This paper examines the operation of urban bus transport systems based upon exclusive bus roadways (busways) in three cities in Brazil. The historic, economic, political, regulatory and operating context for these services is discussed. The strengths and weaknesses of busway systems in Curitiba, Porto Allegre and Sao Paulo are compared, with particular reference to the operating capacity of the busways. The paper concludes with an assessment of the importance of operations techniques, infrastructure development, land use planning, political stability and regulation to the success or failure of these systems.


ABSTRACT Magmatic processes during the earliest stage of subduction initiation are still not well understood. We examined peridotites recovered from an exhumed crust-mantle section exposed along the landward slopes of the northern Izu-Bonin Trench using the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology9s remotely operated vehicle KAIKO7000II . Based on the Cr# [Cr/(Cr + Al) atomic ratio] of spinel, two distinctive groups, (1) high-Cr# (>0.8) dunite and (2) medium-Cr# (0.4–0.6) dunite, occur close to each other and are associated with refractory harzburgite. Two distinctive melts were in equilibrium with these dunites: a boninitic melt for the high-Cr# dunite and a mid-oceanic ridge basalt (MORB)–like melt for the medium-Cr# dunite. The TiO 2 content of the latter melt is lower than typical MORB compositions. We suggest that the medium-Cr# dunite was a melt conduit for a basalt recently reported from the Mariana forearc that was erupted at the inception of subduction. The wide range of variation in the Cr#s of spinels in dunites from the Izu-Bonin-Mariana forearc probably reflects changing melt compositions from MORB-like melts to boninitic melts in the forearc setting due to an increase of slab-derived hydrous fluids and/or melts during subduction initiation.


ABSTRACT The Upper Mississippi Valley canalization project was authorized by Congress in 1930. The construction of 24 navigation darns in addition to the power dams already in operation at Fort Snelling, Minnesota (Dam No. 1) and at Koekuk, Iowa (Dam No. 19) enables a 9-foot channel to be maintained from St. Paul, Minnesota to St. Louis, Missouri. The new structures are low-head, movable, roller-gate dams, a type especially designed to reduce deposition in the pools. During excessive high-water stages the dam is out of operation and open-river conditions allow the current to make a clean sweep. A re-survey of the pool bottom upstream from Dam 15 at Rock Island, Illinois, in October, 1943, on the same ranges as were surveyed in August, 1938, and in June, 1930. before the dam started operation, indicates that in the 10-year period: (1) deposition was active during the early stages of the pool's existence, mainly due to a shift of the channel, and (2) during the later stages scour exceeded deposition. The discharge of the river was abnormally high in the later years. Pool 15 is located in a gorge where the slope is steep and there is no flood plain and therefore this study does not yield facts or conclusions which can be applied equally to all the dams. It may be stated that there will be no excessive silting like there was in the early years of the pool. The periodic high stages of water will sweep out the deposits and the abnormally steep gradient causes a fast flow which will not allow for much deposition. Long periods of low flow necessitating an almost closed dam are favorable for deposition but it must be remembered that low velocities transport much less sediment.


This article examines employee 'voice' in workplace health and safety in three Baltic New Member States by means of a cross-national survey. The data point to unresolved problems of voice in the context of rather poor working environments. These present opportunities for collective renewal by trade unions, but paradoxically are more likely to be addressed by employers in the context of significant labour shortages created by a post-European Union accession labour 'exit'.


This paper presents several formulations for aggregating opinions about the outcome of a future event-e.g., opinions in the form of probabilities are aggregated into a single probability. The approach used to derive these aggregation formulas is maximum entropy inference, with the assumption that the opinions and the event being predicted are joint random variables. As part of the presentation, the novel, axiomatically developed aggregation formula due to Bordley is used as a foil for contrasting and comparing the results developed here. It is shown that Bordley's result is overly restrictive when looked at in terms of maximum entropy derivations that are clearly using more information. Initially, we suppose that the opinions given on the future event are in the form of odds; then we consider the case where these opinions are in the form of probabilities; and finally, we reach a general formulation in which they could be odds, probabilities or even binary, yes/no, predictions of a future event with interactions between experts. In regard to this last point, the use of Darroch and Ratcliff's method in maximum entropy aggregation is sketched. >


Highly distributed training of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) on future compute platforms (offering 100 of TeraOps/s of computational capacity) is expected to be severely communication constrained. To overcome this limitation, new gradient compression techniques are needed that are computationally friendly, applicable to a wide variety of layers seen in Deep Neural Networks and adaptable to variations in network architectures as well as their hyper-parameters. In this paper we introduce a novel technique - the Adaptive Residual Gradient Compression (AdaComp) scheme. AdaComp is based on localized selection of gradient residues and automatically tunes the compression rate depending on local activity. We show excellent results on a wide spectrum of state of the art Deep Learning models in multiple domains (vision, speech, language), datasets (MNIST, CIFAR10, ImageNet, BN50, Shakespeare), optimizers (SGD with momentum, Adam) and network parameters (number of learners, minibatch-size etc.). Exploiting both sparsity and quantization, we demonstrate end-to-end compression rates of ∼200× for fully-connected and recurrent layers, and ∼40× for convolutional layers, without any noticeable degradation in model accuracies.


"Access to space is fundamentally related to social status and power...changing the allocation of space is inherently related to changing society" (Weisman, 1992)

In contemporary London, a pattern has emerged whereby private corporations create and take ownership of public space, but the type of publicness they promote is conditional. In private-public space, private property masquerades as public land with rules of inhabitation often impenetrable, unknowable until they are broken. International owners activate networks of relations beyond the local; I question how private-public space fits with local communities, and how these networks shift notions of authenticity and inauthenticity in relation to public belonging. There is a specific focus on the public square as a form of private-public space, because the city square has a long-established spatial identity that embodies notions of publicity. The public square stimulates and contains public life, and neoliberal dynamics of ownership and management threaten public assemblages. Private-public squares do not fit into the majority of theories that have been developed on place, public space and private dynamics, but they are exemplative of a type of space increasingly prominent in Britain. I focus on four private-public squares in London to examine what can be learnt when a format of space is reproduced under incompatible conditions. How do these spaces work on a quotidian level and how does this intervention in public life shift urban identities and behavioural paradigms? The basis of my research is to examine concepts of publicness and privateness and how they apply to private-public squares in London, whilst utilising the practice of photography, observation and inhabitation to gain empirical ethnographic evidence. My research intends to assemble a toolkit to facilitate understanding about pseudo-public space, rather than ascribe fixed meanings to a subject which requires specificity.


The geography of the visual arts changed with the end of the Cold War. Contemporary art was no longer defined, exhibited, interpreted, and acquired according to a blueprint drawn up in New York, London, Paris, or Berlin. The art world distributed itself into art worlds. With the emergence of new art scenes in Asia and the Middle East and the explosion of biennials, the visual arts have become globalized as surely as the world economy has. This book offers a new map of contemporary art's new worlds. The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds documents the globalization of the visual arts and the rise of the contemporary over the last twenty years. Lavishly illustrated, with color throughout, it tracks developments ranging from exhibition histories and the rise of new art spaces to art's branding in such emerging markets as Hong Kong and the Gulf States. Essays treat such subjects as curating after the global turn; art and the migration of pictures; the end of the canon; and new strategies of representation.


This paper is concerned with multi-view reinforcement learning (MVRL), which allows for decision making when agents share common dynamics but adhere to different observation models. We define the MVRL framework by extending partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) to support more than one observation model and propose two solution methods through observation augmentation and cross-view policy transfer. We empirically evaluate our method and demonstrate its effectiveness in a variety of environments. Specifically, we show reductions in sample complexities and computational time for acquiring policies that handle multi-view environments.


This study examines the global linkages of selected ASEAN countries composed of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand (hereafter ASEAN-5). While economic growth of each country undoubtedly hinges on domestic developments, it also depends on foreign trade and capital movements in the form of direct and portfolio investments. These external influences are largely driven by global developments, particularly in Japan, other Northeast Asian countries, the United States, the European Union, and within the ASEAN region. While the systematic determinants of the ASEAN-5 countries' linkages to these regions are relatively stable and robust, our focus is on the short-term dynamics underlying the transmission of income, price and other changes from the global economy.


BACKGROUND
Unintended pregnancy among adolescents represent an important public health challenge in developed and developing countries. Numerous prevention strategies such as health education, skills-building and improving accessibility to contraceptives have been employed by countries across the world, in an effort to address this problem. However, there is uncertainty regarding the effects of these intervention, and hence the need to review their evidence-base

OBJECTIVES
To assess the effects of primary prevention interventions (school-based, community/home-based, clinic-based, and faith-based) on unintended pregnancies among adolescents.

SEARCH STRATEGY
We searched electronic databases (CENTRAL, PubMed, EMBASE) ending December 2008. Cross-referencing, hand-searching, and contacting experts yielded additional citations.

SELECTION CRITERIA
We included both individual and cluster randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating any interventions that aimed to increase knowledge and attitudes relating to risk of unintended pregnancies, promote delay in the initiation of sexual intercourse and encourage consistent use of birth control methods to reduce unintended pregnancies in adolescents aged 10-19 years.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two reviewers independently assessed trial eligibility and risk of bias in studies that met the inclusion criteria. Where appropriate, binary outcomes were pooled using random effects model with a 95% confidence interval (Cl).

