important--not only because our beliefs impact what we do in the classroom, but in defining our educational philosophy, we must examine our practice critically In so doing, we often become conscious of some of our unconscious beliefs or behaviors that affect our practice. Critically examining our practice makes apparent some of the discrepancies between what we say we believe and what we actually do. For example, one colleague said that she believed in treating all students "equally" as part of her educational philosophy. But after a closer look at her practice, she found that she unconsciously gave more validation to some over others based partly on their gender, race and class. This became apparent by observing who she gave more attention, affirmation and mentoring to in the instructional setting (partly because some were more demanding than others), and by noting who was most often represented in her curriculum. After critically examining her practice and curriculum, she reasoned that if required authors and classroom examples were primarily whites and/or males, it perhaps sent a message about whose knowledge was really valued; it might appear that she believed some were "more equal" than others. As a result, she had to rethink the notion of what she really meant in regard to "treating all students equally." Thus, she began to change some of her classroom practices and also began to redefine her educational philosophy In short, as we have seen in this example, an examination of one's educational practice and one's beliefs about practice inform each other--our philosophy informs our practice, which in turn informs and helps develop our philosophy. And, so, the cycle continues. In order for this cycle to be set in motion, we must make conscious our underlying educational philosophy and how it is reflected in our practice. Thus, our intent in this article is two-fold; to discuss some different adult educational philosophies, and to help readers explore their own educational philosophy in light of their adult education practice. In particular, we invite the reader to reflect on the following questions in relationship to their own thinking about their adult education practice: 1. What is the purpose of education? 2. What is the role of the adult educator? 3. What is the role of students or adult learners in the classroom? 4. What is your conceptualization of differences among adult learners? 5. What is your worldview, or the primary lens you use in analyzing human needs? To be sure, not all adult educators have the same answers to these five questions, or the same philosophical orientation. Elias and Merriam (1995) discuss a number of philosophical orientations to adult education including liberalism, progressivism, humanism, behaviorism and radicalism. …


Abstract: This article investigates the ways in which the Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi perceived and represented the various political powers and cultural heritages in the Mediterranean, through a reading of his seventeenth-century travelogue, Seyahatname. I argue that Evliya's text reveals the palimpsest of political power and cultural hegemony extant in the Mediterranean of his time and attempts to legitimise Ottoman rule, employing several tropes and narrative threads. For Evliya, the Mediterranean is primarily a battlefield that has witnessed the victories and defeats of the Ottomans throughout their history. Evliya's Seyahatame, in that sense, is within the tradition of travel writing in the service of imperial meaning-making and meaning-sustaining processes. I call the narrative structure under which Evliya's observations are gathered the Ottoman Chronotope: a chronotope that highlights the project of sustaining a commonwealth, through ties of commerce and faith. In Evliya's text the islands become a geography where the Ottomans' sense of mission and empire is bolstered by 'old books' and oral narratives that he claims were popular particularly among the Mediterranean Greek population.


We present a time-resolved tomographic reconstruction of the velocity field associated with pulsatile blood flow through a rotationally-symmetric stenotic vessel model. The in-vitro sample was imaged using propagation-based phase contrast with monochromated X-rays from a synchrotron undulator source, and a fast shutter-synchronized detector with high-resolution used to acquire frames of the resulting dynamic speckle pattern. Having used phase retrieval to decode the phase contrast from the speckle patterns, the resulting projected-density maps were analysed using the statistical correlation methods of particle image velocimetry (PIV). This yields the probability density functions of blood-cell displacement within the vessel. The axial velocity-field component of the rotationally-symmetric flow was reconstructed using an inverse-Abel transform. A modified inverse-Abel transform was used to reconstruct the radial component. This vector tomographic phase-retrieval velocimetry was performed over the full pumping cycle, to completely characterize the velocity field of the pulsatile blood flow in both space and time.


