We formulate a method to determine an equitable division of dairy farm partnership income when partners provide unequal amounts of capital, labor, and management and empirically estimate this relationship. New York dairy farm financial data are used within fixed effects and random coefficient panel regression models to reveal a systematic division of dairy farm partnership income among operators' labor, capital, and management while controlling for heterogeneity arising from differing herd size. Results indicate that controlling for time and heterogeneity across farms due to herd size are important factors when dividing net farm income among unpaid factors of production. Empirical estimates of allocating dairy farm partnership income to equity, operators' labor, and management are presented.


Molecular techniques have recently been demonstrated to be effective and efficient methods for detecting presence of species across a range of aquatic systems. The general method includes the isolation of environmental DNA (eDNA) from focal taxa via water filtration and DNA amplification. The simplicity, costeffectiveness, and non-invasiveness of these techniques for detecting presence of rare and cryptic species suggests great potential for incorporation into inventory and monitoring programs of aquatic species. In this study, we developed and tested eDNA markers for several imperiled pond-breeding amphibian species of Georgia and Florida; the flatwoods salamanders (Ambystoma bishopi and A. cingulatum), gopher frog (Rana capito), and striped newt (Notophthalmus perstriatus), under both lab and field conditions. We report the effectiveness of these markers to detect species presence under both controlled and natural conditions and discuss the potential for these markers to be incorporated into inventory and monitoring programs of amphibians in the southeastern U.S.


Birdsong is a complex time‐series behavior that requires learning. Although neural characteristics of the temporal domain in the songbird brain are described in some detail, few studies addressed temporal parameters at a behavioral level. Temporal organization of Bengalese finch (Lonchura striata var. domestica) song in several behavioral paradigms was examined. First, a detailed sequence analysis of song episodes was conducted and a transitional diagram of the song was obtained. Next, ongoing song production was interrupted by a flash‐light stimulation, and the pattern of stopping was analyzed. Third, auditory and/or proprioceptive feedback was deprived and the temporal deterioration in the song was analyzed. All data suggest that the song in the Bengalese finch is a hierarchical behavior; a string of produced songs was comprised of subunits. The anatomical and physiological basis of the hierarchical organization of birdsong should be addressed in future studies.


This paper discusses homogeneous nanocomposite media that contain up to 12 wt% of SiO2 nanoparticles. The method of producing nanocomposites is based on the processes of self-organization accompanying the formation of thin polymer shells around each nanoparticle, which is the main way of obtaining an optical quasi-homogeneous material. When the initial monomeric compound is polymerized with UV irradiation, a solid transparent nanocomposite is obtained. Infrared spectroscopy and the determination of the sorption and hardness of the composites are used to confirm the presence of self-organization processes accompanying the formation of the material. The types of nanoparticle–polymer chemical bonds are investigated and determined.


The present study was designed to investigate the effects of solution feedback and interrupting problem solving activity on breaking set. Individual differences analyses indicated that subjects who used an efficient problem solving strategy were likey to break set. Twelve concept attainment problems were given to an equal number of male and female university students. The solution to Problems 1 to 5 (the preliminary problems) was specified by a conjunctive rule, while the solution to the last seven problems (the critical problems) was specified by a single attribute rule. Each problem consisted of five blank trial sequences that began with the presentation of a positive example followed by five response probes. Subjects were informed at the end of a blank trial sequence whether their responses to the five probes were correct or that one or more were incorrect. Half of the subjects were told the solution at the end of each problem (complete feedback), while the rest of the subjects were told the solution following the first three problems only (partial feedback). Subjects worked continuously through all problems, or at the end of Problem 6 received a 15 minute interruption filled with a task either related or unrelated to the concept attainment problems. From exposure to solution feedback, all subjects developed a set to sample conjunctive hypotheses by Problem 3. Partial feedback subjects continued to sample conjunctive hypotheses up to the end of Problem 12, while complete feedback subjects broke the conjunctive set by Problem 8. The interruptions had marginal and inconsistent effects on set breaking which were apparently superseded by problem solving efficiency. Subjects were classified as efficient or inefficient problem solvers based on their ability to solve the preliminary problems. Efficient problem solvers broke set faster than inefficient problem solvers, whether or not solution feedback was provided. Einstellung was suggested to be related to strategy efficiency which determines the rate of exhaustion of the conjunctive hypothesis domain.


Medea figures in some of the works of Robert Graves. She is one of the main characters in his retelling of the saga of the Argonauts, The Golden Fleece (1944). This book can be read as precursor to his great work, The White Goddess (1948). Both books deal with the relation between the poet and the white goddess or Muse. The white goddess gives the gift of poetry, but in the end asks the death of her male worshipper. On the one hand, it is possible to interpret The Golden Fleece's Medea as a predecessor of the white goddess; on the other hand, this Medea resembles also the figure of the trickster.


This thesis is concerned with (1) the introduced Japanese macroalga Undaria pimzatifida in Tasmania and (2) the growth patterns of major components of macroalgal communities at two sites on Tasmania's coast, Bicheno in the east and George III Reef in the south The algae studied were Macrocystis pyrifera, Ecklonia radiata, Phyllospora comosa at both sites plus the red algal community at George III Reef.
Surveys ofUndaria in 1988 found that it inhabited approximately 15 kilometres of the east coast from Triabunna southwards to Lachlan Is. The alga is very fecund and smothers the bottom in 'barren' areas particularly in sheltered waterways at certain times of the year. Effects on the local biota are unknown but the environmental tolerances of the alga reveal a potential distribution from Cape Leeuwin in south west Western Australia to Wollongong on the New South Wales Coast.
Environmental parameters and growth rates were monitored at George III Reef from 1985-88 and at Bicheno from 1987-88. Over the joint period, there was little difference in temperature, saliitity and nutrients of the seawater between the two sites.
In 1988, the water masses of the south and east coasts of Tasmania were distinguished by unusually warm waters. In March, the warm nutrient - depleted waters of the East Australian Current were detected further south than usual and in winter, coastal waters were relatively warm and nutrient poor compared to previous years (Harris et. al1991).
For Ecklonia radiata, light appears to be the most significant factor affecting the rate of increase in lamina length and thus production at Bicheno and George III Reef. At George III Reef, high temperatures and to a lesser extent large swells negatively affect growth rates. It is postulated that swell may be acting indirectly through its affect on the amount of suspended particles in the water column and thus reducing light. Productivity estimates suggest 1.8 kg wet wt/m\(^2\)/yr at 14m depth at George III Reef and 4.7 kg wet wt/m\(^2\)/yr at 10 m. depth at Bicheno in areas of continuous cover.
For Macrocystis, production appears to be best determined from rate of blade production because change in length may be affected extrinsically by factors of swell and light. Productivity of M. pyrifera at the two sites suggests similar frond productivities of 6 kg wet wt/frond/yr. For a typical density of 4 fronds per m\(^2\) of sea floor this results in estimates of 24kg wet wt/m\(^2\)/yr weight. Macrocystis disappeared almost entirely from both sites during the warm year of 1988.
For Phyllospora, regression of growth increment against environmental parameters indicates light availability as the principal factor affecting growth for most of the year though nutrients are likely to limit growth in late summer. High rates of plant mortalities and lower growth rates late in the study coincide with the incursion of the EAC and the warm winter of 1988. The calculated production at George III Reef of approximately 7.4 kg wet wt\m\(^2\) /yr at 7.7m depth compares with the combined Phyllospora comosa and Ecklonia radiata annual production figure of 4.8 kg/m\(^2\)/yr at Bicheno at 10m depth.
For the red algal community at George III Reef, filamentous and foliose species increasing in number in the summer and outside of the Macrocystis canopy. The presence of the Macrocystis canopy results in a halving of the red algal biomass/m\(^2\).


This article focuses on assessing understanding of a given problem. Two approaches used in our courses are discussed to assess a student's understanding before the student attempts the solution. A conceptual model is presented as well as its implementation in Java to assess the understanding of a student communicated by a sentence in a language, such as English or mathematics. The approaches provide insight into how marking can be automated on the student's PC and how problem-statements and solutions can be developed by the instructor. The article differentiates between and defines terms such as question, problem, answer and solution. It also defines a new type of answer called a response, which descriptionbes the studenti?½s expression of his/her understanding of a problem before attempting the solution. The assessment tool is complex, as are the means of constructing problems and solutions, so, at this stage, it is being developed to determine the critical areas associated with problem structure and very fast marking in an applet.


The mammalian striatum has a topographical organization of input–output connectivity, but a complex internal, nonlaminar neuronal architecture comprising projection neurons of two types interspersed among multiple interneuron types and potential local neuromodulators. From this cellular melange arises a biochemical compartmentalization of areas termed striosomes and extrastriosomal matrix. The functions of these compartments are poorly understood but might confer distinct features to striatal signal processing and be discretely governed. Dopamine transmission occurs throughout striosomes and matrix, and is reported to be modulated by the striosomally enriched neuromodulator substance P. However, reported effects are conflicting, ranging from facilitation to inhibition. We addressed whether dopamine transmission is modulated differently in striosome-matrix compartments by substance P. We paired detection of evoked dopamine release at carbon-fiber microelectrodes in mouse striatal slices with subsequent identification of the location of recording sites with respect to μ-opioid receptor-rich striosomes. Substance P had bidirectional effects on dopamine release that varied between recording sites and were prevented by inhibition of neurokinin-1 receptors. The direction of modulation was determined by location within the striosomal-matrix axis: dopamine release was boosted in striosome centers, diminished in striosomal-matrix border regions, and unaffected in the matrix. In turn, this different weighting of dopamine transmission by substance P modified the apparent center-surround contrast of striosomal dopamine signals. These data reveal that dopamine transmission can be differentially modulated within the striosomal-matrix axis, and furthermore, indicate a functionally distinct zone at the striosome-matrix interface, which may have key impacts on striatal integration.