MAIN RESULTS
Forty one RCTs that enrolled 95,662 adolescents were included. Participants were ethnically diverse. Eleven studies randomized individuals, twenty seven randomized clusters (schools (19), classrooms (5), and communities/neighbourhoods (3). Three studies were mixed (individually and cluster randomized). The length of follow up varied from 3 months to 4.5 years. Data could only be pooled for a number of studies (15) because of variations in the reporting of outcomes. Results showed that multiple interventions (combination of educational and contraceptive interventions) lowered the rate of unintended pregnancy among adolescents. Evidence on the possible effects of interventions on secondary outcomes (initiation of sexual intercourse, use of birth control methods, abortion, childbirth, sexually transmitted diseases) is not conclusive.Methodological strengths included a relatively large sample size and statistical control for baseline differences, while limitations included lack of biological outcomes, possible self-report bias, analysis neglecting clustered randomization and the use of different statistical test in reporting outcomes.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Combination of educational and contraceptive interventions appears to reduce unintended pregnancy among adolescents. Evidence for program effects on biological measures is limited. The variability in study populations, interventions and outcomes of included trials, and the paucity of studies directly comparing different interventions preclude a definitive conclusion regarding which type of intervention is most effective.


Happiness has recently received increased attention from both researchers and policy makers. The determinants of happiness in adult life have been well explored in the last decades. The determinants of children's and adolescents' happiness have been less studied. The aim of this study was to explore the relations between socio-demographic factors and happiness among Icelandic adolescents as well as finding which factors are the best predictors for adolescents' happiness. Data from the Icelandic Centre for Social Research & Analysis were used in this analysis. A sample of 2000 Icelandic adolescents aged 14 to 15 years in 9 and 10 grade was analysed. The main results show that 86.6% of Icelandic adolescents describe themselves as happy. Loneliness, physical health, how much time they spend with their parents and religiousness are strong predictors of Icelandic adolescents' happiness. The findings will hopefully give a better understanding on which factors are most important for adolescents' happiness which might be of interest to policy makers, parents and others who have happiness and well-being of Icelandic adolescents in mind.


When developing complex software-intensive systems, it is nowadays common practice to base the solution partly on existing software components. Selecting which components to use becomes a critical decision in development, but it is currently not well supported through methods and tools. This paper discusses how a decision support system for this problem could benefit from a software ecosystem approach, where participants share knowledge across organizations both through reuse of analysis models, and through partially disclosed past decision cases. We show how the ecosystem architecture becomes fundamental to deal with efficient knowledge sharing, while respecting constraints on integrity of intellectual property. A concrete architecture proposal is outlined, which is a web-based distributed system-of-systems. Experiences of a proof-of-concept implementation are also described.


Create mobile services and applications regardless of your computer programming knowledge. This extraordinary book introduces you to App Inventor for Android, a powerful tool that exposes you to the world of computer programming, so you can create technology rather than merely consume it. You don't need years of training to build your own Android apps. This book teaches you how to quickly design and code apps for anything from texting to location awareness to data storage on the Web, using App Inventor's unique visual interface. Ideal for beginning and intermediate Android developers, hobbyists and makers, and students of any age, App Inventor will help you turn your great idea into a full-functioning app in no time. * Take advantage of App Inventor's GPS-location sensor: Build an app shows the location of friends or colleagues at a concert or conference, or one that gives you a custom tour of your school, workplace, or a museum. * Use an Android device's phone features: Write an app that periodically texts "missing you" to loved ones, an app that responds to texts automatically when you're driving, and an app that reads incoming texts aloud. * Communicate with the Web: Create Android apps that talk to your favorite web sites, such as Amazon and Twitter.


Grandidier (1902) described a large form of Cryptoprocta ferox Bennett, 1833, a genus of Carnivora endemic to Madagascar, from subfossil material dating from the presumed Holocene that he referred to the variety spelea. Subsequently there has been varying opinion on the validity of this taxon. In this paper 159 subfossil and 32 modern osteological specimens of Cryptoprocta are examined and analyzed to determine if indeed two separate forms can be morphologically distinguished within the sample. On the basis of these tests we conclude that C. spelea Grandidier, 1902 is a valid species that existed on the island in the recent geological past. It was presumably a formidable predator that may well have feed on a variety of large lemur species that are now extinct.


Lithium is currently licensed for the treatment and prophylaxis of recurrent affective disorders, treatment of bipolar depression where the use of antidepressants has been ineffective, and the treatment of aggressive or self-mutilating behaviour. Lithium requires therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) during treatment and evidence is lacking to support the recommended monitoring frequencies of lithium levels. A retrospective analysis of a monitoring database was run to establish the association of single and double exposures of various lithium levels on renal function. Interviews were also conducted with prescribers to establish the factors affecting prescribing decisions related to lithium.
This study suggests there is a short-term negative association on renal function after exposures to single, high lithium levels but due to the small patient groups in the multiple exposures analysis the results from this are not statistically reliable. These results did, however, raise the considerations that changes in lithium levels may impact on renal function.
This work added to the factors influencing prescribing decisions surrounding knowledge, learning and competence of prescribers with concerns around a lack of knowledge of older drugs seen in newer doctors. Guidance surrounding at what points during the patient's journey the initial prescribing choice and a decision should be made is also needed. This would help overcome the barrier of split services within mental health and give clearer roles to the various consultants involved in a patient's care and aid in the involvement of the patient with their treatment.
iii
The roll out of a centralised lithium monitoring system with access for all those involved in the patients care could be considered to aid in the long-term monitoring of lithium. . This sort of system would also allow for all those involved being able to retain oversight over patients whether or not they are still directly under their care.


Social enterprises, with strong ties to local areas and communities, have been a growing phenomenon in many European countries at least since the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and the resulting retrenchment of state involvement in welfare provision. The paper draws on the empirical findings from nine case studies of community-based social enterprises (CBSE) in three countries which were investigated in depth in our study. Our objective is to use Schumpeter's work as a lens to assess the effects of social innovation on different aspects of this type of social organisation. Thus, we aim to address the questions: (i) to what extent can CBSEs be considered as a form of social innovation and how does this innovation arise in terms of role, organisation and impact of CBSEs? (ii) What are the similarities and differences between CBSEs in the three selected European countries? And (iii) how far does Schumpeter's conceptual framework of "creative destruction" provide insights into the process of organisational change in this form of social enterprise? In doing so we identify and discuss a series of innovations in organisation, project selection and delivery and conclude with insights relating to Schumpeter's theory of "creative destruction".


This article, part of a symposium on prosecutorial discretion, uses the Martha Stewart case to look more closely at the various types of discretion prosecutors wield. Unlike some other commentators, we are not persuaded that the case against Stewart was brought in bad faith or that it was unwarranted at its core. As we discuss in the first part of this article, prosecutors had ample reason for investigating her conduct and charging her with a crime. At the same time, for reasons advanced in the second section of this article, other prosecutorial decisions made in her case give us greater pause. In particular, we critique an aspect of the Stewart prosecution that has yet to be the subject of sustained analysis, having to do with a phenomenon that we call "redundant charging." That phrase refers to the prosecutor's nearly unrestricted ability to manufacture closely related charges based on the same course of conduct. In Stewart's case, a single coverup resulted in five separate charges, and in fact the prosecutors were conservative in their approach. Under existing case law, for instance, prosecutors could have charged each of Stewart's discrete lies as a false statement and as obstruction of justice, for a total of 22 counts. How is this possible? And what are the consequences? We explore the answer to these questions by looking at three possible sources of limitation on redundant charging: the federal criminal code, the Constitution, and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The federal code places virtually no restraints on redundant charging; rather it creates and exacerbates the problem. The Supreme Court's current approach to the double jeopardy prohibition is equally impotent in this context. Finally, the Sentencing Guidelines only work their count-collapsing magic after conviction, when much of the damage from redundant charging has already occurred. For reasons discussed in the article, if the goal is obtain convictions that are based on a unanimous jury finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and plea agreements that reflect the real culpability of the defendant, redundant charging must be cabined. In a perfect world, the problem would be fixed by Congress, as part of a larger project of legislating a comprehensive and coherent criminal code. Such a code could, akin to Chapter D of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, contain rules about duplicative charging. A further, marginal incentive to avoid such charging could be provided by modifying the definition of same offense for purposes of double jeopardy analysis toward a same-conduct or same-transaction test. But neither of these developments is likely. Therefore, we briefly advance a proposal that is perhaps not quite as bold but is more attainable: we suggest that the courts use their common law power to create a "law of counts." The authority to develop this law could come from the due process clause, separation of powers doctrine, or administrative law.