The Sec translocon is a central component of the cellular machinery for targeting and delivering nascent proteins. Ubiquitous across all kingdoms of life, it is a protein-conducting channel that facilitates recognition of integral membrane protein domains and the establishment of integral membrane protein topology. Structural, biochemical, and biophysical studies have illuminated the role of the Sec translocon in both cotranslational and posttranslational protein targeting. In particular, quantitative assays have established the dependence of transmembrane domain (TM) stop-transfer efficiency and integral membrane protein topogenesis on the physicochemical properties of the translocon and protein nascent chain. These studies provide a valuable starting point for understanding the molecular regulation of the translocon and its sensitivity to mutations in protein sequence and external driving forces; however, complexities associated with the Sec machinery, including the role of collaborating molecular motors, the importance of large-scale conformational changes in the translocon, and the crowded molecular environment of the channel interior, obscure the mechanistic basis for many experimentally observed trends. My PhD research has focused on the development of a unified, mechanistic understanding of Sec-facilitated protein targeting. Using both atomistic and coarse-grained molecular simulations, we have investigated the conformational landscape for the Sec translocon. We found that inclusion of a hydrophobic peptide substrate in the translocon stabilizes an open conformation of the lateral gate (LG) that is necessary for membrane integration, whereas inclusion of a hydrophilic peptide substrate favors only the closed LG conformation. We demonstrated that the translocon plug moiety adopts markedly different conformations in the channel, depending on whether the substrate peptide is hydrophobic or hydrophilic in character. Finally, we showed that the energetics of the translocon LG opening in the presence of the substrate peptides can be modeled in terms of the energetics of the peptide interface with the membrane. The manuscript associated with this study is published in PNAS, 107, 5399 (2010). We further developed a novel computational protocol that combines nonequilibrium growth of the nascent protein with microsecond-timescale molecular dynamics trajectories. Analysis of multiple, long-timescale simulations elucidated molecular features of protein insertion into the translocon, including signal-peptide docking at the translocon LG, large-lengthscale conformational rearrangement of the translocon LG helices, and partial membrane integration of hydrophobic nascent-protein sequences. Furthermore, the simulations demonstrated the role of specific molecular interactions in the regulation of protein secretion, membrane integration, and integral membrane protein topology. Salt-bridge contacts between the nascent-protein N-terminus, cytosolic translocon residues, and phospholipid head groups were shown to favor conformations of the nascent protein upon early-stage insertion that are consistent with the Type II (Ncyt/Cexo) integral membrane protein topology; and extended hydrophobic contacts between the nascent protein and the membrane lipid bilayer were shown to stabilize configurations that are consistent with the Type III (Nexo/Ccyt) topology. These results provide a detailed, mechanistic basis for understanding experimentally observed correlations between integral membrane protein topology, translocon mutagenesis, and nascent-protein sequence. The manuscript associated with this study is published in J. Am. Chem. Soc., 134, 13700 (2012). Finally, we introduced a coarse-grained modeling approach that spans the nanosecond to minute-timescale dynamics of cotranslational protein translocation. The method enabled direct simulation of both integral membrane protein topogenesis and TM stop-transfer efficiency. Simulations revealed multiple kinetic pathways for protein integration, including a mechanism in which the nascent protein undergoes slow-timescale reorientation, or flipping, in the confined environment of the translocon channel. Competition among these pathways gives rise to the experimentally observed dependence of protein topology on ribosomal translation rate and protein length. We further demonstrated that sigmoidal dependence of stop-transfer efficiency on TM hydrophobicity arises from local equilibration of the TM across the translocon LG, and it was predicted that slowing ribosomal translation yields decreased stop-transfer efficiency in long proteins. This work reveals the balance between equilibrium and nonequilibrium processes in protein targeting, and it provides new insight into the molecular regulation of the Sec translocon. The manuscript associated with this study is published in Cell Reports, in press. This research has significantly enriched the mechanistic understanding of Sec-facilitated protein translocation and membrane integration with ample molecular details. The unifying picture that we propose establishes fundamental connections between previously disparate experimental studies, and it lays down the foundation for future verification and refinement.


Allogeneic tissues transplanted to mice treated with CD4- and CD8-specific Abs are often accepted indefinitely due to the induction of immunologic tolerance. When transplantation tolerance was induced to grafts mismatched at multiple minor histocompatibility loci, Ag specificity was inferred because third party grafts, mismatched at the MHC, were rejected normally. However, some "third party" grafts were either accepted, or rejected more slowly. Tolerant mice possess CD4+ cells, which suppress rejection by T cells reacting to the same grafts. Therefore, we hypothesized that tolerated third party grafts might share Ags with the original tolerizing graft, and that these Ags are a target for such suppression. To test this idea, we tolerized mice to a set of minor Ags (B10 minors) and challenged them with third party grafts that carried those minors, as well as an additional strong transplantation Ag, the class I MHC molecule, H-2Kb. This class I molecule acts as a good target for rejection in both naive mice and in mice tolerized to B10 minors. However, when this third party class I molecule is provided "linked" to those B10 minors on an F1 graft, rejection was significantly impaired. The data suggest that suppression within tolerant animals operates locally (perhaps on the same APC) via linked recognition. In addition, our preliminary findings suggest that suppression via linked recognition can also lead to tolerance to the third party Ag.


We present the first analysis of the use and non-use of social media platforms by low-income blind users in rural and peri-urban India. Using a mixed-methods approach of semi-structured interviews and observations, we examine the benefits received by low-income blind people from Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp and investigate constraints that impede their social media participation. We also present a detailed analysis of how low-income blind people used a voice-based social media platform deployed in India that received significant traction from low-income people in rural and peri-urban areas. In eleven-weeks of deployment, fifty-three blind participants in our sample collectively placed 4784 voice calls, contributed 1312 voice messages, cast 33,909 votes and listened to the messages 46,090 times. Using a mixed-methods analysis of call logs, qualitative interviews, and phone surveys, we evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the platform and benefits it offered to low-income blind people.


