"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."-Janis Joplin, "Me and Bobby McGee"Constraints are funny things. They can box you in, or they can inspire you.A Shakespearean sonnet is con- strained by the dimensions of its form: 14 lines, iambic pentameter, clear rhyme scheme, closing couplet. Yet it has con- sistently led to beautiful poetry. Has the form contributed to the beauty, or would it have emerged just as beauti- fully from blank verse?Among the most awe-inspiring of Michelangelo's statues are the Captives- sculptures that depict figures emerging from the stone. They are struggling, but they are becoming free. The blocks of inert stone have come alive. What is the role of the marble, with its imperfec- tions, in this? Did the material inspire the art, or was it the other way around?Is it possible to go too far in using constraints to spur creativity? There is a literary technique known as con- strained writing, in which authors bind themselves to certain arbitrary rules. The most prominent, known as lipogram, outlaws a given letter. Thurber's "The Wonderful O" is a charming example; Gadsby: A Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter 'E', by Ernest Vincent Wright, may have gone too far (despite its cult following).I have wondered about these things often in the context of innovation, where constraints-explicit and implicit- abound. Is it better that these con- straints be embraced, or is it better to have the freedom to create without boundaries? Does the freedom of Google's 15 percent rule lead to inno- vation, or diminish it? Do tight budgets kill innovation or spur it?I once asked a great inventor-a man who has 120 patents to his name in a wide variety of fields-where he got the idea for one of his most valuable inven- tions. It was, he said, born of a constraint. He was told that he needed to create a printer at half the cost that he had been targeting, or the project was over. As he bemoaned the problem over a beer with a colleague, they had an idea for simulat- ing a large array of print jets by varying the volume of ink ejected by a smaller number. Without the constraint, there would have been no invention.Innovators face many constraints-in their budgets, in the time frames they must meet, in manufacturing require- ments, regulatory demands, and cost tar- gets for the final product. Handled badly, such constraints can lead to pedestrian work that reveals each compromise and is uninspiring to the market. Handled well, they can lead to elegant solutions that people love.Cost constraints are among the most common, and most difficult, to navigate. By forcing innovators to rethink the es- sentials, they also frequently produce the most elegant solutions. In The Business Solution to Poverty (reviewed in this issue), Paul Polak offers one approach for navi- gating resource constraints, Zero-Based Design. In advocating the power of busi- ness to improve the lives of the very poorest of the poor, Polak challenges the assumption that providing products that improve the lives of the poor-and lift them out of poverty-cannot be profit- able. The innovation he espouses is driven heavily by constraints, especially the need for radical affordability. His case stories illustrate that starting with an au- dacious cost goal can spur radically new thinking.Zeschky, Winterhalter and Gassmann also look at innovation with resource constraints. …


Encompassing over fifty years of research, Professor Gotoh addresses the correlation function of spatial structures and the statistical geometry of random particle assemblies. In this book morphological study is formed into random particle assemblies to which various mathematics are applied such as correlation function, radial distribution function and statistical geometry. This leads to the general comparison between the thermodynamic state such as gases and liquids and the random particle assemblies. Although structures of molecular configurations change at every moment due to thermal vibration, liquids can be regarded as random packing of particles. Similarly, gaseous states correspond to particle dispersion. If physical and chemical properties are taken away from the subject, the remainder is the structure itself. Hence, the structural study is ubiquitous and of fundamental importance. This book will prove useful to chemical engineers working on powder technology as well as mathematicians interested in learning more about the subject. This title concisely explains various mathematics and tools applied to the subject. It incorporates multiple fields to give a clear view of the application of mathematics in powder technology.


The novel coronavirus disease 2019 spread rapidly worldwide and disease was announced a pandemic by the WHO. Standard therapeutic strategy against COVID-19 is lacking. Regarding to the two-phase pathogenesis of the COVID-19 (immune defense-based protective and postinitial inflammation-driven damaging phases, different therapeutic regimens including antiviral agents (e.g., lopinavir/ritonavir, remdesivir, ribavirin, oseltamivir, and sofosbuvir, etc.), some antibiotics and immunomodulatory (chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine) and anti-inflammatory agents (corticosteroids) have been considered in hospitals for COVID-19 patients, but balancing their benefits and potential risk is of great importance [1-7]. Immune-boosting strategies (e.g., anti-sera or pegylated IFNα) and antiviral therapy may be of great importance in the initial phase or non-severe stages, while immunosuppressive or immunomodulatory approaches can be used for halting tissue damage and managing the symptoms in the inflammatory phase. There are conflicting results in prescribing corticosteroids or immunomodulation for COVID-19 patients due to paradoxical negative effects (risk of death, secondary bacterial infections and longer hospitalization) [8-9]. Activation of coagulation pathways is also associated with increased proinflammatory cytokines, resulting in multiorgan injury. Severe COVID‐19 had disseminated intravascular coagulation, leading to the risk of venous thromboembolism [10], where naproxen (for antiplatelet and anti-inflammatory and anticoagulative effects) and low molecular weight heparin (LMWH; anti-inflammatory properties) may be considered for patients. It has been suggested that LMWH is contemplated because of concerns because of the presence of thrombi in the pulmonary circulation for those in patients with raised d-dimer. However, effective therapeutic approach requires balancing harmful and beneficial effects of regimens, to be prescribed by precision. Also, two-phase pathophysiology and immune responses of COVID-19 should not be underemphasized for treatment of patients. Canadian Journal of Medicine


This book depicts a new research perspective of political leadership, in which the multi-level and dynamic leadership relation is explained as relations between the leader (human agency) and followers (sociological environment). In this sense, leadership comprises mutual influences between personal and structural domain. In morphogenesis, the subjective matrix of leadership keeps the division into private and public exposure, as well as individual and collective realization, which in fact means that the phenomenon of political leadership directly depends on the reality of the agent and structure. The author offers a new point of view for his primary research goal, which is a precise and systematic explication of the notion of political leadership in the morphogenetic scope.


Stocker calves that graze forages before entering a feedlot account for more than 75% of the beef calves raised in the United States each year. A large proportion of those will be calves born in the spring and weaned in the fall. Modest growth rates are expected when the quality of fall and winter forages is poor. Growing calves in confinement systems during fall and winter typically allows for greater average daily gain (ADG) than grazing low-quality forages; however, modest overall costs associated with grazing perennial, dormant forages may be competitive during times when feed prices are relatively high. Providing supplemental protein to beef cows grazing dormant, warm-season, native forages (i.e., ≤ 6% crude protein [CP]) has been demonstrated to increase body condition score (BCS), body weight (BW), improve dry matter digestibility (DMD), and forage dry matter intake (DMI). Furthermore, beef cows grazing low-quality forages and supplemented with protein either daily, every third day, or every sixth day had similar BW and BCS. Reducing the frequency of supplement delivery can reduce labor costs and equipment depreciation without negatively affecting animal performance; however, this practice has variable success when used with growing beef cattle. In previous research, steers supplemented with cottonseed cake 3 times weekly had similar BW gain during winter compared to steers supplemented daily. Conversely, in another study, steers grazing winter range and supplemented with dried distillers grain daily had greater ADG than steers supplemented 3 times weekly. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of young, lightweight stocker calves grazing dormant, native tallgrass pastures and supplemented protein either daily or 3 times weekly throughout the winter.


Named entity extraction is an important step in natural language processing. It aims at finding the entities which are present in text such as organizations, places or persons. Named entities extraction is of a paramount importance when it comes to automatic translation as different named entities are translated differently. Named entities are also very useful for advanced search engines which aim at searching for a detailed information regarding a specific entity. Named entity extraction is a difficult problem as it usually requires a disambiguation step as the same word might belong to different named entities depending on the context. This work has been conducted on the ANERCorp named entities database. This Arabic database contains four different named entities: person, organization, location and miscellaneous. The database contains 6099 sentences, out of which 60% are used for training 20% for validation and 20% for testing. Our method for named entity extraction contains two main steps: the first step predicts the list of named entities which are present at the sentence level. The second step predicts the named entity of each word of the sentence. The prediction of the list of named entities at the sentence level is done through separating the document into sentences using punctuation marks. Subsequently, a binary relation between the set of sentences (x) and the set of words (y) is created from the obtained list of sentences. A relation exists between the sentence (x) and the word (y) if, and only if, (x) contains (y). A binary relation is created for each category of named entities (person, organization, location and miscellaneous). If a sentence contains several named entities, it is duplicated in the relation corresponding to each one of them. Our method then extracts keywords from the obtained binary relations using the hyper concept method [1]. This method decomposes the original relation into non-overlapping rectangles and highlights for each rectangle the most representative keyword. The output is a list of keywords sorted in a hierarchical ordering of importance. The obtained keyword list associated with each category of named entities are fed into a random forest classifier of 10000 random trees in order to predict the list of named entities associated with each sentence. The random forest classifier produces for each sentence the list of probabilities corresponding to the existence of each category of named entities within the sentence. Random Forest [sentence(i)] = (P(Person),P(Organization),P(Location),P(miscellaneous)). Subsequently, the sentence is associated with the named entities for which the corresponding probability is larger than a threshold set empirically on the validation set. In the second step, we create a lookup table associating to each word in the database, the list of named entities to which it corresponds in the training set. For unseen sentences of the test set, the list of named entities predicted at the sentence level is produced, and for each word, the list of predicted named entities is also produced using the lookup table previously built. Ultimately, for each word, the intersection between the two predicted lists of named entities (at the sentence and the word level) will give the final predicted named entity. In the case where more than one named entity is produced at this stage, the one with the maximum probability is kept. We obtained an accuracy of 76.58% when only considering lookup tables of named entities produced at the word level. When performing the intersection with the list produced at the sentence level the accuracy reaches 77.96%. In conclusion, the hierarchical named entity extraction leads to improved results over direct extraction. Future work includes the use of other linguist features and larger lookup table in order to improve the results. Validation on other state of the art databases is also considered. Acknowledgements This contribution was made possible by NPRP grant #06-1220-1-233 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors. Reference [1] A. Hassaine, S. Mecheter, and A. Jaoua. "Text Categorization Using Hyper Rectangular Keyword Extraction: Application to News Articles Classification". Relational and Algebraic Methods in Computer Science. Springer International Publishing, 2015. 312–325.


