Markov chains and diffusion processes are indispensable tools in machine learning and statistics that are used for inference, sampling, and modeling. With the growth of large-scale datasets, the computational cost associated with simulating these stochastic processes can be considerable, and many algorithms have been proposed to approximate the underlying Markov chain or diffusion. A fundamental question is how the computational savings trade off against the statistical error incurred due to approximations. This paper develops general results that address this question. We bound the Wasserstein distance between the equilibrium distributions of two diffusions as a function of their mixing rates and the deviation in their drifts. We show that this error bound is tight in simple Gaussian settings. Our general result on continuous diffusions can be discretized to provide insights into the computational-statistical trade-off of Markov chains. As an illustration, we apply our framework to derive finite-sample error bounds of approximate unadjusted Langevin dynamics. We characterize computation-constrained settings where, by using fast-to-compute approximate gradients in the Langevin dynamics, we obtain more accurate samples compared to using the exact gradients. Finally, as an additional application of our approach, we quantify the accuracy of approximate zig-zag sampling. Our theoretical analyses are supported by simulation experiments.


Cornell University and Cornell Cooperative Extension actively support equal educational and employment opportunities. No person shall be denied admission to any educational program or activity or be denied employment on the basis of any legally prohibited discrimination involving, but not limited to, such factors as race, color, religion, political beliefs, national or ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital or family status, veteran status, or disability. Cornell University and Cornell Cooperative Extension are committed to the maintenance of affirmative action programs that will assure the continuation of such equality of opportunity.


This article explores the digitality of Indigenous bodies within contemporary 3D video games by mainstream and Indigenous developers. Its analysis relies on a critical examination of digital image synthesis via real-time graphics rendering, which algorithmically generates the visible world onscreen from 3D geometries by mapping textures, generating light and shadow, and simulating perceptual phenomena. At a time when physically based, unbiased rendering methods have made photorealistic styles and open-world structures common across AAA games in general, Indigenous game designers have instead employed simplified "low res" styles. Using bias as an interpretive model, this article unpacks how these designers critique mainstream rendering as a cultural-computational practice whose processes are encoded with cultural biases
that frame the relation of player and screen body (avatar). The algorithmic production of digitally modeled bodies, as an essential but masked element of video games, offers a territory where Indigenous developers claim aesthetic presence in the medium.


Abstract Mixed conifer of southwestern Colorado is poorly understood in comparison to other common forests in this area, in part due to its compositional complexity. We identified four stand types in warm-dry, mixed-conifer forests; Abies concolor (white fir), Pinus ponderosa (ponderosa pine), Pseudotsuga menziesii (Douglas-fir), and Populus tremuloides (aspen). We examined how composition and abundance of understory varied across these four types, and assessed the correlation between biotic and abiotic variables and understory vegetation. Composition of understory community differed significantly among stand types, with aspen plots having the most distinct understory plant community. Total plant cover was significantly higher in aspen, and shrub richness was significantly higher in the Douglas-fir stand type. On average, for all stand types combined, shrubs dominated the understory cover (11.35%), followed by forbs (7.89%), and graminoids (4.34%). Multivariate multiple regression showed that several topographic site factors (distance to drainage, slope, and aspect) and characteristics of stands (white fir/ha, ponderosa pine/ha and basal area, and basal area of aspen) explained variability in the understory community. Univariate regression showed that variation in annual species richness and Simpson's diversity index were partially explained by stand type and site. Our findings illustrate the necessity to not simplify forest dynamics for all western forest types or even within one forest type (warm-dry mixed conifer) for a general region. Implementation of forest management should be based on site-specific knowledge within localized geographic regions to restore or preserve semi-natural communities within a range of natural variability.


The capacity performance of ICIC has been extensively studied in coordinated multi-point transmissions (CoMP). In practice however, due to limited feedback, the acquired channel direction information (CDI), which is crucial for ICIC, is often partially available. Hence one may question whether the ICIC is able to meet the Quality-of- Service (QoS) requirements. This paper considers the optimal partitioning of the feedback bits in CoMP while accounting for the inter-cell interference cancellation (ICIC). In this paper, we adopt a statistical model of QoS in CoMP by using the notion of effective capacity (EC). Utilizing EC we then formulate the system function as an optimization problem with the objective of maximizing the total EC subject to the limited feedback available to the cluster of base stations (BSs). Analytical approximations are then obtained on the EC performance which are then utilized as the base for algorithms that assign feedback bits among the user equipments (UEs) and BSs. Using simulations we then investigate the accuracy of the obtained approximations and highlight practical system designs for dealing with stringent delay requirements. Of crucial practical importance, the findings of this paper also indicates that in CoMP there is an optimal cluster size for a given feedback capacity that maximizes the corresponding EC.


The National Health Service (NHS) in England is pursuing a programme of transformation through innovation, aiming to 'provide High Quality Care for All in an NHS fit for 21st century and beyond'. Practice Based Commissioning (PBC) is one key strategy, devolving responsibility for commissioning of health services from Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) to front-line clinicians in General Practice (GPs). Focusing on developments in the North West Strategic Health Authority (NW SHA), this paper discusses the means by which varying structures of PBC governance afford scope and support for sustainable innovation at practice level. Preliminary results from a project with one large GP practice in NW SHA investigating the application of design methods to issues of patient engagement and the redesign of care pathways are discussed, as is the necessity of reinterpreting and adapting these tools to ensure that clinicians and practice managers can appropriate and apply them in daily practice.


When considering learning and development processes in the workplace, organizations often make use of their creative potential through integrating various stakeholder groups into collective activity. Heterogeneous groups can be seen as a source for collective creativity. It is the very diversity of the participants combined with their ability to share meaning and understanding which provides creative potential. Bearing in mind an activity-theoretical approach to learning and development such diversity is likely to bring about contradictions with regard to the existing practice as a prerequisite for learning as development. However, the contradictions need to be identified, explicated and made understandable among the participants of a development and learning process. Following the concept of expansive learning, contradictions can be solved through developing new activity which accompanies the change of existing background assumptions and understandings of the participants. This collective conceptualization can be seen as the central creative activity at early stages of the development and learning process. Questions, however, arise as to how such creative potential can be fostered and the necessary preconditions can be set which make foster collective creative behaviour more likely. To respond to this question we introduce a conceptual approach which aims to actively integrate all stakeholders of the learning and development processes, allowing them to gain awareness, express and exchange their ideas within a group. The approach includes the co-creation of physical models through "toolkit based modelling" which means in our case simple toolkits such as children's building blocks that are used to create and discuss prototypes. The creation process itself can be described as "serious play" . This concept addresses the paradox between intentionality and playfulness with the aim to foster the creative expression of ideas. Abstract models are created intuitively by the user as he/she carries out a general task. We particularly consider the use of LEGO building blocks, which can easily be assembled and disassembled without any prerequisites needed from the user.


This article discusses the motives of ageing policies, based on two cases of national policy documents, from Sweden and Poland. The discourse analysis applied in this study follows the key principles of motive analysis. The main findings indicate that neither document is primarily concerned about older people and their well-being. People and their lives are secondary to the main focus of the analysed policy proposals. Ageing is feared in those documents, and imagined consequences of the population ageing are attenuated.This study offers an insight into discursive spaces of old age in Poland and Sweden. Furthermore, it presents motive analysis as a valuable method for studying ways of problematising social policy issues. The article draws attention to discourses that shape social policy and are reinforced by it. It also shows the process of enacting a precautionary principle in social policy that often leads to reductionist and simplistic perspectives that focus on only one aspect of a given phenomenon.


Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint. By W W Meissner, S.J. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 1992. Pp. xxx, 480. $45.00 clothbound; $ 18.00 paperback.) In the period since the 1992 publication of W. W. Meissner's Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint, two significant events in the annals of the Society of Jesus have occurred, the 34th General Congregation of the Order and the publication of John W O'Malley's The First Jesuits. Some comment about each is in order as a way of setting a context for a fuller consideration of the Meissner text. If, as some scholars and commentators have argued, the Society of Jesus remains a work in progress, there is no better evidence for this argument than the 34th General Congregation and its documents. For the first time ever, representatives to a General Congregation of the Society from Europe and America were a minority; the 34th General Congregation carries a significant element of "lay collaboration"; only some of the Congregation documents maintain eloquent certainty, e.g.,"Our Mission and Interreligious Dialogue," while others seem to be half-hearted efforts, e.g., "Ecumenism." And the documents of the 34th General Congregation reveal the "work-in-progress" nature of the Jesuit position on women in the Church and the economic, political, spiritual, and theological realities of developing countries. Perhaps of greatest significance is what appears to be an unclear and/or changing commitment to the world-wide Jesuit apostolate to education, in prep schools, seminaries, and in colleges and universities. More than anything else, the documents of the 34th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus reveal the Order's efforts to remain "flexible" and "improvisatory" with respect to the realities of contemporary culture and cultural mores, to the practice of religion, and to the articulation of a theology and spirituality that are, above all, relevant to the world in which they are grounded. Jerome Nadal, one of the group of the first Jesuits, said often that Jesuits"are not monks.... The world is our house? The 34th General Congregation and its documents offer powerful testimony to the continuing efforts of the Society of Jesus to serve the world as it is. More than any other religious order, the Jesuits should be regarded as "organic" in that their apostolate is to serve the world as it is, not as it has been. It is commonly accepted by scholars of the history of Christianity that, as John O'Malley argues in his work, The First Jesuits, the writing on the Society of Jesus "has been woefully inadequate" In spite of the Constitutions, the Spiritual Exercises, the 125 volumes of the Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu, and the 7000 letters of Ignatius Loyola (the largest extant correspondence of any sixteenth-century figure), there has been no history of the Society of Jesus that is as complete and thoroughly comprehensive in the way, for example, that David Knowles' still remarkable history of the monastic orders in medieval England is. There is, in fact, no substantial history of the Jesuits from their founding in 1540 to the present. It is no wonder, then, that the Jesuits are often so misunderstood and misrepresented. John O'Malley's The First Jesuits seeks to remedy this deficiency and while it is only "Part One" of the story in that it covers the first years of the Order, from a gathering of the seven "friends in the Lord" in 1534 to 1565, the year of the 2nd General Congregation of the Order and the year when Diego Laynez, who succeeded Ignatius as Superior General, died, it has set the stage for a work or works that will address the 450 years of Jesuit history in an equally thoughtful and thorough way. Because there is no substantial "secular" history of the Jesuits-as distinct from its own ecclesiastical histories-the myths about the order and the frequent disfigurements of its founder and his colleagues remain. John O'Malley's The First Jesuits and W W Meissner's Ignatius of Loyola, taken together, must be seen as a major first step in remedying such an extraordinary deficiency. …


