Frequency assignments in the CsBr spectral region (65 0 to 28 5 cm−1) have been made from the spectra of 279 benzene derivatives The Raman spectra of 119 of these compounds were also used as aids in making the assignments. The assigned frequencies include several benzene-like ring-deformations and some vibrations that are either internal vibrations of the substituent group or involve the ring-substituent bond. A variation in frequency with symmetry or substitution type (ortho, meta, para, etc.) was found for the ring-deformations. Within a given substitution type certain of the ring-deformation vibrations were found to be sensitive to substituent effects The assigned frequencies involving the substituent group can be classified as characteristic frequencies of benzene compounds with a particular substituent


Analysing attractiveness of places in a region is beneficial to support urban planning and policy making. However, the attractiveness of a place is a subjective and high-level concept which is difficult to quantify. The existing methods rely on traditional surveys which may require high cost and have low scalability. This thesis attempts to quantify attractiveness of a place in a more efficient way and develop a model which can automatically predict attractiveness based on Street-View data (i.e. from Google Street View). As a study case, 800 Google Street View images from 200 locations in Amsterdam have been extracted, and their attractiveness perceptions have been evaluated via crowd-sourcing to get the ground-truth information. The other attributes which are presumed to have a relationship with attractiveness are also assessed, such as familiarity, uniqueness, friendliness, pleasure, arousal, and dominance. The research and analysis revealed several insights related to the attractiveness of places. Attractive perception when seeing a place is positively correlated with perception of uniqueness, friendliness, pleasure, and dominance. Moreover, pleasure is possibly multi-collinear with attractiveness. It was also found that attractiveness perception has low spatial auto-correlation, which means that nearby places do not necessarily have similar attractiveness. Some visual features related to attractiveness were also investigated. The result indicated that scenes related to roads and residential buildings are less attractive, meanwhile, scenes related to greenery, blue sky, and water environment are more attractive. A Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model has been developed via machine learning approach which could automatically predict attractiveness perception of a place based on its representing Google Street View image. The developed model achieved 55.9% accuracy and RMSE of 0.70 to predict attractiveness in 5 ordinal values.


The interaction between endocrine and exocrine pancreas has not been properly and thoroughly investigated especially during diabetic conditions. This study was designed to investigate the interaction of the islet hormone insulin with the
cholinergic neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh) and the gut hormone cholecystokinin-octapeptide (CCK-8), measuring the amylase output, intracellular free calcium concentration ([Ca2i), intracellular free magnesium concentration ([Mg2 ]) and pancreatic juice secretion in the isolated pancreatic segments and the anaesthetised rat preparations of diabetic and age-matched control rats. Alter 6-8 weeks of diabetes induction, diabetic rats in all the experimental groups weighed significantly (pc0.05) less (236.88 ± 7.2 g) compared to age-matched controls (388.68 ± 30.8 g). Similarly, blood glucose levels were significantly (pc0.05) higher (>>500 mg dF') in diabetic rats compared to age-matched controls (92.67 ± 2.41 mg
Basal values for pancreatic juice flow, [Ca 2 ']1, and [Mg2 ] in diabetic pancreas were 0.45 ± 0.046 p1 mm 4 , 53.8 ± 11.5 nM, 1.07 ± 0.023 mlvi, respectively. Basal values for pancreatic juice flow, [Ca 2 ]; and [Mg2 ']1 in age-matched controls were 0.65 ± 0.021 p1 min', 76.8 ± 0.85 nM and 1.21 ± 0.026 mM, respectively. Stimulation of isolated pancreatic segments from normal and diabetic rats with different concentrations of either ACh or CCK-8 resulted in marked increases of amylase
output. The effects of the secretagogues were less pronounced on the pancreatic segments from diabetic animals compared to age-matched controls. Amylase output in the presence of either 10 5M ACh or 10 8M CCK-8 from control healthy animals
was 10.75 ± 0.82 U mI 1 (100 mg oftissue' and 25.6 ± 2.5 U ml' (100 mg oftissue, respectively. The effects of the two secretagogues were less pronounced in pancreatic segments taken from diabetic animals when compared to age-matched control animals. Amylase output in the presence of 10 5M ACh and 10 8M CCK-8 from diabetic segments was 8.25 ± 0.76 U mY' (100 mg of tissue) -' and 17.1 ± 1.9 U mY' (100 mg of tissue)- ', respectively. Combining the islet hormone insulin with
either ACh or CCK-8 resulted in marked potentiation of secretagogues-evoked pancreatic amylase output in healthy animals but not in the diabetic rats. Typically, the ACh (1 0 5M) and CCK-8 (1 0 8M)-evoked amylase secretion in the presence of 10
6M insulin in normal and diabetic rats was 19.7 ± 3.4 U mY' (100 mg of tissue', 36.3 ± 4.1 U mY' (100mg oftissue' and 8.1 ± 0.53 U mY' (100mg of tissue) 4 , 13.2 ± 1.7 U mY' (100 mg of tissue) 1 , respectively.
Stimulation of fijra-2-AM loaded acinar cells with CCK-8 resulted in marked increases in peak [Ca2 ]a in both control (517.4 ± 12.09 nM) and diabetic rats (582 ± 16.05 nM) . The Ca2 transient composed of an initial peak followed by a plateau phase. The effects of CCK-8 in the plateau phase of the Ca 2 transient was reduced in diabetic acinar cells compared to age-matched control acinar cells. CCK-8 evoked a marked decrease in [Mg 2 ]1 in Magfura-2-AJvI loaded acinar cells of normal (0.72 ± 0.22 mM) and diabetic rats (0.61 ± 0.15 m M). The decrease in [Mg2 +] i was larger in diabetic acinar cells compared to age-matched control cells. Intravenous infusion of CCK-8 resulted in marked increases of pancreatic juice flow in both diabetic and agematched control anaesthetised rats. Typically the CCK-8 evoked plateau phase in control and diabetic acinar cells was 065 ± 0.054 mM and 0.59 ± 0.036 mM, respectively. The CCK-8 evoked pancreatic juice flow was significantly (p<0.05) reduced in diabetic rats compared to age matched controls. Typically, CCK-8 evoked pancreatic juice flow during the first 40 min of infusion was 1.25 ± 0.063 p1 min 1 and 0.97 ± 0.071 p1 min i , in normal and diabetic rats, respectively. The results suggest that diabetes mellitus is associated with decreased pancreatic amylase output and juice flow. This reduction in pancreatic secretion may be associated with changes in cellular Ca2 and Mg2 transport in diabetic pancreatic acinar cells.


The success of biofuel production in Brazil (bioethanol in particular) is recognised as a tangible point of collaboration in the India–Brazil– South Africa (IBSA) Forum. Sharing knowledge and systematic technology transfer on biofuels can strengthen co-operation among IBSA countries. But opportunities and pitfalls need to be assessed more rigorously to establish a feasible strategy for collaboration and development co-operation in Africa. Priorities and interests differ between countries, and these tend to infl uence perceptions about biofuel. Historical differences on biofuel and energy between Brazil and South Africa raise a number of questions about effective technology transfer. While biofuels may be a long-term energy solution for South Africa, and a way forward against climate change, gains from co-operation will depend on the country's capacity to elucidate its own strategy, defi ne priorities and develop institutions and policies equipped to manage biofuel development. Concerns about food security, social development and land reform tend to cross-cut the debate on energy and climate change at present.


Through the ages land has always been a contentious issue. Even from the earliest Roman times those in power interfered with land ownership. In ancient times restrictions were placed, for example, on excessive luxury, whereas in the time of Justinian land tax was raised and unused land confiscated by the state. In the feudal era feudal lords disregarded their vassals and neglected their land in pursuit of their own pleasure. In England pastoralists were forced to become agriculturalists. Each country and each century have their own stories to tell.
South Africa is no exception. Land ownership is an emotional issue, especially in the context of its apartheid legacy. Land reform and stories of success and dismal failure have added a further dimension to the issue. Within this context the history of communal land tenure in South Africa and its unique story also has to be told.
According to Letsoalo, the concept of "communal land tenure" had been misunderstood during the centuries, and legislative interference has corrupted this notion even further. Some described communal land tenure as land belonging to the community with a traditional leader as trustee of the land, while others define it as land belonging to a traditional leader who could allocate land - sometimes referred to as "chiefly tenure"; or regard it as akin to feudalism.
With regard to the traditional concept of "communal land tenure", Letsoalo remarks that the traditional leader is seen as the ruler of the people and therefore also as the ruler of the land. He does not make decisions on his own but in consultation with the traditional council. On his marriage, a husband is allocated land for residential and agricultural purposes; he then owns the land "because the link between the land and the individual tribesman was stronger than the link between the land and the chief". Widows may also be allocated land. Unallocated land was used for grazing. However, there is also another form of communal land tenure that is sometimes overlooked, namely that of the pastoralists of the Northern Cape, a form recognised in the decision in Alexkor Limited v The Richtersveld Community and Others.
There are many versions of South Africa's land history and many perspectives to these histories. It is impossible to relate this history in full, even if one focuses only on the reform of land tenure. This contribution concerns communal land tenure in South Africa and the different stages of development it has undergone since colonial times. It does not pretend to be an exact history, but will provide a very brief overview of the story of the legislative interference with communal land tenure. It will do so in support of Thomas' premise that legal history was written yesterday, is still being written today, and will be written tomorrow. The contribution consists of two main parts, namely the developments that preceded the new political dispensation in 1994, followed by the occurrences after 1994 as embodied in the tenure reform programme within the communal land context.