People with lower-limb amputation in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) lack access to adequate prosthetic devices that would restore their mobility and increase their quality of life. This is largely due to the cost and durability of existing devices. Single-keel energy storage and return (ESR) prosthetic feet have recently been developed to provide improved walking benefits at an affordable cost in LMICs. These low-cost single-keel ESR feet were created using a novel design methodology, the lower leg trajectory error (LLTE) framework. The LLTE framework enables the optimization of the stiffness and geometry of a user's prosthesis to match a target walking pattern. However, these low-cost single-keel ESR prostheses do not provide the required durability to fulfill the international standards organization (ISO) testing, which prevents their widespread use and adoption. In this work, we developed a multi-keel prosthetic foot parametric model, and extended the LLTE framework to include this multi-keel architecture and the durability requirements. This extended LLTE framework enabled the design of durable and low-cost multi-keel ESR prosthetic feet made of Nylon 6/6. Multi-keel foot designs were shown to provide 76% improved walking performance (lower LLTE values) compared with single-keel ESR designs. Load testing of prototype multi-keel feet validated the multi-keel constitutive model predictions used in the LLTE framework. The measured deflections of the prototypes under load were accurately described with an average error of 0.6 ± 0.4 mm (5.7 ± 4.2%). These multi-keel feet designed using the extended LLTE framework withstood ISO fatigue and static tests, validating their durability. Given their single-part 2D extruded geometries, multi-keel feet designed with the extended LLTE framework could be cost-effectively manufactured, providing affordable and durable high-performance prostheses that improves the mobility of LMIC users.


The aim of this chapter is to present the K-Ar and Ar-Ar dating techniques in the context of noble gas studies, since there are already several recent texts on K-Ar and Ar-Ar dating (Dickin 1995; McDougall and Harrison 1999). The focus of this section will be aspects of argon transport and storage in the crust, which affect K-Ar and Ar-Ar dating including Ar-loss from minerals by diffusion and Ar-gain by minerals or "excess argon."

The K-Ar dating technique was one of the earliest isotope dating techniques, developed soon after the discovery of radioactive potassium, and provided an important adjunct to U-Pb and U-He dating techniques. The ease of measurement and ideal half-life (1250 million years; see Table 2⇓ below), for dating geological events has made this the most popular of isotopic dating techniques. Aldrich and Nier (1948) first demonstrated that 40Ar was the product of the decay of 40K, and soon after K-Ar ages were being measured in several laboratories most often using an absolute method such as a McLeod gauge to measure argon concentrations. The first published K-Ar results by such a technique were those of Smits and Gentner (1950) who analyzed sylvite from the Buggingen Oligocene evaporite deposits, obtaining an age of 20 million years. Mass spectrometers, which simultaneously measured very small amounts of gas, and the isotope ratios necessary to make corrections for atmospheric contamination, quickly replaced manometric techniques. Crucially the use of static vacuum techniques, pioneered by John Reynolds at the University of California-Berkeley, meant that mass spectrometers were sufficiently sensitive to analyse the small amounts of gas released from common rocks and minerals.

Although the earliest mass spectrometers were built 'in house', the introduction of the commercially available MS10 (Farrar et al. 1964), a small 180° metal mass spectrometer built for …


The effect of laser power on the resulting microstructure and microhardness of laser metal deposited Ti6Al4V powder on Ti6Al4V substrate has been investigated. The tracks were deposited using 99.6 % pure Ti6Al4V powder of particle size ranging between 150 - 200 µm on 99.6% Ti6Al4V substrate. The laser power was varied between 0.8 - 3.0 kW while the scanning speed, powder flow rate and the gas flow rate were kept at the values of 0.005 m/sec, 1.44 g/min and 4 l /min respectively. The microstructure and the microhardness were studied using the optical microscope and the Vickers hardness tester respectively. Layer band or macroscopic banding was observed in all the samples which is phenomenon as it was only reported in the literature for multi-layer deposits. The literature attributed re-melting of the previous layers by the succeeding layers as being responsible for their formation. This study has revealed that this band could be as a result of shrinkage happening in the fusion zone as a result of the interaction of the deposited powder and the melt pool created by the substrate material. This study also reveals the relationship between the microstructure, the average microhardness and the laser power which are comprehensively discussed. The higher the laser power, the lower the density of columnar prior beta grain structure. Also the average microhardness increases as the laser power increases.


"Adobe Captivate 7: Beyond the Essentials" is a self-paced training manual that teaches the higher-end, more advanced functionality of Adobe Captivate. By following step-by-step instructions, you will improve your screen recording skills via project templates and by pre-editing your text captions. You ll learn how to create and produce video projects that will enable you to record screen actions in real-time. After learning how to import questions into Captivate using the GIFT format, you ll learn how to create a random quiz using question pools and random question slides. As your learning adventure continues, you'll fine-tune your production skills by learning about object styles, master slides, themes, and advanced actions. You'll learn to engage the learner like never before my using both system and user variables. You will also learn how to create branching scenarios that will enable learners to plot their own learning path. Are you working in a team environment? Perhaps not all of those team members have Captivate? You'll learn to collaborate with team members using Captivate's powerful commenting capabilities. Team-members will be able to give you feedback about your eLearning lesson (in the form of comments that will appear directly within the Captivate project file) from anywhere in the world using a free AIR application and Acrobat.com. Finally, you'll ensure your eLearning and mLearning output can be used by people with disabilities by adding such 508-compliant features as accessibility text and closed captions. You'll learn about SCORM, AICC, TinCan, SCOs, Manifests, and how to upload a published lesson into a Learning Management System.


The colloidal fractions, one micron and less, from the parent materials of nine Ontario soils were examined by the differential thermal method and by chemical analyses. An attempt was made to characterize these fractions in terms of their clay mineral composition by comparing them with reference clay minerals. The thermal curves suggest that the colloids from the following soil series: Lockport, Haldimand, Caistor, Perth, Peel, Osprey and Guelph, were dominated by an illite-like clay mineral. Chemical analyses revealed these colloids to have a high content of K₂O and an exchange capacity greater than that normally associated with an illite. The Lockport colloid was established as a particular illite and the other soil colloids characterized in terms of the Lockport plus low concentrations of montmorillonite to account for the exchange capacity. The colloids from a, Northern Ontario soil and the Rideau did not fit into the pattern followed by the other colloids. The thermal curve for the Rideau suggested a micaceous colloid lacking well-defined thermal curve characteristics. The Northern Ontario soil colloid had a high exchange capacity but lacked the major thermal characteristics of montmorillonite.


ABSTRACT The virulence of Campylobacter fetus, a bacterial pathogen of ungulates and humans, is mediated in part by the presence of a paracrystalline surface layer (S-layer) that confers serum resistance. The subunits of the S-layer are S-layer proteins (SLPs) that are secreted in the absence of an N-terminal signal sequence and attach to either type A or B C. fetus lipopolysaccharide in a serospecific manner. Antigenic variation of multiple SLPs (encoded bysapA homologs) of type A strain 23D occurs by inversion of a promoter-containing DNA element flanked by two sapAhomologs. Cloning and sequencing of the entire 6.2-kb invertible region from C. fetus 23D revealed a probable 5.6-kb operon of four overlapping genes (sapCDEF, with sizes of 1,035, 1,752, 1,284, and 1,302 bp, respectively) transcribed in the opposite direction from sapA. The four genes also were present in the invertible region of type B strain 84-107 and were virtually identical to their counterparts in the type A strain. Although SapC had no database homologies, SapD, SapE, and SapF had predicted amino acid homologies with type I protein secretion systems (typified byEscherichia coli HlyBD/TolC or Erwinia chrysanthemi PrtDEF) that utilize C-terminal secretion signals to mediate the secretion of hemolysins, leukotoxins, or proteases from other bacterial species. Analysis of the C termini of four C. fetus SLPs revealed conserved structures that are potential secretion signals. A C. fetus sapD mutant neither produced nor secreted SLPs. E. coli expressing C. fetus sapA and sapCDEF secreted SapA, indicating that thesapCDEF genes are sufficient for SLP secretion. C. fetus SLPs therefore are transported to the cell surface by a type I secretion system.


Intellectual disability (ID) is a disorder characterized by cognitive delays. Inborn errors of metabolism constitute an important subgroup of ID for which a number of treatments have become available. We aimed to identify potential urine biomarkers of inherited metabolic disorders from the children with intellectual disability using an untargeted Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography coupled to Mass Spectroscopy (UPLC-MS) based metabolomics approach. All of the patients were having ID, with IQ less than 70 and no recognizable symptoms for the condition. Eleven compounds have been identified that are up regulated in the ID cohort, three of which are previously reported namely Dopamine, Glutarylglycine and Suberic acid. The physiological significance of these markers is discussed. In conclusion, the results of the study indicate that urinary metabolite analysis of ID using sophisticated analytical high throughput techniques may be an important tool to achieve an early diagnosis and therapy of several metabolic defects, and reflect the underlying biology of ID.