This paper analyses the health expenditure profile by age and gender of survivors and deceased in four Italian regions. Per capita spending on the deceased constantly diminishes after middle age. The ratio between per capita expenditures on deceased and survivors by age shows a downward trend after about 40 years. Although we chose four regions situated in the North, Centre and South of Italy, we may conclude that there are no significant differences among them with respect to health costs near death, in spite of the wide regional gap and the different Regional Health Service models. Health spending projections for Italy – as well as for other countries – are less pessimistic when account is taken of costs near death. The main result of this study is that both the specific profile of per capita health expenditure for the deceased and the characteristic trend of the deceased/survived ratio, found for Tuscany and for other countries, can be roughly confirmed for Italy.


Abstract Using first-hand data from the 2009 Employment and Informal Sector Survey (EESIC) in the two largest cities of the Republic of Congo, Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire, we analyze the impact of education on labour market outcomes, and identify the segments where education pays off the most. Multivariate analyses of the risk of unemployment and sectoral choice indicate that young people face serious difficulties in the labour market: for most of them, their only choice is to remain unemployed or to join the informal sector. To measure the specific impact of schooling on earnings, we address issues related to sample selection and endogeneity of education in the earnings function. The results shed light on heterogeneity in the returns to schooling across the two main cities and institutional sectors. An important finding is that the informal sector does not systematically lag behind the formal sectors in terms of returns to education. We emphasize convex returns to education, meaning that the last years in secondary and tertiary schooling yield the highest returns, while those of primary education are generally lower. This convexity is also apparent in the informal sector, where education (albeit on another scale) again appears as an important determinant of earnings.


How does theology and theoryinfonn evangelical international development initiatives? The present article answers this question by reviewing the creation and growth of the international development industry, by outlining the dominant theory in evangelical development today, and by pointing to possible future directions. It argues that Transformational Development, currently the dominant evangelical development paradigm, has played a critical role in evangelical development theory and practice. But there are weaknesses to the theory. New voices, especially Wesleyan voices, are needed to shape evangelicalism's response to poverty in the 21 st century.


1. The metabolism of an intravenous pulse dose of double-isotope-labelled cholecalciferol has been studied in control subjects with widely differing states of vitamin D nutrition and in patients with primary disorders of parathyroid function. 2. The formation of labelled 1,25-dihydroxy-cholecalciferol [1,25-(OH)2D3] and labelled 24,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol [24,25-(OH)2D3] has been related to the prevailing concentrations in serum of 25-hydroxycholecalciferol [25-(OH)D3], immunoreactive parathyroid hormonel, calcium and orthophosphate (Pi). 3. In control subjects with relative vitamin D deficiency [serum 25-(OH)2D3 was related inversely to the serum 25-(OH)D3 and serum calcium, and directly to serum immunoreactive parathyroid hormone. No formation of 1,25-(OH)2D3 was detectable to form labelled 24,25(OH)2D3 preferentially. 4. No control subject produced significant amounts of both labelled 1,25-(OH)2D3 and labelled 24,25-(OH)2D3 simultaneously. 5. All subjects with primary hyperparathyroidism produced significant amounts of labelled 1,25-(OH)2D3 and labelled 24,25-(OH)2D3 simultaneously; the renal turnover of 25-(OH)D3 was apparently greater than in nutritionally matched controls. Serum labelled 1,25-(OH)2D3 in this disease was not correlated with serum 25-(OH)D3, immunoreactive parathyroid hormone, calcium or Pi. Production of labelled 24,25-(OH)2D3 was inappropriately high for the prevailing nutritional state. 6. The indirectly estimated their concentration of 1,25-(OH)2D3 showed only a fourfold variation in control subjects (45-180 pmol/l), compatible with its having a regulated hormonal function. 7. The data suggest that the production of 1,25-(OH)2D3 from a pulse dose of cholecalciferol is normally regulated, directly or indirectly, by the parathyroid hormone.


This paper presents ESTIMA, an easy-to-use tool for extrapolating the scalability of in-memory applications. ESTIMA is designed to perform a simple, yet important task: given the performance of an application on a small machine with a handful of cores, ESTIMA extrapolates its scalability to a larger machine with more cores, while requiring minimum input from the user. The key idea underlying ESTIMA is the use of stalled cycles (e.g. cycles that the processor spends waiting for various events, such as cache misses or waiting on a lock). ESTIMA measures stalled cycles on a few cores and extrapolates them to more cores, estimating the amount of waiting in the system. ESTIMA can be effectively used to predict the scalability of in-memory applications. For instance, using measurements of memcached and SQLite on a desktop machine, we obtain accurate predictions of their scalability on a server. Our extensive evaluation on a large number of in-memory benchmarks shows that ESTIMA has generally low prediction errors.


The Gaussian process state space model (GPSSM) is a non-linear dynamical system, where unknown transition and/or measurement mappings are described by GPs. Most research in GPSSMs has focussed on the state estimation problem, i.e., computing a posterior of the latent state given the model. However, the key challenge in GPSSMs has not been satisfactorily addressed yet: system identification, i.e., learning the model. To address this challenge, we impose a structured Gaussian variational posterior distribution over the latent states, which is parameterised by a recognition model in the form of a bi-directional recurrent neural network. Inference with this structure allows us to recover a posterior smoothed over sequences of data. We provide a practical algorithm for efficiently computing a lower bound on the marginal likelihood using the reparameterisation trick. This further allows for the use of arbitrary kernels within the GPSSM. We demonstrate that the learnt GPSSM can efficiently generate plausible future trajectories of the identified system after only observing a small number of episodes from the true system.


Sarcoidosis is a systemic disease characterized by noncasefied granulomas in various organs. Incidence of splenic disease is variable and is reported to occur in 6.7 to 77 percent of the patients. Firm data establishing the clinical features and the association of splenic involvement with prognosis in sarcoidosis is scant. The aim of our study was to investigate the clinical features and the consequence of splenic involvement on the prognostic outcome of sarcoidosis patients. We evaluated the clinical and laboratory findings in 82 sarcoidosis patients. Forty-two patients with splenic involvement were compared to 48 sarcoidosis patients without splenic disease in regard to laboratory findings, endobronchial disease, extrapulmonary organ involvement, and prognosis. Lung biopsy sample was considered positive if it demonstrated noncaseating granulomas with negative fungal and mycobacterial cultures. Splenic sarcoidosis was identified by ultrasound or computed tomography and was designated as limited, diffuse or without splenic involvement. Extrapulmonary organ sarcoidosis was classified as extensive and limited. Endobronchial disease was categorized as limited or diffuse involvement. The most commonly comprised organ was lung in 95% of the cases followed by lymph nodes, skin, eye, spleen and liver in the order of frequency. Splenic disease was diffuse in 22 patients. Of these patients, 14 had extensive extrapulmonary organ involvement while 16 had diffuse endobronchial disease. There was no significant difference between the three groups for FEV1, FVC, TLC, DLCO/VA, serum and 24h urinary calcium levels. Serum ACE was higher in patients with diffuse splenic involvement (p<0.001). Incidence of persistent chronic disease was significantly higher (p<0.001) in patients with diffuse splenic sarcoidosis. Extensive extrapulmonary organ involvement and diffuse endobronchial disease were more common (p<0.001) in this group. Extensive extrapulmonary organ involvement and diffuse endobronchial disease were more frequent in patients with diffuse splenic sarcoidosis. Patients with diffuse splenic granulomas had a worse prognosis than the patients without splenic involvement or patients with limited splenic disease. Diffuse splenic involvement emerges to be a significant risk factor for persistent chronic sarcoidosis. Extensive granuloma burden in an organ may be the decisive clinical marker for the prognostic outcome of sarcoidosis patients.


This paper examines the co-text of use of the singular and plural variants of 40 nouns used as modifiers in compounds with two lexical bases on the basis of over 6,000 compounds collected from a general corpus of English. The data shows that, for the lexemes considered, plural premodification contributes significantly to compound formation, although singular premodification is favoured, and that both groups of compounds occur in similar lexical, semantic and syntactic environments (e.g. the same types of semantic categories are represented in the heads of both groups; the same combinations of typographic, semantic and syntactic features signal the presence of micro semantic-syntactic units within larger nominal units). However, it appears that features marking the distinctiveness of the non-head material in the compounds occur more frequently, especially in combinations, when plural premodification is instantiated. This suggests that plural premodification may be favoured by the co-presence of multiple co-textual conditions, but also that the occurrence of unithood features — which mark the distinctiveness of the non-head material or of the larger phrases containing the compounds — may also be favoured by specific lexemes.