The concept of parallel processing is not a new one, but the application of it to control engineering tasks is a relatively recent development, made possible by contemporary hardware and software innovation. It has long been accepted that, if properly orchestrated several processors/CPUs when combined can form a powerful processing entity. What prevented this from being implemented in commercial systems was the adequacy of the microprocessor for most tasks and hence the expense of a multi-processor system was not justified. With the advent of high demand systems, such as highly fault tolerant flight controllers and fast robotic controllers, parallel processing became a viable option.

Nonetheless, the software interfacing of control laws onto parallel systems has remained somewhat of an impasse. There are no software compilers at present which allow a programmer to specify a control law in pure mathematical terminology and then decompose it into a flow diagram of concurrent processes which may then be implemented on, say, a target Transputer system, liiere are several parallel programming languages with which a programmer can generate parallel processes but, generally, in order to realise a control algorithm in parallel the programmer must have intimate knowledge of the algorithm. Therefore, efficiency is based on the ability of the programmer to recognise inherent parellelism. Some attempts are being made to create intelligent partition and scheduling compilers but this usually means significantly extra overheads on the multiprocessor system. In the absence of an automated technique control algorithms must be decomposed by inspection.

The research presented in this thesis is founded upon the application of both parallel and pipelining techniques to particular control strategies. Parallelism is tackled objectively and by creating a tailored terminology it is defined mathematically, and consequently related concepts, such as bounded parallelism and algorithm speedup, are also quantified in a numerical sense. A pipelined explicit Self Tuning Regulator (STR) controller is developed and tested on systems of different order. Under the governance of the parallelism terminology the effectiveness of the parallel STR is evaluated and numerically quantified in terms of relevant performance indices.

A parallel simulator is presented for the Puma 560 robotic manipulator. By exploiting parallelism and pipelinability in the robot model a significant increase in execution speed is achieved over the sequential model. The use of Transputers is examined and graphical results obtained for several performance indices, including speedup, processor efficiency and bounded parallelism. By the same analytical technique a parallel computed torque feedforward controller incorporating proportional derivative feedback control for the Puma 560 manipulator is developed and appraised. The performance of a Transputer system in hosting the controller is graphically analysed and as in the case of the parallel simulator the more important performance indices are examined under both optimal conditions and conditions of varying hardware constraints.


Among the food crops, wheat is one of the most abundant sources of energy for the world population. Among wheat rusts, leaf rust is a major threat to wheat production. Present investigations were undertaken to examine the field response for assessing slow rusting to leaf rust (Puccinia recondita) of adult plant under field conditions in spring wheat genotypes. The studies were composed of four parts that are described briefly as below.

Fifteen wheat varieties (slow rusting and fast rusting) were evaluated for response of slow rusting to leaf rust epidemic in replicated trials (normal and late planting) for two years under artificially created leaf rust epidemics with and without fungicide protection. Data were recorded on grain yield, plant height, number of spikes, grains per spike, grain weight, grain fill rate and leaf rust. The yield was compared by area under disease progress curve as predictor of losses in yield. The wheat varieties named Inqilab-91, Iqbal-2000 and Parula were resistant to slow rusting group, Auqab-2000, Chenab-2000, Parwaz-94, Pavon-76, MH-97 and LU-26 proved to be slow rusting while, the other varieties Punjab-76, SA-42, Chenab-70 and WL-711 were found fast rusting varieties. Two varieties Punjab-96 and Pak-81 were classified intermediate (slow) rusting. Average loss in grain yields of the wheat cultivars ranged from 1.81 to 46.31 % that was significantly correlated with the grain weight loss ranged from 0.54 to 58.23 %. Average loss in grain number per spike ranged from 1.06 to 20.39 % and slight reduction was observed in spikes/m2 and plant height under rusted conditions. Negative phenotypic correlations of grain yield, spikes/m2, number of grains per spike, 1000-grain weight and grain fill rate were found with relative area under disease progress curve (RAUDPC), final disease severity and yield loss in leaf rust epidemic conditions. Average annual genetic progress in grain yield potential achieved through breeding averaged over four trials was computed to be 0.86% (R2= 0.682) for protected and 2.23% (R2= 0.787) for rusted conditions.

F1 diallel crosses were developed from eight susceptible vs. resistant wheat varieties in all possible combinations and the diallel analysis was performed to study gene action for yield, leaf rust and other traits. Highly significant additive and dominance affects with directional dominance effects, asymmetrical gene distribution and important role of specific genes were indicated for all the traits except harvest index where directional dominance effects were absent. Maternal and reciprocal effects were non-significant. Plant height, leaf rust incidence, days to heading, days to maturity, days between heading and maturity, spikelets per spike, peduncle length and protein content were controlled by additive with partial dominance. Harvest index was controlled by complete dominance whereas over dominance gene action predominated for other traits. Gene action was simple with absence of non-allelic gene interaction for all traits. The maximum dominant genes possessed by varieties were MH97, Nacozari, Crow, Parula and Inqilab91 and Chenab70 and SA42 displayed maximum recessive genes for leaf rust incidence.

Significant and positive heterosis and hetrobeltiosis were observed for all traits studied except heterobeltiosis in traits like days to maturity and spikelets per spike. Greater than half of 56 F1 crosses showed significant positive heterosis in plant height, days to heading, tillers per plant, grains per spike, spike length, 100 grain weight, grain yield per plant, straw yield per plant and biological yield per plant, while heterobeltiosis was estimated in more than half crosses out of 56 F1 crosses in leaf rust (AUDPC), tillers per plant, grains per spike, spike length, grain yield per plant, straw yield per plant and biological yield per plant. Maximum heterotic effects were manifested as 61.19, 30.67, 29.95, 51.89, 126.64, 123.14, 111.71 and 45.91 tillers per plant, grains per spike, spike length, 100 grain weight, grain yield per plant, straw yield, biological yield and harvest index from crosses; MH 97x Crow, Parula x Chenab 70, MH 97x SA 42, Crow x Chenab 70, SA 42 x Nacozari, MH 97 x SA 42, MH 97x SA 42 and Nacozari x Chenab 70, respectively. While, heterosis for leaf rust (AUDPC) ranged from -1.96 to -99.00. Positive association of leaf rust (AUDPC) was determined with plant height and days from heading to maturity but negative correlation were estimated with days to heading, days to maturity, grain yield, straw yield and biological yield. Thus in rusted conditions, leaf rust epidemic associated the yield reduction, reduced fertile tillers, lower grain weight, lower biological yield, lower straw yield, and lower harvest index in early heading and early maturing genotypes.

Genetics of field resistance to leaf rust was studied using three crosses of susceptible vs. resistant wheat varieties derived from a diallel cross. From each cross, developed six generations (P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1 and BC2) were grown in the field conditions and artificially inoculated with isolates of mixture of prevalent races to leaf rust. Leaf rust intensity and reaction type were observed and coefficient of infection was computed from six populations. Generation means analysis showed that additive, dominance and interactions prevailed in the inheritance of leaf rust. However, generation variance analysis indicated the absence of interactions. Narrow sense heritability estimates were low to leaf rust resistance.

For the study of genetic control for slow rust resistance to leaf rust, population of 200 F6 and 40 doubled haploids were developed from each of three crosses involving one fast rusting; SA42 and three slow rusting; Inqilab91, MH97 and Parula wheat varieties. Parents and progenies were planted in two replications in the field under artificial epidemic leaf rust to find out number of genes for slow rusting to leaf rust using method described by Wright (1968) and confirmed the results with frequency distribution. Highest broad sense heritability (99%) was estimated. Two to three numbers of genes were estimated for controlling slow rusting to leaf rust depending on the parents used in the cross. Association of slow rusting with plant height and days to heading was negative and positive correlation with grain filling period was found in the present material studied.

The resultant desirable wheat lines developed would be exploited as resistant germplasm for leaf rust.


We describe the use of the Wikitology knowledge base as a resource for a variety of applications with special focus on a cross-document entity coreference resolution task. This task involves recognizing when entities and relations mentioned in different documents refer to the same object or relation in the world. Wikitology is a knowledge base system constructed with material from Wikipedia, DBpedia and Freebase that includes both unstructured text and semi-structured information. Wikitology was used to define features that were part of a system implemented by the Johns Hopkins University Human Language Technology Center of Excellence for the 2008 Automatic Content Extraction cross-document coreference resolution evaluation organized by National Institute of Standards and Technology.


Although millions of users download and use third-party Android applications from the Google Play store, little information is known on an aggregated level about these applications. We have built PlayDrone, the first scalable Google Play store crawler, and used it to index and analyze over 1,100,000 applications in the Google Play store on a daily basis, the largest such index of Android applications. PlayDrone leverages various hacking techniques to circumvent Google's roadblocks for indexing Google Play store content, and makes proprietary application sources available, including source code for over 880,000 free applications. We demonstrate the usefulness of PlayDrone in decompiling and analyzing application content by exploring four previously unaddressed issues: the characterization of Google Play application content at large scale and its evolution over time, library usage in applications and its impact on application portability, duplicative application content in Google Play, and the ineffectiveness of OAuth and related service authentication mechanisms resulting in malicious users being able to easily gain unauthorized access to user data and resources on Amazon Web Services and Facebook.


In the Brevia "Open access and global participation in science" (20 February, p. [1025][1]), J. A. Evans and J. Reimer argue that a research article published online is only modestly (8%) more likely to be cited if it is freely available. This result would seem to cast doubt on one important argument in favor of free access—that it will increase the visibility of a paper to colleagues.