Experiments have shown that hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections in vitro disseminate both distally via the release and diffusion of cell-free virus through the medium, and locally via direct, cell-to-cell transmission. To determine the relative contribution of each mode of infection to HCV dissemination, we developed an agent-based model (ABM) that explicitly incorporates both distal and local modes of infection. The ABM tracks the concentration of extracellular infectious virus in the supernatant and the number of intracellular HCV RNA segments within each infected cell over the course of simulated in vitro HCV infections. By constraining our ABM parameters using experimental data, we found that direct, cell-to-cell infection accounts for 98% (85%–100%, 95% credible region) of infection events, making it the dominant mode of HCV dissemination in vitro. Yet, while HCV spread via cell-free virus contributes little to the total number of infection events in vitro, it plays a critical role in enhancing cell-to-cell HCV dissemination by providing access to distant, uninfected areas, away from the already established large infection foci.
Mathematical modelling of HCV load decay under antiviral therapy has allowed for the determination of antiviral efficacy and other important parameters. Current mathematical models (MMs) of HCV infection are based on a set of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) and assume that infectious cell lifespans are exponentially distributed over time, meaning that every infected cell has an equal probability of dying at any time. Here, we introduce a new MM which: (1) allows for a realistic eclipse delay between the moment of cell infection and the release of new virus; and (2) considers both exponential and (log)normal distributed durations for infectious cell lifespan, wherein cells are assumed to continuously producing virus. Application of this MM to HCV load data for patients undergoing antiviral therapy leads to different conclusions when predicting parameter values.


Pyroclastic deposits covering most of the carbonate relief of the Campania Apennines are prone to develop frequent high-velocity flow instabilities. The present study investigates the debris avalanche that occurred at Nocera Inferiore (Campania Region, Southern Italy) on March 4, 2005 which claimed three casualties. The landslide involved the 1.5 to 2 m thick layered pyroclastic mantle which overlies the carbonate hill slopes. The slope movement initiated as adebris slide, then producing a debris avalanche on the 40°-dipping open slope, which had never been affected by a landslide of the same type as the one that occurred. Landslide initiation is linked to a morphological change of the slope due to the building of a carriage path to be used as access for the nearby open quarry. Reconstructionscarried out on aerial and ground photographs of different dates highlighted that the road construction likely took place around 1998, increasing the landslide susceptibility at this location. The propagation characteristics of the landslide were modelled by using 2D and 3D dynamic codes (DAN-W and DAN 3D, respectively), in order to investigate the applicability of the 3D model with the rheological parameters of previous calibration of DAN-W in Campania Region.Although, these analyses are well comparable with those implemented in the past, they highlight that it is unlikely to derive a unique set of values for the rheological parameters to be used on similar landslides over the entire region. Accuracy of back-analysis results strongly depends on the quality and availably of comparative input data, suggesting the need to improve calibration for each site within the region, enlarging information from similar cases and using statistical treatments.


Titanium dioxide (TiO2), the most widely investigated metal oxide due to its extraordinary surface, electronic and catalytic properties, is better manifested with exposed {001} facets. This article delineates the room temperature synthesis of TiO2 with 90% exposed {001} facets without using any fluorine containing precursor or hazardous material. Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) is explored as a capping agent to suppress the growth of the thermodynamically stable (101) plane. The {001} faceted nanosheets are decorated with gold nanoparticles of mean diameter 10 nm. The materials are characterized using XRD, TEM, XPS, as well as UV-vis, Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The surface reactivities of different facets of TiO2 are substantiated in the light of formaldehyde (HCHO) oxidation. The synergistic effect between the reactive {001} facet of TiO2 and gold nanoparticles towards the photocatalysis of HCHO is also investigated and corroborated using mass spectroscopy.


To promote recommendation services through prediction quality, some privacy-preserving collaborative filtering solutions are proposed to make e-commerce parties collaborate on partitioned data. It is almost probable that two parties hold ratings for the same users and items simultaneously; however, existing two-party privacy-preserving collaborative filtering solutions do not cover such overlaps. Since rating values and rated items are confidential, overlapping ratings make privacy-preservation more challenging. This study examines how to estimate predictions privately based on partitioned data with overlapped entries between two e-commerce companies. We consider both user-based and item-based collaborative filtering approaches and propose novel privacy-preserving collaborative filtering schemes in this sense. We also evaluate our schemes using real movie dataset, and the empirical outcomes show that the parties can promote collaborative services using our schemes.


Switched Ethernet is increasingly used in real-time communication due to its intrinsic features such as micro segmentation and high throughput. However, COTS switches may impose long blocking times due to their FIFO queues and can also experience buffer overflow in outgoing queues due to uncontrolled packets arrival. The FTT-SE protocol uses a Master-Slave technique to overcome the COTS switch limitations in real-time applications. Recently, we extended the protocol for large scale networks and in this paper we present the worst-case delay analysis using the Network Calculus formalism for such a network. Moreover, we assess the end-to-end delay of traffic with simulation concluding that the obtained analytical results present a good match with the observed delays, providing uppers bounds that vary between 0% and 50% above the maximum measured values.


Evidence based practice (EBP) is an educational paradigm that espouses that clinical decision making should be made through the judicious and conscientious use of best evidence. EBP is predicated on a fundamental principle that therapeutic knowledge is appraised and applied into practice with the ethical imperative to use such knowledge for the good of patient care. Despite the ubiquitous nature of EBP in health care little is known about how physiotherapists use this clinical decision making process and it is not clear as to which theoretical frameworks of practice and knowledge paradigms underpin physiotherapists application of EBP. Phenomenology seeks to uncover the internal consciousness of phenomena by describing and exploring the lived experience and explores the relationship between what exists in one's consciousness and what exists in the objective world. Descriptive phenomenology was used in this thesis to gain an in depth understanding of how twelve physiotherapists applied EBP in the real and complex world of clinical practice with the objective to explore their experiences and to understand the essence of its practice. The findings in this study revealed a complex picture comprising of three separate but interrelated themes. Physiotherapists had developed a personal theory of EBP (Theme 1) that guided their behaviour and comprised of an ontological, epistemological and methodological structure. This theoretical and practice framework was uniquely individual and required a complex set of cognitive processes that included knowledge identification, transformation, translation and implementation in specific client situations and practice contexts (Theme 2: translation into practice). To add to this complexity this framework took place within intrapersonal, social and cultural milieus which influenced behaviour (Theme 3). The study concludes by conceptualising the findings and experiences of physiotherapists into models that could be used to assist educationalists, practitioners and researchers to promote evidence based practice in a pragmatic way.


1. Introduction Rhys Jenkins 2. Globalization, trade liberalisation and industrial pollution in Latin America Rhys Jenkins 3. Mining and the environment in Latin America: the Pollution Haven hypothesis revisited Alyson Warhurst and Nia Hughes-Witcomb 4. The diffusion of pollution prevention measures in LDCS: environmental management in Argentine industry Daniel Chudnovsky, Andres Lopez and Valeria Freylejer 5. 'Aco Verde': the Brazilian steel industry and environmental performance Jonathon Barton 6. Economic liberalisation and the environment - a case-study of the leather industry in Brazil Jan Thomas H. Odegard 7. Industrial innovation and environment in the pulp export industry in Brazil Sonia Maria Dalcomuni 8. Environmental performance and trade liberalisation in the Mexican textile industry Flor Brown 9. Environmental performance in the Mexican chemical fibres industry in the context of an open market Lilia Dominguez-Villalobos 10. Environmental assessment of the Mexican steel industry Alfonso Mercado 11. Conclusion Rhys Jenkins


With human activity, modern medicine, and climate change all intensifying the impact of fungi on global health, agriculture, and biodiversity, it is more crucial than ever to advance our understanding of the fascinating biology of fungi in order to harness their extraordinary potential and evade the devastation they can impose. To tackle this challenge, the American Academy of Microbiology convened a colloquium in October 2017, bringing together an international and interdisciplinary team of experts. This meeting transpired a decade after the first of its kind hosted by the Academy in 2007. This new report, titled One Health: Fungal Pathogens of Humans, Animals, and Plants, highlights the remarkable advances in the field and provides updated recommendations to address scientific and public health challenges in the new environment.


This thesis assesses critically the role and function of planning agreements as regulatory instruments in the context of land-use control from a historical perspective. By adopting Hancher and Moran's heuristic of regulatory space, the origins of the practice and its development over time are considered against the backdrop of the evolving planning system in England and Wales. The objectives are to identify the various actors present and mechanisms used to regulate agreements and from this to understand more generally the implications of a use of contractual practices for regulatory purposes. Emphasis will be placed on the techniques used by Government in regulating the practice. Whilst established by statutory provision, agreements will be shown to be defined by many actors within a broad policy space and regulated also by those actors in a number of ways. Regulation will be seen to encompass far more than state-sponsored activity and extend a use of many strategies only one of which is law.