Examining the electrocatalytic performance of naturally-occurring metallic minerals is of interest for energy conversion applications given their unique atomic composition and formation history. Herein, we report the electrocatalytic function of an iron-based Gibeon meteorite for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). After ageing under operational conditions in an alkaline electrolyte, an activity matching or possibly slightly superior to the best performing OER catalysts emerges, with stable overpotentials as low as 270 mV (for 10 mA cm−2) and Tafel slopes of 37 mV decade−1. The Faradaic efficiency for the OER was unity and no deterioration in performance was detected during 1000 hours of OER operation at 500 mA cm−2. Mechanistic studies suggest an operando surface modification involving the formation of a 3D oxy(hydroxide) layer with a metal atom composition of Co0.11Fe0.33Ni0.55, as indicated by Raman and XPS studies and trace Ir as indicated via elemental analysis. The growth of the catalyst layer was self-limiting to <200 nm after ca. 300 hours of operation as indicated through XPS depth profiling and cyclic voltammetry. The unique composition and structure of the Gibeon meteorite suggest that further investigation of Ir–Co–Ni–Fe systems or other alloys inspired by natural materials for water oxidation are of interest.


Dyson Freeman described the concept of the Dyson Sphere in the paper "Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infra-Red Radiation" [1]. This is a spherical structure built around a star by a technologically advanced civilization, designed to collect the energy output of its host star. This report explores the possibility of creating artificial gravity via rotation on a Dyson Sphere made of multi-layer graphene. By knowing the ultimate tensile strength of graphene, a maximum equatorial velocity can be calculated, and used to create artificial gravity. The maximum achievable acceleration is found to be ~ 0.01% of the gravity on Earth, which is barely noticeable.


New generation mobile communication systems like Long Term Evolution (LTE) aim to deploy to customers a new mobile experience providing higher data rates and lower latencies that can make wireless devices a great platform to run a new whole set of services and applications, that was unimaginable just some years ago. However, the energy demands of battery powered devices, needed to support these new software applications substantially exceeds the capacity of the actual battery technology. The development of new architectures and procedures to build power-efficient and power-aware systems has become one of the main purposes in the design of new generation wireless networks. LTE exploits the idea of Discontinuous Reception (DRX) and Discontinuous Transmission (DTX), to provide a concrete solution to the power saving issue. The main point of this functionality makes the terminal to not continuously monitor control channels, allowing it to turn the radio frequency modem in sleep state for long periods, activating it only in well defined, suitable, instants. The objective of this thesis is to analyze the transmission of VoIP traffic over LTE networks trying to find the best solution to efficiently deliver data, fitting the DRX/DTX functionality to provide power saving and not perceptibly degrade the user experience. VoIP traffic has been studied with a bidirectional model, that emulates the interaction of speakers in a phone call. Two suitable scheduling policies for this kind of traffic, semi-persistent (SPS) and dynamic (DS), have been investigated underlining pros and cons of each solution. It has also introduced a simple control for SPS that can improve its performances. Other modeled entities include CQI reporting module, link adaptation algorithms, transmission and retransmission managers, a detailed implementation of a DRX/DTX framework and a simple solution to track power consumption statistics. The study involves the use of different configuration for channel quality reporting, link adaptation, DRX/DTX behavior with the extension of short DRX/DTX too. Every combination has been tested in single user, and multiple users scenario with 250 users all positioned at cell edge. The use of DRX/DTX functionality with SPS has been proved to provide good power saving effects due to the general synchronization between data source, SPS and DRX/DTX behaviors. This configuration generally induces acceptable delays in single user scenarios, but multiple users scenarios with too long DRX/DTX cycles can generate losses of about 4% of packets, and delays that propagate for the whole talk-spurt. Dynamic scheduling has shown to make good use of its channel quality tracking, performing an instantaneous correct estimation of needed resources. The cost of dynamic scheduling resides in its more frequent signaling activity, that impacts to a 33% higher power consumption compared to the SPS case. The common outcome of SPS and DS analysis is that the short DRX/DTX functionality does not bring further power savings to any of the studied scheduling solutions, due to VoIP traffic pattern.


The dominant assumption about self-disclosure asserts that sharing information about oneself is solely a matter of individual choice. However in the context of identity disclosures, the aspect of self that is being disclosed is attached to the backdrop of the socio-political environment of which the act and agent are situated in. In this regard, it becomes questionable whether people disclosing socially stigmatized and devalued identities such as disability are truly matters of individual freedoms around choice making. This paper aims to highlight how opportunities for discussing experiences and issues involving one's disability identity are limited to formalized institutional spaces or silenced in informal spaces due to the authority of medical cognition around disability within western societies. This lessens the control and authority of disabled people over the way in which disability is understood within the society as a homogenized identity defined through third-party authorities and cannot reflect the complex and nuanced identities formed through lived experiences. By examining the parameters of self-disclosure surrounding opportunities to claim and discuss one's identity with the inclusion of disability(ies), discourses of self-disclosure can be pushed towards informal interpersonal spaces rather than limited formal spaces so as to weaken the attitudinal barriers which form the basis for disabling social structures and creates unequal citizenship.

Keywords: self-disclosure, disability, identity-politics, freedom of choice, citizenship.


Watching TV and other forms of media consumption represent, after sleeping and working, the main activity that adults perform in developed countries. We present a dynamic theory of commercial broadcasting where the media trade utility-raising goods (programs, information, and services) with audiences in exchange for their exposure to advertisements (utility-decreasing bads), and where goods are otherwise free to the audience except for their opportunity cost of time. Goods and bads are dynamically arranged, and as such traded in an intertemporal bundle. No monetary transfers take place between media and audiences, and this barter exchange is not contractually sustained. We study this dynamic problem in a model that captures the central characteristics of how commercial media markets operate. The model is rich enough to account for a variety of disparate evidence in television, radio, print media and the web.


Setup planning for machining a part is to determine the number and sequence of setups (including machining features grouping in setups) and the part orientation of each setup. Tool accessibility plays a key role in this process. An adaptive setup planning approach for various multi-axis machine tools is proposed in this paper focusing on kinematic analysis of tool accessibility and optimal setup plan selection. In our approach, feasible Tool Access Directions (TADs) of machining features are denoted by partially sequenced unit vectors; The Tool Orientation Spaces (TOS) of different multi-axis machine tools are generated according to their configurations through a kinematic model, and represented on a unit spherical surface. Starting from a 3-axis-based machining feature grouping, all possible setup plans of a given part for different types of machine tools (3-axis, 3-axis with an indexing table, 4-axis, and 5-axis machines) can be achieved effectively by tool accessibility examination. The optimal setup plans are selected from obtained candidates by evaluating both their locating and grouping factors. A so-generated setup plan can provide not only the best coverage of machining features and the primary locating directions but the optimal orientations of the work-piece for each setup. Only prismatic parts are considered in this proof-of-concept study, and the algorithms introduced in this paper are implemented in MATLAB. A case study is conducted to validate the algorithms.


Five groups were created in this work. i: Control group, ii: H2O2 group, iii: H2O2 +  %10 Mulberry Juice (MBJ) group, iv: H2O2 +  %15 MBJ, v: H2O2 + %25 MBJ group. After sterilization, H2O2 and fruit juice were inserted different concentration to Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae) cultures and the cultures were developed at 30°C for 1h, 3h, 5h and 24 hours (overnight). S. cerevisiae cell growth was computed by spectrophotometer, total protein alteration was analysed by SDS-PAGE electrophoresis and reckoned with bradford method. our studies results indicated that; cell developing increased in MBJ groups in proportion to the positive control (H2O2) group at different growing times (1, 3, 5 and 24 hours) (p<0,05). As a result MBJ has a preservative role for reduce the oxidative damage and expanded cell developing and encourage protein synthesis in S. cerevisiae.


Force identification in structural dynamics is an inverse problem concerned with finding loads from measured structural response. The main objective of this thesis is to perform and study state (displacement and velocity) and force estimation by Kalman filtering. Theory on optimal control and state-space models are presented, adapted to linear structural dynamics. Accommodation for measurement noise and model inaccuracies are attained by stochastic-deterministic coupling. Explicit requirements for discrete time-invariant steady filter convergence are derived. From a finite element model and measurement data, unbiased estimation of state and force history is performed by an augmented Kalman filter, based on minimizing error variance. A numerical example on a system with two degrees of freedom displays adequate filtering capabilities. Experimental validation is performed on a simply supported beam instrumented with accelerometer and three strain gauges. The studies demonstrate successful identification of impact forces with both collocated and non-collocated sensors. The corresponding state estimation displays good accuracy. Limiting the number of measurements is tested. The minimal observation setup (one accelerometer and one strain gauge) is analytically stable, but results are found to be significantly deteriorated, even with collocation. Moreover the influence of model errors is investigated, imposed as random contributions in mass and stiffness matrices. The estimation of impact forces and states show fair robustness against moderate mass and stiffness deviations. A short case study on the offshore Hanko channel marker is presented, exposed to moving sea ice. A finite element model is created, instrumented with a tiltmeter and three accelerometers. Numerical simulations show identification of ice forces is viable, but heavily relies on the model representation accuracy.


OBJECT
Medically refractory dystonia has recently been treated using deep brain stimulation (DBS) targeting the globus pallidus internus (GPI). Outcomes have varied depending on the features of the dystonia. There has been limited literature regarding outcomes for refractory dystonia following DBS of the subthalamic nucleus (STN).

