The next enterprise computing era will rely on the synergy between both technologies: semantic web and model-driven software development (MDSD). The semantic web organizes system knowledge in conceptual domains according to its meaning. It addresses various enterprise computing needs by identifying, abstracting and rationalizing commonalities, and checking for inconsistencies across system specifications. On the other side, model-driven software development is closing the gap among business requirements, designs and executables by using domain-specific languages with custom-built syntax and semantics. It focuses on using modeling languages as programming languages.Among many areas of application, we highlight the area of configuration management. Consider the example of a telecommunication company, where managing the multiple configurations of network devices (routers, hubs, modems, etc.) is crucial. Enterprise systems identify and document the functional and physical characteristics of network devices, and control changes to those characteristics. Applying the integration of semantic web and model-driven software development allows for(1) explicitly specifying configurations of network devices with tailor-made languages,(2) for checking the consistency of these specifications(3) for defining a vocabulary to share device specifications across enterprise systems. By managing configurations with consistent and explicit concepts, we reduce cost and risk, and enhance agility in response to new requirements in the telecommunication area.This book examines the synergy between semantic web and model-driven software development. It brings together advances from disciplines like ontologies, description logics, domain-specific modeling, model transformation and ontology engineering to take enterprise computing to the next level.


My knowledge of architecture is constrained to a coupler of idiosyncratic data: my love for Ayn Rand and her architecture-novel The Fountainhead; my admiration of the Stalinist "wedding-cake" baroque kitsch; my dream of a house composed only of secondary spaces and places of passage – stairs, corridors, toilets, store-rooms, kitchen – with no living room or bedroom. The danger that I am courting is thus that what I will say will oscillate between the two extremes of unfounded speculations and what most is already known for a long time. I would like to begin with the notion of parallax which I took from Kojin Karatani. The common definition of parallax is: the apparent displacement of an object (the shift of its position against a background), caused by a change in observational position that provides a new line of sight. The philosophical twist to be added, of course, is that the observed difference is not simply "subjective," due to the fact that the same object which exists "out there" is seen from two different stations, or points of view. It is rather that, as Hegel would have put it, subject and object are inherently "mediated," so that an "epistemological" shift in the subject's point of view always reflects an "ontological" shift in the object itself. When confronted with such a parallax gap, one should renounce all attempts to reduce one aspect to the other (or, even more, to enact a kind of "dialectical synthesis" of the opposites); the task is, on the contrary, to conceive all possible positions as responses to a certain underlying deadlock or antagonism, as so many attempts to resolve this deadlock… and this already brings us to so-called postmodern architecture which, sometimes, seems to enact the notion of parallax in a directly-palpable way. Think about Liebeskind or Gehry: their work often appears as a desperate (or joyous) attempt to combine two incompatible structuring principles within the same building (in the case of Liebeskind, horizontal/vertical and oblique cubes; in the case of Gehry, traditional house with modern – concrete, corrugated iron, glass – supplements), as if two principles are locked in a struggle for hegemony.


Describes the results of an empirical investigation of the FTSE 100 which was undertaken to ascertain whether UK industry is taking steps to address innovation at a strategic level within its organisations. In the research study, the appointment of staff with a specific responsibility for innovation was taken as an indicator of an organisation's strategic commitment to innovation. The findings revealed that a significant minority of these organisations had invested in personnel with a specific brief for innovation. These were: directors of innovation; managers of innovation and cross‐functional teams. It is suggested that to maximise the benefits from innovation: it must be given a strategic direction; that relevant metrics be developed to measure the success of the innovation strategy; that organisations are educated on the holistic meaning of innovation; and finally, that there is a freedom from traditional hierarchical structures in the management of innovation.