We have studied the transverse modes of a transient stimulated Raman signal generated in unsaturated Raman amplifiers with Fresnel numbers from one to seven, both with and without a seed Stokes pulse. In the absence of a seed Stokes pulse and for a pump Fresnel number greater than 1.5, the spatial intensity pattern of the stimulated Stokes signal is highly variable from shot to shot, reflecting the random nature of the quantum-noise source. However, when a separately generated and sufficiently strong seed Stokes pulse with a Gaussian spatial profile is injected into the amplifier, the spatial mode of the output Stokes beam assumes a smooth Gaussian spatial pattern that is significantly smaller in diameter than either the pump or the seed Stokes beam. This spatial mode control, which is due to the injected Stokes signal, persists down to a level of approximately 300 seed Stokes photons per spatial mode and, surprisingly, is observed to suppress the noise-initiated signal by at least a factor of 10 in the outer regions of the amplified Stokes beam. We have also studied the Stokes pulse-energy statistics over a range of Fresnel numbers. Data taken with systems having Fresnel numbers between 4 and 7 follow the same pattern as the spatial-mode-control results in that the statistical character of the Stokes pulse energies changes rapidly from that characteristic of a quantum-noise-initiated process to one characteristic of a stable source as the level of the injected seed Stokes is increased. However, for interaction regions with Fresnel numbers of 1 or smaller, the Stokes pulse-energy statistics show a gradual change as the level of the seed Stokes signal is increased and do not become stabilized until the seed Stokes is more than 100 times the total level needed to control the spatial character of the output Stokes in the larger-Fresnel-number cases. This slow change in the statistics for the Fresnel 1 system, and the suppression of the quantum-noise-initiated signal in the larger-Fresnel-number systems, is not fully understood at this time.


Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology , no. 98, viii+102 pages, frontispiece + 52 figures, 1 appendix with 13 tables, 2016. — Patriomanis americana is the only pangolin (Mammalia, Pholidota), living or extinct, known from the Western Hemisphere. It derives from latest Eocene (Chadronian North American Land Mammal Age) deposits from central Wyoming and western Montana. Since its initial description more than 40 years ago based on a partial skeleton, several nearly complete skeletons have been discovered, together including nearly every bone in the skeleton. This taxon is thus not only the most completely preserved fossil pangolin but is also among the best preserved of any Eocene mammal taxon. In the present study we have prepared a detailed, bone-by-bone description of the osteology of  Patriomanis , comparing it with other well-known fossil pangolin skeletons ( Eomanis, Euromanis, Cryptomanis,  and Necromanis ), as well as representatives of the three extant pangolins genera ( Manis, Smutsia, Phataginus ). We provide a catalog of all known Patriomanis specimens and their provenance and an extensive series of measurement tables incorporating the comparative taxa. We analyze the alpha-level taxonomy of the genus, concluding that all specimens should be kept in a single species, Patriomanis americana , based on currently available fossil material. We summarize the taxonomic and phylogenetic position of Patriomanis and discuss its implications for the biogeographic history of the order Pholidota. We analyze the paleobiology of Patriomanis , concluding that it was likely a myrmecophagous, arboreal animal with a prehensile tail. Last, we discuss its paleoecology, suggesting that its late appearance in the Eocene record, during a time of global cooling, may imply that earlier pangolins are waiting to be discovered in the Eocene record of Asia and North America. KEY WORDS: Eocene, fossils, morphology, osteology, pangolins, Patriomanis , Pholidota, skeleton, skull.


Spreadsheets augment a visible tabular layout with invisible formulas. Direct manipulations of the tabular layout may or may not result in the desired changes to the formulas. The user is forced to explore the individual cells to find, verify, and modify the formulas, which causes heavy cognitive overhead. We present a set of techniques that make these formulas and their resulting dataflow structure easily accessible while maintaining the natural appearance of the spreadsheet. Transient local views visualize dataflow structures associated with individual cells, while static global views and animated global explanations visually present the entire dataflow structure at once. Semantic navigation enables the user to navigate through the dataflow structure interactively, and visual editing techniques make it possible to construct formulas using graphical editing techniques. Central to these techniques is the use of animation and lightweight interaction for rapid and non-intrusive visualization. Our prototype implementation suggests that these techniques can greatly improve the expressive power of current spreadsheets as well as other applications that have rich underlying structures.


The urgency of prevention, treatment and cure for AIDS cannot be overestimated. Typified as a male disease, only recently has the gravity of the women and AIDS picture been revealed. As one author in the first collection of essays states, AIDS has become the leading cause of death for women aged 20-40 years in major cities in the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, and Western Europe. Approximately three million women worldwide are expected to die of AIDS-related causes by the year 2000.The subject of Working with Women and AIDS is thus timely and desperately required, given the dearth of information that incorporates social analyses and medical facts related to HIV/AIDS. This collection focusses on women and HIV/AIDS in Britain, with one essay about New York City. The authors have provided an up-to-date compendium of research about counselling/emotional issues, education and prevention issues. There is a well written chapter critiquing the myths surrounding women sex trade workers. The sections on pregnancy, heterosexual transmission and HIV are especially informative.Sexual contact with men is a particularly significant mode of transmission for women. As Judy Bury reports, more women are becoming effected by sexual contact with men in the UK, by a ratio of almost two to one. She explains that in this third wave of the epidemic, HIV+ men are more likely to infect women primarily because there are more men who are seropositive.In the UK, most HIV+ women are either injection drug users or their partners of users. She states that in Scotland, most "multiply-deprived" people are Caucasian. Presumably this is because most of the people in Scotland are Caucasian and the class structure is deeply entrenched, but it does not extend to the entire cluster of islands in the region. Bury declares, "in many parts of the UK deprivation is not linked with race" (p. 13) in comparison to the US, where she believes that deprivation is linked with "race."This supposition is highly problematic, for obvious reasons. Racism has existed in Britain for at least the past 500 years and was intensified through the colonizing period of British history. For the millions of Black Nation peoples (Africans, Asians, Caribbeans, Latin Americans, South Asians, and others whose recent history is rooted in colonial experiences) living in the UK who are currently resisting neo-Nazism, skin headviolence and an increasingly vociferous attack on "immigrants," deprivation is clearly linked to race.The consequences of this reality with respect to AIDS are many. First, the stresses placed on the immune system are great, due to the often polluted areas of post-industrial inner cities where working class Black Nations people reside. Second, housing conditions are often crowded and poorly maintained; levels of violent crimes in social housing are often relatively high with very little support from law enforcement agencies when required. Third, the kind of employment in which many working-class Black Nations people are engaged is often fraught with poor health and safety standards; exposure to toxic substances or to unhygienic conditions may be a daily reality for "raced" peoples living in Britain. Four, racist violence against non-Caucasians causes fear and injury to those who are (potentially) victimized. For women, the threat of sexualized violence comes with an added possible danger. Transmission rates can thus be effected significantly by the experience of racialized marginalization.Weakened immune systems are more vulnerable to viral attacks. When people who are literally worn down by the stresses of living in racist regimes come into contact with blood, semen, vaginal fluids or other bodily fluids infected with HIV, they have a higher susceptibility to contracting the virus. People with strong immune systems, on the other hand, may be able to withstand limited contact with the virus without creating HIV antibodies. …


DANIEL S. GOLDIN is Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This year, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) celebrates 40 years of scientific exploration. NASA's mission, to discover the unknown in an effort to enrich life on Earth, represents a journey to unite the human spirit in an international quest for knowledge. The next chapter in the history of space exploration will be written 250 miles above Earth at a construction site orbiting the planet at over 17,500 miles per hour. The International Space Station, which unifies the resources and scientific expertise of 16 nations, is the most ambitious scientific and technical project in history. The work has just begun; astronauts recently connected the first US component of the station, Unity, to the Zarya (Russian for "sunrise") propulsion module. Zarya and Unity, which together weigh 35 tons, are by far the largest and heaviest payload elements to be assembled in a Shuttle bay. But they are also only the first of 45 building blocks that will be assembled before the completion of the station. On January 29, 1998, the International Space Station was officially launched. Senior government officials from 15 countries met in Washington to sign the Inter-Governmental Agreement on Space Station Cooperation, which established a framework for cooperation on the station's design, development, operation, and utilization. In solidifying the international network for the program, the US Secretary of State joined with signatories from Russia, Japan, Canada, and participating countries of the European Space Agency (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom). Later, Brazil entered into an agreement with the United States to join this cooperative effort. Coordinating the efforts of 16 countries has not been an easy task. Inevitably, difficulties have arisen regarding financing and scheduling conflicts. The project, moreover, is one of unprecedented difficulty, risk, and danger--the task of connecting the individual components of the station will require more nail-biting space walks than have been conducted in the entire history of human space exploration. Yet, the outcome from taking such risks will be an unprecedented reward. As a global scientific community pushing the boundaries of science and technology, the International Space Station will also open new frontiers of international partnership and cooperation. The United States is leading the way in this collaborative pursuit. ISS as a Starting Point To some, this promise of international collaboration may be justification enough for the tasks ahead. From the standpoint of space exploration, however, the International Space Station is a crucial step in allowing research to move beyond low-Earth orbit and onto other planets. Before humanity can move beyond the moon and low-Earth orbit, we must understand the effects of extended life in space on the human body and psyche. Scientists must investigate the reaction of the human immune system to long-term space flight and develop countermeasures to offset bone loss, muscle atrophy, and other debilitating effects of low-gravity environments. The successful diagnosis and treatment of sick or injured astronauts while they are in space requires more advanced medical care and screening capability. Moreover, in order to allow astronauts to live on Mars, the international community will have to assemble one to two million pounds of hardware in orbit. Individual astronauts must learn to work with robotic nauts must learn to work with robotic arms and eyes to perform the many intricate tasks required to explore and inhabit another planet. The United States cannot take on all these projects alone. International cooperation is the only means to understanding the environment beyond Earth. Life on Mars The magnitude of the endeavor to adapt space for human life may throw into question the necessity of exploring Mars at all. …