However, the 8% statistic that Evans and Reimer highlight is misleading. The authors' supporting online material (figure S1C) clearly shows that the impact of free access on citations is heavily dependent on the age of the article at the time free access was provided. In particular, when articles were made freely available within 2 years of publication, their citations increased by almost 20%.

This far more dramatic effect is the one scientists and journals should consider when deciding when to provide free access. If this decision is to be made purely on the basis of citation impact, the upward trend of the curve in figure S1C argues strongly in favor of minimal delays.

Unfortunately, it is hard to tell exactly how short a delay the data support, because the underlying citation information is not provided. That the raw data for such a provocative paper is unavailable is an astonishing violation of the norms of science, and the explicitly stated publication policies of Science .

 [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1154562


The virtuous Roman matron Lucretia killed herself in 509 b. C. Her death is considered the cause of the Roman revolt against the Tarquins and the mainspring of the passage from the monarchic to the republican age. It is a myth about private and public dimensions: it tells about woman and revolution. Its themes, permanent features and variations are infinite. The metamorphoses of Lucretia are innumerable. Nonetheless, she has always preserved her essence and profound meaning, thus confirming her strength and her being a true myth. Lucretia has crossed the centuries, she has been told, painted and sung by artists from 509 b. C. until today. She reached the Eighteenth Century, Italy, Great Britain and Germany and she met three great authors: Carlo Goldoni, Samuel Richardson and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. They chose her and decided to tell her story, each in his own peculiar manner. Goldoni wrote a dramma giocoso in musica, Lugrezia Romana in Costantinopoli, Richardson a novel, Clarissa or the History of a Young Lady and Lessing a burgerliches Trauerspiel entitled Emilia Galotti. One myth, three authors, three different literary genres: this work would like to investigate and verify the connection among them and the meaning of it. The comparative analysis of the metamorphoses of Lucretia will disclose new concepts of private and public, of woman and revolution, sprung from an old but perpetual reviving myth.


We examined species density gradients of ants of New England in 22 om- brotrophic bogs and their surrounding forests. We tested the hypothesis that species density was correlated with large-scale geographic variables (latitude, longitude, elevation) and small-scale site variables (habitat area, vegetation composition, light availability). Species density was consistently higher in forests than in bogs. Ant species density measured in three other New World studies yielded similar results, with steeper diversity slopes in closed canopy vs. open habitats. In New England bogs and forests, latitude was the single most important predictor of species density, even though the latitudinal span of the entire study region was less than three degrees. Diversity patterns documented in our study of mid- latitude ant communities are similar to those seen in studies spanning tropical and temperate habitats. Species density of forest ants was associated strongly with latitude, elevation, light availability, and vegetation composition. Species density of bog ants was less pre- dictable and was correlated only with latitude and vegetation. Overall, our results suggest that species-energy relationships are important at regional spatial scales. Explanations for the latitudinal gradient in ant species density may not depend on unique differences between tropical and temperate communities, but could operate at all latitudes.


Computer vision based technologies have seen widespread adoption over the recent years. This use is not limited to the rapid adoption of facial recognition technology but extends to facial expression recognition, scene recognition and more. These developments raise privacy concerns and call for novel solutions to ensure adequate user awareness, and ideally, control over the resulting collection and use of potentially sensitive data. While cameras have become ubiquitous, most of the time users are not even aware of their presence. In this paper we introduce a novel distributed privacy infrastructure for the Internet-of-Things and discuss in particular how it can help enhance user's awareness of and control over the collection and use of video data about them. The infrastructure, which has undergone early deployment and evaluation on two campuses, supports the automated discovery of IoT resources and the selective notification of users. This includes the presence of computer vision applications that collect data about users. In particular, we describe an implementation of functionality that helps users discover nearby cameras and choose whether or not they want their faces to be denatured in the video streams.


The evolution of renewable energy technologies and the rapid growth in renewable energy facilities are giving rise to a growing number of actual and potential conflicts. This paper explores one particular area of conflict: the access to the resource itself. While conflicts over rights to wind, water or the sun are not without historic precedent, past case law has limited legal relevance in the new era of renewable energy. This paper explores how the development of new technologies, combined with existing governance systems for spatial planning and the management of protected areas, are creating conditions that can lead to scarcity of access to high-yield locations, and thus to resource conflicts over access to the energy flux in solar radiation or the movements of water and air. In Germany, where wind farm zones are strictly controlled, there have already been several lawsuits between different wind farm developers over access rights to the wind. These conflicts highlight the need to develop a governance regime that can strike a balance between the private benefit for developers who want to maximise the energy capture of their device, and the societal benefit of having a high total amount of energy capture. Given the likelihood of continued strong demand for renewable energy and the finite amount of land, sea and air space, we anticipate that these types of conflicts will grow, not only in number, but also in spatial scale, eventually spilling across international boundaries.


This study investigates the concept and assessment of housing affordability. Housing affordability is a multi-dimensional issue, yet it is typically assessed quite simply in terms of the financial burden of housing costs. The study frames the housing affordability problem as encompassing more than financial costs of housing and household ability to meet these costs, and extends to larger issues of social wellbeing and community sustainability. This thesis provides an original contribution to new knowledge by developing and applying a complex model for the assessment of sustainable housing affordability. The model is holistic and is capable of considering a broad spectrum of criteria determining housing affordability and the wellbeing of households, including economic, environmental and social aspects. Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques are innovatively applied for the analysis of sustainable housing affordability. The chosen methodology of MCDM allows a multidimensional analysis of both quantitative and qualitative criteria Influencing the affordability of housing and household wellbeing. The thesis presents the results of a case study assessment of 10 areas in Liverpool, UK as a practical example of the sustainable housing affordability assessment model. This allows the given areas to be ranked in respect of their sustainable housing affordability. The model can assist stakeholders, such as central governments, local authorities, developers and consumers, on both a national and international scale, in making comprehensive and informed decisions concerning affordability. The model provides a complex analysis of the criteria that influence the affordability of housing, beyond the financial implications experienced by households and better reflecting household wellbeing and sustain ability concerns. The tool could be utilised as a potential planning indicator for shaping local housing markets. The rankings derived from the model may be used as a locational decision aid and to support new housing development that will meet the needs of low and moderate income residents in ways that go beyond traditional notions of financial burden.


A sample of 890 people aged 65 years and over living at home in the Lewisham and North Southwark Health District was interviewed using a structured schedule containing CARE organic brain syndrome and depression scales, and items dealing with anxiety symptoms. Total prevalence rates were 4.6% for cognitive impairment, 13.5% for depression, 3.7% for generalised anxiety, and 10.0% for phobic disorders. Cognitive impairment increased exponentially with age, and was associated with lower occupational class. There was no significant association between occupational class and depression, generalised anxiety, or phobic disorder in this sample. Cognitive impairment, depression and agoraphobia were associated with significantly higher levels of dependency in the tasks of daily living.


INTRODUCTION Academic authors' confusion about copyright and publisher policy is often cited as a challenge to their effective sharing of their own published research, from having a chilling effect on selfarchiving in institutional and subject repositories, to leading to the posting of versions of articles on social networking sites in contravention of publisher policy and beyond. This study seeks to determine the extent to which authors understand the terms of these policies as expressed in publishers' copyright transfer agreements (CTAs), taking into account such factors as the authors' disciplines and publishing experience, as well as the wording and structure of these agreements. METHODS We distributed an online survey experiment to corresponding authors of academic research articles indexed in the Scopus database. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of two copyright transfer agreements and were subsequently asked to answer a series of questions about these agreements to determine their level of comprehension. The survey was sent to 3,154 participants, with 122 responding, representing a 4% response rate. Basic demographic information as well as information about participants' previous publishing experience was also collected. We analyzed the survey data using Ordinary Least Squared (OLS) regressions and probit regressions. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Participants demonstrated a low rate of understanding of the terms of the CTAs they were asked to read. Participants averaged a score of 33% on the survey, indicating a low comprehension level of author rights. This figure did not vary significantly, regardless of the respondents' discipline, time in academia, level of experience with publishing, or whether or not they had published previously with the publisher whose CTA they were administered. Results also indicated that participants did equally poorly on the survey regardless of which of the two CTAs they received. However, academic authors do appear to have a greater chance of understanding a CTA when a specific activity is explicitly outlined in the text of the agreement.


Electronic commerce (or e-commerce) can be defined as any transaction involving some exchange of value over a communication network. This broad definition includes: Business-to-business transactions, such as EDI (electronic data interchange); Customer-to-business transactions, such as online shops on the Web; Customer-to-customer transactions, such as transfer of value between electronic wallets; Customers/businesses-to-public administration transactions, such as filing of electronic tax returns. Business-to-business transactions are usually referred to as e-business, customer-to-bank transactions as e-banking, and transactions involving public administration as e-government. A communication network for e-commerce can be a private network (such as an interbank clearing network), an intranet, the Internet, or even a mobile telephone network. In this chapter, the focus is on customer-to-business transactions over the Internet and on the electronic payment systems that provide a secure way to exchange value between customers and businesses.