METHODS
Four patients with medically refractory, predominantly cervical dystonia underwent STN DBS. Intraoperative assessments with the patients in a state of general anesthesia were performed to determine the extent of fixed deformities that might predict outcome. Patients were rated using the Toronto Western Spasmodic Torticollis Rating Scale (TWSTRS) and the Burke-Fahn-Marsden Dystonia Rating Scale (BFMDRS) preoperatively and 3 and 12 months following surgery by a rater blinded to the study. Mean changes and standard errors of the mean in scores were calculated for each subscore of the two scales. Scores were also analyzed using analysis of variance and probability values were generated. Neuropsychological assessments and quality of life ratings using the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) were evaluated longitudinally.

RESULTS
Significant improvements were seen in motor (p = 0.04), disability (p = 0.02), and total TWSTRS scores (p = 0.03). Better outcomes were seen in those patients who did not have fixed deformities. There was marked improvement in the mental component score of the SF-36. Neuropsychological function was not definitively impacted as a result of the surgery.

CONCLUSIONS
Deep brain stimulation of the STN is a novel target for dystonia and may be an alternative to GPI DBS. Further studies need to be performed to confirm these conclusions and to determine optimal candidates and stimulation parameters.


In many online decision processes, the optimizing agent is called to choose between large numbers of alternatives with many inherent similarities; in turn, these similarities imply closely correlated losses that may confound standard discrete choice models and bandit algorithms. We study this question in the context of nested bandits, a class of adversarial multi-armed bandit problems where the learner seeks to minimize their regret in the presence of a large number of distinct alternatives with a hierarchy of embedded (non-combinatorial) similarities. In this setting, optimal algorithms based on the exponential weights blueprint (like Hedge, EXP3, and their variants) may incur significant regret because they tend to spend excessive amounts of time exploring irrelevant alternatives with similar, suboptimal costs. To account for this, we propose a nested exponential weights (NEW) algorithm that performs a layered exploration of the learner's set of alternatives based on a nested, step-by-step selection method. In so doing, we obtain a series of tight bounds for the learner's regret showing that online learning problems with a high degree of similarity between alternatives can be resolved efficiently, without a red bus / blue bus paradox occurring.


Author(s): Pipas, Patricia A.; Cummings, John L.; Hurley, Jerry C.; Sheffer, Karen H. | Abstract: Blackbird damage to sprouting rice can be locally severe and costs Louisiana growers an estimated $4 million/year and Texas growers $4.4 million/year. DRC-1339 blackbird baiting programs probably will continue until available alternative control techniques (i.e., repellents) become available. We conducted 3 studies to evaluate different rice baits and chemicals to improve efficacy of DRC-1339 for use at staging areas. During the first study, individually caged red-winged blackbirds preferred untreated medium grain brown rice over long grain brown rice, rough rice, or rough rice soaked with sodium bisulfite. Of birds offered only medium (control), long, rough, and rough rice soaked with sodium bisulfite treated with 2% DRC-1339 diluted 1:25 with untreated carrier (medium, long, or rough rice), 90 to 100% died within 48 hrs. During the second study, individually caged red-winged blackbirds preferred untreated rice over rice treated with Harvest Guard or ethyl cellulose. Birds were offered only medium brown rice (control), Harvest Guard, or ethyl cellulose-treated medium brown rice treated with 2% DRC-1339 diluted 1:25 with untreated medium grain brown rice. With the medium grain brown rice (field bait), 100% mortality was observed within 48 hrs. With the Harvest Guard and ethyl cellulose treatments, ≤80% mortality was observed. The third study was an aviary test to determine if aging the chemical baits (sodium bisulfite, Harvest Guard, ethyl cellulose) for 3 days in Louisiana would affect mortality. Mortality with the fresh field and sodium bisulfite baits were 100%. We did not achieve ≥80% mortality with either the fresh Harvest Guard or ethyl cellulose bait. Mortality with the aged sodium bisulfite bait was 50%. None of the other aged baits produced g10% mortality. Degradation occurred with all the aged baits but occurred the least with the sodium bisulfite treatment. Future research will look at possibly combining sodium bisulfite with UV protectors to further reduce the degradation of DRC-1339 in the field.


Global demand for energy is projected to increase by 40% in the next 20 years, and largely will be met with alternative and unconventional sources. Development of these resources causes novel disturbances that strongly impact terrestrial ecosystems and wildlife. To effectively position ecologists to address this prevalent conservation challenge, we reviewed the literature on the ecological ramifications of this dominant driver of global land-use change, consolidated results for its mitigation and highlighted knowledge gaps. Impacts varied widely, underscoring the importance of area and species-specific studies. The most commonly reported impacts included behavioural responses and direct mortality. Examinations of mitigation were limited, but common easements included (1) reduction of the development footprint and human activity, (2) maintenance of undeveloped, 'refuge' habitat and (3) alteration of activity during sensitive periods. Problematically, the literature was primarily retrospective, focused on few species, countries, and ecoregions, and fraught with generalisations from weak inference. We advocate future studies take a comprehensive approach incorporating a mechanistic understanding of the interplay between development-caused impacts and species ecology that will enable effective mitigation. Key areas for future research vital to securing a sustainable energy future in the face of development-related global change are outlined.


Objectives To examine the learning needs of Micro Enterprises and to critically evaluate whether educators can deliver marketing skills to Micro Enterprises to meet their needs. Prior Work Writers suggest that the marketing behaviour of small firms appears to be related to the motivation, belief, attitude and the objectives of the owner-manager and that when small businesses are formed, they are often based on a particular skill of the founder and that there are a number of barriers to learning. Academic research appears unable to resolve a number of questions about small businesses and their use of marketing and that further research is needed. Approach Micro Enterprises are relatively easier to identify and make contact with relevant individuals compared with larger organisations. The geographic area of Hampshire, United Kingdom, has been chosen because of its accessibility, segmentation will be by type, e.g. Sole traders, Partnerships and Limited Companies. Both empirical quantitative and qualitative research paradigms will be engaged and the results compared with studies undertaken in 2005 by Simpson, Padmore and Taylor. Method(s) A qualitative naturalistic approach is being used to explore the views, behaviour and experiences within Micro Enterprises compared to the quantitative data will give a more general and scientific overview. Techniques like qualitative interviews and quantitative questionnaires will be adopted as they are considered to be more appropriate in the field of social science research and in particular for this study. Results Potential outcomes: that the external and internal influences on a Micro Enterprises do/do not impact on an individuals learning decision, that Micro Enterprises do/do not really know what marketing is and do/do not engage in learning, that firms are not well understood by educators or that they are understood but fail to deliver appropriate skill training due to other constraints and that educators need to make a paradigm shift in their methods of delivery to Micro Enterprises. Implications The findings will establish how Micro Enterprises acquire and learn the skills to market their business and evaluate the needs and wants of Micro Enterprises and how they want to engage in learning new skills versus current delivery systems which are not customer led. Finally, after a critical analysis of whether educators can deliver marketing skills to Micro Enterprises to meet the needs and wants of this sector more effectively a new model will be developed to reflect the research results. Value The core value of this paper is to put forward a new model for discussion of how these firms could have marketing skills delivered to them in a way which matches their needs and wants. The research will then lead us into a deeper understanding of Micro Enterprises and the development of alternative ways of delivering marketing skills to them. Approaches to training will have to change if educators want to engage with this sector.


Basically, there is a basic relationship among three main variable in which often be used in learning attitude of traffic flow, are, Volume, speed, and density. The popular model in which is used to get the relationship among the three variables is Greenshields Linier model. To get traffic speed and volume in this will be used as the basis for explaining the relationship of the three variables by the use of Greenshields Linier model, so, it is required to conduct a field survey on internodes of Jalan Limboto Raya. Volume survey is conducted manually, that is, by noting down every vehicle in which pass through it based on its group. Speed survey also is conducted manually, that is, by the use of stopwatch to count time of fast rate of vehicle in the internodes of road. Meanwhile, density variable is gotten by dividing traffic volume with speed. Based on the result, analytically, the relationship between Limboto - Gorontalo city speed – density get the correlation coefficient (r) = 0,9496, determination coefficient (r²) = 0,9018, Gorontalo city – Limboto, r = 0,9448, r² = 0,8927. the relationship between Limboto - Gorontalo city volume – speed, r = 0,99026, r² = 0,98061,Gorontalo city – Limboto, r = 0,92529 r² = 0,856168. the relationship between Gorontalo city – Limboto volume – density, r = 0,9982, r² = 0,996, Gorontalo city – Limboto r = 0,9332, r² = 0,8709. it shows there is basic relationship among speed – density, volume – speed, and volume – density variables seen from correlation and determination coefficient score in which show higher score, meanwhile, graphically, it can not prove curve condition as what is shown by Greenshields yet


International transactions present unique legal risks. When a contract touches several different nations, a party may not know where it will be called upon to defend a lawsuit or, alternatively, which nation's law will be applied to resolve that dispute. To mitigate these risks, parties will often write dispute resolution provisions into their contracts. Arbitration clauses and forum selection clauses help to reduce uncertainty relating to forum. Choice-of-law clauses help to reduce uncertainty as to governing law. Over the past few decades, such provisions have become commonplace in international contracting. And yet there exist vanishingly few empirical studies exploring the use of these provisions in international commercial agreements.

This Article aspires to help fill this gap. Drawing upon a hand-collected dataset of 157 international supply agreements, it describes the ways in which large corporations seek to mitigate their risk in international transactions via dispute resolution clauses. The Article first provides a thick descriptive account of choice-of-law clauses in these agreements to illustrate the myriad ways these clauses do (and do not) mitigate legal risk. It then undertakes the same project with respect to arbitration clauses and forum selection clauses, paying careful attention to the ways in which actual practice deviates from the model forms promulgated by arbitration groups, to show how these clauses mitigate forum risk.