This thesis describes the DS-CDMA wireless transmitter design using FPGA (Field
Programmable Gate Array), which has been adopted in many wireless access
technologies. Four separate blocks have been designed using digital approach to
form the transmitter circuit diagram using the oscillator, the PN-code generator, the
Parity Check, and the BPSK modulator. The Synopsys software has been used for
the design synthesis and simulation; the VHDL (Very High Speed Integrated Circuit
Hardware Description Language (VHDL» program was used for coding and FPGA
for compiling and downloading the simulation in FPGA cards.
The DS-CDMA wireless transmitter was designed to transmit with data rates up to 2
Mbps. The transmitted signals were carried out with a 40 MHz carrier frequency.
VHDL files were created for each element of the wireless transmitter. Each file was
simulated and synthesized using FPGA compiler II. The control block was added for
timing purposes and for framing the coded data. One bit parity was added to the data
frame containing 1 6 serial bits.The top-level design file was initiated using VHDL for the combined elements of the
DS-CDMA wireless transmitter including the control block. The results of simulated
and synthesized top-level design file using FPGA compiler II were downloaded into
the Xilinx XSV300 FPGA board.
This study has demonstrated the design of DS-CDMA wireless transmitter with
higher data rates using FPGA. It has also improved the performance and quality of
the transmitted data by including error detection and correction.


Most benchmark datasets targeting commonsense reasoning focus on everyday scenarios: physical knowledge like knowing that you could fill a cup under a waterfall [Talmor et al., 2019], social knowledge like bumping into someone is awkward [Sap et al., 2019], and other generic situations. However, there is a rich space of commonsense inferences anchored to knowledge about specific entities: for example, deciding the truthfulness of a claim"Harry Potter can teach classes on how to fly on a broomstick."Can models learn to combine entity knowledge with commonsense reasoning in this fashion? We introduce CREAK, a testbed for commonsense reasoning about entity knowledge, bridging fact-checking about entities (Harry Potter is a wizard and is skilled at riding a broomstick) with commonsense inferences (if you're good at a skill you can teach others how to do it). Our dataset consists of 13k human-authored English claims about entities that are either true or false, in addition to a small contrast set. Crowdworkers can easily come up with these statements and human performance on the dataset is high (high 90s); we argue that models should be able to blend entity knowledge and commonsense reasoning to do well here. In our experiments, we focus on the closed-book setting and observe that a baseline model finetuned on existing fact verification benchmark struggles on CREAK. Training a model on CREAK improves accuracy by a substantial margin, but still falls short of human performance. Our benchmark provides a unique probe into natural language understanding models, testing both its ability to retrieve facts (e.g., who teaches at the University of Chicago?) and unstated commonsense knowledge (e.g., butlers do not yell at guests).


Investigations into inter-level relations in computer science, biology and psychology call for an empirical turn in the philosophy of mind. Rather than concentrate on a priori discussions of inter-level relations between "completed" sciences, a case is made for the actual study of the way inter-level relations grow out of the developing sciences. Thus, philosophical inquiries will be made more relevant to the sciences, and, more importantly, philosophical accounts of inter-level relations will be testable by confronting them with what really happens in science. Hence, close observation of the ever-changing reduction relations in the developing sciences, and revision of philosophical positions based on these empirical observations, may, in the long run, be more conducive to an adequate understanding of inter-level relations than a traditional a priori approach.


OBJECTIVE
Navigation-enabling technology such as 3D-platform (O-arm) or intraoperative mobile CT (iCT-Airo) systems for use in spinal surgery has considerably improved accuracy over that of traditional fluoroscopy-guided techniques during pedicular screw positioning. In this study, the authors compared 2 intraoperative imaging systems with navigation, available in their neurosurgical unit, in terms of the accuracy they provided for transpedicular screw fixation in the thoracic and lumbar spine.

METHODS
The authors performed a retrospective analysis of clinical and surgical data of 263 consecutive patients who underwent thoracic and lumbar spine screw placement in the same center. Data on 97 patients who underwent surgery with iCT-Airo navigation (iCT-Airo group) and 166 with O-arm navigation (O-arm group) were analyzed. Most patients underwent surgery for a degenerative or traumatic condition that involved thoracic and lumbar pedicle screw fixation using an open or percutaneous technique. The primary endpoint was the proportion of patients with at least 1 screw not correctly positioned according to the last intraoperative image. Secondary endpoints were the proportion of screws that were repositioned during surgery, the proportion of patients with a postoperative complication related to screw malposition, surgical time, and radiation exposure. A blinded radiologist graded screw positions in the last intraoperative image according to the Heary classification (grade 1-3 screws were considered correctly placed).

RESULTS
A total of 1361 screws placed in 97 patients in the iCT-Airo group (503 screws) and in 166 in the O-arm group (858 screws) were graded. Of those screws, 3 (0.6%) in the iCT-Airo group and 4 (0.5%) in the O-arm group were misplaced. No statistically significant difference in final accuracy between these 2 groups or in the subpopulation of patients who underwent percutaneous surgery was found. Three patients in the iCT-Airo group (3.1%, 95% CI 0%-6.9%) and 3 in the O-arm group (1.8%, 95% CI 0%-4.0%) had a misplaced screw (Heary grade 4 or 5). Seven (1.4%) screws in the iCT-Airo group and 37 (4.3%) in the O-arm group were repositioned intraoperatively (p = 0.003). One patient in the iCT-Airo group and 2 in the O-arm group experienced postoperative neurological deficits related to hardware malposition. The mean surgical times in both groups were similar (276 [iCT-Airo] and 279 [O-arm] minutes). The mean exposure to radiation in the iCT-Airo group was significantly lower than that in the O-arm group (15.82 vs 19.12 mSv, respectively; p = 0.02).

CONCLUSIONS
Introduction of a mobile CT scanner reduced the rate of screw repositioning, which enhanced patient safety and diminished radiation exposure for patients, but it did not improve overall accuracy compared to that of a mobile 3D platform.


Coaddition of spectra in a single-component peak of a gas Chromatograph (GC) obtained with a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer is the method generally used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the spectrum of the eluted analyte. It is commonly thought that coaddition of spectra to a relative intensity level of 40% of the GC peak will lead to the optimal improvement in S/N of the resulting composite spectrum. We have shown that this is not generally the case for either simulated Gaussian-shaped or experimentally obtained asymmetric GC bands. The optimal intensity level for coaddition is found to be a function of the shape of the GC band and the ratio of the number of background to sample scans used in generating the individual IR spectra. We have also introduced the use of classical least-squares (CLS) techniques as a superior method to improve the S/N of the composite analyte spectrum. With the use of CLS methods, spectra included in generating the composite spectrum can be a small fraction of the maximum intensity in the GC peak while still resulting in S/N improvements. The theoretical S/N of the composite spectrum with the use of CLS methods is shown to be always as good as or better than that achieved with the coaddition method. The improvements achieved in S/N when CLS methods are used can be more than a factor of two greater than results for the traditional coaddition method for the cases considered in this paper. Furthermore, it is shown that increasing the number of background to sample scans is a very convenient method to improve the S/N of the composite spectrum obtained by either method. The results presented here for GC/FT-IR are also generally applicable to LC/FT-IR, SFC/FT-IR, and TGA/FT-IR for bands that contain a single analyte.


We present a novel technique for rendering depth of field that addresses difficult overlap cases, such as close, but out-of-focus, geometry in the near-field. Such scene configurations are not managed well by state-of-the-art post-processing approaches since essential information is missing due to occlusion. Our proposed algorithm renders the scene from a single camera position and computes a layered image using a single pass by constructing per-pixel lists. These lists can be filtered progressively to generate differently blurred representations of the scene. We show how this structure can be exploited to generate depth of field in real-time, even in complicated scene constellations.


Field trials were conducted at the Institute for Agricultural Research Irrigation Farm, Samaru Zaria, in the northern Guinea savanna ecological zone of Nigeria in 2009/2010, 2010/2011 dry seasons to study the integrated effect of neem seed cake and inorganic fertilizer on tomato. The treatments consisted of three levels of NSC (0, 2 and 4 t ha) and four levels of inorganic fertilizer (0, 1⁄4, 1⁄2 and Full Fertilizer recommended Rate (FFR, NPK 15:15:15) for tomato in northern Guinea savanna of Nigeria. The treatments were laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Mean fruit weight and fruit yield were determined. Matured ripe fruits were analyzed for biochemical properties such as reducing sugars, total soluble solids, ascorbic acid and titratable acidity. Effect of treatments on soil properties were also determined by analyzing the treated soils after harvest. Results obtained showed that tomato responded positively to the treatments. Highest fruit yield of 14.54 and 19.70 t/ha were obtained from 2tons/ha neem seed cake + 1⁄2 Fertilizer rate in 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 respectively. Although the effect of complementary application of NSC and inorganic fertilizer on tomato was not significant among the treatments of such combinations, highest fruit yield increase over the control were 103.1% and197% for 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 respectively. Effects of treatments on ascorbic acid, titratable acidity, total soluble solids and reducing sugars were not significant. The concentrations of plant tissue N, P and K were higher than the control at the end of second year of experiment. In the first year of trial pH (H2O) varied from 6.2 to 6.7, whereas in the second year, it varied from 6.1 to 6.3. The values of soil OC and N increased over the years. Combinations of 2NC + 1⁄2 FR and 4NC + 1⁄2 FR proved superior for tomato fruit yield and mean fruit weight than other treatments in this study.