Though New Covenant Theology (NCT) has positive aspects such as an insistence on a biblically based theology, several aspects of the system are not so positive. For example, in pursuing a middle course between Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology, its theologians rely on a strained view of Dispensationalism and adopt an interpretive methodology called supersessionism. A noteworthy omission in NCT's listing of covenants is the Davidic. To a degree, NCT agrees with Dispensationalism on the Noahic and Abrahamic Covenants, but the system fails to grasp the thematic continuity of the OT covenants. Instead, NCT stresses discontinuity as the defining characteristic of a covenant because of the biblical contrast of the Old and New Covenants, and follows a redemption, fulfillment, and kingdom hermeneutic rather that a literal, normal, or plain hermeneutic. NCT and Dispensationalism agree on the centrality of the Abrahamic Covenant in the theology of the OT, but NCT sees one kind of fulfillment of that covenant's land prom ises in the days of Joshua. It understands the spiritual aspects of the Abrahamic Covenant as ultimately fulfilled in the Messiah and the possession of the promised land as ultimately fulfilled in a spiritual rest. The system holds that the gospel was not clearly revealed before the coming of Christ. The system takes the Old Covenant as fulfilling the physical parts of the Abrahamic Covenant and the New Covenant as fulfilling the spiritual parts. NCT holds that the Israelites redeemed from Egypt were physically redeemed, but not spiritually redeemed because the Mosaic Covenant was based on works. This leads to the strange position that OT sain ts were not saved until after the death and resurrection of Christ. NCT thinks tha t the Davidic Covenant was fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Christ and fails to allow for the NT teaching of a future kingdom . With all its positive features, NCT misses vital points featured in the OT covenants.


Based on recent findings in the literature, we developed a process-oriented conceptual model that integrates all three process groups of organic matter (OM) stabilization in soils namely (1) selective preservation of recalcitrant compounds, (2) spatial inaccessibility to decomposer organisms, and (3) interactions of OM with minerals and metal ions. The model concept relates the diverse stabilization mechanisms to active, intermediate, and passive pools. The formation of the passive pool is regarded as hierarchical structured co-action of various processes that are active under specific pedogenetic conditions.

To evaluate the model, we used data of pool sizes and turnover times of soil OM fractions from horizons of two acid forest and two agricultural soils. Selective preservation of recalcitrant compounds is relevant in the active pool and particularly in soil horizons with high C contents. Biogenic aggregation preserves OM in the intermediate pool and is limited to topsoil horizons. Spatial inaccessibility due to the occlusion of OM in clay microstructures and due to the formation of hydrophobic surfaces stabilizes OM in the passive pool. If present, charcoal contributes to the passive pool mainly in topsoil horizons. The importance of organo-mineral interactions for OM stabilization in the passive pool is well-known and increases with soil depth. Hydrophobicity is particularly relevant in acid soils and in soils with considerable inputs of charcoal. We conclude that the stabilization potentials of soils are site- and horizon-specific. Furthermore, management affects key stabilization mechanisms. Tillage increases the importance of organo-mineral interactions for OM stabilization, and in Ap horizons with high microbial activity and C turnover, organo-mineral interactions can contribute to OM stabilization in the intermediate pool. The application of our model showed that we need a better understanding of processes causing spatial inaccessibility of OM to decomposers in the passive pool.


Predictions of observable properties by density-functional theory calculations (DFT) are used increasingly often by experimental condensed-matter physicists and materials engineers as data. These predictions are used to analyze recent measurements, or to plan future experiments in a rational way. Increasingly more experimental scientists in these fields therefore face the natural question: what is the expected error for such a first-principles prediction? Information and experience about this question is implicitly available in the computational community, scattered over two decades of literature. The present review aims to summarize and quantify this implicit knowledge. This eventually leads to a practical protocol that allows any scientist—experimental or theoretical—to determine justifiable error estimates for many basic property predictions, without having to perform additional DFT calculations. A central role is played by a large and diverse test set of crystalline solids, containing all ground-state elemental crystals (except most lanthanides). For several properties of each crystal, the difference between DFT results and experimental values is assessed. We discuss trends in these deviations and review explanations suggested in the literature. A prerequisite for such an error analysis is that different implementations of the same first-principles formalism provide the same predictions. Therefore, the reproducibility of predictions across several mainstream methods and codes is discussed too. A quality factor Δ expresses the spread in predictions from two distinct DFT implementations by a single number. To compare the PAW method to the highly accurate APW+lo approach, a code assessment of VASP and GPAW (PAW) with respect to WIEN2k (APW+lo) yields Δ-values of 1.9 and 3.3 meV/atom, respectively. In both cases the PAW potentials recommended by the respective codes have been used. These differences are an order of magnitude smaller than the typical difference with experiment, and therefore predictions by APW+lo and PAW are for practical purposes identical.


Recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) is a common and distressing disorder. Chromosomal errors in the embryo are the single most common cause whereas uterine factors are invariably invoked to explain non-chromosomal miscarriages. These uterine factors are, however, poorly defined. The ability of a conceptus to implant in the endometrium is normally restricted to a few days in the menstrual cycle. A limited 'window of implantation' ensures coordinated embryonic and endometrial development, thereby minimizing the risk of late implantation of compromised embryos. In this thesis we investigate the emerging evidence indicating that RPL is associated with impaired differentiation of endometrial stromal cells into specialized decidual cells. From a functional perspective, this differentiation process, termed decidualization, is not only critical for placental development but also signals the end of the implantation window and bestows on the endometrium the ability to recognize, respond to and eliminate implanting compromised embryos. Thus, we propose that spontaneous decidualization of the human endometrium, which inevitably causes menstrual shedding in the absence of a viable conceptus, serves as functional "window for natural embryo selection". Conversely, impaired decidualization predisposes to late implantation, negates embryo quality control, and causes early placental failure, regardless of the embryonic karyotype. This pathological pathway also explains the common observation that many RPL patients seem exceptionally fertile, often conceiving within one or two cycles. Thus, as the clinical correlate of inappropriate uterine receptivity, 'superfertility' should be considered as a genuine reproductive disorder that requires targeted intervention.


Measurements of the concentration of particulate lead in the atmosphere have been made on and near the M4 motorway at Harlington. The motorway here is very heavily trafficked, with approximately 70000 petrol-engine vehicles per day. Measurements of the concentration of atmospheric lead have also been made inside a vehicle using this stretch of road and of the concentration of lead in surface soils near the motorway. The average lead levels found in the centre of the motorway in dry weather in the autumn of 1972 were 20.6U g/m3 for the period 0700 to 1900 hours and 15.1U g/m3 for the 24 hour period on weekdays. The driver of a vehicle was found to be exposed to three-quarters of the lead levels found in the motorway atmosphere. Lead in the atmosphere and in the surface soil fall off rapidly with distance from the motorway. The medical effects of these pollutant levels are not discussed in this report. /Author/TRRL/


Totten Glacier drains at least 3.5 meters of eustatic sea level potential from marine-based ice in the Aurora Subglacial
Basin (ASB) in East Antarctica, more than the combined total of all glaciers in West Antarctica. Totten
Glacier has been the most rapidly thinning glacier in East Antarctica since satellite altimetry time series began
and the nature of the thinning suggests that it is driven by enhanced basal melting due to ocean processes. While
grounded ice thinning rates have been steady, recent work has shown that Totten's floating ice shelf may not have
the same thinning behavior; as a result, it is critical to observe ice shelf and cavity boundary conditions and basal
processes to understand this apparent discrepancy. Warm Modified Circumpolar Deep Water (MCDW), which has
been linked to glacier retreat in West Antarctica, has been observed in summer and winter on the nearby Sabrina
Coast continental shelf and deep depressions in the seafloor provide access for MCDW to reach the ice shelf cavity.
Given its northern latitude, numerical ice sheet modeling indicates that Totten Glacier may be prone to retreat
caused by hydrofracture in a warming climate, so it is important to understand how intruding MCDW is affecting
thinning of Totten Glacier's ice shelf. Here we use post-processed, focused airborne radar observations of the Totten
Glacier Ice Shelf to delineate multi-km wide basal channels and flat basal terraces associated with high basal
reflectivity and specularity (flatness) anomalies and correspondingly large ice surface depressions that indicate
active basal melting. Using a simple temperature-attenuation model, and basal roughness corrections, we present
basal melt rates associated with the radar reflection and specularity anomalies and compare them to those derived
from numerical ocean circulation modeling and an ice flow divergence calculation. Sub-ice shelf ocean circulation
modeling and under-ice robotic observations of Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf in West Antarctica and the Petermann
Glacier Ice Shelf in Greenland have shown that basal terraces associated with large basal channels are an indication
of rapidly melting ice shelves. In this context, these new results identify an East Antarctic example of rapid basal
melting processes and demonstrate that airborne radar can be used to identify basal characteristics and processes
relevant to ice shelf stability.


The provision of pro bono activities for law students has become an established feature of the undergraduate legal education landscape in Law Schools in the United Kingdom ("UK") and beyond, providing the experiential elements of clinical legal education programmes. Pro bono activities conducted online, or utilising and enhanced by technologies in other ways (for example, through the development of a mobile phone application providing legal guidance), are increasingly becoming a part of this offering, reflecting wider shifts within legal practice and society and an increasing recognition of the importance of digital literacy skills. This paper will situate these forms of online and technologically-enhanced pro bono activities both within the wider context of contemporary clinical legal education and also as a part of broader professional and societal shifts. It will explore a variety of innovative approaches being taken internationally, including work done by The Open University's Open Justice Centre in the UK, before moving on to focus on a number of key challenges and opportunities which may arise through the increasing provision of these new forms of pro bono activities by Law Schools. These include the potential and pitfalls of the technology involved, issues with confidentiality (particularly in the context of online legal advice) and the issue of how to foster trust in the online environment. The paper will conclude with a number of suggestions for areas requiring further research and discussion to enable contemporary clinicians to fully utilise the potential of online and technologically-enhanced pro bono activities.