Cocamide MEA is a mixture of ethanolamines of fatty acids derived from coconut oil. This cosmetic ingredient functions as a surfactant—foam booster and an aqueous viscosity-increasing agent. To supplement the available data on Cocamide MEA, data from previous safety assessments of Coconut Oil and its derivatives, Monoethanolamine (MEA), and Cocamide DEA (Diethanolamine) were included in this safety assessment. These data suggest little acute, short-term, or chronic toxicity associated with dermal application. MEA vapor, however, is highly toxic. Although DEA is readily nitrosated to form N-nitrosodiethanolamine, a known animal carcinogen, MEA has not been found to form a stable nitrosamine. Dermal application of Cocamide MEA at concentrations of 50% was nonirritating to mildly irritating in animal tests. For comparison, Cocamide DEA at a concentration of 30% was a moderate irritant; Coconut Oil was nonsensitizing; and MEA was irritating and corrosive. Cocamide MEA was negative in the Ames Test. Cocamide DEA was positive in some mutagenesis assays, but negative in others. In clinical tests, Cocamide MEA at a concentration of 50% was not irritating in a single-insult patch test. Cocamide DEA at 2% in formulation caused irritation, but not sensitization. Predictive patch tests with a surfactant containing Cocamide DEA at 10% produced no adverse effects. Inhalation of MEA by humans is toxic. Based on the limited data available data on Cocamide MEA, and on the data on those ingredients previously reviewed, particularly Cocamide DEA, it was concluded that Cocamide MEA is safe as used in rinse-off products and safe at concentrations up to 10% in leave-on products. It was further concluded, however, that Cocamide MEA should not be used as an ingredient in cosmetic products in which N-nitroso compounds are formed or in formulations that will be aerosolized.


In this study, a robust minimum variance beamformer (RMVB) is employed for source reconstruction in simultaneous MEG and local field potential (LFP) measurements. RMVB selects the electrical activity only from a specified volume of the brain while suppressing the rest. To improve imaging we added two more terms to the RMVB: the first term minimises the mean squared error (i.e. maximises the correlation) between the recorded LFP and reconstructed time courses from MEG data, the second term nulls the large inference induced by deep brain stimulation (DBS) device. A solution of this problem, relevant both with and without extra terms, is presented using the Lagrange multiplier method. This solution—if we ignore the new terms—has a simpler secular equation compared to its original solution and therefore is faster. The method is validated using both simulated and real data to show its potential use in practical applications.


With the current sovereign debt crisis, the incompleteness of economic integration in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has become patent, leading to an intense debate among academics and policy makers. Much of the debate concerns fiscal rules and austerity measures, both of which weigh on growth prospects. In this paper we look at the main structural shortcomings of EMU through the lens of general equilibrium theory. We address two issues (international sharing of macroeconomic risks and coordinated growth stimulation) which are at the heart of the sustainability of EMU. We propose: (A) a specific scheme for mutual insurance of macroeconomic risks; (B) locating responsibility for demand policies at the EMU level, with ambitious investment programs (public, or fiscally-neutral private) as main instrument.


Background The clinical distinction between Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is sometimes difficult, particularly in mild cases. Although CSF markers such as amyloid β42 (Aβ42) and P-tau can distinguish between AD and normal controls, their ability to distinguish between AD and DLB is not adequate. Objective This study aims to investigate whether CSF markers, in particular levels of Aβ38, can differentiate between mild AD and DLB. Methods 85 individuals were included after standardised diagnostic procedures: 30 diagnosed as probable AD, 23 probable DLB, 20 probable Parkinson's disease dementia and 12 non-demented control subjects. CSF levels of Aβ38, Aβ40 and Aβ42 were determined using commercially available ultra-sensitive multi-array kit assay (MSD) for human Aβ peptides. Total tau (T-tau) and phosphorylated tau (P-tau) were analysed using ELISA (Innotest). In addition, combinations (Aβ42/Aβ38, Aβ42/Aβ40, Aβ42/P-tau and Aβ42/Aβ38/P-tau) were assessed. Results Significant between group differences were found for all CSF measures, and all except Aβ40, Aβ42 and Aβ42/P-tau differed between AD and DLB. The Aβ42/Aβ38 ratio was the measure that best discriminated between AD and DLB (AUC 0.765; p<0.005), with a sensitivity of 78% and a specificity of 67%. Conclusion This study suggests that the level of Aβ38 can potentially contribute in the diagnostic distinction between AD and DLB when combined with Aβ42. Single measures had low diagnostic accuracy, suggesting that developing a panel of markers is the most promising strategy. Studies with independent and larger samples and a priori cut-offs are needed to test this hypothesis.


In this paper we will present an analysis of the optimal capital structure using two examples: one proposed by the Harvard Business School and the other proposed by Damodaran. First, we highlight certain inconsistencies in the debt and equity costs assumed by the Harvard Business School note from a number of viewpoints. We calculate the incremental cost of debt implied in Harvard's note and we find also inconsistencies: surprisingly, the last two debt increments have a cost of 14.75% and 18.5%, while the required return to equity in the unlevered company is 12%. With respect to the cost of debt, the inconsistency is not the cost of debt (the bank can charge whatever interest it likes) but in assuming that the debt's cost is the same as its required return (or that the debt's value equals its nominal value). We also calculate the required return to incremental equity cash flow implied in Harvard's note and we find that the required return first falls, then increases, and then falls again. The required incremental return should fall as the leverage decreases. The probability of bankruptcy almost doubles beyond the optimal capital structure. The difference between the required return to equity and the required return to debt decreases for debt levels above the optimal capital structure. It is also shown that assuming no leverage costs there is no optimal structure (the company's value increases with the debt ratio) and the difference between required return to equity and the required return to debt is constant. Damodaran (1994) offers a similar approach to that of the Harvard Business School note, but applies it to a real company (Boeing in 1990) and assumes a constant cash flow growth. One problem with Damodaran's results is that the value of the firm (D+E) for debt ratios above 70% is less than the value of debt, which implies a negative value for equity. We calculate the incremental cost of debt implied in Damodaran's example. It can be seen that increasing debt to take the debt ratio from 30% to 40% implies contracting that debt at 21.5%, which is an enormous figure. Stranger still is the finding that the next debt increment (which has a higher risk) is cheaper: it costs 19%. An additional error in Damodaran's calculations is that he calculates the WACC using book values in the weighting, instead of market values. It is also shown that if it is assumed that the debt's market value is the same as its book value, then the capital structure that minimizes the WACC also maximizes the share price. However, without this assumption, the minimum value of the WACC may not occur at the same point as the maximum share price.


The physical theory of the Foucault test has been investigated to represent the complex amplitude and irradiance of the shadowgram in terms of the wavefront error; however, most of the studies have limited the treatment for the particular case of nearly diffraction-limited optical devices (i.e., aberrations smaller than the wavelength). In this paper we discard this restriction, and in order to show a more precise interpretation from the physical theory we derive expressions for the complex amplitude and the irradiance over an optical device with larger aberrations. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time an expression is obtained in closed form. As will be seen, the result of this derivation is obtained using some properties of the Hilbert transform that permit representing the irradiance in a simple form in terms of the partial derivatives of the wavefront error. Additionally, we briefly describe from this point of view a methodology for the quantitative analysis of the test.


Purpose: To quantitatively evaluate cataract surgeries performed between 2000 and 2005 at Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences Methods: This retrospective study aimed at patients who had cataract and underwent surgery at Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran from 2000 to 2005. One week per season per year was randomly selected after excluding the first two weeks of the Persian Year which coincides with the New Year holiday and no elective surgeries are scheduled. In total, data from 24 weeks in these six years (2000-2005) was collected. Results: In this study, 3254 records of cataract surgeries were reviewed. The rate of extracapsular cataract extraction (ECCE) decreased from 94% in the year 2000 to 17% in 2005. Phacoemulsification had the highest growth rate; 1.7% in 2000 to 77% in 2005 (P<0.001). The use of foldable lenses rose from 1.3% in 2000 to 77.2% in 2005. The risk of traumatic cataracts was significantly higher in men [Odds ratio (OR)=5.7, 95% confidence interval (CI) 3.3-9.7]. However, senile cataracts were more common in women (OR=2.07, 95% CI 1.6-2.7). Conclusion: The rate of phacoemulsification increased by 75% Compared to other surgical methods, phacoemulsification has low complication rates and has the advantage of shorter surgical time and faster recovery. Increased popularity of the method is expected to relieve the community of the social and economical burdens of cataract.


Looking to replace the routine of reading a textbook section and filling out worksheets, I wanted to find a way to get 7 grade science students engaged in the readings and motivated to understand the content. Pulling from various proven literacy strategies, I developed a process called Question, Read, Connect, Reflect (QRCR). During the treatment period of four weeks, students worked cooperatively to read five sections of the science textbook. Students started by previewing the text (question), reading the section one heading at a time (read), and using a concept web as a graphic organizer to identify main ideas (connect). The final portion of the process (reflect) had students constructing summaries of the section using the terms from their webs. Students also took time to think back on their participation, effort, and use of new information throughout the QRCR session. QRCR packets, which contained the concept webs and summaries, were analyzed and interviews were given at the end of the treatment. Students were given pre and post-treatment questionnaires to gain insight on students' use of various literacy and textbook skills. Questionnaires and comments on selfreflection forms were also used to track changing attitudes and thoughts on the QRCR process. Findings showed that the majority of the treatment group enjoyed the new reading process. Effort and motivation increased and gains in identification of main ideas as well as organization on concept webs were shown. Despite this, no gains were shown in summarizing skills nor were improvements in writing demonstrated.