Recent advances in deep neural networks allowed artificial agents to derive their own emergent languages that promote interaction, coordination, and collaboration within a group. Just as we humans have succeeded in creating a shared language that allows us to interact within a large group, can the emergent communication within an artificial group converge to a shared, agreed language? This research provides an analytical study of the shared emergent language within the group communication settings of different sizes and connectivities. As the group size increases up to hundreds, agents start to speak dissimilar languages, but the rate at which they successfully communicate is maintained. We observe the emergence of different dialects when we restrict group communication to have local connectivities only. Finally, we provide optimization results of group communication graphs when the number of agents one can communicate with is restricted or when we penalize communication between distant agent pairs. The optimized communication graphs show superior communication success rates compared to graphs with the same number of links, as well as the emergence of hub nodes and scale-free networks.


Google is both a bane and a boon. One of its greatest merits is that it empowers users, even with little IT and/or information retrieval skills, to find information easily on the Web. However, at the same time there is the danger that many users start believing that they are highly information literate. In order to avoid such wrong self-evaluations, multiple choice questionnaires could be a promising approach since they allow a quick (self-) assessment of the respective level of information literacy. This article reports on a survey in which such an information literacy questionnaire was used to assess information literacy of students in a bachelor course providing an introduction to this topic. For this purpose, the test instrument which was developed at the University of Dusseldorf (Beutelspacher 2014a) was slightly adopted to the professional background of the students (business administration). In this article, we will report about the acceptance of this test instrument by the business administration students, about the experienced advantages, the perceived problem areas, and those information literacy aspects which cannot be covered by such an instrument in their opinion.


A fundamental challenge for labor-intensive firms facing demand uncertainty is how to configure their workforce to improve quality and performance. This dissertation investigates determinants of firms' workforce configuration, with a focus on the mix of temporary and permanent nurses, and its implications on patient outcomes, a central measure of performance in health care. This is a timely topic since many industries including health care are increasingly using alternative work arrangements. This dissertation uses novel and rich proprietary data from a large US freestanding home health company. The data provide detailed information on both the consumption and production sides of home health care delivery: utilization, referral sources, risk factors and health outcomes of patients as well as nurses' work logs and human resources characteristics. In Chapter 1, I investigate the effect of firms' labor mix on patient readmission, a main quality marker in post-acute care, using exogenous variation in full-time nurses' activeness in the patient's neighborhood and unavailability of nearest full-time nurses. I find that patients who received one standarddeviation higher proportion of full-time nurse visits were 7 percent less likely to be readmitted. In Chapter 2, I investigate the effect of reputation on firms' labor mix strategy under demand uncertainty. Firms face a tradeoff in using temporary nurses: they provide flexibility in responding to demand fluctuations but may impede the establishment of reputation through lower quality of service. I present and test a model of firm's labor mix choices where the labor mix dynamically shapes the market's perception of the firm's quality (i.e. reputation), and the firm's demand is in turn stochastically linked to its reputation. I find evidence consistent with the model: firms with lower reputation, especially young firms, increased the percentage of full-time nurses with demand volatility. Young firms trade off short-term profitability for long-term reputation gains. In Chapter 3, I investigate the effect of firms' workforce assignment on readmission through care discontinuity or handoffs. Using exogenous variation in workflow interruption caused by providers' inactivity, I find handoffs to increase the likelihood of readmission. One in four readmissions during home health would be avoided if handoffs were eliminated. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Health Care Management & Economics First Advisor Guy David


The essay starts by questioning how the debate at the dam over the Hao River between Zhuang Zi and Hui Zi arose. It describes the source of ideas that led Zhuang Zi to speak on the enjoyment of the fish (yuzhile 鱼之乐) and points out that the meaning of the debate rests in bringing about the emergence of the true subject of "enjoyment." It highlights this meaning by analyzing the essential content and value orientation of Zhuang Zi's ideas on the joy of heaven (tian le 天乐) and perfect enjoyment (zhile 至乐). Following up on this thread, the essay goes further to analyze the true meaning of Zhuang Zi's theory concerning the "great speech" of "non-speaking." This essay holds that the debate is a parable, an external representation that unfolds an internal tension between two different levels contained within Zhuang Zi's thought, rather than simply a debate between these two thinkers.


Background: Use of contrast agents (CAs) during CT simula on for treatment planing system leads to changes in electron density. In this study we aimed to inves gate the effect on calculated dose of various concentra ons of CAs on treatment planing systems in different dose calcula on algorithms. Materials and Methods: Contrast agent (0.769 mg/ml Iopromid) water mixtures at concentra ons of 0%, 1%, 2%, 5% and 10% in total volume of 500 ml for each were made by using five iden cal balloons. Calcula ons were performed by Cobalt-60 and 10 MV linear accelerator devices in CMS XIO treatment planning system. The prescribed dose of 100cGy was given to the center of balloon that is isocenter of SAD technique at 10cm from the surface. The doses at maximum dose depth (dmax) and at 5 cm were calculated according to the separate algorithms by either making or not making a correc on for CA, and the results were recorded. Results: In all algorithms, as contrast ra o increases, the dose values at dmax and 5 cm-depth increase accordingly. When the doses at dmax and 5 cm-depth were compared for Linac and Co-60 in all algorithms, it has been shown that the dmax value of Co60 was higher and the difference was greater in parallel with increasing contrast ra o in comparing with Linac. Conclusion:When required during the planning, the treatment plan should be calculated via providing an electron density correc on by contouring the volume retaining CAs along the beam


"IT context

 The concern over computer systems at the beginning of 2000 should have settled down by the time this paper is written, but it is symptomatic of an underlying, and recent, public concern that computers are not infallible. This has resulted in growing interest in measuring and predicting the benefits information technology can bring to business.

 The 'Productivity Paradox' contrasts the readiness with which companies buy individual IT systems with the absence of any proof that IT increases the productivity of whole industries. Paul Teicholz has recently shown that the construction industry in the US is not only falling behind other industries but that its productivity has declined in the last 30 years. Similar data can be presented for Denmark and the UK.

 Objectives

 This paper relates the evaluation of benefits of IT systems in construction to the time over which they are developed or implemented, and links this with the cyclic levels of activity from which all construction industries suffer. This leads on to suggestions about when IT systems of different types should be initiated in companies, in order to achieve full productivity at the stage of the cycle of activity when it is most critical.

 Methodology

 Ongoing work on how IT productivity is measured is combined with statistics on construction industry workload cycles in Denmark, The UK and the US. These show the variations between these countries and the paper suggests the optimum cycles on which different types of system should be replaced. Ths work is based upon surveys of how companies in construction measure IT benefits and government statistics.

 Conclusions

 The different time scales, ranging from development of customised systems to the introduction of off-the-shelf packages, have a major effect on evaluating benefits based on a changing workload. Little numerical evaluation is carried out at present because there are many different methods and reliable data required for these can be difficult to obtain. Major systems may need to be initiated at the peak of a cycle in order to be fully ready for the next peak, assuming that staff will be retained and training can be carried out during the intervening drop in workload. Work is in progress to develop a better method of evaluating benefits and will take these time factors into account"


This study characterizes the spatial pattern of urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon when in situ measurements are not available. Images obtained from remote sensors operating in the thermal infrared wavelength of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) were used to derive the surface temperature of Metro Manila from 1989 to 2002; thereon, the formation of urban surface heat islands became apparent. The impact of urbanization to surface urban temperature is noticeable– the average annual rate of urban growth is found to be 1.33 percent while the rise of UHI has an annual growth rate of 0.8 degrees Celsius. Likewise, increase in land surface temperature is related to the decrease in leaf biomass. These were evident from changes in land cover parameters such as fractional vegetation cover and surface moisture availability. These parameters were derived by computing the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from the images.


Building upon previous security applications of computational game theory, this paper presents PROTECT, a game-theoretic system deployed by the United States Coast Guard (USCG) in the port of Boston for scheduling their patrols. USCG has termed the deployment of PROTECT in Boston a success, and efforts are underway to test it in the port of New York, with the potential for nationwide deployment. PROTECT is premised on an attacker-defender Stackelberg game model and offers five key innovations. First, this system is a departure from the assumption of perfect adversary rationality noted in previous work, relying instead on a quantal response (QR) model of the adversary's behavior - to the best of our knowledge, this is the first real-world deployment of the QR model. Second, to improve PROTECT's efficiency, we generate a compact representation of the defender's strategy space, exploiting equivalence and dominance. Third, we show how to practically model a real maritime patrolling problem as a Stackelberg game. Fourth, our experimental results illustrate that PROTECT's QR model more robustly handles real-world uncertainties than a perfect rationality model. Finally, in evaluating PROTECT, this paper provides real-world data: (i) comparison of human-generated vs PROTECT security schedules, and (ii) results from an Adversarial Perspective Team's (human mock attackers) analysis.


You can challenge yourself while learning English with this engaging workbook of fun activities from the bestselling and trusted Practice Makes Perfect series. English-language learning doesn't have to just be grammar-based drills and exercises - as many ELLs and instructors have discovered at Lanternfish ESL - a website dedicated to ESL games. In Practice Makes Perfect: English Vocabulary Games, units are organized around themes, then supported by different kinds of games. These can all easily be adapted for a classroom setting, but are designed for the independent self-study. Answer keys are provided as well as brief glossaries. It is organized thematically (for easier vocabulary retention) and in increasing difficulty. It includes a variety of games and puzzles: crosswords, word searches, word jumbles, etc. It provides a break from traditional English language instruction that's fun but effective.