While the primary object of the Article is descriptive rather than normative — it seeks to describe the contents of agreements that have heretofore been largely ignored by legal scholars — it also discusses the normative implications of its descriptive account for three groups. First, legal scholars may draw upon this account to better understand how contract boilerplate evolves and changes over time. Second, judges called upon to interpret a contract may utilize this account to determine whether a phrase is typically included in clauses of a given type. Third, and finally, contract drafters may glean useful insights into how to craft dispute resolution provisions that maximize the reduction in uncertainty in international contracting.


A levy on the Clean Development Mechanism and other carbon trading schemes is a potential source of finance for climate change adaptation. An adaptation levy of 2 percent is currently imposed on all CDM transactions which could raise around $500 million between now and 2012. This paper analyses the scope for raising further adaptation finance from the CDM, the economic costs (deadweight loss) of such a measure and the incidence of the levy, that is, the economic burden the levy would impose on the buyers and sellers of credits. We find that a levy of 2 percent could raise up to $2 billion a year in 2020 if there are no restrictions on demand. This could rise to $10 billion for a 10 percent tax. Restrictions on credit demand (called supplementarity limits, the requirement that most emission abatement should happen domestically) curtail trade volumes and consequently tax revenues. They also alter the economic impact of the CDM levy. Without supplementarity restrictions sellers (developing countries) bear two-thirds of the cost of the tax. If there are supplementarity limits they can pass on the tax burden to buyers (developed countries) more or less in full. Without supplementarity restrictions the distortionary effect of the levy (its deadweight loss) rises sharply with the tax rate. With them the deadweight loss is close to zero.


This article analyses current trends as regards the role of transnational corporations in Argentine industry in the light of the structural changes taking place on the domestic, regional and international fronts, as compared with the conditions prevailing during the application of the import substitution model. Section I describes the new conditions observed at the national and international levels which are forcing all business enterprises to redefine their production, commercial, financial and technological strategies, with the Argentine subsidiaries of transnational corporations playing the leading role in this process. In section II, the essential characteristics of the transnationals' presence in Argentine industry are evaluated, and the differences between current conditions and those that existed during the period of import substitution are identified. Next, on the basis of information obtained from the major transnationals in 1992, section III discusses some of the most striking aspects of the transitions in these corporations' strategies, within the context of the economic changes taking place in Argentina and that country's place in the global economy. Finally, section IV offers some closing comments.


Most approaches to visual scene analysis have emphasised parallel processing of the image elements. However, one area in which the sequential nature of vision is apparent, is that of segmenting multiple, potentially similar and partially occluded objects in a scene. In this work, we revisit the recurrent formulation of this challenging problem in the context of reinforcement learning. Motivated by the limitations of the global max-matching assignment of the ground-truth segments to the recurrent states, we develop an actor-critic approach in which the actor recurrently predicts one instance mask at a time and utilises the gradient from a concurrently trained critic network. We formulate the state, action, and the reward such as to let the critic model long-term effects of the current prediction and in- corporate this information into the gradient signal. Furthermore, to enable effective exploration in the inherently high-dimensional action space of instance masks, we learn a compact representation using a conditional variational auto-encoder. We show that our actor-critic model consistently provides accuracy benefits over the recurrent baseline on standard instance segmentation benchmarks.


Dold-Thom functors generalize innite symmetric products, where integer multiplicities of points are replaced by composable elements of a partial abelian monoid. It is well-known that for any connective homology theory, the machinery of -spaces produces the corresponding linear Dold-Thom functor. In this note we construct such functors directly from spectra by exhibiting a partial monoid corresponding to a spectrum.


Soderquist (Psychonomic Science, 1970, 21,117–119) found that musicians were better than nonmusicians at separating out ("hearing out") partials from complex tones and proposed that this might be explained by the musicians having sharper auditory filters. In Experiment 1, the auditory filters of two groups, musicians and nonmusicians, were measured at three center frequencies by using a notched-noise masker. The filters were found not to differ in bandwidth between the two groups. However, the efficiency of the detection process after auditory filtering was significantly different between the two groups: the musicians were more efficient. In Experiment 2, the ability to hear out partials in a complex inharmonic tone was measured for the same two groups, using a tone produced by "stretching" the spacing between partials in a harmonic complex tone. Unfortunately, most of the nonmusicians were unable to perform this task. The ability of the musicians to hear out partials was not significantly correlated with the auditory filter bandwidths measured in Experiment 1. The musicians were also tested on the original harmonic complex tone (before "stretching"). For some partials, their performance was better for the inharmonic tone, reflecting the fact that the separation of the partials in frequency was greater for that tone. However, it was also found that those partials that were octaves of the fundamental in the harmonic series were identified better than corresponding partials in the inharmonic tone.


As commercial human immunodeficiency virus type 1 drug resistance assays are expensive, they are not commonly used in resource-limited settings. Hence, a more affordable in-house procedure was set up taking into account the specific epidemiological and economic circumstances of Cuba. The performance characteristics of the in-house assay were evaluated using clinical samples with various subtypes and resistance patterns. The lower limit of amplification was determined on dilutions series of 20 clinical isolates and ranged from 84 to 529 RNA copies/mL. For the assessment of trueness, 14 clinical samples were analyzed and the ViroSeq HIV-1 Genotyping System v2.0 was used as the reference standard. The mean nucleotide sequence identity between the two assays was 98.7% ± 1.0. Additionally, 99.0% of the amino acids at drug resistance positions were identical. The sensitivity and specificity in detecting drug resistance mutations was respectively 94.1% and 99.5%. Only few discordances in drug resistance interpretation patterns were observed. The repeatability and reproducibility were evaluated using 10 clinical samples with 3 replicates per sample. The in-house test was very precise as nucleotide sequence identity among paired nucleotide sequences ranged from 98.7% to 99.9%. The acceptance criteria were met by the in-house test for all performance characteristics, demonstrating a high degree of accuracy. Subsequently, the applicability in routine clinical practice was evaluated on 380 plasma samples. The amplification success rate was 91% and good quality consensus sequences encoding the entire protease and the first 335 codons in reverse transcriptase could be obtained for 99% of the successful amplicons. The reagent cost per sample using the in-house procedure was around € 80 per genotyping attempt. Overall, the in-house assay provided good results, was feasible with equipment and reagents available in Cuba and was half as expensive as commercial assays.


The research project "Structural Timber Fabric: Applying Textile Principles on Building Scale" follows an innovative and experimental approach to develop novel lightweight timber structures. It examines structural and aesthetic qualities of textiles and textile techniques to assess their potential for large-scale application. From a structural-engineering point of view, the system-effect inherent to textiles is of special interest: textiles are made up of a multitude of elements that work together as one coherent structure. Failure of one or several elements does not entail the global failure of the structure. In addition to this technical advantage, from an aesthetic point of view, the application of textile principles at the building scale holds out the prospect of generating aesthetically outstanding timber structures. The visually appealing patterns that can be generated with such techniques are virtually limitless, and could increase the incentive for sustainable construction with timber. But the importance of timber for this research goes beyond its qualities as a renewable resource. Exploitation of its mechanical properties is a prerequisite for the structural system that it is the goal to develop. Furthermore, the usage of timber for structural fabrics makes sense from a conceptual point of view: textile fabrics are fibre-based systems, and timber is a fibre-based material. Based on the above starting assumptions, the research methodology relies on an iterative process of reciprocal exchange between theoretical knowledge and insights gained from practical studies of physical models and prototypes. An important achievement, the development of the Textile Module, results from this approach. This textile module can be summarized as an arch-like structural unit that consists of two interlaced timber panel stripes. This paper will focus on current problems of the research which deal with the question of how different Timberfabric structures based on a multitude of Textile Modules can be generated. In this context, double-layered build-ups are proposed, which are not only lightweight but also light-transmissive (see Fig. 1). Several recently developed examples of double-layered build-ups will be discussed in detail.


A. D. Stewart writes: Davison & Hambrey (1996) argue that early Stoer Group sediments were deposited under glacial conditions, mainly on the basis of the following five observations. (1) Roches moutonnées. Those described by the authors are two gneiss ridges shown in my map (Fig. 1). The first, on the western side of the map, trends N–S. The second, on the eastern side, trends NNW. (The intervening gneiss inlier outcrops close to sea level and is not a ridge.) The two ridge axes are not parallel, nor do they agree with ice flow from the N or NE as claimed. The 'smooth slope' facing NNE shown in their figs 3a and 4, which is actually the long face of the eastern ridge, is shown in more detail in my Fig. 2. It is far from smooth. The 'rougher surface to the right' in the authors' fig. 3a is recent. The locality shown in the authors' fig. 3b, for which they provide no grid reference, is actually at the northern, supposed Fig. 1. Map of the Stoer Group at Enard Bay exposed above low tide level. High water mark has been omitted. Mapping was done on 1:2500 scale by the writer. Sediment dip generally conforms to the unconformity surface. Points A and B marks the ends of the schematic section fig. 4 of Davison & Hambrey (1996). up-stream end of the western ridge (see my Fig. 1). Nevertheless, the unconformity surface is rough. The 'smoothed surface to the right' mentioned


The world confronts an enormous range of challenges in the global economy. A far-reaching enterprise has arisen to meet these challenges by producing laws and regulations to shape and protect global commercial and financial markets. This article considers how a Christian theology can guide the highly consequential processes of creating law for world commerce. First, from the perspective of the sociology of globalization, law and markets, the article describes findings from current research on who makes global law and how they make that law in the United Nations' principal body for the creation of private international law. Second, the article proposes that public theology offers Christian theological principles and middle level axioms to deepen and extend the dimensionality of global lawmaking, thereby offering ethical guidance for prospective global lawmaking. It sharpens focus by appraising the participation and creativity of weak actors in global lawmaking. Third, the article turns to praxis for weak actors in global lawmaking and concludes with considerations that may foster mutually productive dialog between social scientists and public theologians of the global.