A network of tubular lysosomes extends through the cytoplasm of J774.2 macrophages and phorbol ester-treated mouse peritoneal macrophages. The presence of this network is dependent upon the integrity of cytoplasmic microtubules and correlates with high cellular rates of accumulation of Lucifer Yellow (LY), a marker of fluid phase pinocytosis. We tested the hypothesis that the efficiency of LY transfer between the pinosomal and lysosomal compartments is increased in the presence of tubular lysosomes by asking how conditions that deplete the tubular lysosome network affect pinocytic accumulation of LY. Tubular lysosomes were disassembled in cells treated with microtubule-depolymerizing drugs or in cells that had phagocytosed latex beads. In unstimulated peritoneal macrophages, which normally contain few tubular lysosomes and which exhibit relatively inefficient transfer of pinocytosed LY to lysosomes, such treatments had little effect on pinocytosis. However, in J774 macrophages and phorbol ester-stimulated peritoneal macrophages, these treatments markedly reduced the efficiency of pinocytic accumulation of LY. We conclude that a basal level of solute accumulation via pinocytosis proceeds independently of the tubular lysosomes, and that an extended tubular lysosomal network contributes to the elevated rates of solute accumulation that accompany macrophage stimulation. Moreover, we suggest that the transformed mouse macrophage cell line J774 exhibits this stimulated pinocytosis constitutively.


The United States spends well over $700 billion annually on defense, more than the next ten countries combined and roughly half of the discretionary budget. The Department of Defense budget supports critical national security objectives, but even defense stalwarts acknowledge excessive spending, including unneeded military facilities, exponential cost overruns, outmoded weapons systems, and duplicative investments across the military services.

In the face of a congressional budget process distorted by special interest groups, this Note argues that the president possesses the constitutional authority to unilaterally curb some defense spending. In particular, the president may impound—refuse to spend money appropriated by Congress for government programs—in discrete areas of exclusive presidential authority and in three areas of shared responsibility with Congress: appropriations for weapons systems, military personnel, and military construction. To reach this conclusion, this Note analyzes historical practice dating back to President Thomas Jefferson to gloss the meaning of the Appropriations and Commander-in-Chief Clauses as well as a recent Supreme Court decision that implicitly recognizes this constitutional authority.

Unlike prior impoundment scholarship, this Note does not argue for an unlimited national security impoundment power. In the past, government lawyers and scholars have invoked the Jefferson example to support a broad claim to constitutional impoundment. Departing from that claim, this Note uncovers a historical account involving President James Madison previously not considered in impoundment scholarship. In short, Madison, an architect of the Constitution, afforded deference to Congress by carrying out a wasteful national security appropriation.

Impoundment may be a powerful tool for monitoring and cutting unnecessary defense spending, but the president's constitutional authority to use it is not unrestricted. This Note develops a framework for a legitimate but limited presidential impoundment by accounting for Madisonian deference and by employing modern gloss analysis to discern impoundment's boundaries. The Note concludes by applying this framework to unilateral actions taken by recent administrations and by assessing their constitutionality.


Objectives: This study compared mother, father, and child self-reported pain sensitivity and psychosocial functioning during an intensive pediatric pain rehabilitation treatment. Methods: Twenty children with chronic pain and their parents were enrolled in an intensive pediatric pain rehabilitation center and completed measures of pain sensitivity, fear of pain, pain catastrophizing, functional disability, and current and usual pain ratings at admission and discharge. Results: Bivariate correlations and one-way ANOVAs were used. Pain sensitivity and psychosocial variables for mother, father, and child decreased from admission to discharge. There was no correlation between pain sensitivity and psychosocial variables and no significant main effect for time. Conclusions: Results indicate a need for a larger sample to further explore the relationship between these variables.


Perovskites are one of the most studied classes of materials, with a variety of applications in diverse fields of science and technology. Their basic composition is ABX3, where X is a nonmetal normally from the VIA or VIIA group. In this article we investigate the possibility of the existence of perovskites with X = N. Our approach is based on a combination of high-throughput techniques and global structural prediction methods. We find 21 new compositions of the form ABN3 that are thermodynamically stable (considering all possible decomposition channels) and that have therefore excellent chances of being experimentally accessible. Most of these materials crystallize in monoclinic phases, but three compounds, namely, LaReN3, LaWN3, and YReN3, are predicted to have distorted perovskite structures in their ground state. In particular, LaWN3 is a semiconductor and displays a large ferroelectric polarization. The addition of nitride compounds to the perovskite family poses numerous questions related to the che...


Reconstruction after total maxillectomy for maxillary cancer remains difficult. The procedure offers a stable form, preserving the facial figure and several functions closely related to the QOL of the patients. In order to satisfy the demand for three dimensional, anatomical reconstruction, a reliable flap with skin paddles and bone segments is needed. Some functions such as visual acuity, deglutition and smelling, also should be preserved.The scapular region is well established as an excellent source of expendable skin, fascia, muscle, and bone for use in free-flap reconstruction of defects requiring bone and soft tissue in complex three dimensional relationships. The inferior border of the scapular bone is independently perfused by the angular branch. This vessel originates from the serratus branch or the thoracodorsal artery.In this article, three cases of reconstruction after total maxillectomy for squamous cell carcinoma using a free latissimus dorsi myocutaneous (LDMC) flap with scapular bone perfused by the angular branch are reported.Although this technique takes a long time for one stage reconstruction because it is necessary to change the position of the patient, the advantages include the ability to design the myocutaneous flap on a separate vascular pedicle from the bone and minimal donor site morbidity.


A coaxial loudspeaker in which the woofer and tweeter oscillate at angular frequencies ω1 and ω2 respectively, is known to produce sum and difference frequencies ω± = ω1 ± ω2 [1]. The generation of these can be attributed to both the nonlinearity of the equations of motion and the Lagrangian boundary behaviour of the low-frequency transducer. In order to characterize the phenomena of interest a perturbation expansion of the field variables is introduced (sometimes called quasilinear approximation). After deriving a second-order equation for pressure, from which the intermodulation frequencies are obtained, an attempt is made to justify the dominance of the boundary mechanism over that of the fluid nonlinearity. An exact integral solution is then given for the spatial factor of the ω± pressure terms. In the special case of a farfield on-axis observer an analytic solution is obtained. Several numerical investigations are performed and compared with experiment.


We review the formal literature in industrial organization that incorporates organizational models of the firm into the analysis of industry behavior. Although many insights have been generated, this "organizational industrial organization'' is still in its early stages: a complete theory of the relationship between organizational design and traditional IO variables such as price, quantity or welfare has yet to be developed. We show how the insights emanating from the incomplete contract literature can be used to address these questions and others of interest to both IO and organization economists: endogenous heterogeneity; the role of liquidity and surplus division in organizational design; the relationship between product price, industry supply and organizational choices; the response of industry supply to shocks in fundamentals.


Debugging tools generally provide a wealth of information about the inner workings of programs. These tools have been available on UNIX† to allow users to examine ''core'' files that result from aborted programs. A new debugging program, ADB, provides enhanced capabilities to examine "core" and other program files in a variety of formats, run programs with embedded breakpoints and patch files. ADB is an indispensable but complex tool for debugging crashed systems and/or programs. This document provides an introduction to ADB with examples of its use. It explains the various formatting options, techniques for debugging C programs, examples of printing file system information and patching.


Online social networks allow people to communicate, interact, and share information on the Internet. Recently it has focused on user's interactions to recognize the weight of social graphs. In this paper, to find out effective factors on the strength of interactions between users, we surveyed the definition of online friends and analyzed communication interactions of Korean users of both Me2day and Twitter using the twi2me application. As a result, it turned out 60% of users thought offline strangers can be friends online, 32% of them easily accept requests of friendship. The number of private interactions in online is rare, which it should be given more weight to analyze the relationship strength. The trends of each interaction are varied according to the number of followers or friends and cultural backgrounds as well as characteristics of each social network. In the future, some kind of impact factor about user interactions will be calculated to analyze the semantics of the user relationship based on our results.


ABSTRACT This essay asks how the democratic ideal of inclusion can be achieved in societies marked by power asymmetries along the lines of identity categories such as gender and race. It revisits debates of difference democracy of the 1990s, which promoted inclusion through a politics of presence of marginalized social groups. This strategy inevitably entails essentializing tendencies, confining the democratic subject within its physically embodied identity. Difference democrats did not take notice of the parallel emerging discourse on cyberfeminism exploring novel identity configurations on the Internet. This essay augments the politics of presence with digital identity reconfigurations. Neither difference democrats nor cyberfeminists distinguish between various participatory sites. Drawing on conceptions of participatory spaces from development studies and deliberative democracy, this essay generates a typology differentiating between empowered spaces such as parliaments, invited spaces such as citizens' assemblies, and the claimed spaces of social movements. The democratic functions these spaces fulfil are best facilitated by three different modes of identity performance: identity continuation, identity negation, and identity exploration. A pluralization of participatory sites and modes of identity performance facilitates inclusion while tackling the essentializing tendencies in difference democracy.