Background and Purpose—Several studies have assessed the possible increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke in migraineurs, drawing differing conclusions. No meta-analysis on the topic has been published to date. Methods—Multiple electronic databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, Science Citation Index, and the Cochrane Library) were systematically searched up to March 2013 for studies dealing with migraine and hemorrhagic stroke. We selected case–control and cohort studies with a clear definition of the diagnostic criteria for migraine and hemorrhagic stroke, using an adjusted model or a matching procedure that could control for potential confounders, and reporting effect estimates with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) or enough data to allow calculation of those numbers. Adjusted odds ratios and hazard ratios were used to estimate effect size. Results—Of 11 264 records, we identified 8 studies (4 case–control and 4 cohort studies) involving a total of 1600 hemorrhagic strokes, which were included in the meta-analysis. The...


Background Associative transcriptomics has been used extensively in Brassica napus to enable the rapid identification of markers correlated with traits of interest. However, within the important vegetable crop species, Brassica oleracea , the use of associative transcriptomics has been limited due to a lack of fixed genetic resources and the difficulties in generating material due to self-incompatibility. Within Brassica vegetables, the harvestable product can be vegetative or floral tissues and therefore synchronisation of the floral transition is an important goal for growers and breeders. Vernalisation is known to be a key determinant of the floral transition, yet how different vernalisation treatments influence flowering in B. oleracea is not well understood. Results Here, we present results from phenotyping a diverse set of 69 B. oleracea accessions for heading and flowering traits under different environmental conditions. We developed a new associative transcriptomics pipeline, and inferred and validated a population structure, for the phenotyped accessions. A genome-wide association study identified miR172D as a candidate for the vernalisation response. Gene expression marker association identified variation in expression of BoFLC. C2 as a further candidate for vernalisation response. Conclusions This study describes a new pipeline for performing associative transcriptomics studies in B. oleracea . Using flowering time as an example trait, it provides insights into the genetic basis of vernalisation response in B. oleracea through associative transcriptomics and confirms its characterisation as a complex G x E trait. Candidate leads were identified in miR172D and BoFLC.C2 . These results could facilitate marker-based breeding efforts to produce B. oleracea lines with more synchronous heading dates, potentially leading to improved yields.


Second generation biomass is an attractive renewable feedstock for transport fuels. Its sulfur content is generally negligible and the carbon cycle is reduced from millions to tens of years. One hitherto non-valorized feedstock are so-called humins, a residual product formed in the conversion of sugars to platform chemicals, such as hydroxymethylfurfural and methoxymethylfurfural, intermediates in the production of FDCA, a building block used to produce the polyethylene furanoate (PEF) bottle by Avantium. The focus of this study is to investigate the spray combustion behavior of humins as a renewable alternative for heavy fuel oil (HFO) under large two-stroke engine-like conditions in an optically accessible constant volume chamber. To reduce the viscosity to HFO levels of the otherwise crystalline humins, methyl levulinate (ML), another side-stream from the same sugar dehydration process, is blended to the former compound at 25 wt.-%; a ratio comparable to that actually produced in many dehydration processes. Various fuel properties of interest, including elemental composition, heating value, density, ignition quality, acid number, flash point, pour point, carbon residue, sediment, water and ash content are measured for the resulting humins-ML blend. The blend is injected into an optically accessible constant volume chamber, the dimensions, injector characteristics and prevailing ambient conditions of which are representative of those found in large two-stroke marine engines. Commercial HFO is used as a benchmark. The combustion process is evaluated by means of shadow imaging and OH∗-chemiluminescence. The former and latter optical techniques are used to determine the phasing and overall magnitude of the heat release event, and ignition delay/location and flame lift off length, respectively. From the results becomes clear that the average ignition delay is comparable to that of HFO, albeit at a higher cycle-to-cycle variation. Notwithstanding a longer lift off length and more downstream ignition kernels, the overall results suggest that the proposed bio-blend is a feasible renewable alternative for HFO in terms of technical feasibility.


In the present paper, it is demonstrated that the existence of localised elastic modes in structures of complex geometry can take place under the condition of total internal reflection of Rayleigh or plate waves from the areas surrounding the 'internal' areas of wave localisation. The possibility of total internal reflection in structures of complex geometry is often linked to the presence of internal areas on the surfaces characterised by lower values of the geometry-dependent local phase velocities of Rayleigh or plate waves in comparison with their values in the surrounding areas. The above-mentioned condition of wave localisation is illustrated by theoretical calculations of frequency-dependent phase velocities for three different cases of localised elastic wave propagation. These are localised Rayleigh waves propagating along solid cylinders of variable curvature, localised flexural waves in slender elastic wedges (also known as wedge elastic waves), and localised quasi-flexural waves in non-circular cylindrical shells.


Presented as part of the Prosthetic Orthotic Research Symposium, April 22, 2011 from 12:30pm - 5:00pm in the Student Success Center, Press Room A.


Background: With the rapid expansion of urban population, provision of safe water and basic sanitation is becoming a challenge; especially in slums. This is adversely affecting the health of the people living in such areas. Objectives: The study was conducted to measure the proportion of households using improved drinking water and sanitation facilities and to determine the association between diarrhea in under-five children with water and sanitation facilities. Methods: A community-based, cross-sectional study was conducted among 796 slum households in Siliguri from January to March 2016 by interviewing one member from each household using a predesigned and pretested questionnaire based on the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program Core questions on drinking water and sanitation for household surveys. Results: A majority 733 (92.1%) of slum households used an improved drinking water source; 565 (71%) used public tap. About two-thirds (65.7%) household used improved sanitation facilities. About 15.8% households had reported diarrheal events in children in the previous month. Unimproved drinking water sources (AOR = 4.13; 1.91, 8.96), houses without piped water supply (AOR = 4.43; 1.31, 15.00), and latrines located outside houses (AOR = 3.61; 1.44, 9.07) were significantly associated with the diarrheal events in children. Conclusion: The utilization of improved drinking water source was high but piped water connection and improved sanitary toilet used was low. Association between diarrheal events and type of drinking water sources and place of sanitation might suggest fecal contamination of water sources. Awareness generation through family-centered educational programs could improve the situation.


Live, carcass, leg and muscle weight (kg) as well as dressing percentage were compared between South African Black (Struthio camelus var. domesticus) ostriches, purebred Zimbabwean Blue Neck (Struthio camelus australis) ostriches and the progeny of Zimbabwean Blue Neck males crossed with South African Black females, commercially slaughtered at 14 months of age. South African Black ostriches had the lowest live (84.9 kg) and carcass (43.3 kg) weights, compared to Zimbabwean Blue Necks (100.9 and 51.2 kg, respectively). In general, crossbred birds resembled Zimbabwean Blue Necks more closely for the quantitative meat traits. However, dressing percentage (51.1%) and yields of different carcass components (bone, leg) did not differ between genotypes. Six of the major muscles present in the ostrich leg (M. gastrocnemius, M. femorotibialis accessorius, M. iliotibialis cranialis, M. iliotibialis lateralis, M. iliofibularis and M. iliofemoralis) showed significant weight differences between genotypes, with South African Black ostriches yielding the lowest values.


File is a component of a computer system that has importance value of its own, either in terms of availability, integrity, confidentiality and functionality to a system and application. If unintended changes happen on the related file, it may affect the security of related computer system. File integrity monitor (FIM) tools is widely used to minimize the file security risk. This paper proposed dynamic schedule for FIM. This paper presents a dynamic scheduling for FIM by combining on-line and off-line monitoring based on related files security requirement. Files are divided based on their security level group and integrity monitoring schedule is defined based on related groups. The initial testing result shows that our system is effective in on-line detection of file modification.


To adequately evaluate the content of a training programme the training material must be the same as, or as similar as that required to be utilised on the job. In addition, determining what trainees need to learn about a job (training needs analysis) must be undertaken before the evaluation of a programme. In this exploratory study, a training needs analysis was undertaken on a four-wheel drive ( 4WD) training programme and this was evaluated. Data from three separate training groups provided information for a training needs analysis and baseline data for a evaluation of the programme. Thirty six trainees were contacted and agreed to participate in the evaluation of the training programme. The training needs analysis revealed ten skills and/or abilities which trainees were expected to learn and/or gain from the training. After a training programme, trainees had more knowledge of those skills and/or abilities, and had a more positive attitude towards their handling of, and driving of 4WD vehicles . The study also investigated attitudes towards safety (using the Safety Locus of Control scale) and driving violations (using the Attitudes to Driving Violations scale). Contrary to results of Jones and Wuebker (1993) and Marlatt and Marques (1977), training significantly reduced the trainees' attitudes towards safety indicating that they had become more externally oriented in their beliefs about safety. This finding also suggests that trainees believe safety is more a matter of circumstances (i.e., luck). Finally, the training needs analysis also revealed that trainees' knowledge of specific skills and/or abilities increased after training, and this attitude also significantly reduced trainees attitudes towards safety. Recommendations for the directions of future research were made.