The "optimal tax model" is the most significant development in the study of taxation in the last fifty years. It is a mathematical model that purports to measure the social welfare effects of taxation by integrating fairness and efficiency concerns, the two central – and sometimes conflicting – values in tax policy. While originally developed by economists, legal scholars have overwhelmingly embraced the optimal tax model as the tool for evaluating competing tax designs. This article is the first challenge in the legal literature to the normative implications of the optimal tax model. It critiques a key assumption underlying the model – that an ideal tax would be based on an individual's ability to earn income, rather than the income that is actually earned. While that assumption initially appears consistent with the intuition that tax should be based on one's ability to pay, this article explains why a tax based on potential earnings would be unjust. It argues that the principles of liberty and equality prohibit a tax based on earning potential, and that the optimal tax model is therefore problematic from the perspective of fairness in taxation. Although different political theories lead to different conclusions about the design of fair taxes, this article makes clear why no theory of justice would embrace the ideal that underlies the optimal tax model. It concludes that legal scholars should consider the injustice of the foundation on which the optimal tax model is built before embracing the products of its analysis.


A fundamental goal of computer vision is the ability to detect and track semantic objects. This can benefit many applications ranging from video compression to video content analysis. Although humans can easily identify changes in meaningful objects in a video sequence, automatic detection and identification of semantic video objects is still a difficult task for current computer vision research due to challenges including cluttered backgrounds, arbitrary non-rigid motion, changing appearance patterns of non-rigid objects, and partial or full object occlusions. The key to address these challenges is to improve current computer vision systems with the flexibility to handle new input. Recent developments in 3D data acquisition technologies facilitate the provision of different types of depth information for objects and video scenes. Thus, this thesis aims to address the development of techniques for better utilization of 3D scene data in semantic object segmentation and tracking. The video object detection problem is addressed by means of a depth and motion based video object segmentation approach. The combination of depth map segmentation and motion detection forms the foreground object masks. A depth assisted multiple objects tracking system is developed based on these object masks. The proposed tracking algorithm utilizes a stereo-vision system's ability of separating occluding objects at different depth layers where different tracking strategies are employed according to the various occlusion situations and object depth layers. To further improve the performance of video object detection and identification, this thesis explores the issues of 3D objects and scene model reconstruction, which can reveal the geometric relationship between moving objects. The proposed approach combines the advantages of Delaunay triangulation method and the region growing method to achieve efficient surface reconstruction. Furthermore, a fuzzy clustering based 3D object decomposition algorithm is also discussed. Decomposing objects into meaningful components recovers useful structural properties of a 3D object. Thus, it is an important step for object recognition and video content analysis.


We consider a circuit-switched network with nonhierarchical alternate routing and trunk reservation involving two types of connections that are modeled as long-lived and short-lived calls. The long-lived calls can be reserved well in advance, and the short-lived calls are provided on demand. Therefore, we assume that the long-lived calls have strict priority over the short-lived ones. We develop approximations for the estimation of the blocking probability based on the quasi-stationary approach in two ways. One uses the Erlang fixed-point approximation (EFPA), and the other uses the overflow priority classification approximation (OPCA). We compare the results of the approximations with simulation results and discuss the accuracy of the approximations under different system parameters, such as ratio of offered load, number of links per trunk, maximum allowable number of deflections, and trunk reservation. We also discuss the robustness of the quasi-stationary approximation to the ratio of the mean holding times of the long-lived and short-lived calls as well as that of EFPA and OPCA to the shape of the holding time distribution. Finally, we demonstrate that OPCA can be applied to a large network such as the Coronet.


Background: The power level used by the mobile phone is one of the most important factors determining the intensity of the radiofrequency exposure during a call. Mobile phone calls made in areas where base stations are densely situated (normally urban areas) should theoretically on average use lower output power levels than mobile phone calls made in areas with larger distances between base stations (rural areas). Aims: To analyse the distribution of power levels from mobile phones in four geographical areas with different population densities. Methods: The output power for all mobile phone calls managed by the GSM operator Telia Mobile was recorded during one week in four defined areas (rural, small urban, suburban, and city area) in Sweden. The recording included output power for the 900 MHz and the 1800 MHz frequency band. Results: In the rural area, the highest power level was used about 50% of the time, while the lowest power was used only 3% of the time. The corresponding numbers for the city area were approximately 25% and 22%. The output power distribution in all defined urban areas was similar. Conclusion: In rural areas where base stations are sparse, the output power level used by mobile phones are on average considerably higher than in more densely populated areas. A quantitative assessment of individual exposure to radiofrequency fields is important for epidemiological studies of possible health effects for many reasons. Degree of urbanisation may be an important parameter to consider in the assessment of radiofrequency exposure from mobile phone use.


In 1788 Europeans arrived here to stay. Since then, between eighteen and twenty mammal species have been lost, depending on who's counting. Gone, too, are the Paradise Parrot and the Dwarf Emu. Alarmingly high numbers of animal (and plant) species hover just this side of oblivion. Not infrequently in Australia's natural history the first sighting of an animal by a colonial collector is followed fairly swiftly by a long disappearance. Very few come back. For the most part, expanding populations of exotic predators and feral competitors, combined with shrinking islands of natural habitats mean that the average Australian has few chances to experience firsthand even the commonest creatures of this continent. These days, the closest many people come to direct contact with an indigenous mammal is via the roo bars on their oversized four-wheel-drive vehicles. I suspect that the repercussions of this loss are greater than we can imagine.