African American women are graduating from college at rates higher than their Asian/Pacific Islander, Latino, Native American and even their African American male peers. This level of college persistence and success is occurring amid the challenges they face and share with their peers of the same schools, neighborhoods and society. Similar to many of their peers, these young women experience under-resourced schools and limited college preparation. In addition, they have unique school challenges including experiences with negative stereotypes and harsh discipline policies. African American women also face societal challenges through experiences with trauma, foster care and disproportionate early parenting, to name a few. Nevertheless, they persist. To date, the literature is lacking in studies that represent successful African American women who have encountered challenges yet achieve their educational goals. Through a reflective case analysis, this study investigates how the high school experiences of African American women who have experienced trauma and persisted toward college and eventual baccalaureate attainment. I sought to investigate, specifically, how the high school experiences of African American young women shape and support their transition to college and ultimately degree success. Through the use of an initial questionnaire administered to twenty-four respondents, followed by phenomenological interviews with nine of these women, I was able to ascertain a wealth of information highlighting the voices of these thriving women. Using Critical Race Theory, I explore the assets these women bring and center their voice in sharing how they pursue success for themselves, their families and their communities. The study's findings indicate that while there were a number of traumatic events that these African American women experienced, supportive persons and services in educational settings were advantageous for their academic and social development. The significance of the study lies in its potential to inform educators, counselors and other supportive stakeholders of ways to improve the rate of baccalaureate attainment among African American young women and their similarly situated peers.


The importance of communications in contemporary warfare is evident in the use of global positioning satellites and laser guided bombs in the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq. Frederick Kagan encapsulates the priority given to electrical surveillance and rapid communications in the title of his book: Finding the Target. Kagan and other analysts may disagree on specific policy options, but there seems to be a broad consensus that the unimpeded flow of information is essential for military and naval operations. (1) While there are numerous and often voluminous general histories of modern warfare, we find relatively few specialized studies of the use of communications in military and naval operations before 1991. (2) This paper will examine in some depth the 1885 armed incursion by the United States into Panama that was the first intervention to rely on the international telegraph network built by British and U.S. cable companies from the 1860s to the early 1880s. In short, this event marked the first use of modern communications by armed forces intervening in a Latin American nation. We will then place this event in the long history of U.S. armed interventions in Latin America from 1885 to 1989. The Colombian province of Panama experienced uprisings in April 1885 that threatened the properties of several US corporations. President Grover Cleveland's administration intervened to protect these properties--especially the transisthmian railroad and the international telegraph cable. The telegraph itself played a large role in the intervention. News of the uprisings reached Washington by cable. The telegraph made possible the mobilization and deployment of U.S. forces from several cities along the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico, and also facilitated continued contact between these forces on the isthmus and Washington. While the Panama intervention has received capable analysis in specialized studies, a close examination of the role of telegraphic communications will add a new dimension to these familiar stories. Furthermore, most textbooks and general studies marginalize or ignore this intervention and its implications for the use of communications in military operations, and emphasize instead more familiar events such as the Spanish American War and General John Pershing's 1916 expedition into Mexico. (3) Historians have established at least three major functions or roles for military/naval communications that are of relevance for this study. The first involves basic intelligence or, at least, "news" about the crisis and the potential enemy. The second function concerns the use of the communications network to organize and deploy the forces to the designated region. The third relates to an area frequently the subject of debate among historians and actual participants--the issue of on-the-scene decision making versus centralization of command made possible by electric communications. One area of interest on the modern battlefield--the use of radio-connected or computerized weapons--is of relevance to interventions carried out after the first decade of the 20th century (4) An important point to be considered here falls outside the domain of naval/military operations. As early as 1885 the international cable network supplied newspapers in the United States with information on these operations thereby attracting an audience for information about the intervention. An interested public, in turn, created an environment in which elected officials and naval/military officers were sensitive to the discussion of the intervention as a public issue. Panama itself also became an important factor in this international context. The Panamanian rebels had a local following that concerned the Marines and sailors and eventually captured the attention of the press and politicians in the United States and in other countries. This intertwining of Panamanian and United States histories through the international electric communications network and the mass circulation press created a relationship that was to expand over the decades. …


One of the main elements in several application domains, such as policy making, addresses the scope of public opinion analysis. The latter is recently realized through sentiment analysis and Natural Language Processing, for identifying and extracting subjective information from raw texts. An additional challenge refers to the exploitation and correlation of data from different languages, in order to analyse sentiments by considering all available information in a holistic way. This paper investigates the impact of Neural Machine Translation in sentiment analysis, based on the translation of text for which neural sentiment analysis in English has been already applied and is applied again on the translated German and Greek texts. The latter is performed through the same Neural Network models that were used in the original language, in order to analyse the differences between the performed neural sentiment analysis on the source and the target languages. The outcomes of the proposed approach have a twofold interpretation. While, it is concluded that modern Neural Machine Translation tools are mature enough to provide high accuracy translations and have minor impact on multilingual sentiment analysis, on the other hand it is shown that additional research should be performed on the multilingualism that pre-trained Word Embeddings can provide.


Research examining the relationship between psychological distress and health behaviors is limited, as most such studies examine specific types of psychological distress and specific types of health behaviors. To address this limitation, the current study assessed a broad range of health behaviors (Health Behavior Checklist) and psychological symptoms (Brief Symptom Inventory) in 762 undergraduate students. Results revealed that the total BSI score showed statistically significant negative correlations with the HBC total score and three of the four HBC subscales (WellnessMaintenance, Substance Risk, Traffic Risk ). Thus, participants reporting more overall psychological distress engaged in fewer positive health behaviors across all health behavior subtypes. Stepwise regressions examining the BSI subscales and their relationship with the HBC subscales revealed that the Hostility subscale of the BSI was the strongest and most consistent predictor of positive health behaviors, as it was negatively related to the HBC total score and three of the four HBC subscales (Wellness Maintenance, Substance Risk, and Traffic Risk). In addition, the Depression subscale of the BSI was negatively related to the Accident Control subscale of the HBC (negative direction). Interestingly, the Phobia subscale of the BSI was related to the Substance Risk and Traffic Risk subscales of the HBC, but in a positive direction. Thus, participants indicating more phobic symptoms reported healthier substance and traffic behaviors. The results of this exploratory study provide an initial model that can inform future studies on this important topic area.


We introduce a novel bio-inspired odor source localization algorithm (surge-cast) for environments with a main wind flow and compare it to two well- known algorithms. With all three algorithms, systematic experiments with real robots are carried out in a wind tunnel under laminar flow conditions. The algo- rithms are compared in terms of distance overhead when tracking the plume up to the source, but a variety of other experimentally measured results are provided as well. We conclude that the surge-cast algorithm yields significantly better performance than the casting algorithm, and slightly better performance than the surge-spiral algorithm.


Background and Purpose: Anxiety is a common problem associated with invasive medical procedures, especially in patients undergoing coronary angiography. As an intensifier at cardiovascular reactions, anxiety poses significant risk to the health of patients undergoing angiography. Researchers believe that use of Benson's relaxation technique could reduce anxiety in different patients. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of Benson's relaxation technique on the anxiety of patients undergoing coronary angiography. Methods: This randomized clinical trial was conducted on 70 patients who were candidates for coronary angiography in Mazandaran Heart Center in Sari, Iran in 2014. Patients were selected via randomized sampling and divided into two groups of intervention (n=35) and control (n=35). Data collection tools included demographic questionnaire, Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and hemodynamic variables recording sheet. Data analysis was performed in SPSS V. 16 using Chi-square, dependent and paired T-test, and Mann-Whitney U test. Results: Both study groups were homogenous in terms of age, gender, marital status, education level, disease history, and health insurance status. Use of Benson's relaxation technique significantly decreased anxiety in the intervention group (P=0.0001). However, no significant difference was observed in the systolic blood pressure, respiratory rate and heartbeat parameters between the study groups (P=0.0001). Conclusion: According to the results of this study, use of Benson's relaxation technique before coronary angiography reduced the level of anxiety in the patients. Therefore, this complementary approach could be used as an effective healthcare measure without any side effects to provide mental support for patients before invasive procedures, such as angiography.