An arrest is not a medical procedure and probable cause is not consent, and yet for purposes of genetic sampling they have become so. The Constitution considers people to be information containers with rights. And for the most part, the confiscation of a person's genome in the stationhouse is a search. But the Supreme Court seems to parse constitutional privacy between data that originates from within (biologics) and data stored without (technology). Relying on the history of identification metrics, the necessity of stationhouse identification and the rationale of custodial control, the Court has lowered the threshold of biological privacy at arrest. In contrast to the low esteem in which privacy interests in the human genome seem to be held, there is a societal, even global, consensus building over the protection of privacy in digital data, such as the right to be forgotten. Today, the right to privacy in ourselves and in our machines are at loggerheads due in large part to the Supreme Court's perceptions of privacy, probable cause and personhood.In Part I, this article explores the challenges to privacy, personhood and probable cause raised by DNA collection as identification sanctioned in Maryland v. King. Part II considers the presumed infallibility of DNA testing that undergirds the Supreme Court's embracement of genetic identification. Lastly, in Part III, this article will try to decipher the Court's Fourth Amendment logic in denying privacy to the information in human cells but embracing them in cell phones in Riley v. California.


Funders are well positioned to shift the incentives for open science inherent in grant application processes and improve the way research is evaluated. Institutions can change the status quo by promoting and rewarding researchers careers, and collaborating with research libraries in contributing to development of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) infrastructure, tools and relevant skills. This document elaborates on the outcome of the workshop "Research Institutions and Libraries and the role of Funders in the European Open Science Cloud" held at the LIBER 2018 Conference in Lille, France. It sets a vision in which open science is the norm, and all funding bodies as well as institutions and researchers recognise the benefit of open science and embed best open science practice into their processes.


The existing literature in both public economics and financial economics often fails to consider how appropriate and effective public policy may be in promoting the venture capital industry. Public economics has dealt extensively with the effect of taxes and subsidies but has neglected the unique role of venture capitalists as active investors who provide not only funding but added value. Financial economics has emphasized the special role of the venture capitalist but has not focused on the real effects of venture capital in industry equilibrium or the role of public policy. This volume in the CESifo Seminar series brings together experts in public and financial economics to develop a theoretically and empirically informed international policy perspective for an era in which policymakers increasingly look to venture capital as a source of jobs, innovation, and economic growth. The chapters in part I analyze data on the levels of venture capital fundraising in Europe, problems in the bank-oriented beginnings of German venture capital finance in the 1970s, and the inefficiency of Canadian labor-sponsored venture capital funds. Part II looks at the effect of venture capital on labor market performance, the importance of exit opportunities, and the effect of information inflows on the venture capital cycle. The chapters in part III take the perspective of public economics, reviewing the role of public policy in addressing potential market failures, improving the quality of venture capital investments, and affecting entrepreneurial business activity through tax policy.


Background: Individuals with persistent low back pain commonly have a broad range of other health concerns including co-occurring musculoskeletal pain, which significantly affect their quality of life, symptom severity, and treatment outcomes. The purpose of this review is to get a better understanding of prevalence and patterns of co-occurring musculoskeletal pain complaints in those with persistent low back pain and its potential association with age, sex, and back-related disability as it might affect prognosis and management. Methods: This systematic review protocol has been designed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Protocols. We will perform a comprehensive search, with no date limit, in the following bibliographic databases: MEDLINE and Embase (via Ovid), CINAHL, and Scopus for citation tracking, based on the following domains: back pain, co-occurring musculoskeletal pain, combined with a focus group that emphasizes study design. Appropriate papers will be screened against the eligibility criteria by three reviewers independently, data extracted by two independent author pairs and disagreement resolved by consensus meetings or other reviewers if required. Assessment of methodological quality and risk of bias will be conducted using a modified version of the Risk of Bias Tool for Prevalence Studies developed by Hoy and colleagues. The overall risk of bias will be determined for each included study based on the raters' consensus of the responses to the items in this tool. In case of sufficiently homogenous studies, meta-analysis will be performed. Discussion: Given the lack of standard terms used to define co-occurring musculoskeletal pain, the search strategy will include the broader term "back pain," different terms for the "other co-occurring pain," and specific study designs combined with several exclusion terms. The results of this proposed review will identify the prevalence and patterns of co-occurring musculoskeletal pain among those with persistent low back pain, which is likely to inform clinical management, research, and policy in management of musculoskeletal disorders. Systematic review registration: PROSPERO CRD42017068807


The purpose of this study is to explore perceptions of corporate social responsibility among Indian apparel manufacturers. In last few decades, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has marked its importance in scholarly research as evidenced by an increasing number of articles and journals dedicated to the topic (Dirnach, 2008). This increase in popularity is a result of globalization and international trade (Jamali & Mirshak, 2006), as the era of globalization has meant that many apparel retailers do not own production factories, but have divested their manufacturing in favor of outsourced production. Availability of inexpensive labor and low production costs make developing countries attractive outsourcing locations. For this reason, India is emerging as one of the major players in the global apparel supply chain. The country's textile and clothing industry contributes significantly to its export earnings, comprising approximately 14% of its total industrial production (Ministry of Textiles, 2009). This sector employs about 35 million people, making it the second largest provider of jobs in India after agriculture (Ministry of Textiles, 2009). A qualitative research design was employed, and a multi-method approach, including depth interviews, observation and secondary data was used to collect data in India. Twenty-six industry professionals working in the Indian apparel industry were interviewed, including 20 males and 6 females. Participants' job titles ranged from merchandiser, designer, and production manager, to divisional merchandise manager. Five factories in New Delhi and the Neighboring Capital Region were observed and eleven Indian apparel manufacturers' websites were reviewed for CSR-related content. Data were analyzed for commonalities and differences that surfaced across participants' experiences, which were then used to structure a thematic interpretation. Seven key issues help to define CSR and articulate its role in the Indian apparel sector: (1) What is CSR?, (2) Benefits of CSR, (3) Challenges of CSR, (4) A Question of Responsibility, (5) A Matter of Size, (6) The Role of Auditing, and (7) Moving Forward with CSR. The Normative Stakeholder Theory and the Three Domain Model of CSR were used to guide the analysis and interpretation of results. Results indicate that Indian apparel firms are gradually moving toward implementing CSR, but that full integration is happening very slowly. India has emerged as a major hub of apparel production within the global supply chain. Despite the growing demands for corporate social responsibility, little research has been done to understand its role in developing countries such as India. This study is one of the first to focus specifically on the labor intensive Indian apparel industry as a context for CSR and to examine what CSR means in India today. As such, it provides a real-world understanding of the benefits and challenges involved in implementing CSR in a non-western country, while pointing to the need for more research on the importance of CSR throughout the entire supply chain.


A proposed creditor-funded recapitalisation mechanism for too-big-to-fail banks that reach the point of failure ensures that shareholders and uninsured private sector creditors of such banks, rather than taxpayers, bear the cost of resolution. The template is simple, fully respects the existing creditor hierarchy and can be applied to any failing entity within a banking group. The mechanism partially writes off creditors to recapitalise the bank over a weekend, providing them with immediate certainty on their maximum loss. The bank is subsequently sold in a manner that enables the market to determine the ultimate losses to creditors. As such, the mechanism can eliminate moral hazard throughout a banking group in a cost-efficient way that also limits the risk to financial stability. The creditor-funded mechanism is contrasted with other recapitalisation approaches, including bail-in and "single point of entry" strategies.


As the United States contends with the economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, federal bankruptcy law is one tool that can be used to resolve the financial distress suffered by individuals and businesses. When implementing this remedy, the question arises whether the law's application should be viewed as limited to addressing private debt matters, without regard for the public interest. This Article answers the question by looking to modern U.S. bankruptcy law's first forebear, the 1841 Bankruptcy Act, which Congress enacted in response to the depressed economic conditions following the Panic of 1837. That legislation created a judicially administered system that nationalized bankrupts' assets, some of which featured prominently in the business of slavery. This Article focuses on a specific episode from New Orleans, which at the time was the nation's third-most-populous city, had the nation's largest slave market, and had one of the nation's largest money markets. One of the bankruptcy cases commenced in that city involved the administration and sale of Banks Arcade, which was a premier commercial exchange for auctioning enslaved Black Americans. This history about how the federal administrative state restructured one component of the U.S. slavery complex should prompt critical reflection on how present-day bankruptcy law manages the fallout from a financial crisis. This Article concludes that courts have the authority to permit the public to advocate for its interests in distressed assets redeployed through the federal bankruptcy system.


The paper develops a theoretical framework to analyze the connection between the structure of banking networks and their resilience to systemic shocks. We base our analysis on the model of interbank contagion proposed by Cifuentes, Ferrucci and Shin (2005), which accounts for the impact of illiquid assets' fire sales. We develop this model along three main lines: (i) analytically proving, in a general setting, the existence of an equilibrium and the convergence of the algorithm that can be used to compute it; (ii) extending the scope of the simulations (e.g., including an assessment of the resilience of different stylized network topologies and a sensitivity analysis); (iii) generalizing the model to deal with the case where more than one illiquid asset is available on the market.