The lack of access to sufficient water and sanitation facilities is one of the largest hindrances towards the sustainable development of the poorest 2.2 billion people in the world. Rural Uganda is one of the areas where such inaccessibility is seriously hampering their efforts at development. Many rural Ugandans must travel several kilometers to fetch adequate water and many still do not have adequate sanitation facilities. Such poor access to clean water forces Ugandans to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy collecting water time and energy that could be used for more useful endeavors. Furthermore, the difficulty in getting water means that people use less water than they need to for optimal health and well-being. Access to other sanitation facilities can also have a large impact, particularly on the health of young children and the elderly whose immune systems are less than optimal. Hand-washing, presence of a sanitary latrine, general household cleanliness, maintenance of the safe water chain and the households' knowledge about and adherence to sound sanitation practices may be as important as access to clean water sources. This report investigates these problems using the results from two different studies. It first looks into how access to water affects peoples' use of it. In particular it investigates how much water households use as a function of perceived effort to fetch it. Operationally, this was accomplished by surveying nearly 1,500 residents in three different districts around Uganda about their water usage and the time and distance they must travel to fetch it. The study found that there is no statistically significant correlation between a family's water usage and the perceived effort they must put forth to have to fetch it. On average, people use around 15 liters per person per day. Rural Ugandan residents apparently require a certain amount of water and will travel as far or as long as necessary to collect it. Secondly, a study entitled "What Works Best in Diarrheal Disease Prevention?" was carried out to study the effectiveness of five different water and sanitation facilities in reducing diarrheal disease incidences amongst children under five. It did this by surveying five different communities before and after the implementation of improvements to find changes in diarrheal disease incidences amongst children under five years of age. It found that household water treatment devices provide the best means of preventing diarrheal diseases. This is likely because water often becomes contaminated before it is consumed even if it was collected from a protected source.


In this capstone investigation students learned about environmental science topics through the use of role-play to determine how their understanding of the subject matter would change. The study also looked into the effect of role-play on students' critical thinking, their motivation and attitude, as well as the teacher's motivation and attitude. During two treatment units students were assigned fictitious characters with an array of problems and situations and the students researched the assigned topic through the eyes of their character. At the end of each unit, students gathered for a debate that would take place while in character. A combination of pre and postunit assessments, surveys, interviews, pro and con grids, journal entries, and colleague observations were utilized to gather data about students and the teacher. Results showed an improvement in student understanding, critical thinking, and attitudes and motivation. The results also revealed an improvement in the teacher's attitude and motivation.


For decades scientists have known that at least 98% of human DNA is identical to that of chimpanzees, but no one has been able to tie the few known molecular variations with chimp-human differences, such as body hair, language, or brain size. Geneticists and evolutionary biologists are now beginning to explore which genes separate us from the apes, and next month, a research team will report finding the first significant biochemical variation between humans and other apes: Humans lack a particular form of a ubiquitous cell surface molecule found in all other apes. Other teams are reporting newfound differences in the arrangements of DNA on the chromosomes of humans and other primates, and new sequencing projects are starting to compare primate and human DNA base by base (see sidebar).


Additive Noise Models (ANMs) provide a theoretically sound approach to inferring the most likely causal direction between pairs of random variables given only a sample from their joint distribution. The key assumption is that the effect is a function of the cause, with additive noise that is independent of the cause. In many cases ANMs are identifiable. Their performance, however, hinges on the chosen dependence measure, the assumption we make on the true distribution. In this paper we propose to use Shannon entropy to measure the dependence within an ANM, which gives us a general approach by which we do not have to assume a true distribution, nor have to perform explicit significance tests during optimization. The information-theoretic formulation gives us a general, efficient, identifiable, and, as the experiments show, highly accurate method for causal inference on pairs of discrete variables—achieving (near) 100% accuracy on both synthetic and real data.


In this symposium essay, we investigate the effect of economic conditions on the voting behavior of U.S. Supreme Court Justices. We theorize that Justices are akin to voters in political elections; specifically, we posit that the Justices will view short-term and relatively minor economic downturns - recessions - as attributable to the failures of elected officials, but will consider long-term and extreme economic contractions - depressions - as the result of exogenous shocks largely beyond the control of the government. Accordingly, we predict two patterns of behavior in economic-related cases that come before the Court: (1) in typical times, when the economy cycles through both recessionary and prosperous periods, the Justices will punish the elected branches of government when the economy contracts by voting less frequently for the government; and (2) in atypical times, when the economy moves into a period of deep depression, the Justices will work with the other branches of government by voting more frequently for the government. We test our hypotheses through statistical analysis of taxation opinions rendered by the Supreme Court during the period from 1913 to 1929 (a relatively normal period) and the period from 1930 to 1940 (the Great Depression). We find broad support for our hypothesis in the data we analyze, and we verify that our results are robust to a change in the measure of the economic condition as well as to a change in the specification of the regression model. We conclude that U.S. Supreme Court Justices exhibit voting patterns similar to voters in political elections when it comes to the economy.


Separation of photo-generated electron-hole pairs plays a crucial role in determining the practical performance of semiconductor photocatalysts. Here we have successfully fabricated two dimensional g-C3N4/Ba5Ta4O15 nanosheet heterostructures through an in situ urea degradation method. The so-formed nanosheet heterostructures demonstrate superior photocatalytic activities in H2 evolution reactions over individual component. Further analysis using photoelectrochemical measurements suggests efficient charge separations at the interfaces of these heterostructures which contribute to a prolonged lifetime of photo-generated charges as well as the much enhanced photocatalytic activities. The in situ fabrication method adopted in this work ensures a firm anchorage of g-C3N4 onto Ba5Ta4O15 nanosheets and a face-to-face contact between these two semiconductors. Such a peculiar microstructure is critical to the high photocatalytic activity and apparently outweighs the conventional ones that involve only physical mixtures of two semiconductors and a point-to-point contact.

publisher-specific, author manuscript: http://rsc.li/journals-terms-of-use


ABSTRACT

Air toxics, also well-known as hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), have significant health effects on human health and are of great concern. This paper studied a number of hazardous air pollutants in an industrial and metropolitan complex area in order to determine their ambient abundance and potential health impacts. The target pollutants in this study are benzene, formaldehyde, 1,3-butadiene, arsenic, 2,3,7,8-TCDD, and diesel particulate matter (DPM). A cancer risk assessment was conducted to determine the health effects of exposure to the six HAPs by using the AERMOD model. Results indicated that the emission of benzene, formaldehyde, 1,3-butadiene, arsenic and DPM was 184.5; 227.3; 68.0; 238, and 316 ton year–1, respectively, and the emission of 2,3,7,8-TCDD was 4,994 mg-TEQ year–1. Benzene (86%), formaldehyde (69%), and 1,3-butadiene (77%) were mainly emitted from on-road mobile sources. Arsenic (70%) and 2,3,7,8-TCDD (about 100%) were mainly emitted from stationary sources and DPM was emitted from diesel engines, port operations and ocean-going vessels. Spatial air toxic distribution indicated that the highest concentration of DMP, benzene, formaldehyde, and 1.3-butadiene occurred on the highway and in the downtown district due to their high traffic volume. DPM occupied more than 80% of total cancer risk in the region, followed by 1,3-butadiene, benzene, formaldehyde, arsenic, and 2,3,7,8-TCDD. In the industrial and residential complex area, about 99% of the cancer risk stemmed from on-road vehicles and port operations due to hazardous air pollutant emissions, especially DPM. The control scenario was made huge efforts to reduce the emission, however the results indicated only reduced the overall cancer risk assessment by 10%–15%. Policy makers have to think carefully about whether implementing the kind of emissions regulations simulated in this control scenario will need to be enhanced with additional measures to further reduce the risk of air pollution for human health.


The letters of Paul to the newly founded Christian community at Thessalonica hold a special place within the Christian tradition as possibly the earliest extant Christian writings. They are also of special interest not only for their theological value but for their sociological context. Among the communities established by Paul, the church at Thessalonica appears to have been the only one to have suffered serious external oppression. These two important epistles, then, speak uniquely to contemporary Christians living in a society often ideologically, if not politically, opposed to Christian faith. In this innovative commentary Charles A. Wanamaker incorporates what may be called a social science approach to the study of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, taking into full account the social context that gave rise to Paul s correspondence. While Wanamaker in no way ignores traditional historical-critical, linguistic, literary, and theological approaches to writing a commentary -- in fact, at several points he makes a significant contribution to the questions raised by traditional exegesis -- at the same time he goes beyond previous commentaries on the Thessalonian correspondence by taking seriously the social dimensions both of Christianity at Thessalonica and of the texts of 1 and 2 Thessalonians themselves. In blending traditional exegetical methods with this newer approach, Wanamaker seeks to understand Pauline Christianity at Thessalonica as a socio-religious movement in the first-century Greco-Roman world and attempts to grasp the social character and functions of Paul s letters within this context. A significant and original addition to the literature on 1 and 2 Thessalonians, this commentary will be valuable to scholars, pastors, and students alike."


Many soil‐derived particles dominated by insoluble material, including Saharan dusts, are known to act as ice nuclei. If, however, dust particles can compete with other atmospheric particle types to form liquid cloud droplets, they have a greater potential to change climate through indirect effects on cloud radiative properties and to affect the hydrological cycle through precipitation changes. By directly collecting and analyzing the residual nuclei of small cloud droplets, we demonstrate that Saharan dust particles do commonly act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in the eastern North Atlantic. Droplet activation calculations support the measurements by showing that due to its slightly hygroscopic nature, even submicron dust can be important as CCN. Given the dual nature of Saharan dust particles as CCN and ice nuclei, this infusion of dust is expected to impact not only droplet size and albedo in small clouds, but ice formation in deep convective clouds.