In Japan, the continuous reduction in family size during the post-war period has caused a decline in the efficiency of domestic production in households. The proportion of expenditure on foodstuffs for homemade meals in total food expenses has decreased; on the other hand, the proportion of expenditure on convenience foods (cooked food, fast food, etc.) and eating-out has increased. The changes in the diet of Japanese people prevent the household consumption of domestic agricultural products. The objective of this study is to provide a baseline about food consumption from the viewpoint of the household demand-side and to find a measure, which acts as a brake on the decrease in the household consumption of domestic agricultural products. The main outcomes of this study are as follows. First, the changes in the dietary habits of Japanese households during the post-war period depend on the economic factors associated with Japanese economy at that time in spite of dietetic issues. Second, the household consumption of domestic agricultural products is going to decline if we maintain the same conditions. Third, an improvement in the efficiency of domestic agricultural production is essential for keeping the volume of household demand for domestic products since progress in the efficiency of homemade meals is difficult for today's households. This is the measure of cooperation between households and domestic agriculture the study suggests.


This study examined the effects of acute hypoxia on maximal and explosive torque and fatigability in knee extensors of skiers. Twenty-two elite male alpine skiers performed 35 maximal, repeated isokinetic knee extensions at 180°s-1 (total exercise duration 61.25 s) in normoxia (NOR, FiO2 0.21) and normobaric hypoxia (HYP, FiO2 0.13) in a randomized, single-blind design. Peak torque and rate of torque development (RTD) from 0 to 100 ms and associated Vastus Lateralis peak EMG activity and rate of EMG rise (RER) were determined for each contraction. Relative changes in deoxyhemoglobin concentration of the VL muscle were monitored by near-infrared spectroscopy. Peak torque and peak EMG activity did not differ between conditions and decreased similarly with fatigue (p < 0.001), with peak torque decreasing continuously but EMG activity decreasing significantly after 30 contractions only. Compared to NOR, RTD, and RER values were lower in HYP during the first 12 and 9 contractions, respectively (both p < 0.05). Deoxyhemoglobin concentration during the last five contractions was higher in HYP than NOR (p = 0.050) but the delta between maximal and minimal deoxyhemoglobin for each contraction was similar in HYP and NOR suggesting a similar muscle O2 utilization. Post-exercise heart rate (138 ± 24 bpm) and blood lactate concentration (5.8 ± 3.1 mmol.l-1) did not differ between conditions. Arterial oxygen saturation was significantly lower (84 ± 4 vs. 98 ± 1%, p < 0.001) and ratings of perceived exertion higher (6 ± 1 vs. 5 ± 1, p < 0.001) in HYP than NOR. In summary, hypoxia limits RTD via a decrease in neural drive in elite alpine skiers undertaking maximal repeated isokinetic knee extensions, but the effect of hypoxic exposure is negated as fatigue develops. Isokinetic testing protocols for elite alpine skiers should incorporate RTD and RER measurements as they display a higher sensitivity than peak torque and EMG activity.


ABSTRACT How do democratic allies manage their participation in U.S.-led coalition operations? This article compares the Canadian and Dutch management of domestic and international expectations of support to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It argues that the decision whether to support coalition operations often does not amount to a simplistic "yes" or "no" answer. It entails a management process involving several strategies, as well as a wide range of mutually inclusive support options. Canadian and Dutch management of support to coalition operations reveals that similarly core U.S. allies misunderstood U.S. expectations, mismanaged their country's stance by sending confusing signals to both their domestic and international audiences, and adopted varied trade-off strategies. The study of multinational coalition operations should thus conceptualize political and military support separately, but examine their causal interrelationships and measure them on a qualitative, case-specific continuum, in order to properly understand the variations and trade-offs involved in the allied management of support to military coalitions.


Worldwide, training in ethics theory and practice, as an integral part of medical training, is gaining in importance. This article problematises for our South African context the Western and masculine biases that are still prevalent in most of the dominant moral theories taught, such as Kantianism, Utilitarianism and Principlism. A greater emphasis on both feminist and indigenous African moral theories is needed – not only because women and African students become better represented within the profession as elsewhere in society, but also because it is scientifically and socially called for. In the latter regard it will be shown that feminist and African moral theories may address and help to correct the masculine and Western biases lodged within the more established moral theories normally taught in medical schools. In particular, both feminist and African moral theories emphasise relationship and community over individualism. However, a further question arises from this comparison, namely to what extent feminist and African moral thinking are compatible. By drawing out their most salient similarities, we show that there is indeed an important overlap between the two strands of thought, though we also caution against their conflation. Nevertheless, together they stand as an important corrective to still dominant Western moral theories. Keywords: Ethics; Feminist; Care; Ubuntu


Brain systems with their complex and temporally intricate dynamics have been difficult to unravel and comprehend. While great advances have been made in understanding genetics, neural behavior, gray versus white matter and synaptic plasticity, it remains a particular challenge to understand how human diseases and disorders develop from internal neural level irregularities, e.g., in channels, membranes and mutations before they lead to an observable disease. The field of system biology has advanced significantly, giving rise to high expectations of tying separate biological phenomena into more expansive rational systems. Denis Noble, a pioneer of systems biology, who developed the first viable mathematical model of the working heart in 1960, has been influential in calling the community to focus on creating computer and mathematical models of organic life to interpret functions from the molecular level to that of the whole organism (Noble, 2006). Our approach to modeling the brain and its intricate, interrelated network of systems is through the mathematical computational fields of complexity and dynamical systems.

Complexity explains the emergent behavior of interacting particles and is a theoretical approach inspired by physics, which has become a basis for computational simulations. Dynamical systems consist of equations governing the temporal evolution of values of interacting sets of variables and parameters (Alligood et al., 1997). This fundamental mathematical field is used to model complex phenomena like biological systems and diseases (Villanueva et al., 2008), behavioral aspects of societies and spread of viruses in epidemics (Rapatski et al., 2005), as well as to describe multi-agent computer networks (Olsen et al., 2008); and gives rise to subfields like chaos theory and complex systems theory. Complex system science, a combination of complexity and dynamical systems, is used to interpret, analyze and characterize systems behavior. This rapidly maturing science has the potential to close gaps in our knowledge and allow us to make connections between lower level brain functions and the higher level of human senses, behaviors and disorders.

In our own work, we have recently employed complex systems science to study the loss of synchronicity in the biological clock following travel (Leise and Siegelmann, 2006). In an effort to understand circadian inter-system synchronization, we built a multistage non-linear system level model of the biological clock governed by the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus – known to regulate circadian rhythm. Prior to our work, organ de-synchronicity occurring after travel and in shift work was assumed to result in differing re-entrainment rates of system components following the phase update in the SCN. Employing our model and recent data about the relative dynamical properties of organs including their free dynamics and strength of connectivity, we were able to take a detailed look at the phenomenon of jet-lag and impediments to re-entrainment that lead to jet-lag. We found that the chief source of de-synchronicity occurs when some organs advance their clocks following the SCN update, a property termed "anti-dromic re-entrainment." Based on this model, we were able to suggest applications to avoid organs advancing their clocks in opposite directions, and thus avoid hard cases of jet-lag.

In another recent study, we used complex systems science to study the dynamics of re-consolidation in memory. Re-consolidation has been recognized as a storage process distinct from the one-time loading involved in consolidation. It serves to maintain, strengthen and modify existing memories shortly after their retrieval. Problems in re-consolidation have been implicated in diseases such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and even addiction. Part of the growing interest in re-consolidation is the hope that controlling it may assist in psychiatric disorders, such as PTSD, or even in the permanent eradication of compulsive fears. Our initial efforts to understand the process focused on the dynamics occurring during and after the continuous update of memories (Siegelmann, 2008). Further work is needed to more fully comprehend the function and dynamics of re-consolidation, to map out its processes in greater detail, and identify potential remedies to systemic problems.

Dynamical diseases (Belair et al., 1995) methods have been used to qualify changes in the normal state or dynamics of physiological systems, like those occurring in heart arrhythmia (Glass and Mackey, 1988) and in schizophrenia (Loh et al., 2007). The value of analyzing disease through the mathematical view of dynamical systems is a greater, more detailed understanding of the system, and a more precise identification of the mechanisms of disease. Dynamical systems give us the ability to model the varying parameters of a disease, its host, and the conditions surrounding it – enabling us to identify mechanisms, predict outcomes, and suggest countermeasures. By taking advantage of advances in dynamical systems, the research community as a whole stands to gain a powerful new tool set to use in acquiring a more complete, more detailed understanding of brain processes and disorders.