Much interest has been shown in the field of biometric surveillance over the past decade.
Face Recognition is a biometric recognition system that has gained much attention due to
its low intrusiveness and easy availability of input data. To humans, face recognition is a
natural ability that is an easy task. However, computerized face recognition is often
complex and inaccurate. Several good techniques such as template matching, graph
matching and eigenfaces have been developed by researchers to accomplish this task to
varying degrees of success.
In this dissertation, the eigenface approach is combined with neural networks to perform
face recognition. Face images are first projected into a feature space where eigenvectors
are extracted. The neural network performs identification and is used to train the
computer to recognize faces.
A number of very good approaches to face recognition are already available. Most of
them work well in constrained environments. Here the development of a real time face recognition system that should work well in an unconstrained environment is studied. A
tracking system is developed to work together with the face recognition algorithm. A
method using pixel difference is used to detect movements in the camera's view. A pantilt
system, using stepper motors is used to enable horizontal and vertical movements.
The face recognition algorithm is found to be working well with a recognition rate of
around 95%. Eigenface method combined with neural networks displays good
performance in terms of accuracy and the ability for learning and generalization. The
tracking system works well for objects traveling speeds below 5mIs and at distances from
between 0.5m to 2m from the camera. Several improvements are suggested to improve
the tracking system performance. An overview of some leading tracking and face
recognition systems and scope of future work in this area is discussed.


In this master thesis, a possible solution on how to connect a jack-up rig to an external supply was proposed. Using a conceptual layout of a typical jack-up rig power system as the basis, a suitable solution was proposed. The solution consists of a three winding transformer, and a frequency changer consisting of a twelve pulse rectifier and a voltage source converter. The frequency changer was needed because of the different frequencies on the supply and jack-up rig systems. In addition, filters, and a simple overcurrent protection relay were designed. After presenting the theoretical basis for the design of the components, a model was made in Matlab/Simulink to test and verify the solution. It was assumed that the external supply was a stiff network, and the external supply was therefore modelled as a voltage source. The external supply supplies the jack-up rig through a sub-sea cable with voltage of 36 kV and frequency of 50 Hz. A simple RL equivalent was used to model this based on a suitable cable from Nexans. The twelve-pulse rectifier model was made using two premade six-phase rectifiers in Simulink connected in series. This to minimize DC link ripple. The DC link filter was dimensioned analytically with respect to allowed current and voltage ripple and the resulting values were inductance, L = 13.63 mH and, capacitance, C = 1.2 mF. A two level voltage source converter was used to convert DC to AC at the desired 60 Hz frequency. The control system was based on proven methods using a cascaded control structure with an outer voltage control loop, and an inner current control loop. The control was performed in the d-q reference frame allowing the use of PI controllers. These were tuned using the pole placement technique. The inverter output filter was tuned to attenuate the dominant inverter induced harmonics. A cut-off frequency of ω_o= 1257 [rad/s], with inductance, L = 6.3 mH, and capacitance, C = 100.36 µF proved to give good attenuation. All steady state simulations proved successful with respect to harmonic distortion, voltage level and frequency. The largest load side THD was the current THD on the HV switchboard. This was 0.59 %. The supply line current THD at nominal load was 9.28 % due to the twelve pulse rectifiers and the lack of a filter. During simulations of different load scenarios, step changes in load caused a maximum voltage dip of 20 V, and a current overshoot in one of the phases of about 1500 A. Using a linear ramp load instead, with a change in load power, dP/dt = ± 6 MW/s, and reactive power change, dQ/dt = ± 4 MVAr/s the supply followed perfectly, without any transients. Fault simulations were done with a three-pole short circuit on different places on the jack-up AC side, and a bolted pole-to-pole short circuit of the DC link. None of the faults at the load islands caused any overcurrent in the interconnection. The largest being 159.2 kA at the inverter terminals. The initial peak fault currents during jack-up AC side fault simulations was caused by the inverter filter capacitors. A short circuit of the inverter switches proved critical. This yielded a peak fault current of 747 kA, and would destroy the inverter switches. The short circuit on the DC link had a peak current of 23 kA, and would probably destroy the rectifier diodes. The overcurrent protection relays used proved successful in interrupting the fault currents, and selectivity was maintained. Studying the results, it is apparent that the proposed solution works during normal operation, but that a multilevel converter should be used instead to minimize filter capacitors and thereby peak fault currents.


The goal of this paper is to contribute to the economic literature on ethnic and cultural diversity by proposing a new index that is informationally richer and more flexible than the commonly used 'ethno-linguistic fractionalization' (ELF) index. We characterize a measure of diversity among individuals that takes as a primitive the individuals, as opposed to ethnic groups, and uses information on the extent of similarity among them. Compared to existing indices, our measure does not require that individuals are pre-assigned to exogenously determined categories or groups. We show that our generalized index is a natural extension of ELF and is also simple to compute. We also provide an empirical illustration of how our index can be operationalized and what difference it makes as compared to the standard ELF index. This application pertains to the pattern of fractionalization in the United States.


The next generation water electrolysers must achieve better dynamic behaviour (rapid start-up, fast response, wider load and temperature ranges) to provide superior grid-balancing services and thus address the steep increase of intermittent renewables interfaced to the grid. The HPEM2GAS project will develop a low cost PEM electrolyser optimised for grid management through both stack and balance of plant innovations, culminating in a six month field test of an advanced 180 (nominal)-300 kW (transient) PEM electrolyser. The electrolyser developed will implement an advanced BoP (power tracking electronics, high efficiency AC/DC converters, high temperature ion exchange cartridges, advanced safety integrated system, new control logic) and improved stack design and components (injection moulded components, flow-field free bipolar plates, Aquivion® membranes, core-shell/solid solution electrocatalysts). Several strategies are applied to lower the overall cost, thus enabling widespread utilisation of the technology. These primarily concern a three-fold increase in current density (resulting in the proportional decrease in capital costs) whilst maintaining cutting edge efficiency, a material use minimisation approach in terms of reduced membrane thickness whilst keeping the gas cross-over low, and reducing the precious metal loading. Further, improving the stack lifetime to 10 years and a reduction of the system complexity without compromising safety or operability. All these solutions contribute significantly to reducing the electrolyser CAPEX and OPEX costs. HPEM2GAS develops key technologies from TRL4 to TRL6, demonstrating them in a 180-300 kW PEM electrolyser system in a power-to-gas field test; delivers a techno-economic analysis and an exploitation plan to bring the innovations to market. The consortium comprises a system integrator, suppliers of membranes, catalysts and MEAs, a stack developer, an independent expert on standardization and an end-user.


Mandatory notification of disease forms the backbone of disease surveillance in New Zealand and overseas. Notification data is used by public health professionals and academics to identify cases requiring public health control, monitor disease incidence and distribution, and in epidemiological research. However, there is emerging evidence that notification rates do not accurately reflect the true extent of notifiable diseases within the community, resulting in the underascertainment of many notifiable cases. While adequate surveillance does not necessarily require that all cases of notifiable disease be captured, the systematic underascertainment of disease can have significant implications for perceived spatial and demographic trends in disease prevalence; potentially threatening the credibility of spatial epidemiological research by under or overestimating the burden of disease in different populations. There is evidence that systematic underascertainment occurs as a result of the differential actions of laboratories and general practitioners. It has also been recognised that that underascertainment can be influenced by a patient's willingness to seek medical attention and participate in laboratory tests. However, few studies have investigated whether these factors systematically influence notification either in New Zealand or overseas. Furthermore, the discipline of health geography has been slow to engage with this topic of public health importance, despite the inherently spatial nature of the processes involved, and the close ties to the geographic literature on health service utilization and healthcare provision. This thesis explores the spatial and temporal variation in notification rates in New Zealand for the period 1997-2005 and the potential relationships between notification rates and different variables. Unlike many underascertainment studies, which have used individual data and capture-recapture methods, data constraints inspired a unique ecological approach to investigating the factors which may be associated with notification in New Zealand. Variables were divided into categories based on Anderson's behavioural model for healthcare utilization and the influence of these variables on notification was determined through multiple regression analyses. The main findings of this research indicate that in New Zealand notification rates have increased during the period 1997-2005 and that there is a north-south gradient in notifications, with substantially lower rates in the North Island than in the South Island. Furthermore, it is also evident that the variables associated with notification vary according to disease, spatial aggregation and spatial scale. Notification rates are significantly associated with a range of predisposing and enabling factors which might influence patient choice to consult for many frequently underascertained diseases. More variation in enteric diseases is explained by the independent variables analysed than the variation in non-enteric diseases. However, further research into these relationships, and underascertainment in general, is required before firm conclusions can be drawn.


Pauline Christianity takes a fresh perspective on the composition and reception of Luke-Acts in relation to the category 'Pauline Christianity' as it has been used to describe traditions, communities, and persons connected to Paul. This inquiry is pursued along three lines. (1) The reception of the Acts of the Apostles and the 'Pauline' Luke by Irenaeus is addressed. (2) The compositional intentions of the author of Luke-Acts in constructing 'Pauline' Christianity are analyzed. (3) The literary Paulinism of the author is separated from the Paulinism of his sources. This study contributes to the ongoing discussion of Paul's role in the history of early Christianity by making clear the extent to which the 'Pauline Christianity' of Luke-Acts has its origins in various second-century attempts to reconstruct the Christian origins.