Federalism is a vital tenet of our Republic. Although federal law is the supreme law of the land, our Constitution recognizes the integral role that state law plays in the national scheme. Like any pharmaceutical drug that withstands rounds of clinical testing, state law functions as a laboratory in which Congress can evaluate and potentially adopt novel policies on a nation-wide basis. Most of the time, federal and state law exist harmoniously, complementing one another; other times, however, the two systems clash, striking a dissonant chord.
In the United States, state marijuana laws are currently on a crash course with federal marijuana law, exemplifying the discordant consequences our dual-system of laws sometimes generates. Eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana use, yet under the Controlled Substances Act ("CSA") marijuana remains illegal in the eyes of federal law. Mere confusion concerning the legality of marijuana is not the only consequence, however. One notable casualty ensuing from the battle of the mutually exclusive federal and state marijuana laws is the deprivation of rights belonging to the unsuspecting, average citizen.
The CSA establishes a schedule of drugs, and various federal regimes — such as entitlement programs and welfare benefits — impose compliance with the CSA as a necessary antecedent for conferral of those benefits. For example, although possessing a firearm is a fundamental right under the Second Amendment, citizens who wish to lawfully smoke marijuana can no longer avail themselves of this fundamental right. Section 922(g)(3) of the Gun Control Act prevents users of Schedule I drugs pursuant to the CSA — irrespective of state law — from possessing or owning a firearm. Marijuana, despite its lack of potential for addiction, plethora of medical benefits, and disconnect from violence, has always been a Schedule I drug — essentially deemed more addictive and dangerous than methamphetamine, a Schedule II drug. Unknowing, ordinary citizens are consequently caught in this legal black hole, contemplating how conduct can be both lawful and unlawful.
This Article proposes a simple solution to a complex problem: deschedule marijuana. The Article first surveys the past, observing that the Nixon Administration's placement of marijuana in Schedule I rang of racial undertones, and then examines the present, noting the majority of states that have legalized medicinal marijuana and the numerous anecdotal reports of its alleviating properties. Further, enforcing § 922(g)(3) against individuals who consume marijuana lawfully pursuant to state law simultaneously overreaches and under-reaches, failing to target the violent criminals that Congress initially sought to apprehend. Thus, the federal government's insistence on maintaining marijuana in Schedule I undermines principles of federalism and prevents law-abiding citizens from fully exercising their constitutional right to own a firearm.


The freedom of every person to assembly in a peaceful manner is expressly recognized in all international human rights instruments as well as in national law. However, the implementation of such commitments often remains a challenge for states, which can impose various restrictions on the right to assembly and sometimes abuse this power. Peaceful protests often play an important role in expressing public concerns and providing an opportunity for dialogue with authorities. Therefore, the purpose of this publication is to explore the significance of the right to hold and participate in peaceful assemblies in the context of mass protest and other forms of peaceful demonstrations. The present article is divided into two parts. Part 1 looks at the particularities of the general definition of an assembly, different types and forms of public gatherings and examines different legal bases that justify the restrictions on freedom of assembly. Part 2 offers a concise view on the problems related to the effective enjoyment of the freedom to assembly and the significant role of state's authorities in this process. This article analyses state's positive obligations related to a duty to protect the peaceful public events, to guarantee the maintenance of public order and the interests of the rest of the community as well as state's negative obligations not to unduly interfere with the right to peaceful assembly. The publication thoroughly analyses the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights as well as the United Nations Human Rights Committee's communications related to the violations of the freedom to assembly.


We address the problem of bandwidth selection in MLS surfaces. While the problem has received relatively little attention in the literature, we show that appropriate selection plays a critical role in the quality of reconstructed surfaces. We formulate the MLS polynomial fitting step as a kernel regression problem for both noiseless and noisy data. Based on this framework, we develop fast algorithms to find optimal bandwidths for a large class of weight functions. We show experimental comparisons of our method, which outperforms heuristically chosen functions and weights previously proposed. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of the Levin's two-step MLS projection for bandwidth selection.


The fungi are among the least known of the major Australian biota. While the number of species likely to occur in Australia has been estimated to be as high as 250 000, only a small proportion have been formally described and fewer still can be considered well-known in terms of their distribution, ecology and general biology.The most conspicuous group, the macrofungi, comprise taxa across both the Basidiomycota and Ascomyctoa. The names for the estimated 3000 species in Australia are scattered through the literature leading to confusion and uncertainty. Moreover, many names currently in use are misapplied or synonyms. The last catalogue of the Australian macrofungi were produced over 100 years ago, and an up -to-date reassessment is long overdue.Volume 2A and its companion 2B will be essential in the preparation of modern taxonomic treatments of the Australian macrofungi. They provide a guide to the names that have been used in Australia for the mushroom, toadstools, bracket fungi, puffballs and other taxa with large conspicuous fruiting bodies. For each name the catalogue provides place and date of publication, taxonomic synonyms, and a comprehensive list of all works in which the name has been used in an Australian context.The catalogue covers approximately 3200 accepted, synonymous and misapplied names in Agaricales, Boletales, Cantharellales, Gauteriales, Hymenogastrales, Melanogastrales, Phallales p.p, Podaxales, Russulales, Aphyllophorales p.p., and taxa associated with Eucalyptus outside of Australia.Volume 2B will be complete the catalogue with the balance of the Basidiomycata, and the Ascomycata.


Lake El'gygytgyn is an impact crater lake that formed 3.6 million years ago in Chukotka, northeastern Siberia. The lake has a mean diameter of 12 km and is bowl-shaped with a maximum water depth of approximately 170 m. At present, the lake is ice covered most of the year with an ice-free period of roughly 3 months. Pilot cores retrieved in 1998 and 2003 have shown that the lake sediments are highly susceptible to climate change; the lake has the unique potential to unravel 3.6 million years of Arctic climate history. It has thus become one of the major sites for the International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP) during the past few years.In January 2009, thickening of the lake ice cover was carried out to allow to handle a drill rig from the ice. From February on, DOSECC started to build up a modified GLAD800 rig to drill the lake sediments and further into the bedrock. By the end of April 2009, three holes were drilled at one site, reaching as far down as 517.3 m below lake floor with a total recovery of 75 %. The cores penetrated 315 m of lacustrine sediments before they hit the suevite bedrock that was initially formed by the meteorite impact 3.6 million years ago. While the upper part of the sediments were rather fine-grained intercalated with some smaller mass transport deposits as expected from the pilot cores, the lower part of the lacustrine sediments was much coarser. During the drilling campaign, magnetic susceptibility of the whole cores was measured in order to correlate the three cores of the drilled site and to get a first impression of the physical properties of the drilled material. Drilling was stopped 4 times to allow for carrying out a downhole logging survey. After the drilling campaign, all cores (permafrost as well as lacustrine/impact rock) were shipped from Siberia to Germany. Core opening and sampling of the lacustrine cores is presently carried out at the University of Cologne. The composite profile is defined while opening the cores, and samples are taken continuously every 2 cm with 9 subsamples.Here we present the field magnetic susceptibility of the cores, downhole logging data and first results from the ongoing core opening campaign along with the seismic record of the lake. Whole core magnetic susceptibility data show a high correlation between the cores of the different holes, and a perfect match with the downhole magnetic susceptibility data. Deep drilling confirmed the seismic boundary between lacustrine sediments and the suevite at approximately 315 to 330 m below lake floor, but moved the boundary between rather fine-grained, well-laminated sediments in the upper part and seismically more chaotic, coarser sediments in the lower part that was visible in the seismic reflection data up by 10 m to approximately 150 m below lake floor.


Leading Innovation presents a unique, holistic approach to creating innovation at all levels of your organization. Authors Jeff DeGraff and Shawn Quinn have created a real-world, how-to playbook of integrated creativity tools and techniques for understanding where innovation comes from and harnessing its power to create a culture where real growth happens on a constant basis. Based on DeGraff's proven methods-which he teaches in his innovation program at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and has applied at Fortune 500 companies around the world-this breakthrough guide focuses on systematically integrating business practices and connecting them to the value propositions they produce. You'll discover how to diagnose obstacles to innovation, realistically assess your options, and develop an integrated program of action that can be adjusted to meet the needs of any group, department, or business unit throughout your organization. You'll learn the 7 key steps to double-digit growth, sparking innovation in your: Leadership-teams, development, and behavior Strategic planning-identifying emerging opportunities Organizational culture and competency development Performance management processes-resource allocation, portfolio management Innovation incubation processes-stage-gate development processes, innovation networks Human resource management-staffing, team building, organizational learning Throughout, insightful case studies demonstrate how these results-driven methods are supported by senior leadership at GE, Reuters, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Eaton, and other leading innovators.


Considers the concept of the "listening" organisation and its influence on service and business performance. Specifically reports on empirical research which investigated the link between service quality information practices, the listening organisation and service and business performance. In this respect, builds on an earlier model of service management developed by the London Business School and Warwick Business School in the UK. This extended model employs two composite performance indexes as moderator variables. Surveyed 438 service organisations in the Republic of Ireland; the loglinear model used to analyse the data shows a clear pattern. By taking listening practices, including information technology, as a holistic view of a constellation of information-related practice type factors, demonstrates that there is a close relationship with service performance, which in turn influences business performance. Furthermore, technology type and competitive intensity, moderate this relationship. Establishes that the relationship between listening practices and service performance is much more important for the sophisticated task technology sector and that competitive intensity has a very minor interactive effect on the relationship. The results of the survey mirror recent empirical research in market orientation and organisational learning.


The presented thesis is of pronounced interdisciplinary character; based on applied physics, it addresses a challenging analytical task in soil science.