This Special Topic in Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience contains diverse research articles describing successful uses of complex modeling to analyze various aspects of brain dynamics: Neural population-codes, which may underlie behavioral invariance as well as object recognition (Robbe L.T. Goris and Hans P. Op de Beeck). Modeling the mammalian neocortex with new self-organizing recurrent networks that incorporate various distinct forms of local plasticity to learn spatio-temporal patterns (Andreea Lazar, Gordon Pipa, and Jochen Triesch). An algorithm to analyze multichannel recordings (Barak Blumenfeld). Self-assembly processes such as the formation of DNA and protein oligomeric structures (Eugen Czeizler and Lila Kari). Determination of synaptic weight matrices or kernels for neural networks and fields (Roland Potthast and Peter Beim Graben). Assessing and increasing quality in binary pairwise models for studying the statistics of spike trains of neuronal populations and inferring neuronal functional connectivities (Yasser Roudi, Erik Aurell, and John A. Hertz). And a hierarchical memory model based on the collaboration of slow bidirectional synaptic plasticity and homeostatic unit activity regulation and its application to face recognition (Jenia Jitsev and Christoph von der Malsburg).

Complex system science, both mathematically and computationally, gives us the tools to dissect, quantify and analyze organic life's most complex system set: the brain. In addition to aiding diverse fields of brain research by following brain system dynamics over time, we can detect systemic changes prior to them becoming problems or diseases. Additionally, medicine today tends to approach illness with a "fix-it-when-it's-broken" mentality; using dynamical systems to analyze and monitor brain systems results in a broader, more detailed view, and one that shows changes over time. These same attributes provide the means for early identification of disease, enable preventative measures, earlier fixes, and the identification of alternative methods and strategies for remedying problems. Ultimately, using these tools to follow the dynamics of individuals may provide the best approximation of their health, and the most exact picture of when their health is affected by different agents or ameliorated by specific treatments. It is possible then, that a dynamic understanding of the complex brain will yield early disease detection, novel treatments, and individual approaches in medical sciences.


First time experimental evidence is presented for a direct link between the decay of a n = 3 plasma response and the formation of a three-dimensional (3D) plasma boundary. We inspect a lower single-null L-mode plasma which first reacts at sufficiently high rotation with an ideal resonant screening response to an external toroidal mode number n = 3 resonant magnetic perturbation field. Decay of this response due to reduced bulk plasma rotation changes the plasma state considerably. Signatures such as density pump out and a spin up of the edge rotation—which are usually connected to formation of a stochastic boundary—are detected. Coincident, striation of the divertor single ionized carbon emission and a 3D emission structure in double ionized carbon at the separatrix is seen. The striated C II pattern follows in this stage the perturbed magnetic footprint modelled without a plasma response (vacuum approach). This provides for the first time substantial experimental evidence, that a 3D plasma boundary with direct impact on the divertor particle flux pattern is formed as soon as the internal plasma response decays. The resulting divertor structure follows the vacuum modelled magnetic field topology. However, the inward extension of the perturbed boundary layer can still not directly be determined from these measurements.


OBJECTIVE
Changes in generic strategies in response to discontinuous environments have been relatively ignored in the management literature. This study reports an examination of the relationships between Porter's (1980) generic strategies, discontinuous environments, and performance.

DATA SOURCES
Archival data for 1984 and 1988 were collected for 172 acute care hospitals in Florida in order to test these relationships.

STUDY DESIGN
To examine fully the performance impact of changes in strategy in a discontinuous environment, a longitudinal research design that identified a firm's strategy at two points in time, 1984 and 1988, was used.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
Results indicate that firms with a proper strategy environment fit performed the highest, firms that did not change their strategy had no change in performance, and firms that changed their strategy toward a proper strategy environment showed an increase in performance.

CONCLUSION
Findings support the notion that hospitals with appropriate strategy-environment combinations will exhibit higher performance.


Lohy Das, J. P. 2017. Modelling and Simulation to Improve Antimalarial Therapy. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Pharmacy 239. 75 pp. Upppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-513-0098-6. The introduction of artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) substantially reduced malaria-related mortality and morbidity during the past decade. Despite the widespread use of ACT, there is still a considerable knowledge gap with regards to safety, efficacy and pharmacokinetic properties of these drugs, particularly in vulnerable populations like children and pregnant women. In addition, there is growing evidence of widespread artemisininresistance across the Greater Mekong Subregion. Expedited delivery of novel antimalarial drugs with different mechanisms of action to the clinical setting is still far off; therefore, it is crucial to improve the use of existing antimalarial drugs for optimal outcome in order to prolong their therapeutic life span. This thesis focuses on utilizing pharmacometric tools to support this effort for malaria prevention and treatment. An extensive simulation framework was used to explore alternative malaria chemopreventive dosing regimens of a commonly used ACT, dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine. Different monthly and weekly dosing regimens were evaluated and this allowed an understanding of the interplay between adherence, loading dose and malaria incidence. A weekly dosing regimen substantially improved the prevention effect and was less impacted by poor adherence. This is also expected to reduce selection pressure for development of resistance to piperaquine. Population pharmacokinetics-pharmacodynamic models were developed for artesunate and the active metabolite dihydroartemisinin, effect on parasite clearance, in patients with artemisinin-resistant and -sensitive malaria infections in Southeast Asia. The modeling identified an association between parasite density and drug bioavailability. It predicted the presence of high levels of artemisinin resistant infection among patients in Cambodia and its spread into Myanmar. A nomogram to identify patients with artemisinin resistant infections was developed. Furthermore, the model was used to demonstrate the need for extended treatment duration to treat patients with artemisinin resistant infections. A population pharmacokinetic model developed from data on pregnant women in East Africa allowed further understanding of artemether-lumefantrine exposure in pregnant populations. It also suggested that the lumefantrine exposure in this population is not compromised. In summary, the results presented in this thesis demonstrate the value of pharmacometric approaches for improving antimalarial drug treatment and prevention. This ultimately contributes to overcoming the prevailing challenges to malaria control.


Acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) refers to an acute onset of fever and clinical neurological manifestation that includes mental confusion, disorientation, delirium, or coma, which may occur because of infectious or non-infectious causes. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pleocytosis generally favors infectious etiology, and a normal CSF favors an encephalopathy or non-infectious AES. Among the infectious AES, viral, bacterial, rickettsial, fungal, and parasitic causes are the commonest. Geographical and seasonal clustering and other epidemiological characteristics are important in clinical decision making. Clinical markers like eschar, skin rash, myalgia, hepatosplenomegaly, thrombocytopenia, liver and kidney dysfunction, elevated serum CK, fronto-temporal or thalamic involvement on MRI, and anterior horn cell involvement are invaluable clues for the etiological diagnosis. Categorizing the AES cases into neurologic [Herpes simplex encephalitis (HSE), Japanese encephalitis (JE), and West Nile encephalitis (WNE)] and systemic (scrub typhus, malaria, dengue, and Chikungunya) helps in rational utilization of diagnostic and management resources. In neurological AES, cranial CT/MRI revealing frontotemporal lesion is consistent with HSE, and thalamic and basal ganglia lesions are consistent with JE. Cerebrospinal fluid nucleic acid detection test or IgM antibody for JE and HSE are confirmatory. Presence of frontotemporal involvement on MRI indicates acyclovir treatment pending virological confirmation. In systemic AES, CT/MRI, PCR for HSE and JE, and acyclovir therapy may not be useful, rather treatable etiologies such as malaria, scrub typhus, and leptospirosis should be looked for. If smear or antigen for malaria is positive, should receive antimalarial, if negative doxycycline and ceftriaxone should be started pending serological confirmation of scrub typhus, leptospira, or dengue. A syndromic approach of AES based on the prevalent infection in a geographical region may be developed, which may be cost-effective.


Phase separation is a fundamental phenomenon that produces spatially heterogeneous patterns in soft matter. In this Lecture Note we show that phase separation in these materials generally belongs to what we call "viscoelastic phase separation", where the morphology is determined by the mechanical balance of not only the thermodynamic force (interface tension) but also the viscoelastic force. The origin of the viscoelastic force is dynamic asymmetry between the components of a mixture, which can be caused by either a size disparity or a difference in the glass transition temperature between the components. We stress that such dynamic asymmetry generally exists in soft matter. The key is that dynamical asymmetry leads to a non-trivial coupling between the concentration, velocity, and stress fields. Viscoelastic phase separation can be explained by viscoelastic relaxation in pattern evolution and the resulting switching of the relevant order parameter, which are induced by the competition between the deformation rate of phase separation and the slowest mechanical relaxation rate of a system. We also discuss an intimate link of viscoelastic phase separation, where deformation fields are spontaneously generated by phase separation itself, to mechanical instability (or fracture) of glassy material, which is induced by externally imposed strain fields. We propose that all these phenomena can be understood as mechanically-driven inhomogeneization in a unified manner.


This paper gives a comparative study on the new developments in non-destructive controls of the composite materials and applications in the manufacturing engineering and also reviews essentially the performance and advantages of Xrays computed tomography (XR-CT) medical scanner about its usage at multiple scales (macro, micro, meso and nano), the method and also the terminology. Subsequently, it will deal with the chosen materials to share the performances of this technique for the very different industrial applications The scientific technical revolution of our day is associated with wide introduction of non-ionizing fields (such as electromagnetic) in almost every aspect of life in addition to the wide use of ionizing radiation in medicine research and manufacture. Understanding the mechanism of interaction of electromagnetic (EMFs) fields with biological cells and cell membrane is important to modern day cell technology and medicine., 4 different rubber compound were prepared by using (SBR 1502) type of Styrene Butadiene rubber in level and each recipe reinforced with Tungsten (W) at different ratio (20,50,70 and 100) pphr ( part per hundred )and using Titanium Dioxide (TiO2 ) at constant ratio (60) pphr at all compound. All of compound measure the transmission of (XRay).