A fundamental problem in computational chemistry is to find a set of reactants to synthesize a target molecule, a.k.a. retrosynthesis prediction. Existing state-of-the-art methods rely on matching the target molecule with a large set of reaction templates, which are very computationally expensive and also suffer from the problem of coverage. In this paper, we propose a novel template-free approach called G2Gs by transforming a target molecular graph into a set of reactant molecular graphs. G2Gs first splits the target molecular graph into a set of synthons by identifying the reaction centers, and then translates the synthons to the final reactant graphs via a variational graph translation framework. Experimental results show that G2Gs significantly outperforms existing template-free approaches by up to 63% in terms of the top-1 accuracy and achieves a performance close to that of state-of-the-art template based approaches, but does not require domain knowledge and is much more scalable.


Title of Document: STATISTICAL MODELING OF ATLANTIC HURRICANE ACTIVITY USING ATMOSPHERIC REANALYSES AND IPCC SIMULATIONS AND PROJECTIONS Kye-Hwan Kim, Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 Directed By: Professor Sumant Nigam, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Atlantic hurricane activity has increased in recent decades leading to extensive investigation of its links with rising greenhouse gases (GHG). The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is investigating how global-regional climate will change in the 21st century (21C) in response to GHG emissions but the deployed climate model grids are too coarse to resolve hurricanes. Projections of hurricane activity must thus be obtained, indirectly, from regional downscaling of climate using statistical and dynamical approaches; the former is adopted here. Hurricane counts are reconstructed in 20C and projected in 21C from statistical modeling with Atlantic Sea-Surface Temperature (SST), static-stability, and zonal-wind shear as predictors. Optimal predictor definitions, including geographical domains, are identified from observational analysis (1958-2005). The viability of the statistical approach is demonstrated from the successful reconstruction of hurricane counts in both training and independent periods, with reconstruction-observation correlations (0.720.86) higher than Kim and Webster's (2010; the best statistical model to date). Statistical models for counts were also developed for each of the five analyzed IPCCthe-fifth-Assessment (AR5) models, based on their 1958-2005 simulations. The long-term trend in counts was modeled using multivariate linear regression with predictors from the ensemble-mean simulation. On the other hand, predictors from several ensemble members were used via the best subset regression technique when modeling the interannual-to-decadal count variability. Focusing on the observationally rich 1958-2005 period provided critical evaluation and a basis for selection of a credible model-subset. The 21C projections of hurricane counts by this model subset will be deemed more trustworthy than the average of all AR5-based models. Modeling of Atlantic hurricane activity with IPCC-AR5 predictors shows a stronger count-trend in the 21C, principally, from increasing SSTs; AR5-models disagree on the trend in zonal-wind shear which is a less influential predictor in the AR5-based models compared to observations. Decadal predictions of hurricane activity for the independent but observationsavailable 2006-2010 period show the promise of the best subset regression models, especially with predictors from the IPCC-Decadal (2005 ocean-initialized) experiments. According to this model, the 2013 hurricane season will be slightly more active (+1 count) but not as much as NOAA's forecast (+3 counts). STATISTICAL MODELING OF ATLANTIC HURRICANE ACTIVITY USING ATMOSPHERIC REANALYSES AND IPCC SIMULATIONS AND PROJECTIONS


Parasitologic surveys of young adults in college and university settings are not commonly done, even in areas known to be endemic for schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminths. We have done a survey of 291 students and staff at the Kisumu National Polytechnic in Kisumu, Kenya, using the stool microscopy Kato-Katz (KK) method and the urine point-of-care circulating cathodic antigen (POC-CCA) test. Based on three stools/two KK slides each, in the 208 participants for whom three consecutive stools were obtained, Schistosoma mansoni prevalence was 17.8%. When all 291 individuals were analyzed based on the first stool, as done by the national neglected tropical disease (NTD) program, and one urine POC-CCA assay (n = 276), the prevalence was 13.7% by KK and 23.2% by POC-CCA. Based on three stools, 2.5% of 208 participants had heavy S. mansoni infections (≥400 eggs/gram feces), with heavy S. mansoni infections making up 13.5% of the S. mansoni cases. The prevalence of the soil-transmitted helminths (STH: Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura and hookworm) by three stools was 1.4%, 3.1%, and 4.1%, respectively, and by the first stool was 1.4%, 2.4% and 1.4%, respectively. This prevalence and intensity of infection with S. mansoni in a college setting warrants mass drug administration with praziquantel. This population of young adults is 'in school' and is both approachable and worthy of inclusion in national schistosomiasis control and elimination programs.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
It is increasingly being realized that there are very considerable variations in individual hospitals' strategies for managing a particular group of patients, even if using similar therapeutic regimens. Such variations make it impossible to generalize estimations of treatment costs from one setting to others. The objective of this study is to examine the extent of variation in the current approaches in Europe to peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (PBSCT) in breast carcinoma.

DESIGN AND METHODS
A questionnaire was developed and sent to the EBMT member institutions. The questionnaire comprised 85 questions covering the technical and clinical issues involved and the strategies followed for the management of the patients. This paper reports the results of the survey primarily by means of descriptive, univariate frequency distributions. The results of a more analytical approach, aiming at explaining patterns in the variations observed are also presented.

RESULTS
A completed questionnaire was returned by 162 centers; 60% university hospitals, 14% cancer centers and the rest general hospitals. Considerable variations are observed between the centers with respect to all aspects of patient management and technical procedures investigated. In many respects, general hospitals follow different routines from university hospitals and dedicated cancer centers.

INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS
Variability to the extent observed indicates an important scope for optimization of the procedures and a large potential for reduction of costs and perhaps for improvement of outcomes. Economic evaluations, for instance comparing PBSCT with autologous BMT as support for high dose chemotherapy, can not be generalized from one setting to another without careful examination of the procedures and strategies followed in each setting. European hospitals treating breast cancer patients with high dose chemotherapy supported by transplantation of peripheral blood stem cells use very different technical procedures for mobilization, harvest and re-implantation of stem cells. In addition, there are also wide variations in the way they manage the patients, e.g. with regard to the criteria for discharge from hospital after re-implantation.


The development objective of the Electricity Distribution and Transmission Improvement Project for Pakistan is to help increase the efficiency, reliability, and quality of electricity supply by supporting reductions in overall technical and commercial losses, increased availability of electricity, and improved voltage profile. The Project also aims to support power sector reform and investment planning and financing through technical assistance. This Environmental Assessment (EA) document evaluated impacts and suggests mitigation measures in the following areas, respectively : soil erosion and degradation, caused by grid stations and transmission lines construction activities; surface and ground water contamination; loss or damage to wildlife; damage to natural vegetation; inappropriate liquid or solid waste disposal; leakage from oils and chemicals; crop compensation; construction crews will be provided with LPG for cooking; use of firewood will not be allowed; post-construction monitoring of tower foundations will be carried out to detect early signs of soil erosion or land sliding; and finally, applicability of Pakistan's legal and environmental policy legislation and the Bank's operational safeguard policy on environmental and social matters, such as Forestry, Natural Habitats; Indigenous Peoples; Cultural Property; Projects in Disputed Areas.


H5PMo10V2O40 (PMoV2) was immobilized on N,N-dimethylhexadecylamine functionalized chloromethylated polystyrene (DMA16-CMPS) by electrostatic interaction and used as a catalyst for the direct hydroxylation of benzene to phenol with H2O2. The results of FT-IR, XRD and TGA indicated that PMoV2 was immobilized and finely dispersed on DMA16-CMPS, and the structure was well preserved. UV-vis DRS, EPR and XPS confirmed the presence of V4+ in the catalyst due to electronic interactions between PMoV2 and DMA16-CMPS. The textural and morphological properties of the catalyst were characterized by N2 adsorption–desorption, SEM and TEM. The hydrophobicity of the catalyst was also characterized by contact angle measurement. PMoV2/DMA16-CMPS exhibited excellent catalytic performance with 22.1% conversion of benzene and a phenol yield of 21.9% at 65 °C. The high catalytic performance of PMoV2/DMA16-CMPS is attributed to high dispersion of PMoV2 on mesoporous and macroporous DMA16-CMPS, good benzene adsorption and phenol desorption ability, and V5+/V4+ redox pairs in the catalyst. Meanwhile, PMoV2/DMA16-CMPS has the advantages of facile recovery and recycling.


A pulsed scheme for generating robust optical entanglement via the coupling of two optical modes to a mechanical oscillator is proposed. This scheme is inspired by the S{\o}rensen-M{\o}lmer approach for entangling trapped ions in a thermal environment and is based on the use of optical driving pulses that are slightly detuned from the respective sideband resonance. We show that for certain pulse durations, the optomechanical interaction can return the mechanical oscillator to its initial state. The corresponding entanglement generation is robust against thermal mechanical noise in the weak as well as the strong coupling regimes. Significant optical entanglement can be generated in the weak coupling regime, even in the presence of a large thermal phonon occupation.


Although aluminium (Al) is toxic for the vast majority of angiosperm plants, high concentrations of Al (i.e., < 1,000 mg·kg-1 dry mass) are found in some plants. Here, we investigate the Al accumulation behaviour in the temperate, deciduous species Symplocos paniculata, which belongs to a mainly tropical genus known to accumulate high levels of Al in its aboveground tissues. Based on a growing experiment in hydroponics with and without Al, we show that S. paniculata has the capacity to accumulate Al and that the absence of Al in the nutrient solution has a negative impact on the performance of saplings.