The goal of this work is to specify and analyze the sulfur pool of urban soils with major anthropogenic impact, i.e. the dumping of war debris. This impact obviously influences soil composition and soil formation processes, but may, due to sulfate leaching, also be a substantial risk to urban water quality. Therefore, the sulfur load of different debris components was studied and the sulfur content of different soil samples was evaluated and correlated to different parameters, such as position of the respective soil horizon within the soil profile or location of the soil profile in the surrounding terrain.
In terms of methods, the goal of this work is to show that x-ray absorption spectroscopy and x-ray microscopy are highly suitable to address the analytical problem of sulfur speciation in complex soil samples. Two major advantages are important to stress at this point: (a) the capability to differentiate the occurring oxidation states of sulfur (speciation) and (b) the capability to combine spectroscopy with spatial resolution on the micron and sub-micron scale in terms of spectromicroscopy.
An important part of this work was to evaluate under which experimental parameters and in combination with which data analysis method x-ray absorption spectroscopy of sulfur in urban soil samples can be carried out optimally.

The following modalities of x-ray absorption spectroscopy were used: sulfur K-edge XANES spectroscopy, x-ray microscopy in terms of x-ray fluorescence imaging, and a combination of both, x-ray spectromicroscopy.
With pure XANES spectroscopy, the averaged sulfur pool of whole soil horizons as well as of single debris components was studied, applying different data analysis methods. These are peak fitting, principle component analysis (PCA), and linear combination fitting (LCF). Each of the methods gives particular insight into different sample properties, that may be mutually adaptable or complementary. PCA (when considering target transformation) and LCF are crucially dependent on an appropriate database of standard spectra.
With x-ray fluorescence imaging and spectromicroscopy, soil aggregates, debris particles, and soil solution were analyzed on the micrometer scale. These measurements show highly heterogeneous sample composition and clear gradients in sulfur speciation and oxidation state within single particles. The weathering of the anthropogenic material is therefore directly observable.

This work demonstrates the general applicability of sulfur x-ray spectroscopy and spectromicroscopy to analytical problems in urban soils. It also addresses the proper sample preparation techniques.

This work was supported by the DFG under contract number TH 445/11-1, AOBJ: 552902: ''Mechanismen der Sulfatfreisetzung aus Trummerschuttboden'', which was a joint project of the working groups of Dr. Jurgen Thieme, Institute for X-Ray Physics, University of Gottingen (affiliation when the project started) and Prof. Dr. Gerd Wessolek, Department of Ecology, Technical University Berlin.


This paper represents an attempt to clarify the significance of the term ergon ("work") in the book of Revelation. The first part investigates the word group ergon ("work") as used throughout the Scriptures, and especially in the book of Revelation. Special attention is given to the word as used in the Gospel of John, since this study accepts John, the Son of Zebedee, as the author of both the Gospel and the Revelation. The second part presents five studies representing a practical application emerging from the investigation. Not only is there a lack of discussion of the word ergon in Revelation, but there is a need to have a balanced understanding of "works" in the discussion of justification by faith and sanctification. Commentators seem to lack a balanced emphasis between faith and works. When ergon is applied to man in the Septuagint (LXX), the emphasis of the word group is on ethical behavior, not ethical impulses or even "character" as such? the objective manifestation is paramount. When ergon has reference to God, it can describe the work of the Creator, God's acts in history in the realm of the miraculous, and the judgment. In John, as well as the LXX, "works" inherently are neutral in moral value. The word takes on positive or negative connotations depending on the context in which it is used. All good works in the NT are ultimately considered God's work done through men. Good works in Revelation, such as love and faith, are the foundational works upon which the others are built. Patience, loyalty, service, and keeping the commandments are some of the works of the saints which develop from the foundation. The evil in Revelation can be found in degrees from apathy to heresies. "Works," which are exterior ethical behavior, are always and only possible within the covenant relationship with God. The covenant relationship provides the force and the will for the saints to accomplish works. This is a united effort in which both God and man have a part. Erqa are not only separate acts or deeds, they can also be a 1 total life-style, which is accomplished by the saints by imitating the character of the Lamb who has won the victory over Satan through His blood. Since the word ergon in John is used in the sense of miracles, in Revelation it is used in the sense of deeds. The devils, on the other hand, perform semeion ("miracles'') to proclaim the authority of Satan over God. The saints perform deeds to authenticate their discipleship of Christ.


Previous studies have demonstrated that low shear rates promote leukocyte adherence to microvascular endothelium in postcapillary venules. The objective of this study was to determine whether an accumulation of inflammatory mediators such as platelet activating factor and leukotriene B4 is responsible for shear rate-dependent leukocyte-endothelial cell adhesion. Postcapillary venules (25-39 microns in diameter) in cat mesentery were studied by intravital microscopy. Venular wall shear rate was varied over a wide range by graded occlusion of the mesenteric artery. Red blood cell velocity, vessel diameter, leukocyte rolling velocity, and the numbers of rolling and adherent leukocytes were measured at each shear rate. In one series of experiments, shear rate-dependent leukocyte adherence was monitored at different superfusion rates (1.0 and 2.5 ml/min). At the lower superfusion rate, the number of adherent leukocytes was significantly higher at any given shear rate when compared with results obtained at the higher superfusion rate. This suggests that reduced washout of inflammatory mediators contributes to shear rate-dependent leukocyte adhesion. Pretreatment with different platelet activating factor receptor antagonists (WEB 2086 or WEB 2170) had no effect on the number of adherent leukocytes normally observed at lower shear rates, suggesting that platelet activating factor does not play a major role in this process. However, shear rate-dependent leukocyte adhesion was largely prevented by pretreatment with either a leukotriene B4 receptor antagonist (SC-41930) or a leukotriene synthesis inhibitor (L663,536). The results of this study indicate that a reduced washout of leukotriene B4 is responsible for the enhanced leukocyte adherence that occurs at low venular wall shear rates.


Given a set $P$ of $n$ points in the plane, where $n$ is even, we consider the following question: How many plane perfect matchings can be packed into $P$? For points in general position we prove the lower bound of ⌊log2$n$⌋$-1$. For some special configurations of point sets, we give the exact answer. We also consider some restricted variants of this problem.


Existing object proposal algorithms usually search for possible object regions over multiple locations and scales separately, which ignore the interdependency among different objects and deviate from the human perception procedure. To incorporate global interdependency between objects into object localization, we propose an effective Tree-structured Reinforcement Learning (Tree-RL) approach to sequentially search for objects by fully exploiting both the current observation and historical search paths. The Tree-RL approach learns multiple searching policies through maximizing the long-term reward that reflects localization accuracies over all the objects. Starting with taking the entire image as a proposal, the Tree-RL approach allows the agent to sequentially discover multiple objects via a tree-structured traversing scheme. Allowing multiple near-optimal policies, Tree-RL offers more diversity in search paths and is able to find multiple objects with a single feedforward pass. Therefore, Tree-RL can better cover different objects with various scales which is quite appealing in the context of object proposal. Experiments on PASCAL VOC 2007 and 2012 validate the effectiveness of the Tree-RL, which can achieve comparable recalls with current object proposal algorithms via much fewer candidate windows.


Over the past few decades, incessant growth of Internet networking traffic and High-Performance Computing (HPC) has led to a tremendous demand for data bandwidth. Digital communication technologies combined with advanced integrated circuit scaling trends have enabled the semiconductor and microelectronic industry to dramatically scale the bandwidth of high-loss interfaces such as Ethernet, backplane, and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL). The key to achieving higher bandwidth is to employ equalization technique to compensate the channel impairments such as Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI), crosstalk, and environmental noise. Therefore, today's advanced input/outputs (I/Os) has been equipped with sophisticated equalization techniques to push beyond the uncompensated bandwidth of the system. To this end, process scaling has continually increased the data processing capability and improved the I/O performance over the last 15 years. However, since the channel bandwidth has not scaled with the same pace, the required signal processing and equalization circuitry becomes more and more complicated. Thereby, the energy efficiency improvements are largely offset by the energy needed to compensate channel impairments. In this design paradigm, re-thinking about the design strategies in order to not only satisfy the bandwidth performance, but also to improve power-performance becomes an important necessity. It is well known in communication theory that coding and signaling schemes have the potential to provide superior performance over band-limited channels. However, the choice of the optimum data communication algorithm should be considered by accounting for the circuit level power-performance trade-offs. In this thesis we have investigated the application of new algorithm and signaling schemes in wireline communications, especially for communication between microprocessors, memories, and peripherals. A new hybrid NRZ/Multi-Tone (NRZ/MT) signaling method has been developed during the course of this research. The system-level and circuit-level analysis, design, and implementation of the proposed signaling method has been performed in the frame of this work, and the silicon measurement results have proved the efficiency and the robustness of the proposed signaling methodology for wireline interfaces. In the first part of this work, a 7.5 Gb/s hybrid NRZ/MT transceiver (TRX) for multi-drop bus (MDB) memory interfaces is designed and fabricated in 40 nm CMOS technology. Reducing the complexity of the equalization circuitry on the receiver (RX) side, the proposed architecture achieves 1 pJ/bit link efficiency for a MDB channel bearing 45 dB loss at 2.5 GHz. The measurement results of the first prototype confirm that NRZ/MT serial data TRX can offer an energy-efficient solution for MDB memory interfaces. Motivated by the satisfying results of the first prototype, in the second phase of this research we have exploited the properties of multi-tone signaling, especially orthogonality among different sub-bands, to reduce the effect of crosstalk in high-dense wireline interconnects. A four-channel transceiver has been implemented in a standard CMOS 40 nm technology in order to demonstrate the performance of NRZ/MT signaling in presence of high channel loss and strong crosstalk noise. The proposed system achieves 1 pJ/bit power efficiency, while communicating over a MDB memory channel at 36 Gb/s aggregate data rate.