This article discusses the emergence of demands for regional autonomy amongst the Miskitu inhabitants of Nicaragua's Caribbean Coast during the 1980s and concludes that the provenance of such demands should not be located in the historical precedents of the Kingdom of Mosquitia (1687–1860) and the Mosquito Reservation (1860–1894). Instead, its origins will be seen to lie in the impact of the developmentalist policies adopted by the Sandinista government that came to power in 1979 through a popular insurrection in Pacific Nicaragua. The article concludes that the contemporary autonomy process in Nicaragua's Caribbean Coast is an inherently modern phenomenon and remains inimitable to historical forms of localized government in the region.


ABSTRACT Vocalizations of many mammalian species have been reported to encode information about caller identity. In this study, we analyzed 300 alarm calls from 10 free-living European Ground Squirrels Spermophilus citellus (30 per individual) and 300 alarm calls from 10 free-living Taurus Ground Squirrels S. taurensis (30 per individual), and tested the potential of these calls to encode information about the callers' identities. Discriminant analysis including all 10 European Ground Squirrel individuals correctly classified 98% of calls, and cross-validation reached a classification success of 97%. Correct classification of 98% and cross-validation of 98% was assigned when the analysis included only those individuals producing calls consisting of both elements (eight individuals). For the Taurus Ground Squirrel, correct classification was 95% and cross-validation 94% for all 10 animals. When only those individuals producing calls consisting of both elements were included (eight individuals), discriminant analysis led to 94% correct classification and cross-validation produced a classification success of 93%. These analyses demonstrate that the structure of alarm calls in these two closely related species is highly variable and that it has significant potential to encode information about caller identity.


Nondeterminism is one of the main reasons that parallel programming is so difficult. Bugs can vanish when programs are rerun or run under a debugger, thwarting attempts at their removal. Stress-testing is a common practice to flush out rare defects though it consumes extensive processing power and offers no real guarantees of discovering bugs. Deployment can similarly expose new issues that are difficult to reproduce. Finally, nondeterminism frustrates replicating multithreaded programs for fault-tolerance or performance as the replicas can diverge silently. Determinism eliminates these problems, making debugging and replication possible and making testing more valuable and efficient.
Previous efforts at providing determinism required programs to be (re-)written in restrictive languages. In contrast to these language-level determinism schemes, this dissertation shows how execution-level determinism can be provided for arbitrary parallel programs, even programs that contain concurrency errors. First, we employ a hardware-based approach to provide determinism for unmodified binaries running on a deterministic multiprocessor system. Second, we show that memory consistency relaxations both enable a pure software-based implementation of execution-level determinism for arbitrary programs and also admit a simpler deterministic multiprocessor design. Finally, we describe a hybrid mechanism that integrates execution-level and language-level determinism techniques to provide determinism for arbitrary programs with higher performance than an execution-level approach alone.


The purpose of this thesis is to show on explicit examples how various theoretical concepts, ranging from statistical mechanics to stochastic control and from traffic theory to queuing systems, can be transferred to transport processes, encountered in particular in manufacturing systems, with benefic implications for their dynamical understanding, optimization and control. The thesis collects several articles where such implications are exposed [38]-[43]. We start with the observation that car traffic and production flows share several common dynamical properties (chapter 3). The main reason for the similarities are the presence of non-linear interactions in both settings. In traffic theory the interactions are between competing cars and originate from a trade off between safe and fast driving. They directly influence the speed of the cars. In production flow engineering the interactions are between cooperating work-cells forming the manufacturing system. They govern the production policy and hence the throughput of the manufacturing system. We exploit this analogy in case of a serial production line where the influence on the production rate of a work-cell is determined by the contents of its adjacent buffers (fig. 0.1) and derive a dictionary between the two fields. As a first result, this analogy allows the recognition of free-flow and jamming-flow regimes —well studied in traffic theory — in the context of production lines. Fig. 0.1. Above: Sketch of a serial production line composed of N machines Mi with production rates vi and N -1 buffers Bi with buffer content yi. Below: Sketch of a one-lane traffic system composed of N cars with velocities vi and headways xi. Dynamical similarities between cars and work-cells: the production rates and the car velocities, depend both on their environment e.g., the content of the next nearest buffers vi = vi(yi-1, yi) resp. the distances to the next nearest cars vi = vi(xi-1, xi). Applying a linear stability analysis to a given stationary flow regime, we draw a flow diagram which defines the boundary between the free and the jammed regime as a function of the control parameters. The relevant conclusions include the introduction of a dimensionless performance parameter, an enlightening connection between transient and stationary performance measures for production lines, a discussion of both the bull-whip effect and the stabilizing effect of pull production controls in serial production lines. The traffic models used in the analogy with serial production lines are socalled optimal-velocity car following models which assume that the velocity of a car is adapted to a distance dependent optimal velocity which reflects the safety requirements of two neighboring cars. This optimal velocity is chosen in an ad hoc fashion by traffic engineers and is not related to a cost functional which defines "optimality" via a minimization procedure. Here we calculate in the context of serial production lines the "optimal velocity" (i.e., the optimal production control) based on a specific cost functional. We solve in chapter 4 an optimal control problem for the production rates where the cost structure penalizes the entrance of the buffer content into a boundary state. We show that the optimal control is of four thresholds type and give the optimal position of the thresholds. The optimal control problem, explicitly discussed for a serial two-stage production line, can not be solved analytically for longer lines. This forces us to look in chapter 5 for other ways to describe relations between the throughput and the work in process of production flows. The analogous quantities in traffic theory — flow of cars and car density — are related in the so-called fundamental diagram (fig. 0.2). It encodes in a single graph the functional relation between the flow of cars and the car-density. Inspired by the micro-macro paradigm of mechanical statistics, we derive from a mesoscopic level the fundamental diagram introduced by Greenshields in 1931. The study is based on the Boltzmann equations introduced by Ruijgrok and Wu, which we derive from a space discrete interacting particle system. The fundamental kinetic features of the microscopic model are migration, reaction and collisions of particles. Performing the hydrodynamic limit of the model, we have that the macroscopic density distribution ρ is governed by the Burgers equation and that the macroscopic flow J is proportional to the logistic equation. Fig. 0.2. Generic form of the density-flow relation in one-lane car traffic. Another property of production flows shared with cars in traffic is the simple fact that the circulating items have spatial extensions. This is of foremost importance especially when multiplexing structures are present in the production line and/or the traffic network. The distribution of items flowing out of a merge structure into a single collecting flow definitely depends on the physical size of the circulating items. In chapter 6 we will study a discrete materials flow merge system connected to a downstream station (fig. 0.3). The outflow process from the merge as a function of the the items extensions is given. Fig. 0.3. Merging of N streams of items into a buffer B. A conveyor transports the items from B to M. The spatial extensions of the items are crucial for the outflow. The mentioned discrete velocities Boltzmann equations of Ruijgrok and Wu are related to random evolutions. They are particularly well adapted to model the dynamics of failure prone machines switching between their states (e.g., between "on" and "off"). For the inhomogeneous two-states case (i.e., when the switching rates depend on the environment), we show in chapter 7 that the probability density and the associated probability current are in a supersymmetric relation — a algebraic structure well known in quantum mechanics. The quest to optimize throughput in stochastic manufacturing systems and vehicles flow in traffic systems can be unified through the following question: Given the initial distribution of items (of workload or cars) how do I have to influence the noisy dynamics in order to efficiently transport the items involved (workpieces or cars) to a given final distribution? This point of view seems natural to us and is directly related to a problem addressed by E. Schrodinger in 1931. He asks for a Markov diffusion process satisfying given initial and final conditions and which minimizes some energy functional. Based on this, we propose in chapter 8 an efficiency measure relevant for a large class of diffusion-mediated transport processes.


As corporations become increasingly more powerful, their decisions have a larger impact on the social and ecological landscape both domestically and internationally. In Ethics and HRD, Tim Hatcher shows how human resource development departments can foster ethical consciousness and play an important role in transforming their organizations into responsible corporate citizens. He describes the relationship between ethical leadership, social responsibility, and HRD and shows how to synthesize them into a new and more sustainable paradigm for HRD. The first book of its kind, it will serve as a guide for managers, human-resource professionals, and students of HRD alike.


We study the problem of computing the homology of the configuration spaces of a finite cell complex $X$. We proceed by viewing $X$, together with its subdivisions, as a subdivisional space--a kind of diagram object in a category of cell complexes. After developing a version of Morse theory for subdivisional spaces, we decompose $X$ and show that the homology of the configuration spaces of $X$ is computed by the derived tensor product of the Morse complexes of the pieces of the decomposition, an analogue of the monoidal excision property of factorization homology.
Applying this theory to the configuration spaces of a graph, we recover a cellular chain model due to Świątkowski. Our method of deriving this model enhances it with various convenient functorialities, exact sequences, and module structures, which we exploit in numerous computations, old and new.