The worm Caenorhabditis elegans is a hermaphroditic organism when genotypically XX. Male animals, which do not produce oocytes and which have masculinized morphology, are genetically X0, i.e., they have only one copy of the X chromosome. Two different pathways of sexual determination with several common components control somatic cell sexual characteristics and germ-cell sexual characteristics. One component common to both tissues is the TRA-2 gene, which expresses two proteins. One of these is TRA-2A, a membrane protein, which can be cleaved to release the intracelluar domain (TRA-2Aic), which, in oocytes, can also be directly transcribed from the TRA-2 gene. Wang and Kimble identified a physical interaction between TRA-2ic and TRA-1, a transcription factor that promotes feminization in somatic tissues and masculinization in germ cells. This unexpected physical interaction may provide a mechanism for regulating the different tissue responses that rely on the same components. The importance of this interaction in the specification of germ-cell sexual fate and the lack of a role for this interaction in somatic-cell sexual fate was demonstrated by using genetic interactions in C. elegans. S. Wang, J. Kimble, The TRA-1 transcription factor binds TRA-2 to regulate sexual fates in Caenorhabditis elegans. EMBO J. 20, 1363-1372 (2001). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Introduction: Salvage lymph node dissection (sLND) is a treatment option for prostate cancer (PCa) patients with nodal recurrence after radical therapy to delay tumour progression and hormonal treatment. We evaluated the outcomes in terms of biochemical recurrence (BCR), clinical regression, and cancer specific survival (CSS) in a large, multicentric series of patients treated with sLND for nodal recurrence of PCa.
Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the records of 106 consecutive patients with BCR of PCa after radical treatment who underwent sLND between 2007 and 2013 at three tertiary centres. BCR was defined as prostate-specific antigen (PSA) >0.2 ng/mL. Clinical recurrence (CR) was defined as a positive imaging study or biopsy for metastasis after sLND. Kaplan–Meier curves calculated BCR-free survival (BFS), CR-free survival (CRS), and CSS. Cox regression analyses were performed to identify predictors of CR.
Results: Median number of nodes removed at sLND was 21.7, with a median of three positive nodes. Immediate biochemical response after surgery was achieved in 50.9% of patients. At a median follow-up of 22.5 months, biochemical failure and CR were experienced by 67.9% and 40.5% of patients, respectively. At 2 years, BFS, CRS, and CSS were 25%, 52%, and 92%, respectively. Castrate-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) status, PSA level at sLND, and presence of biochemical failure after sLND were significantly associated with CR after surgery.
Conclusions: sLND represents a valid treatment option for selected patients with nodal recurrences, achieving a CR-free status in more than half of patients at 2 years. Patients with CRPC status or high PSA values might not be the best candidates for a sLND.


The Cell BE is a heterogeneous multi-core processor offering multiple levels of parallelism. When these are properly leveraged, the Cell BE demonstrates impressive performance acceleration for several high performance computing applications, including exact string matching on streaming data. The present study investigates the suitability of the Cell BE for a string matching problem of relevance to proteomics - the identification of tryptic digest points based on the presence of a short sequence motif. Three string matching algorithms are implemented and evaluated over several proteomic datasets. In its first application to bioinformatics, Parabix, a method of high-throughput XML stream processing which relies on bit transposition and the effective use of single-instruction multiple-data (SIMD) instructions, is applied here with great success. This method performs very well when the protein database is pre-processed in the form of parallel bit streams. Double buffering is also critical to hide the latency of DMA data transfers. Performance results are computed for both the cycle-accurate Cell BE simulator and also using real hardware. This problem is also placed in the larger context of using the Cell BE to achieve hypothesis-driven protein identification.