Abstract. The SusKat-ABC (Sustainable Atmosphere for the Kathmandu Valley–Atmospheric Brown Clouds) international air pollution measurement campaign was carried out from December 2012 to June 2013 in the Kathmandu Valley and surrounding regions in Nepal. The Kathmandu Valley is a bowl-shaped basin with a severe air pollution problem. This paper reports measurements of two major greenhouse gases (GHGs), methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2), along with the pollutant CO, that began during the campaign and were extended for 1 year at the SusKat-ABC supersite in Bode, a semi-urban location in the Kathmandu Valley. Simultaneous measurements were also made during 2015 in Bode and a nearby rural site (Chanban)  ∼  25 km (aerial distance) to the southwest of Bode on the other side of a tall ridge. The ambient mixing ratios of methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapor, and carbon monoxide (CO) were measured with a cavity ring-down spectrometer (G2401; Picarro, USA) along with meteorological parameters for 1 year (March 2013–March 2014). These measurements are the first of their kind in the central Himalayan foothills. At Bode, the annual average mixing ratios of CO2 and CH4 were 419.3 (±6.0) ppm and 2.192 (±0.066) ppm, respectively. These values are higher than the levels observed at background sites such as Mauna Loa, USA (CO2: 396.8 ± 2.0 ppm, CH4: 1.831 ± 0.110 ppm) and Waliguan, China (CO2: 397.7 ± 3.6 ppm, CH4: 1.879 ± 0.009 ppm) during the same period and at other urban and semi-urban sites in the region, such as Ahmedabad and Shadnagar (India). They varied slightly across the seasons at Bode, with seasonal average CH4 mixing ratios of 2.157 (±0.230) ppm in the pre-monsoon season, 2.199 (±0.241) ppm in the monsoon, 2.210 (±0.200) ppm in the post-monsoon, and 2.214 (±0.209) ppm in the winter season. The average CO2 mixing ratios were 426.2 (±25.5) ppm in the pre-monsoon, 413.5 (±24.2) ppm in the monsoon, 417.3 (±23.1) ppm in the post-monsoon, and 421.9 (±20.3) ppm in the winter season. The maximum seasonal mean mixing ratio of CH4 in winter was only 0.057 ppm or 2.6 % higher than the seasonal minimum during the pre-monsoon period, while CO2 was 12.8 ppm or 3.1 % higher during the pre-monsoon period (seasonal maximum) than during the monsoon (seasonal minimum). On the other hand, the CO mixing ratio at Bode was 191 % higher during the winter than during the monsoon season. The enhancement in CO2 mixing ratios during the pre-monsoon season is associated with additional CO2 emissions from forest fires and agro-residue burning in northern South Asia in addition to local emissions in the Kathmandu Valley. Published CO∕CO2 ratios of different emission sources in Nepal and India were compared with the observed CO∕CO2 ratios in this study. This comparison suggested that the major sources in the Kathmandu Valley were residential cooking and vehicle exhaust in all seasons except winter. In winter, brick kiln emissions were a major source. Simultaneous measurements in Bode and Chanban (15 July–3 October 2015) revealed that the mixing ratios of CO2, CH4, and CO were 3.8, 12, and 64 % higher in Bode than Chanban. The Kathmandu Valley thus has significant emissions from local sources, which can also be attributed to its bowl-shaped geography that is conducive to pollution build-up. At Bode, all three gas species (CO2, CH4, and CO) showed strong diurnal patterns in their mixing ratios with a pronounced morning peak (ca. 08:00), a dip in the afternoon, and a gradual increase again through the night until the next morning. CH4 and CO at Chanban, however, did not show any noticeable diurnal variations. These measurements provide the first insights into the diurnal and seasonal variation in key greenhouse gases and air pollutants and their local and regional sources, which is important information for atmospheric research in the region.


Abstract To study the effect of a potential shift from rations high in concentrates to high forage on sire evaluation, separate sire evaluations were calculated from records from groups of herds in the Northeast which differed in proportion to concentrates fed. These sire effects were computed from first lactations for each group as though they were fixed effects in a model which included effects of herd-year-season. Components of variance for sires and covariance between sire effects in different groups were used to compute genetic correlations. The covariance between solutions for the same sires in two groups is an unbiased estimate of the genetic covariance. Sire variances seemed to be underestimated by Henderson's Method 3, so they also were estimated from the covariance between two sets of sire solutions from splitting each group. The correlations were similar for all combinations of groups and did not decline as the groups compared became more separated in proportion of concentrates fed. Therefore, the fraction of net energy provided by concentrates does not need to be considered in sire evaluations.


We have studied retrospectively 220 patients with cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis (CFA) who were first seen between 1955-73 and had been followed up for at least four years until 1977. Seventy-seven patients had received no treatment and 143 had received corticosteroids. The only clinical difference between the groups was the age at presentation (untreated mean age 61 years±11 SD; treated mean age 56 years±11 SD p <0·001). The influence of corticosteroid treatment has been assessed both in terms of the clinical, radiographic, and physiological response after four to eight weeks and in terms of survival, using a log rank method of analysis. Of 143 treated cases 127 had detailed follow-up information. Seventy-two (57%) had substantial subjective improvement of breathlessness but only 22 (17%) of the total showed additional objective improvement. The only factors significantly distinguishing the 72 subjective responders from the 55 non-responders, and which therefore might be used as predictors of response, were a younger age at presentation (p <0·001) and less dyspnoea (p <0·02). Analysis of survival data demonstrated that treated patients who showed an early good response to steroids had a markedly better survival than non-responders (p <0·001). The survival curve for the untreated group lay between the two steroid groups. Analysis of the survival data suggests that steroid responsiveness relates particularly to a subgroup with an inherently better prognosis, which is characterised by a younger age and probably by a cellular histology not however necessarily typical of desquamative interstitial pneumonia. Nevertheless treatment appears to have an additional influence on survival especially in early disease, which is not observed in the untreated cases. A large number of factors are not related either to steroid responsiveness or to survival and these include the presence of associated "connective tissue" diseases, autoantibodies, and the duration of dyspnoea at presentation. It is concluded that biopsy information is valuable in assessment of potential to respond to steroids and that if steroid treatment is to be helpful it must be used at an early stage. The response is very variable and titration of the steroid dose against an individual patient's response is likely to give better results than adherence to arbitrary dose schedules.


This chapter discusses globalization's impact on states. There is no topic more controversial in the field of global political economy than the impact of globalization on the accountability, autonomy, capacity, and sovereignty of the nation state; and the controversy has only intensified since the onset of the global financial crisis. Arguably, the democratic character of governance in contemporary societies is at stake in such debates. The chapter reviews the extensive controversy that surrounds such questions, focusing attention on the principal mechanisms in and through which globalization is seen to impact upon the nation state and the empirical evidence that might either substantiate or question the existence of such mechanisms. It also provides a detailed assessment of the case for and against the globalization thesis, examining the extent to which global economic integration might be seen to restrict the parameters of domestic political autonomy. Moreover, the chapter differentiates between the politics of globalization and the globalization of politics. It concludes by considering the complex and sometimes paradoxical relationship between globalization, democracy, and the nation state.


Sardinian and Māori are two endangered languages belonging to similar language systems, despite their territorial distance. Both language systems are set on insular settings and shaped by language contact interactions involving local autochthonous languages ‒ Sardinian and Māori ‒ and imported languages ‒ Italian and English respectively. In both cases, language contact conditions have led Italian and English to become majority languages, while Sardinian and Māori have survived as endangered minority languages. This situation has produced new non-standard varieties of the imported majority languages: Regional Italian of Sardinia (RIS) and New Zealand English (NZE). Drawing on corpus-based research on Māori lexical presence in NZE (Macalister 2001; 2006a; 2006b), this study adapts existing methods of analysis to test the vitality of Sardinian, by measuring its influence on RIS. A new corpus, the RIS Corpus, has therefore been created, based on Macalister's NZE Corpus (2001). A comparison between the lexical presence of Sardinian and Māori in the two corpora shows different representations of the autochthonous cultures in RIS and NZE, in line with UNESCO's statement on the vitality of the two endangered languages, with Sardinian defined as definitely endangered, and Māori recognised as vulnerable.


In this paper, we improve the layered implementation of arbitrary stabilizer circuits introduced by Aaronson and Gottesman in Phys. Rev. A 70 (052328), 2004: to implement a general stabilizer circuit, we reduce their 11-stage computation -H-C-P-C-P-C-H-P-C-P-C- over the gate set consisting of Hadamard, controlled-NOT, and phase gates, into a 7-stage computation of the form -C-CZ-P-H-P-CZ-C-. We show arguments in support of using -CZ- stages over the -C- stages: not only the use of -CZ- stages allows a shorter layered expression, but -CZ- stages are simpler and appear to be easier to implement compared to the -C- stages. Based on this decomposition, we develop a two-qubit gate depth-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$(14n{-}4)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> implementation of stabilizer circuits over the gate library <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\{ \mathrm{H}, \mathrm{P}, \mathrm{CNOT}\}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, executable in the Linear Nearest Neighbor (LNN) architecture, improving best previously known depth-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$25n$ </tex-math></inline-formula> circuit, also executable in the LNN architecture. Our constructions rely on Bruhat decomposition of the symplectic group and on folding arbitrarily long sequences of the form (-P-C-)<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> into a three-stage computation -P-CZ-C-. Our results include the reduction of the 11-stage decomposition -H-C-P-C-P-C-H-P-C-P-C- into a 9-stage decomposition of the form -C-P-C-P-H-C-P-C-P-. This reduction is based on the Bruhat decomposition of the symplectic group. This result also implies a new normal form for stabilizer circuits. We show that a circuit in this normal form is optimal in the number of Hadamard gates used. We also show that the normal form has an asymptotically optimal number of parameters.