One of the Arab world's greatest living poets uses the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the shelling of Beirut as the setting for this sequence of prose poems. Mahmoud Darwish vividly recreates the sights and sounds of a city under terrible siege. As fighter jets scream overhead, he explores the war-ravaged streets of Beirut on August 6th (Hiroshima Day). Memory for Forgetfulness is an extended reflection on the invasion and its political and historical dimensions. It is also a journey into personal and collective memory. What is the meaning of exile? What is the role of the writer in time of war? What is the relationship of writing (memory) to history (forgetfulness)? In raising these questions, Darwish implicitly connects writing, homeland, meaning, and resistance in an ironic, condensed work that combines wit with rage. Ibrahim Muhawi's translation beautifully renders Darwish's testament to the heroism of a people under siege, and to Palestinian creativity and continuity.


We present a search for continuous gravitational-wave emission due to r-modes in the pulsar PSR J0537–6910 using data from the LIGO–Virgo Collaboration observing run O3. PSR J0537–6910 is a young energetic X-ray pulsar and is the most frequent glitcher known. The inter-glitch braking index of the pulsar suggests that gravitational-wave emission due to r-mode oscillations may play an important role in the spin evolution of this pulsar. Theoretical models confirm this possibility and predict emission at a level that can be probed by ground-based detectors. In order to explore this scenario, we search for r-mode emission in the epochs between glitches by using a contemporaneous timing ephemeris obtained from NICER data. We do not detect any signals in the theoretically expected band of 86–97 Hz, and report upper limits on the amplitude of the gravitational waves. Our results improve on previous amplitude upper limits from r-modes in J0537-6910 by a factor of up to 3 and place stringent constraints on theoretical models for r-mode-driven spin-down in PSR J0537–6910, especially for higher frequencies at which our results reach below the spin-down limit defined by energy conservation.


This paper employs Oliver Williamson's transaction cost approach to assess contracting. We find that donor contracting with global non-profit chains is conducive to NPO opportunism due to the asset specificity of the contracts, infrequent contracting, and the uncertainty of outcomes. These risks are further exacerbated by the weak enforcement mechanisms available in many developing countries. Williamson's framework predicts that these risks would tempt donors to resort to the muscular approach, where they would exercise maximum control over the non-profit chain. Although competition would be a safeguard against the muscular approach, the donor landscape suffers from collusion and is monopsonistic. Our analysis suggests that while the current contracting and oversight arrangements might serve the donor procedural objective to exercise control in a sector marked by information asymmetries, these arrangements can undermine the primary objective of donors, namely responsiveness to beneficiaries, and ultimately, improved beneficiary welfare. We illustrate our conceptual analysis with short case studies of three Ugandan NPOs.


If literary avant-garde journals and their communities have been,
in the twentieth century, a space for creating, if not sustaining,
major political utopias, it should help explain why this "literary
communism," as Jean-Luc Nancy called it, is not a weakened or
substitutional form of politics. No myth without narration, no
implementation without an instrumentation, no organic unity without
a political organ voicing its claim, in short: no organicity
without an organon. But can there be a (literary) community that
does not aim at the achievement of its own assumed truth, a form
of writing in common that does not serve to convey a meaning, but
bears witness, in its very form, to the fragmentation of meaning?
This essay examines three attempts of an affi rmative answer to this
question by reappraising three interrelated experimental cases:
Jena around 1800 and the Athenaeum journal of the Early Romantics;
Walter Benjamin's journal projects, from the Angelus Novus to the
prison camp journal at the end of his life; Maurice Blanchot and
the failed trans-European project of what was arguably the most
ambitious intellectual journal enterprise of the century, the Revue
internationale in the early 1960s.


Abstract The proposed mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) offers significant potential for conserving forests to reduce negative impacts of climate change. Tanzania is one of nine pilot countries for the United Nations REDD Programme, receives significant funding from the Norwegian, Finnish and German governments and is a participant in the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. In combination, these interventions aim to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, provide an income to rural communities and conserve biodiversity. The establishment of the UN-REDD Programme in Tanzania illustrates real-world challenges in a developing country. These include currently inadequate baseline forestry data sets (needed to calculate reference emission levels), inadequate government capacity and insufficient experience of implementing REDD+-type measures at operational levels. Additionally, for REDD+ to succeed, current users of forest resources must adopt new practices, including the equitable sharing of benefits that accrue from REDD+ implementation. These challenges are being addressed by combined donor support to implement a national forest inventory, remote sensing of forest cover, enhanced capacity for measuring, reporting and verification, and pilot projects to test REDD+ implementation linked to the existing Participatory Forest Management Programme. Our conclusion is that even in a country with considerable donor support, progressive forest policies, laws and regulations, an extensive network of managed forests and increasingly developed locally-based forest management approaches, implementing REDD+ presents many challenges. These are being met by coordinated, genuine partnerships between government, non-government and community-based agencies.


We report on the atypical emission dynamics of InAs/AlGaInAs/InP quantum dash (Qdash) lasers employing varying AlGaInAs barrier thickness (multilayer-chirped structure). The analysis is carried out via fabry-perot (FP) ridge (RW) and stripe waveguide (SW) laser characterization corresponding to the index and gain guided waveguiding mechanisms, respectively, and at different current pulse width operations. The laser emissions are found to emerge from the size dispersion of the Qdash ensembles across the four Qdash-barrier stacks, and governed by their overlapping quasi-zero dimensional density of states (DOS). The spectral characteristics demonstrated prominent dependence on the waveguiding mechanism at quasi-continuous wave (QCW) operation (long pulse width). The RW geometry showed unusual spectral split in the emission spectra on increasing current injection while the SW geometry showed typical broadening of lasing spectra. These effects were attributed to the highly inhomogeneous active region, the nonequilibrium carrier distribution and the energy exchange between Qdash groups across the Qdash-barrier stacks. Furthermore, QCW operation showed a progressive red shift of emission spectra with injection current, resulted from active region heating and carrier depopulation, which was observed to be minimal in the short pulse width (SPW) operation. Our investigation sheds light on the device physics of chirped Qdash laser structure and provides guidelines for further optimization in obtaining broad-gain laser diodes.


Gilbert-like damping in magnetization dynamics is commonly attributed to the interplay of the spin, the electron, and the phonon reservoirs. Spatial correlations within the spin reservoir itself, for example magnons, mediate damping as well. We show theoretically that temporal correlations within the spin reservoir cause a similar effect. We investigate the role of time retardation in the atomistic Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation using two different retardation kernels. Although viscous damping is explicitly excluded, we find both analytically and numerically that damping and higher-order effects emerge due to time retardation. Thus, our results establish a mechanism for damping and inertia in magnetic systems.


Inorganic/biomolecule nanohybrids can combine superior electronic and optical properties of inorganic nanostructures and biomolecules for optoelectronics with performance far surpassing that achievable in conventional materials. The key toward a high-performance inorganic/biomolecule nanohybrid is to design their interface based on the electronic structures of the constituents. A major challenge is the lack of knowledge of most biomolecules due to their complex structures and composition. Here, we first calculated the electronic structure and optical properties of one of the cytochrome c (Cyt c) macromolecules (PDB ID: 1HRC ) using ab initio OLCAO method, which was followed by experimental confirmation using ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy. For the first time, the highest occupied molecular orbital and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy levels of Cyt c, a well-known electron transport chain in biological systems, were obtained. On the basis of the result, pairing the Cyt c with semiconductor single-wall carbon nanotubes (s-SWCNT) was predicted to have a favorable band alignment and built-in electrical field for exciton dissociation and charge transfer across the s-SWCNT/Cyt c heterojunction interface. Excitingly, photodetectors based on the s-SWCNT/Cyt c heterojunction nanohybrids demonstrated extraordinary ultra-broadband (visible light to infrared) responsivity (46-188 A W-1) and figure-of-merit detectivity D* (1-6 × 1010 cm Hz1/2 W-1). Moreover, these devices can be fabricated on transparent flexible substrates by a low-lost nonvacuum method and are stable in air. These results suggest that the s-SWCNT/biomolecule nanohybrids may be promising for the development of CNT-based ultra-broadband photodetectors.


This study aimed to verify whether the "live low, train high" approach is beneficial for endurance and/or anaerobic cycling performance. Sixteen welltrained athletes completed 90 min of endurance training (60-70% of heart rate reserve) followed by two 30-s all-out sprints (Wingate test), daily for 10 consecutive days. Nine subjects (IHT group) trained with an FIO2 set to produce arterial oxygen saturations of ~88% to ~82%, while 7 subjects (placebo group) trained while breathing a normal gas mixture (FIO2 = 0.21). Four performance tests were conducted at sea-level including a familiarisation and baseline trial, followed by repeat trials at 2 and 9 days post-intervention. Relative to the placebo group mean power during the 30-s Wingate test increased by 3.0% (95% Confidence Limits, CL ± 3.5%) 2 days, and 1.7% (± 3.8%) 9 days post-IHT. Changes in other performance variables (30-s peak power, 20-km mean power, 20-km oxygen cost) were unclear. During the time trial the IHT participants" blood lactate concentration, RER and SpO2 relative to the placebo group, was substantially increased at 2 days post-intervention. The addition of IHT into the normal training programme of well-trained athletes produced worthwhile gains in 30-s sprint performance possibly through enhanced glycolysis.