We introduce an iterative method named BiLQ for solving general square linear systems Ax " b based on the Lanczos biorthogonalization process defined by least-norm subproblems, and that is a natural companion to BiCG and Qmr. Whereas the BiCG (Fletcher, 1976), Cgs (Sonneveld, 1989) and BiCGStab (van der Vorst, 1992) iterates may not exist when the tridiagonal projection of A is singular, BiLQ is reliable on compatible systems even if A is ill-conditioned or rank deficient. As in the symmetric case, the BiCG residual is often smaller than the BiLQ residual and, when the BiCG iterate exists, an inexpensive transfer from the BiLQ iterate is possible. Although the Euclidean norm of the BiLQ error is usually not monotonic, it is monotonic in a different norm that depends on the Lanczos vectors. We establish a similar property for the Qmr (Freund and Nachtigal, 1991) residual. BiLQ combines with Qmr to take advantage of two initial vectors and solve a system and an adjoint system simultaneously at a cost similar to that of applying either method. We derive an analogous combination of Usymlq and Usymqr based on the orthogonal tridiagonalization process (Saunders, Simon, and Yip, 1988). The resulting combinations, named BiLQR and TriLQR, may be used to estimate integral functionals involving the solution of a primal and an adjoint system. We compare BiLQR and TriLQR with Minres-qlp on a related augmented system, which performs a comparable amount of work and requires comparable storage. In our experiments, BiLQR terminates earlier than TriLQR and Minres-qlp in terms of residual and error of the primal and adjoint systems.


The process of designing jewelry has never before been explored in a book. It has taken the combined talents of three top jewelry designers, including a profess who teaches the skill to jewelry students, to create this beautiful and practical step-by-step format. Starting with a fully illustrated discussion of design principles and metal and stone rendering techniques, this volume then presents progressive detailed sketches and finished drawings of many varieties of ring and earring designs. From such drawings the manufacturing jeweler can assemble the objects themselves. This book teaches one how to create those drawings. "It is a book that I have searched for, in vain, for many years. It is both the first and undoubtedly the best, and will remain the best for many years. This book is destined to become the bible of the designer, the guide of the artisan, and the companion of the jewelry lover." Samuel Beizer, Chairman, Jewelry Design, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York.


CHARACTERIZATION OF SYNTHETIC, SELF-OSCILLATING VOCAL FOLD MODELS James S. Drechsel Department of Mechanical Engineering Master of Science The vocal folds are essential for speech production, and a better understanding of vocal fold vibration characteristics may help improve treatments of voice disorders. However, studying real vocal folds presents significant challenges. In-vivo studies are limited by access and safety issues. Excised larynges have a short useable lifetime (on the order of minutes) and are difficult to parameterize. In contrast, synthetic vocal fold models have long useable lifetimes and can be easily parameterized. In this thesis, a series of tests performed on recently developed synthetic, self-oscillating models of the human vocal folds are discussed. These tests include measurements of vibration frequency, sub-glottal pressure, and time-averaged flow rate. The differences between one-layer and two-layer synthetic models are evaluated. Comparisons are made between synthetic model and real vocal fold behavior. The synthetic model is shown to have vibrated at frequencies, pressures, and flow rates consistent with human phonation. The influence of sub-glottal tube length on model vibration frequency is examined. Motion is observed using high-speed imaging. Velocity measurements of the glottal jet using particle image velocitmetry (PIV) were performed with and without an idealized vocal tract, including the effects of the false folds, for various cases of vocal tract asymmetry. Glottal jet velocities measured using PIV were consistent with velocities measured using excised larynges. A starting vortex was observed in all test cases. The presence of the false folds acted to restrain the sides of the starting vortex, and in some cases created new vortical structures shed from the false folds. An algorithm was created to calculate and visualize the jet core centerline. In the vocal tract cases, the glottal jet tended to skew toward the nearest wall; in the false fold cases, the opposite trend was observed as the jet skewed away from the nearest wall (towards the midplane). Plots of RMS velocity showed distinct regions of shear layer and jet core. Vocal tract cases at pressures much greater than phonation onset pressure showed significant increases in RMS velocities compared to open jet and false fold cases.


The occurrence of an autoantibody to protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) in rats after administration of various hepatotoxic drugs was investigated by immunoblotting and radioimmunoassay. An anti-PDI autoantibody was detected with high frequency in rats treated with D-galactosamine, acetaminophen with diethylmaleate, and carbon tetrachloride with diethylmaleate. The antibody-positive rate was relatively low in the groups of rats given carbon tetrachloride, acetaminophen or DL-ethionine alone. The anti-PDI antibody was not detected in rats treated with diethylmaleate alone. Although the mechanism of the production of the anti-PDI autoantibody is unclear, the occurrence of anti-PDI antibody correlated with high serum GPT activities. It is suggested that the autoantibody plays an important role in the development and persistence of drug-induced hepatitis.


The aim of this study is to examine the loneliness and Internet addiction levels of college students in terms of demographic variables and to determine the variables that predict their Internet addiction level. Data were collected from college students studying at a public university in Turkey. The UCLA Loneliness Scale Version3 and Internet Addiction Test (IAT) were used as the data collection tools. College students were delivered an online survey and at the end 489 college students were voluntarily participated in the study. This survey study employed independent sample t-tests, ANOVA tests, correlation and multiple regression tests for data analysis. The results show that younger participants felt significantly more loneliness than older participants; similarly, students in lower classes felt more alone than those in upper classes. In terms of addiction, it is seen that the frequent use of computers, smartphones and social media increases the Internet addiction level of students. The study suggests a significant correlation between loneliness, Internet addiction, age, and Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA). Additionally, loneliness and CGPA significantly predict Internet addiction. This study may be important in terms of determining the psychological variables affecting today's increasing technology addiction (internet, smart phone, etc.). Thus, determining the effect of the level of loneliness of young people on internet addiction may be effective in terms of preventing this addiction.


Blockchain technologies are beginning to push a broad array of global economic activities away from centralized and toward decentralized market structures. Governments should tackle the new regulatory conundrums of an increasingly disintermediated global economy by focusing on blockchain's individual use cases rather than its underlying enabling technologies. Grouping the known use cases around common characteristics reveals three broad categories of blockchain/law interfaces: the green box, the dark box, and the sandbox. Each raises distinctive legal, regulatory and policy challenges deserving of separate analysis.


An algorithm has been developed estimating the process dead-time within a closed-loop time invariant system. This paradigm allows for the estimation of the process dead-time without the need for open-loop tests or disabling the controller. The algorithm can estimate the process dead-time in the presence of noise within the control loop increasing the applicability to industrial applications. The process dead-time estimate can replace the constant dead-time assumptions in the control performance assessments, such as the dead-time constant in the Harris Index calculation.


A new species within the genus Fragilariopsis, F. tigris, is described and illustrated using light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. This species is restricted to a single 8-meter-thick diatom unit within the 585-meter-long section of alternating diatomites and diamictites recovered in the upper portion of the ANtarctic geological DRILLing (ANDRILL) McMurdo Ice Shelf Project (MIS) AND-1B marine sediment core. This new taxon from a diverse, well-preserved diatom assemblage is inferred to be the youngest member of the well-documented, biostratigraphically useful F. praeinterfrigidaria – F. interfrigidaria – F. weaveri lineage and may represent a near-shore corollary to the open-ocean species F. weaveri. Based on available chronostratigraphic data from AND-1B, F. tigris appears to be restricted to the earliest late Pliocene (first occurrence datum ~3.2 Ma) and is extinct before 3.0 Ma.


This paper describes the use of sonification to represent the scanned image data of skin pattern of the human body. Skin Patterns have different characteristics and visual features depending on the positions and conditions of the skin on the human body. The visual features are extracted and analyzed for sonification in order to broaden the dimensions of data representation and to explore the diversity of sound in each human body. Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) is employed to parameterize skin pattern images, and the represented visual parameters are connected to sound parameters through support vector regression (SVR). We compare the sound results with the data from the skin pattern analysis to examine how much each individual skin patterns are effectively mapped to create accurate sonification results. Thus, the use of sonification in this research suggests a novel approach to parameter mapping sonification by designing personal sonic instruments that use the entire human body as data.


One of the key issues for transportation companies is to produce an optimal plan for the work of crew members. Crew planning consists of a sequence of phases, the first two corresponding to planning duties (sequences of trips to be done by crew members from their home base to their home base) and planning rosters (sequences of duties and rest days to be followed by crew members during a certain number of weeks). Both duty and roster planning are subject to a large number of constraints. Duty planning is constrained by intra-duty constraints and roster planning by inter-duty constraints. Since inter-duty constraints relate how duties can be combined into a roster, it is desirable that some of these constraints be transposed into the duty planning phase, as additional constraints, to guarantee that the duties produced in the first phase are "rosterable" in the second phase. Both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Operations Research (OR) have addressed duty planning, but for very large scale problems, OR has been far more successful due to its global vision of the problem. This paper discusses the use of AI local search to improve an OR-based duty planning optimizer that uses additional constraints.