Background. Data on the incidence of football injuries and exposure time of players during matches and training in the South African (SA) Premier Soccer League (PSL) are lacking. Objective. To calculate the incidence of injuries and the exposure time (practice and match) of the players of a PSL team over a full season. Methods. Injury and training data of the players in the squad (N=32) were recorded on a daily basis by the medical support staff, according to the methods of the Football Medical Assessment and Research Centre (F-MARC) protocol. Results. One hundred and thirty injuries were recorded in the season. The most affected body parts were the thigh (n=27, 21%) and ankle (n=27, 21%). The overall incidence was 13.4 injuries per 1 000 player-hours. The incidence during training was 6.6 injuries/1 000 playerhours and during matches 88.9 injuries/1 000 player-hours. The most frequent injury was haematoma/contusion/bruising (n=43, 33%). Of the total injuries, 12% were recurrent. Injury through contact with another player was high (62%). Seventy-six per cent of the injuries were not associated with any violation of the laws of the game. The average time off due to injury was 8 days. The total exposure time over the full season resulted in a combined average of 18 162 minutes (~303 hours). Conclusion. These data differ from the data in European studies. Injury and exposure data measured throughout the season have the potential to identify risks and mechanisms of injuries. This study highlights the necessity for all clubs in the PSL to adopt a standardised injury monitoring programme, using standardised methodology, so that the management of professional players in SA may be improved.


Imaging arrays with sub-millimeter detector pixels that count and allocate energy to each detected photon are now being introduced into biomedical computed tomography scanners. Consequently, bremsstrahlung x-ray can provide the advantages of simultaneous recording of multiple quasi-monochromatic x-ray images which can be used for identification of various materials within the image field. This capability increases the inherent contrast within biomedical CT images and also introduces the ability to use high atomic weight "foreign" elements (e.g., strontium) which are surrogates for "native" biological elements (e.g., calcium) to monitor tissue function (e.g., bone deposition). Challenges for this methodology include limited maximum fluence due to photon pile-up, charge-sharing between contiguous pixels and heterogeneous pixel characteristics due to manufacturing difficulties.


City is the place that shapes the social life and the relations between the humans; it is the place where the social distances minimize and the social relations gain utmost concentration. Not only residences make out the city, but also the city is made out of the integrity of the buildings bearing a series of activities therein and of the entities that bind them and distribute services such as transportation, infrastructure, and social equipping systems between them. Industrialization has caused not only positive changes in quality of city life but also brought about negative developments.Cittaslow movement was started as an international urban network in 1999, as an alternative model of sustainable urban against negative effect of economic and cultural globalization, basing on local sustainability where it basicly focus on environment, economy and equity, aiming to maintain and enrich the quality and viability of urban life. This movement organises towns that are sensitive to the environment, that has not connected its local economy to a foreign economy and is self sufficient with any kind of its artistic activity, education, energy and facility is now embraced over 20 countries and close to 150 cities and has tried to substantiate nearly 70 criteria to becoming a sustainable city. These criteria are collected under the titles of environment, infrastructure, protecting the local produce, technology for urban quality and creating facilities, hospitality and awareness.For this purpose, in the first part of this study, to ensure the understanding of Slow City concept, Slow City characteristics has been set forth by literature study. In the second part of study the documentaries which is explained the nine cittaslow cities in Turkey is analysied. One of documentary is made by TRT the goverment television the other is made by private production firm. Each documentary has 10 episodes. Totally 20 episodes will be analysed according to cittaslow criterias and urban communication features like public participation, awareness, infrastructure, culturel issues.


Cotton aphid (Aphis gossypii G.) populations in the field have fluctuated over the past years, yet it is unknown whether infestation by these insects alters cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) physiology. Although it is important to determine if aphids contribute to plant stress, there is only limited information on plant stress responses after aphid herbivory. In an attempt to quantify plant stress, the activity of cotton foliar antioxidant enzymes after aphid feeding was examined. Cotton aphids were collected from cotton fields at Lonoke, AR, and reared in the laboratory. Fifty aphids were transferred to cotton (G. hirsutum 'Stoneville 474') leaves of the same age and size, and were allowed to increase in numbers without restriction. Leaf samples were collected for protein extraction and antioxidant enzyme assays after 6 d and 9 d of aphid exposure. Enzyme activities of catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POX), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and glutathione reductase (GR) were measured. The initial population of 50 aphids increased to 137 aphids per leaf after 6 d. Of the antioxidant enzymes tested, only GR activity increased in aphid-infested leaves. After day 9 of infestation, there were 255 aphids per leaf, but the activity of foliar antioxidant enzymes was not different from control plants. In general, antioxidant enzyme activity in cotton plants was not altered by the levels of infestation and feeding duration used in this study.


This thesis outlines the development of an electromagnetic (EM) backscatter model of icebergs. It is a necessary first step for the generation of in-house synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data of icebergs to support optimum iceberg/ship classifier design. The EM modelling was developed in three stages. At first, an EM backscatter model was developed to generate simulated SAR data chips of iceberg targets at small incidence angles. The model parameters were set to mimic a dual polarized dataset collected at C-Band with the Sentinel-1A satellite. The simulated SAR data chips were compared with signatures and radiometric properties of the satellite data, including total radar cross section (TRCS). A second EM model was developed to mimic the parameters of a second SAR data collection with RADARSAT-2; this second data collection was at larger incidence angles and was fully polarimetric (four channels and interchannel phase). The full polarimetric SAR data allowed for a comparison of modelled TRCS and polarimetric decompositions. Finally, the EM backscatter models were tested in the context of iceberg/ship classification by comparing the performance of various computer vision classifiers using both simulated and real SAR image data of iceberg and vessel targets. This step is critical to check the compatibility of simulated data with the real data, and the ability to mix real and simulated SAR imagery for the generation of skilled classifiers.
An EM backscatter modelling tool called GRECOSAR was used for the modelling work. GRECOSAR includes the ability to generate small scenes of the ocean using Pierson-Moskowitz spectral parameters. It also allows the placement of a 3D target shape into that ocean scene. Therefore, GRECOSAR is very useful for simulating SAR targets, however it can only model single layer scattering from the targets. This was found to be limiting in that EM scattering throughout volume of the iceberg could not be generated. This resulted in EM models that included only surface scattering of the iceberg. In order to generate realistic SAR scenes of icebergs on the ocean, 3D models of icebergs were captured in a series of field programs off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The 3D models of the icebergs were obtained using a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) and multi-beam sonar data from a specially equipped vessel by a team of C-CORE. While profiling the iceberg targets, SAR images from satellites were captured for comparison with the simulated SAR images.
The analysis of the real and simulated SAR imagery included comparisons of TRCS, SAR signature morphology and polarimetric decompositions of the targets. In general, these comparisons showed a good consistency between the simulated and real SAR scene. Simulations were also performed with varying target orientation and sea conditions (i.e., wind speed and direction). A wide variability of the TRCS and SAR signature morphology was observed with varying scene parameters.
Icebergs were modelled using a high dielectric constant to mimic melting iceberg surfaces as seen during field work. Given that GRECOSAR could only generate surface backscatter, a mathematical model was developed to quantify the effect of melt water on the amount of surface and volume backscatter that might be expected from the icebergs. It was found that the icebergs in a high state of melt should produce predominantly surface scatter, thus validating the use of GRECOSAR for icebergs in this condition.
Once the simulated SAR targets were validated against the real SAR data collections, a large dataset of simulated SAR chips of ships and icebergs were created specifically for the purpose of target classification. SAR chips were generated at varying imaging parameters and target sizes and passed on to an iceberg/ship classifier. Real and simulated SAR chips were combined in varying quantities (or targets) resulting in a series of different classifiers of varying skill. A good agreement between the classifier's performance was found. This indicates the compatibility of the simulated SAR imagery with this application and provides an indication that the simulated data set captures all the necessary physical properties of icebergs for ship and iceberg classification.


ABSTRACT This study investigates the relationship between two different types of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK): the topic-specific professional knowledge (TSPK) and practical routines, so-called teaching scripts. Based on the Transformation Model of Lesson Planning, we assume that teaching scripts originate from a transformation of TSPK during lesson planning: When planning lessons, teachers use their TSPK to create lesson plans. The implementation of these lesson plans and teachers' reflection upon them lead to their improvement. Gradually, successful lesson plans are mentally stored as teaching scripts and can easily be retrieved during instruction. This process is affected by teacher's beliefs, motivation and self-regulation. In order to examine the influence of TSPK on teaching scripts as well as the moderating effects of beliefs, motivation and self-regulation, we conducted a cross-sectional study with n = 49 in-service teachers in physics. The TSPK, beliefs, motivation, self-regulation and the quality of teaching scripts of in-service teachers were assessed by using an online questionnaire adapted to teaching the force concept and Newton's law for 9th grade instruction. Based on the measurement of the quality of teaching scripts, the results provide evidence that TSPK influences the quality of teaching scripts. Motivation and self-regulation moderate this influence.


Two stage random digit dialing procedures as developed by Mitofsky and elaborated by Waksberg are widely used in telephone sampling of the U.S. household population. Current alternative approaches have, relative to this procedure, coverage and cost deficiencies. These deficiencies are addressed through telephone sample designs which use listed number information to improve the cost-efficiency of random digit dialing. The telephone number frame is divided into a stratum in which listed number information is available at the 100-bank level and one for which no such information is available. The efficiencies of various sampling schemes for this stratified design are compared to simple random digit dialing and the Mitofsky-Waksberg technique. Gains in efficiency are demonstrated for nearly all such designs. Simplifying assumptions about the values of population parameters in each stratum are shown to have little overall impact on the estimated efficiency.