Acoustic data were recorded from various tanks traveling a known path at constant speed. The data were compared with the fast field program (FFP) to determine how well the FFP model would collate with actual data covering a range up to 2 km. This was done to determine if the FFP could be used to reliably predict the propagation effects of the environment for acoustical arrays listening for tanks. As the tanks were run through their course, meteorological data were also recorded. The meteorological data included temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed, and wind direction from the surface to 2000 m. The comparisons were encouraging through most cases until tank transmissions were buried in the background noise.


Seagrass mapping has become a key tool in understanding the causes of change in seagrass habitats. The present study demonstrates a method for examining relationships between seagrass habitat polygons and environmental data generated by hydrodynamic, wave, catchment and dispersion models. Seagrass abundance data are highly spatially autocorrelated and this effect was corrected using a spatially simultaneous autoregressive lag model (SSARLM). The physical processes that determine the spatial distribution of seagrass in Port Phillip Bay, Australia, were investigated by examining the links between seagrass distribution and abundance and broadscale hydrodynamic (waves, currents), physical (light, depth, salinity and temperature) and catchment (nutrient and suspended sediment concentrations) processes. The SSARLM indicated that the distribution of Zostera spp. meadows is principally constrained by two physical thresholds, namely, wave height or exposure and light. The former excludes seagrasses from colonising wave-exposed coastlines, whereas the latter directly determines the depth profile of seagrasses through its influence on light availability. In total, 95% of all seagrass occurred within grid cells with a mean significant wave height of 33% surface levels. By comparison, variation in water quality, represented by variables such as modelled total nitrogen, suspended solids or salinity, had little influence on seagrass distribution.


Machine learning (ML) fairness research tends to focus primarily on mathematically-based interventions on often opaque algorithms or models and/or their immediate inputs and outputs. Such oversimplified mathematical models abstract away the underlying societal context where ML models are conceived, developed, and ultimately deployed. As fairness itself is a socially constructed concept that originates from that societal context along with the model inputs and the models themselves, a lack of an in-depth understanding of societal context can easily undermine the pursuit of ML fairness. In this paper, we outline three new tools to improve the comprehension, identification and representation of societal context. First, we propose a complex adaptive systems (CAS) based model and definition of societal context that will help researchers and product developers to expand the abstraction boundary of ML fairness work to include societal context. Second, we introduce collaborative causal theory formation (CCTF) as a key capability for establishing a sociotechnical frame that incorporates diverse mental models and associated causal theories in modeling the problem and solution space for ML-based products. Finally, we identify community based system dynamics (CBSD) as a powerful, transparent and rigorous approach for practicing CCTF during all phases of the ML product development process. We conclude with a discussion of how these systems theoretic approaches to understand the societal context within which sociotechnical systems are embedded can improve the development of fair and inclusive ML-based products.


OBJECTIVE: To compare transient blood-brain barrier disruption (BBBD) by hypertonic mannitol with pharmacological modification of the blood-tumor barrier by the vasoactive peptide bradykinin for delivery of small and large agents to nude rat intracerebral xenografts. METHODS: Female nude rats In = 104) with 6-day intracerebral human small cell lung carcinoma tumors were treated using BBBD In = 24), intracarotid bradykinin In = 38), or saline (controls, n = 32) administered intra-arterially. During or immediately after infusion, the rats were given radiolabeled agent (methotrexate or dextran 70; Dupont NEN, Boston, MA). The rats were killed 10 minutes later, and samples of tumor and brain regions were obtained for scintillation counting. Twenty-two additional rats were examined using magnetic resonance imaging after administering one of two contrast agents (gadoteridol or iron oxide nanoparticles) or saline (controls) in conjunction with BBBD or bradykinin. RESULTS: After BBBD, the delivery of both small (methotrexate) and large (dextran 70) radiolabeled tracers was increased 2- to 6-fold in the tumor and 3- to 20-fold in surrounding brain, as compared with saline controls. After bradykinin treatment, there was minimal change in delivery of methotrexate or dextran 70 to tumor and brain around tumor, with the greatest increase less than 60% over controls. Magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated increased delivery of both small and large contrast agents to the treated hemisphere after BBBD. In comparison, no increased tumor enhancement could be detected after bradykinin treatment. CONCLUSION: BBBD resulted in global delivery of a variety of agents in a wide range of sizes. In this human brain tumor xenograft model, bradykinin was not effective at increasing delivery to the tumor of any agent tested.


Abstract—Background: HIV/AIDS is leading to the loss of labor through sickness and subsequent death, this is leading to the neglect of farm and off-farm activities, with the subsequent loss of potential income and food security. The situation is sensitive to seasonal labour peaks in agriculture. This study was done to determine the impact of high HIV prevalence in farming systems and food security in Pala Bondo District, Kenya. Methods: In this study, 386 respondents were randomly chosen in Pala Sub-Location. The respondents and key informants were interviewed using structured questionnaire. The data were entered and analyzed using SPSS version 16. Results: It was established that majority of respondents (67%) were between 18 and 35 years {χ2 = (1, N = 386) = 13.430, p = 0.000} (chimney effect). The study also established that 83.5% of respondents were married {χ2 = (1, N= 370) = 166.277 p = 0.000} and predominant occupation being farming and fishing (61%), while 52.8% of farm labour was by hand, 26% by oxen, and 4.9% mechanized. 73.2% of respondents only farm 0.25 to 2 acres, 48% mentioned lack of labour in land preparation {χ2 ((1,N = 321) = 113.146, p = 0.000), in planting {χ2 (1, N = 321) = 29.28, p = 0.000}. Majority of respondents lack food from January to June, during which 93% buy food. Conclusion: The high HIV prevalence in Pala has affected the farm labour leading to food insecurity.


Fires in the tallgrass prairie are frequent and significantly alter nutrient cycling processes. We evaluated the short-term changes in plant production and microbial activity due to fire and the long-term consequences of annual burning on soil organic matter (SOM), plant production, and nutrient cycling using a combination of field, laboratory, and modeling studies. In the short-term, fire in the tallgrass prairie enhances microbial activity, increases both aboveand belowground plant production, and increases nitrogen use efficiency (NUE). However, repeated annual burning results in greater inputs of lower quality plant residues causing a significant reduction in soil organic N, lower microbial biomass, lower N availability, and higher C:N ratios in SOM. Changes in amount and quality of belowground inputs increased N immobilization and resulted in no net increases in N availability with burning. This response occurred rapidly (e.g., within two years) and persisted during 50 years of annual burning. Plant production at a long-term burned site was not adversely affected due to shifts in plant NUE and carbon allocation. Modeling results indicate that the tallgrass ecosystem responds to the combined changes in plant resource allocation and NUE. No single factor dominates the impact of fire on tallgrass plant production.


The plant selected in present study has great therapeutic value specified in Indian Ayurvedic Medicinal system. M. spicata exhibits digestive effect caused by biologically active compound, e.g. menthol and herbal extract obtained from mint, which gives cool feeling to skin after use. It is soothing, antiseptic, a blood circulation stimulant and mild local anesthetic. Much work has been done on organic constituents of the M. spicata; however, little attention has been paid towards their trace metal contents. Thus, plant extract of M.spicata was analyzed for certain trace metals viz. copper, zinc, manganese and iron. Concentrations of these metals in plant extract were found to be zinc (122 μg/g), iron (92 μg/g), copper (125 μg/g) and manganese (31 μg/g). These trace metals impart therapeutic values to this herb as specified in Indian Ayurvedic Medicinal System.


This study seeks to understand how the state of race relations in America is interpreted, imagined and portrayed through modern American televisual political dramas. The recent marked increase in the number of prime-time fictional programs set in or around the White House reflects, in part, a search for meaning among audiences disillusioned with American politics, as well as an eagerness among producers and writers to explain Washington's innerworkings. The emergence of this genre coincides with a period of unprecedented developments in bringing racial diversity to the American political process, most notably in the 2008 election of President Barack Obama; this landmark moment for the American presidency has also highlighted the challenges the nation still faces in confronting its racial history. Televisual political dramas are uniquely positioned to incorporate race themes into their characters and their dialogue to comment, explicitly and implicitly, on what progress on race issues can look like. This study assesses the extent to which dominant narratives on race issues in American politics are represented in four popular televisual political dramas: The West Wing, 24, Scandal and House of Cards. The case studies incorporate not only the story told on screen, but the real-life political and creative contexts that shape their storytelling as it relates to race issues. The study uses a combination of literary criticism, contextual research and data visualization through design thinking to identify storytelling patterns and feedback mechanisms that inform how race iv issues are addressed. The analysis illustrates that these dramas, despite their freedom to imagine, are ultimately cultural artifacts of their time that exhibit many of the same limitations that constrain meaningful dialogue on racial inequality and the sources of racism embedded in American politics.


Scott Pilgrim's life is totally sweet. He's 23 years old, he's in a rockband, he's "between jobs," and he's dating a cute high school girl. Nothingcould possibly go wrong, unless a seriously mind-blowing, dangerouslyfashionable, rollerblading delivery girl named Ramona Flowers starts cruisingthrough his dreams and sailing by him at parties. Will Scott's awesome life getturned upside-down? Will he have to face Ramona's seven evil ex-boyfriends inbattle? The short answer is yes. The long answer is Scott Pilgrim, Volume 1:Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life.