Abstract Nyholmite, Cd3Zn2(AsO3OH)2(AsO4)2·4H2O, from the Block 14 Opencut, Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, is a new Cd-Zn arsenate species, isostructural with the minerals of the hureaulite group. The mineral occurs in a quartz-garnet-arsenopyrite matrix as white globules, tufted aggregates of fibrous crystals and radiating hemispheres of thin, colourless, bladed crystals. Associated minerals are goldquarryite, lavendulan-sampleite, scorodite-strengite and gypsum. Individual crystals are up to 0.2 mm in length and 0.05 mm across. The mineral is transparent to translucent with a vitreous lustre. It is brittle with an uneven fracture and a white streak. The Mohs hardness is 3-3.5 and the calculated density is 4.23 g cm−3 for the empirical formula. Electron microprobe analyses yielded CdO 34.58, ZnO 9.72, MnO 3.59, CuO 3.39, Al2O3 0.20, CaO 0.16, PbO 0.37, As2O5 34.55, P2O56.29 totalling 92.85 wt.%. The empirical formula, based on 20 oxygen atoms, is Ca0.03Pb0.02 Cd2.80Al0.04Zn1.24-Cu0.44Mn0.53[(AsO4)3.13(PO4)0.92]Σ4.05H1.91·3.79H2O. Nyholmite is monoclinic, C2/c, a = 18.062(4) Å, b = 9.341(2) Å,c = 9.844(2) Å, β = 96.17(3)°, V = 1651.2(6) Å3 (single-crystal data, at 123 K). The six strongest lines in the X-ray powder diffraction pattern are [d(Å),I,(hkl)]: 8.985,30,(200); 8.283, 85,(110); 6.169,25,(111); 4.878,25,(002); 3.234,100,(22̅2̅, 420); 3.079,65,(222, 511); 2.976,45,(113). The crystal structure was solved by Patterson methods and refined using 2045 observed reflections to R1(F) = 3.73%. The structure is characterized by a kinked, five-membered chain of edge-sharing Mϕ6 (ϕ = unspecified anion) octahedra, or pentamer, that extends in the adirection. The pentamers link by sharing corners to form a sheet in the (001) plane. Pentamers are also linked,via corner-sharing, by (As,P)O4 groups forming thick slabs in the (001) plane. The slabs link in the c direction by cornersharing between octahedra and tetrahedra to form a dense heteropolyhedral framework. Moderate to weak hydrogen-bonding provides additional linkage between the slabs.


"Blind expertise" has been proposed as an institutional solution to the problem of bias in expert witness testimony in litigation (Robertson ). At the request of a litigant, an intermediary selects a qualified expert and pays the expert to review a case without knowing which side requested the opinion. This article reports an experiment that tests the hypothesis that, compared to traditional experts, such "blinded experts" will be more persuasive to jurors. A national sample of mock jurors (N = 275) watched an online video of a staged medical malpractice trial, including testimony from two medical experts, one of whom (or neither, in the control condition) was randomly assigned to be a blind expert. We also manipulated whether the judge provided a special jury instruction explaining the blinding concept. Descriptively, the data suggest juror reluctance to impose liability. Despite an experimental design that included negligent medical care, only 46 percent of the jurors found negligence in the control condition, which represents the status quo. Blind experts, testifying on either side, were perceived as significantly more credible, and were more highly persuasive, in that they doubled (or halved) the odds of a favorable verdict, and increased (or decreased) simulated damages awards by over $100,000. The increased damages award appears to be due to jurors hedging their damages awards, which interacted with the blind expert as a driver of certainty. Use of a blind expert may be a rational strategy for litigants, even without judicial intervention in the form of special jury instructions or otherwise.


This paper investigates the network as a site for music performance; in particular, the net's performative conditions with the tightly linked notion of community are exposed through the medium of music as an intrinsic social practice. The paper provides a brief cultural overview of the development of the network metaphor before problematizing perspectival views of the network. By reflecting on the development of social web environments and its fragmentary nature, the authors examine the scattered viewpoints that characterize the network. The authors question the idealized view of an all-connectedness and position the human body as an interrupter of the network. In this line of thinking, the idealized models of connectivity and communication of the network become questioned. Instead, the authors look toward music performance and propose a re-thinking of this communication model and argue for a framework that, contrary to the often holistic approach to performing in the net, favors glances, fragments and desires.


Alison Bechdel's renown has been building since the success of Fun Home (2006). While scholars have focused on her contemporary production, her comics work within grassroots periodicals, including her long-running strip, Dykes to Watch Out For (1983–2008), has received comparatively little attention. By focusing on the grassroots context of DTWOF, this essay demonstrates how Bechdel's participation in grassroots periodicals shaped her work. Through the development of new reading practices and the notion of queer comics archives, I show how queer communities influenced Bechdel's visual rhetoric in the pages of WomaNews, the grassroots periodical where Bechdel first published her work and participated as a member of the collective. Informed by archival research, this analysis embraces grassroots contexts as an overlooked venue for exploring queer histories and tracing the development of queer comics.


With cycling on the rise in many U.S. cities, it is important to consider how other travel modes—especially transit—interact with bicycling. Some transportation experts worry that new bicycle trips substitute more for travel by transit than for travel by automobile; however, bicycling and transit may be more complementary than supplementary. Most research on these connections focuses on multimodal integration: cycling to, on, or from transit. This body of knowledge misses another key component of bicycle—transit synergy: potential long-term complementarity made possible by short-term substitution. A solid transit system provides options and security for bicycle riders to optimize daily mode choices; shifting some peak passenger loads to cycling may make transit service more reliable and entice new users. This study investigated those unexplored synergistic relationships between bicycling and transit use. Exploratory analyses were performed at two scales. First, changes in bicycle commuting in large U.S. urbanized areas between 2000 and 2010 were related to transit levels. Second, logistic regression models used data from a household travel survey in Portland, Oregon, to estimate how transit use affected the odds of cycling by households and individuals and on trips. Results generally supported the research hypotheses: transit and cycling were short-term mode substitutes, but might be long-term complements. Increases in urban area bicycle commuting were positively associated with transit ridership. Although cycling individuals were more likely to live in transit-using households, residing in such a household decreased one's odds of cycling. More research is needed to examine causality and the policy implications of bicycle-transit synergy.


This article examines the dynamics of centralization and decentralization of Usenet newsgroups. In doing so, it considers the similarities and differences between the organization of Usenet and the design principles for other self-organizing and self-governing common-pool resource (CPR) institutions. The rise and fall of the Backbone Cabal and the birth of the "alt" hierarchy provides insight into the early conflicts between the centralizing and decentralizing processes of Usenet. Today's procedures for group creation in the big eight hierarchies and in "alt" hierarchy and the Usenet death penalty (UDP) show that earlier tensions are still extant.


While issues in estimating nonmarket values continue to cause concern, resource economists have more reason now than ever before to be optimistic. More progress toward improved measurement has been made in the past six years than in the previous quarter century since development of the contingent valuation and travel cost methods. The new challenge is to learn how to adjust past studies to estimate nonmarket values for future policy analysis. The process involves developing an understanding of the important variables that explain the observed difference in estimates. This paper illustrates how the results thus far could be adjusted to develop some tentative estimates of the recreation-use value of Forest Service resources.


RF MEMS switches provide a low-cost, high performance solution to many RF/microwave applications and these switches will be important building blocks for designing phase shifters, switched filters and reflector array antennas for military and commercial markets. In this paper, progress in characterizing of THALES capacitive MEMS devices under high RF power is presented. The design, fabrication and testing of capacitive RF MEMS switches for microwave/mm- wave applications on high-resistivity silicon substrate is presented. The switches tested demonstrated power handling capabilities of 1W (30 dbm) for continuous RF power. The reliability of these switches was tested at various power levels indicating that under continuous RF power. In addition a description of the power failures and their associated operating conditions is presented. The PC-based test stations to cycle switches and measure lifetime under DC and RF loads have been developed. Best-case lifetimes of 1010 cycles have been achieved in several switches from different lots under 30 dbm RF power.


Several design problems are faced during the designing process of systems. Many of these problems are faced several times throughout the work of designers and programmers during the design and development stage of different systems. Through their work, experts can notice similarities between different design problems contexts and reuse the same previous designed solutions each time. They can notice similarities between different problems contexts because they have the experience to do so. Unfortunately, novices in design cannot recognize these similarities to benefit from using previous solutions to solve their current problem(s). Design patterns are one of the ways to encapsulate the experience of experts as they are considered to be design solutions for recurrent design problems. To use design patterns in solving design problems, a designers should have the experience to discover and recognize the applicability of a specific design pattern that is suitable to solve a specific design problem. This experience is not available to novices in the design and programming fields. Reading documentations of the design patterns from their catalogues is almost the only way that could be followed by novices to take the advantages of applying design patterns solutions to their design problems. This paper investigates the involvement of a rule-based system to assist novices in exploring their design problems. The developed system operates by the dependence on asking the user some questions through which the system can notice the similarities between the current problem and one of the previously solved problems using design patterns. As a result, the developed system, by answering the questions, can recognize a specific suitable design pattern to solve a specific design problem. Throughout the paper, ten design patterns are selected as a representative sample to conduct the investigation.


Linear Threshold Boolean units (LTUs) are the basic processing components of artiicial neural networks of Boolean activations. Quantization of their parameters is a central question in hardware implementation, when numerical technologies are used to store the connguration of the circuit. In the previous studies on the circuit complexity of feedforward neural networks, no diierences had been made between a network with \small" integer weights and one composed of majority units (LTUs with weights in ff1; 0; +1g), since any connection of weight w (w integer) can be simulated by jwj connections of value sgn(w). This paper will focus on the circuit complexity of democratic networks, i.e. circuits of majority units with at most one connection between each pair of units. The main results presented are the following: any Boolean function can be computed by a depth-3 non-degenerate democratic network and can be expressed as a linear threshold function of majorities; AT-LEAST-k and AT-MOST-k are computable by a depth-2, polynomial size democratic network; the smallest sizes of depth-2 circuits computing PARITY are identical for a democratic network and for a usual network; the VC-dimension of the class of the majority functions is n + 1, i.e. equal to that of the class of any linear threshold functions.