Objective: The FEBSTAT study is a prospective study that seeks to determine the acute and long-term consequences of febrile status epilepticus (FSE) in childhood. Methods: From 2003 to 2010, 199 children age 1 month to 5 years presenting with FSE (>30 minutes) were enrolled in FEBSTAT within 72 hours of the FSE episode. Of these, 191 had imaging with emphasis on the hippocampus. All MRIs were reviewed by 2 neuroradiologists blinded to clinical details. A group of 96 children with first simple FS who were imaged using a similar protocol served as controls. Results: A total of 22 (11.5%) children had definitely abnormal (n = 17) or equivocal (n = 5) increased T2 signal in the hippocampus following FSE compared with none in the control group (p < 0.0001). Developmental abnormalities of the hippocampus were more common in the FSE group (n = 20, 10.5%) than in controls (n = 2, 2.1%) (p = 0.0097) with hippocampal malrotation being the most common (15 cases and 2 controls). Extrahippocampal imaging abnormalities were present in 15.7% of the FSE group and 15.6% of the controls. However, extrahippocampal imaging abnormalities of the temporal lobe were more common in the FSE group (7.9%) than in controls (1.0%) (p = 0.015). Conclusions: This prospective study demonstrates that children with FSE are at risk for acute hippocampal injury and that a substantial number also have abnormalities in hippocampal development. Follow-up studies are in progress to determine the long-term outcomes in these children.


This research explores creative, interpretative and listening processes in 'open notation' music for organ and electronics, using Nicholas Bourriaud's concept of the 'journey form' (2010) as a theoretical lens. It pursues an understanding of these processes as iterative practices that articulate separate, but equal, aspects of a single process, and as such postulates a way of considering the ontology of the work as one that finds its expression in the multiplicity of the work in performance. The researcher has explored the genre of organ and electronics through recent works, several specifically commissioned for the project, and through comparison of performance in a number of spaces throughout the UK as part of a national tour. Her specific relationship with these works, and with multiple performance spaces through them, has offered the material for reflection in deriving the conclusions of the work. The research considers the performance space as embodied by the performer as an extension of her instrument, and explores organ performance as a site-specific practice that interacts with the instrument and space through the medium of notation. In the case of each of the pieces, the project works towards a 'work-specific performance practice' (Kanga, 2015) as a way of articulating this relationship through the performance of individual works. The goal of this research was not a set of 'finished' performances but a way of articulating the expression of the process of a work and the performance as a part of its articulation.

The research is expressed through a portfolio of related work: a concert tour, which expresses the processes of the research, a CD recording which documents single expressions of each of the pieces at the end of these processes, and a book chapter that explores the theoretical implications of the research. Further, supporting documentation is offered as a complete record of the processes of the research.


Intelligent Vehicular Network and Communications: Fundamentals, Architectures and Solutions begins with discussions on how the transportation system has transformed into todays Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). It explores the design goals, challenges, and frameworks for modeling an ITS network, discussing vehicular network model technologies, mobility management architectures, and routing mechanisms and protocols. It looks at the Internet of Vehicles, the vehicular cloud, and vehicular network security and privacy issues. The book investigates cooperative vehicular systems, a promising solution for addressing current and future traffic safety needs, also exploring cooperative cognitive intelligence, with special attention to spectral efficiency, spectral scarcity, and high mobility. In addition, users will find a thorough examination of experimental work in such areas as Controller Area Network protocol and working function of On Board Unit, as well as working principles of roadside unit and other infrastructural nodes. Finally, the book examines big data in vehicular networks, exploring various business models, application scenarios, and real-time analytics, concluding with a look at autonomous vehicles. Proposes cooperative, cognitive, intelligent vehicular networks Examines how intelligent transportation systems make more efficient transportation in urban environments Outlines next generation vehicular networks technology


Current tax law makes it difficult to enforce sales taxes on most Internet commerce and has generated considerable policy debate. In this paper we analyze the costs and benefits of enforcing such taxes including revenue losses, competition with retail, externalities, distribution, and compliance costs. The results suggest that the costs of not enforcing taxes are somewhat modest and will remain so for several years. At the same time, compliance costs and the benefits of nurturing the Internet diminish over time. When tax costs and benefits take this form, a moratorium provides a natural compromise.


We have developed a filter-based framework where several fundamentally different techniques can be combined to provide fully automated and efficient heuristic solutions to verification and possibly other NP-complete problems. Such an integrated methodology is far more robust and efficient than any single existing technique on a wide variety of circuits. Our methodology has been applied to verify the ISCAS 85 benchmark circuits and efficient verification results have been presented on a large set of industrial circuits which could not be verified using several published techniques and commercial verification tools available to us.


Objective: We identified predictors of educational discrimination among all races with a particular focus on the understudied white male population that has a lower socioeconomic status (SES). Methods: Employment of Bourdieu's cultural capital theoretical framework, HSLS data, and hierarchical regression modeling, underlie this study that explored predictors of educational discrimination. Results: Playing sports does not impact experiences with educational discrimination. The higher the SES, the less likely people are discriminated against overall (r = -.20; p < .001) and in honor cultures (r = -.30; p < .001), but not in non-honor cultures. One versus 2-parent homes, and the number of children a respondent has had no impact on perceived discrimination. Across all models, black, LatinX, and students of other races experience greater educational discrimination than their white peers. Members of all races in honor cultures experience educational discrimination. However, this relationship is also moderated by SES in that lower income white honor culture males experience greater educational discrimination than their higher income counterparts. Conclusions: Findings indicate that low SES is prominent in educational discrimination; consequently, inclusion programs to increase educational opportunities, as identified in Healthy People 2030, to help children and adolescents do well in school are warranted.


The circular economy is often presented as a solution for companies to increase the sustainability of their business. In many situations where suppliers produce subassemblies or modules for OEMs in a B2B context, dependency on their clients limits their options for profitable closed-loop supply chains. In this paper, we develop a simple tool suppliers can use to quickly assess whether remanufacturing is economic and environmentally attractive compared to producing new components. We derive optimal acquisition and reuse quantities that minimise total costs. Based on our analysis with a supplier in the automotive industry, we find that used core prices and remanufacturing yield rates have a large impact while an optimised design for remanufacturing can only marginally improve the situation. The tool is applicable to a wide variety of suppliers and industries that remanufacture their modules or subassemblies, or are exploring the option to engage in remanufacturing operations.


The main purpose of this study is to investigate the properties of selected monotransitive verbs in Northern Sotho as regard their argument structure and event structure. These Northern Sotho verbs will be examined within the general theoretical framework of Generative Lexicon Theory postulated by Pustejovsky (1996). This theory is in essence concerned with the account of word meaning as it relates to lexical semantic properties of lexical items in composition with other lexical items in a sentence. The arguments of the Northern Sotho verbs examined will include an agentive subject argument, the external argument, and a patient/theme object argument, the internal argument. In addition, a locative internal argument occurs in the sentences, which may have the status of a true argument, a shadow argument, or a default argument, in Pustejovsky's classification of arguments. The Northern Sotho verbs examined demonstrate accomplishment events in that they entail a change of state and are telic (i.e. they have a logical culmination or endpoint). This telicity property of the verb is often the result of the occurrence of the internal arguments, i.e. the patient/theme argument and locative argument of the verb. The verb classes examined for Northern Sotho include (i) verbs of putting, (ii) verbs of removing, (iii) verbs of sending and carrying, (iv) verbs of exerting force/push/pull verbs), (v) verbs of change of possession, (vi) learn verbs, (vii) verbs of throwing, (viii) verbs of contact by impact, (ix) verbs of cutting, (x) verbs of separating and disassembling, (xi) verbs of creation and transformation, (xii) verbs of communication, (xiii) verbs of ingesting, (xiv) verbs of change of state, and (xv) verbs of motion.


Ethiopian leather development strategy has put the shoe industry on the forefront position to accelerate the development of the sector. The study focuses on the assessment of market practices and organizational competitiveness of Sheba leather industry. The main purpose is to find the factors that allow and prevent the company from coping up with competitive pressures and to find out the competitive advantages enjoyed and disadvantages faced by the company. A concept of competitiveness and parameters for measuring it has been discussed. The porter diamond model has been chosen to analyse the company's competitiveness. As source of data four department managers and the general and deputy manager of the company were contacted by the researcher. The result depicts the low level competitiveness of the company. All determinants of competitiveness (factor conditions, home demand condition, related and supporting industries, and firm strategy, structure and rivalry) are found to be insignificant with the exception of natural resource endowment of the country in hides and skins and low labour cost availability. Lack of strong existence of related and supporting industries and factor conditions like scarcity of skilled labour, unavailability of raw materials (chemicals and shoe accessories) are the factors that limit the company from utilizing its cost advantage in raw hides and skins and sustaining its market share on domestic and international market. The study forwarded the diversification of the company's product destination into large bases and the establishment of distribution outlets in different part of the country to base the company's market on strong domestic demand.