The difference between actual borrowings and borrowing limits alone generates information asymmetry in the credit card market. This information asymmetry can make the market incomplete and create ex post misallocations. Households that are denied credit could well turn out to be ex post less risky than some credit card holders who borrow large portions of their borrowing limits. Using data from the U.S. Survey of Consumer Finances, the authors find a positive relationship between borrower quality and borrowing limits, controlling for banks' selection of credit card holders and the endogeneity of interest rates. Their estimation reveals how interest rates have a negative influence on the optimal borrowing limits offered by banks. JEL classification: D4, D82, C3 Bank classification: Market structure and pricing; Econometric and statistical methods


This study is concerned with the effects of the context of musical experiences on the mental representation of music. The analysis is focused on the context of listening to recorded music in the classroom, with particular regard to strategies of listening through participation. Playing rhythms along with recorded music within an instrumental group (Audience-Performing) is therefore the main context of analysis, being developed in comparison to the context of listening in silence (Audience-Listening).
Everyday situations give evidence of the power of context on the ways individuals think and mentally represent music. This acknowledgement of the contextual dependency of the mind and the apparent contextual weakness of audience-listening function as the background for the elaboration of the hypothesis that playing along with recorded music may enrich the learning context and affect mental representation in positive ways.
The supporting theoretical framework is built in the light of connectionism. This theory from cognitive science allows a conception of mental schemata that preserve the links between object and context, and, thus, the meaningful mental coexistence of diverse types of information distributed through the brain. The contextual complexity of Audience-Performing is, in this sense, theoretically reinforced as an ecological enrichment with positive effects on both the acquisition and organisation of mental representation.
The thesis is validated through an experiment, which compares a control condition of 125 children listening to a recorded piece of music with an experimental condition of 125 children playing rhythms along with the same recorded musical piece. After the treatment, both groups were tested on the identification of excerpts from the musical piece. As shown by the results of at-test used to compare the score means of both groups, the experimental group identified more excerpts with statistical significance. A second experiment replicated the findings and helped to support the argument that the context of playing along with recorded music in the classroom has a high probability of positively affecting mental representation of music. 2


Understanding how environmental factors influence various aspects of freshwater turtle health remains an important yet understudied topic within the context of individual–environment interactions. This is particularly true of host-associated bacterial microbiota, which are being increasingly recognized as a significant and understudied topic in the context of individual turtle health. While this area of work has expanded in certain areas, research efforts remain limited with regard to host–microbiota interactions in the context of habitat contaminants. Specifically, the commonly used herbicide, glyphosate, is of interest due to its massive worldwide use and known effects on various organisms. Effects of captivity on host-associated microbial community structure also remain largely unknown in various non-model organisms. To address these unknown effects of Roundup® and captivity on host-associated microbiomes, we examined the effects of low-level Roundup® exposure and captivity on the cloacal microbiota of the False Map Turtle, Graptemys pseudogeographica. We determined the effect of glyphosate by taking cloacal swabs pre- (0 h) and post-exposure (72 h) and examined microbial community beta- and alpha-diversity through 16S rRNA gene high-throughput sequencing. The results of this study indicate that low-level, short-term glyphosate exposure does not significantly alter the microbiota structure of G. pseudogeographica. However, there was a significant decrease in microbial community beta-diversity over time, confirming a trend that has been observed to a limited extent in other non-model organisms when put in laboratory conditions. These results are useful in understanding the baseline cloaca microbial community structure of G. pseudogeographica, as well as the implications and limitations of laboratory-based microbiota studies. Furthermore, this work suggests that low-level and short-term glyphosate exposure does not have a significant effect on the cloacal microbial community structure in wild-caught G. pseudogeographica.


Face recognition is one of the most significant achievements in human vision. It has emerged that eigenface, neural network, graph matching, hidden markov model, geometrical feature matching ,template matching, 3D morph able model , line edge map (LEM) , support vector machine (SVM) ,multiple classifier systems (MCSs) are fashionable techniques of face recognition. Till date, all existing techniques could not provide satisfactory results. In this view, paper is presented a new system OFRS (Optimal Face Recognition System).This system can be find optimal accuracy of face recognition. The system is based on PCA-SVM (Principle component analysis-Support Vector Machine) combinations. It is used preprocessing, feature extraction, classification, optimization, techniques in the best way. Since, "PCA-SVM combination" suffers from the limitation of scalability. Hence, IPCA (Incremental PCA) is proposed to be used, for the first time with this combination, as feature selection strategy to overcome scalability problem. GA (Genetic Algorithm) is proposed to be used, for the first time, as optimization of SVM kernel for face recognition .At last, paper describes impact of proposed system in academic as well as industry.


The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the spherical equivalent visual acuity (VA) and uncorrected astigmatism. On 108 emmetropic eyes, the spherical equivalent VA was measured for cross cylindrical lens (CC lens)-induced astigmatic eyes and the VA-astigmatism relation determined. On 158 astigmatic eyes, the spherical equivalent VA and corrected astigmatism were measured and the measured values were compared with the calculated values from the VA-astigmatism relation by correlation coefficient analysis. Subsequent to that, the relationship between spherical equivalent VA and uncorrected astigmatism was made. The relationship was fitted for an exponential equation. Correlation coefficient between calculated values by equation and measured values for astigmatic eyes was 0.991 (p<0.01). The relationship between the spherical equivalent VA and the uncorrected astigmatism was decided as follows (spherical equivalent VA / uncorrected astigmatism): 1.0 / 0.25 D, 0.9 / 0.50 D, 0.8 / 0.75 D, 0.7 / 1.00 D, 0.6 / 1.25 D, 0.5 / 1.50 D, 0.4 / 2.00 D, 0.3 / 2.50 D, 0.2 / 3.00 D, 0.1 / 4.00 D, and 0.05 / 4.75 D. In conclusion, the relationship table devised from this study is a useful reference for predicting uncorrected astigmatism by measurement of decimal VA in spherical equivalent.


As you travel along Texas highways or hike through state or federal parks, do you wonder why there are different rocks in different areas? Or if an area has always looked like it does now? Or why certain mineral resources like oil are produced in certain parts of the state? Geology is the study of the nature and origin of the Earth, including the processes that have created it over long periods of time. Geologists use modern environments and processes to help interpret the Earth's history as recorded by ancient rocks. Climate has major effects on the formation of many sedimentary rock types; therefore, local and global climatic environments are recorded in the rocks. Understanding the processes and rates of movement of the Earth's plates allows reconstruction of the relative plate positions at different times in Earth history. Geologic history of Texas is recorded in the rocks that are exposed throughout the state and fill the many subsurface sedimentary basins. These rocks document a changing land surface that began more than a billion years ago. Texas has been the site of explosive volcanoes, strong earthquakes, major mountain ranges, vast deserts, evaporating salt basins, tropical forests, river and delta systems, tropical seas and barrier reefs, and beaches and barrier islands. Erosion of highlands filled subsiding sedimentary basins and adjacent continental margins. Colliding plates deformed, metamorphosed, and uplifted these materials to complete the rock cycle. Texas' abundant and varied mineral resources (oil, natural gas, coal, uranium, metals, groundwater, limestone, salt, gypsum, clays, and soils) are products of these geologic events.


We consider supplier-facilitated transshipments for achieving supply chain coordination in a single supplier, multi-retailer distribution system with non-cooperative retailers. The previous transshipment literature has focused on coordination through retailer-negotiated transshipments and thus does not consider the supplier's decision-making. In contrast, in this paper we assume the supplier is an active participant in the system and we seek to understand how the supplier can facilitate the implementation of coordinating transshipments. We study a two-period model with wholesale orders at the start of the first period and preventive transshipments performed at the start of the second period. Inspired by a supplier-facilitated transshipment scheme observed in practice, we assume the supplier implements transshipments through a bi-directional adjustment contract. Under this contract, each retailer can either buy additional inventory from, or sell back excess inventory to, the supplier. We show that coordination can be achieved through carefully designed contracts with state-dependent adjustment prices and a wholesale price menu. We demonstrate that the supplier's role in facilitating coordinating transshipments is critical. In addition, we use our understanding of the coordinating contract form to derive some simpler and easier-to-implement heuristic contracts. We use a numerical study to demonstrate the value, to the supplier, of using the coordinating adjustment and wholesale prices, and to evaluate the heuristics' performance.

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The intercalation of potassium ions into graphitic carbon materials has been demonstrated to be feasible while the electrochemical performance of the potassium-ion battery (PIB) is still unsatisfactory. More effort should be made to improve the specific capacity and achieve superior rate capability. Functional phosphorus and oxygen dual-doped graphene (PODG) is introduced as the anode for PIB, made by a thermal annealing method using triphenylphosphine and graphite oxide as precursors. It exhibits high specific capacity and ultra-long cycling stability, delivers a capacity of 474 mA h g−1 at 50 mA g−1 after 50 cycles and retains a capacity of 160 mA h g−1 at 2000 mA g−1 after 600 cycles. The superior electrochemical performance of PODG is mainly due to the large interlayer spacing caused by phosphorus and oxygen dual-doping, which facilitates potassium-ion insertion and extraction. Furthermore, the ultrathin and wrinkled features structure leads to a continuous and efficient supply of vacancies and defects for potassium storage.


This article critically reflects on the widely held view of a causal chain with trust in public authorities impacting technology acceptance via perceived risk. It first puts forward conceptual reason against this view, as the presence of risk is a precondition for trust playing a role in decision making. Second, results from consumer surveys in Italy and Germany are presented that support the associationist model as counter hypothesis. In that view, trust and risk judgments are driven by and thus simply indicators of higher order attitudes toward a certain technology which determine acceptance instead. The implications of these findings are discussed.