Contracts that result from the abuse of unequal bargaining power have long been a concern of contract law. Courts have proscribed efforts by the "powerful" to take unfair advantage of the "weak" through contracts of adhesion and standard form contracts. Certain kinds of clauses — liability waivers, and covenants not to compete, among others — regularly attract judicial suspicion because their appearance is deemed indicative of such advantage-taking. In books, symposia, and journal articles, generations of legal scholars have debated the role of bargaining power considerations in the analysis of contracts and contractual terms. The "bargaining power" construct has become deeply embedded in the law.But the construct suffers from two insoluble problems. First, no one knows how to define or measure "bargaining power." No court or scholar has adopted or even proposed a coherent definition of the term. Nor has anyone come up with an objective means for measuring power disparities. These fundamental failings are no simple oversight, but result from the inherent and irresolvable indeterminacy of the "bargaining power" concept itself. Second, "bargaining power" performs no useful work for contract law. It divides otherwise identical contracts and terms into two arbitrary groupings: those resulting from "significant" inter-party "power" disparities; and all others. Courts apply heightened scrutiny to contracts placed in the first group, while applying very little, if any, to those in the second. The "bargaining power" construct should be replaced or eliminated. If courts use the construct as a guise for public policy determinations, then the public policy defense would itself serve that purpose better. If they employ it to eliminate types of contract terms that are systematically abusive, then legislation or regulation would provide a superior tool. Everything that "bargaining power" analysis seeks to accomplish can be achieved better and more coherently by alternative means.


This paper presents results from the first large-scale in situ intercomparison of oxygenated volatile organic compound (OVOC) measurements. The intercomparison was conducted blind at the large (270 m 3) simulation chamber, Simulation of Atmospheric Photochemistry in a Large Reaction Chamber (SAPHIR), in Julich, Germany. Fifteen analytical instruments, representing a wide range of techniques, were challenged with measuring atmospherically relevant OVOC species and toluene (14 species, C1 to C7) in the approximate range of 0.5–10 ppbv under three different conditions: (1) OVOCs with no humidity or ozone, (2) OVOCs with humidity added (r.h. ≈ 50%), and (3) OVOCs with ozone (≈60 ppbv) and humidity (r.h. ≈ 50%). The SAPHIR chamber proved to be an excellent facility for conducting this experiment. Measurements from individual instruments were compared to mixing ratios calculated from the chamber volume and the known amount of OVOC injected into the chamber. Benzaldehyde and 1-butanol, compounds with the lowest vapor pressure of those studied, presented the most overall difficulty because of a less than quantitative transfer through some of the participants' analytical systems. The performance of each individual instrument is evaluated with respect to reference values in terms of time series and correlation plots for each compound under the three measurement conditions. A few of the instruments performed very well, closely matching the reference values, and all techniques demonstrated the potential for quantitative OVOC measurements. However, this study showed that nonzero offsets are present for specific compounds in a number of instruments and overall improvements are necessary for the majority of the techniques evaluated here.


ABSTRACT With a new round of tax laws being introduced almost every year, complexity has increased for the tax professional. In addition, the tax professional is also facing increased competition, constantly advancing technology and a more litigious environment. Tax planning is becoming more complex and the aid that was promised from the development of expert systems has not materialized. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how a tax planner might develop decision rules for determining the capital structure of a closely held corporation by the use of fuzzy logic and neural networks. If these decision rules are based upon the judgment of "experts" as they relate to the determination of whether an interest deduction by a closely-held corporation is reasonable in specific situations, less experienced tax planners can benefit from the know-how of the these experts. INTRODUCTION Accounting firms have developed several applications of expert systems in accounting and tax. Specific applications include ExperTAX developed by Coopers and Lybrand, FSA developed by Arthur Andersen and ASQ developed by Arthur Young. However expert systems are not being developed and used in accounting as extensively as they were earlier projected. Many problems have slowed their growth. One such problem was the need to use precise variables generally combined with a linear model. It was soon recognized that experts simply don't use precise variables and linear models. Another problem was that for an expert system to be refined with all of its variables and decision rules, the system had to be known and this was not always true. Two current developments are currently being integrated in the area of expert systems that may help solve these problems. Fuzzy logic is replacing Boolean logic in many new systems. And neural networks are being used to help learn complex systems that are not fully understood. Fuzzy logic was developed to aid computers in solving problems in a manner more characteristic of human expert problem solving. Zadeh (1965) introduced the fuzzy set theory as a branch of classical set theory. It allows for systems with human interaction to tolerate vagueness and ambiguity that is natural in personal judgments. This vagueness and ambiguity should not be confused with the uncertainty that is created by randomness, which is best dealt with using probability. Rather vagueness and ambiguity deal with the imprecise nature of human language. Neural networks are an attempt to mimic the way the human brain learns. Neural nets use a number of simple computational neurons that attempt to behave as a human brain cell would behave. Each neuron receives inputs and processes outputs to other neurons until an output signal is generated. The computer system can perform numerous iterations at high speed that should allow the learning process to be more efficient and possibly give us insights that may have taken human experts years to discover. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how fuzzy logic and neural networks can be used to develop an expert system to aid tax planners in assisting their clients in ambiguous tax planning situations such as determining debt/equity issues of a closely held corporation. If these decision rules are based upon the judgment of "experts" as they relate to the determination of what level of debt is reasonable in specific situations, less experienced tax planners can benefit from the know-how of the these experts. These experts could include the judges of tax decisions if we are trying to predict the outcome of a potential case. Internal Revenue Agents would be used if we were trying to predict the possibility of an audit. Experienced tax planners could be used if we trying to evaluate the best method of structuring a complex tax transaction. The use of fuzzy logic allows for any ambiguities that may occur among the experts in their determinations of the variable that go into the decision and the output. …


An empirical challenge seems to have fractured what was a near-consensus among economists that minimum-wage increases make it more difficult for low-skilled workers to find or retain employment. Yet there is a persisting consensus among economists that any such increases which are 'large' — typically defined in terms of the magnitude of the changes in the wage floor and the ratio between the wage floor and the median wage — would indeed have the disemployment effect. If this persisting consensus is also subject to empirical challenge, such a challenge would surely incorporate analysis of any large minimum-wage increases that have already occurred. But oddly, and quite mistakenly, more than one leading researcher has casually claimed that no such events have ever occurred. Here, to aid future researchers, several episodes involving large increases are identified and some relevant literature is catalogued.


Recent measurements of GaMnAs alloy samples with a very small content of P atoms prepared by ion-implanted pulsed laser melting (II-PLM) [Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 087203 (2008)] have shown surprisingly low Curie temperature as compared to undoped samples. An explanation based on a possible metal-insulator transition at constant Mn doping was proposed based on a dramatic increase of the sample resistivity. However, no quantitative calculations supporting such a picture as concerns the Curie temperature were shown. We will present a parameter-free theory of the Curie temperature $({T}_{C})$ which assumes that possible defects due to the II-PLM such as, e.g., space inhomogeneities, vacancies, clustering, and also conventional compensating defects will reduce the sample hole concentration. Their effect was first qualitatively modeled in the framework of the rigid-band model by adjusting the system Fermi level due to the reduction of the carrier concentration which is considered as a parameter of the theory. In addition, the effect of possible conventional compensating defects, such as, e.g., As and P antisites or P and Mn interstitials was also investigated. ${T}_{C}$'s are calculated within the self-consistent local RPA (SCLRPA) and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. We will demonstrate that a reasonable agreement of calculated and measured ${T}_{C}$ can be obtained for reduced hole concentrations which are known to exist in GaMnAs samples. As concerns possible specific defects, we have shown that P and Mn interstitials are particularly effective in the reduction of the sample Curie temperature.


Extremely high correlation between the probability that a single cell will fire and the amplitude of microelectrode electroencephalogram was established in on-line, real-time computer experiments. Such congruence between spike and wave shows orderly biological variation under sensory control. Congruence, as a measure of brain activity, provides an immediate estimate of regional neural homogeneity of function of cell populations in brain.


The increasing use of information technology (IT) applications within universities context increases the importance of exploring cognitive and psychological factors that might influence successful introduction and usage of IT. Consideration of these factors including students' intention to use IT is receiving a huge interest in recent literature to avoid what so called the technological disenfranchisement. Accordingly, the present study investigates certain attitudinal factors that may influence the students' (beneficiary) intentions to use the Internet. The factors investigated in this study include perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, trust, self-efficacy, and privacy. Accordingly, this study is an attempt to framework these factors within the context of Jordanian universities as an example from a developing countries context where the scarce of the available literature is a major concern. The findings of this study emphasis the importance of perceived usefulness, user's self-efficacy and privacy as determinants for students' intentions to use the Internet. Other factors including perceived ease of use and trust were excluded from the proposed framework due to their none significant effect on students' intentions to use the Internet.


We study the estimation error of constrained M-estimators, and derive explicit upper bounds on the expected estimation error determined by the Gaussian width of the constraint set. Both of the cases where the true parameter is on the boundary of the constraint set (matched constraint), and where the true parameter is strictly in the constraint set (mismatched constraint) are considered. For both cases, we derive novel universal estimation error bounds for regression in a generalized linear model with the canonical link function. Our error bound for the mismatched constraint case is minimax optimal in terms of its dependence on the sample size, for Gaussian linear regression by the Lasso.