This paper describes the thematic variation observed in two newspaper genres – news reports and commentaries – in English and Spanish and studies the influence of genre-specific and language-specific constraints on the observed variation. The study is based on the contrastive analysis of certain clausal and discourse-thematic features in a bilingual comparable corpus consisting of a total of thirty-two texts (sixteen news reports and sixteen commentaries), evenly divided into English and Spanish texts. The analysis shows that despite the language-specific features which can be observed in certain thematic selections at clause level, most of the clausal and discourse thematic differences in the material can be related to the different communicative purposes which characterize these two genres. In view of the similarities and statistically significant differences between the two genres in both languages, it is suggested that genre is the major factor affecting the thematic variation in the bilingual sample, while language-specific differences play a secondary role


Proxy data indicate that atmospheric CO2 concentrations expected for the next centuries have not been equaled since the early Paleogene, approximately 66 to 45 Million years (Ma) ago. The early Paleogene global climate appears to have been substantially warmer than that of present day, likely in response to high greenhouse gas concentrations. Understanding of the impact of such 'greenhouse' conditions on early Paleogene global climate is vital to identify and quantify present and future climate feedbacks related to rising atmospheric carbon concentrations. This thesis is specifically focused on global change that occurred during a brief period of extreme global warming called the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM), approximately 55.5 Million years ago. The PETM, which characterizes the Paleocene-Eocene boundary, associated with this warming is a negative 2.5-6 ‰ stable carbon isotope (δ13C) excursion (CIE), evidencing the fast injection of 12C-enriched carbon in the form of CO2 or CH4 into the global exogenic carbon pool. The apparent conjunction between the carbon input and warming has fuelled the hypothesis that the increased atmospheric CO2 and/or CH4 concentrations caused an enhanced greenhouse effect at the PETM, superimposed on the already high greenhouse gas concentrations of the earliest Paleogene. The duration of the negative δ13C excursion and the subsequent recovery is in the order of 170 thousand years. The carbon injection at the PETM led to extreme ocean acidification, which requires a larger injection of carbon than can be explained by the previously assumed dissociation of submarine methane hydrates. Based on the newly discovered Elmo horizon it is now known that the PETM was not a unique event but the most severe of multiple 'hyperthermal' events during the late Paleocene and early Eocene. This strongly suggests an endogenic cause for these phases of rapid global warming. Results from sediment cores from the Arctic Ocean and the New Jersey shelf provide a better constraint on the very high temperatures that prevailed globally during the late Paleocene and early Eocene and particularly during the PETM. These results indicate that climate models cannot realistically produce climates, particularly meridinional temperature gradients, during these episodes of enhanced atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Despite of the globally warm temperatures, Antarctic continental ice was potentially present judging from the significant sea level variations recorded through the latest Paleocene and earliest Eocene. The PETM itself is associated with sea level transgression and a maximum flooding. Finally, based on high-accumulation rate neritic deposits, the onset of the globally recorded acme of the dinoflagellate Apectodinium precedes the onset of the PETM global warming by some 2 kyr, which, in turn leads the CIE by ~3 kyr. Hence, sea surface conditions characteristic of the PETM, including extreme warming, initiated significantly prior to the injection of 12C-enriched carbon. This implies that this injection likely occurred as a result of global change, rather than the other way around, and invokes the dawn of the next challenge: solving the question how global change, including warming, could occur without a change in the isotopic composition of the exogenic carbon pool.


Objective: To explore the feasibility of case-based payment (zero medical expense) for pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) outpatients through the new rural cooperative medical system (NRCMS) in Hunan province. Materials and Methods: Cross-section and qualitative study were applied. All 131 counties of Hunan province were investigated to identify the current situation of medical security in tuberculosis (TB) patients by questionnaire and telephone interview. Thirty-six staff of nine pilot counties, which already implemented case-based payment were interviewed on their opinions of case-based payment, interviewees were from health bureau, NRCMS sectors and centers for disease control and prevention (CDC) of each county. Results: Outpatient PTB treatment for rural patients was covered by NRCMS in 118 of all 131 counties. Reimbursement models consist of proportional reimbursement, fixed amount reimbursement, and case-based payment. However, the proportion of proportional reimbursement has a range of 30-80%, the payment of amount reimbursement varies from 200 to 1500 RMB Yuan/case. Patients covered by proportional reimbursement and fixed amount reimbursement need to pay the medical expense of 588 Yuan/case and 463 Yuan/case respectively, comparing zero expenditure for patients of case-based payment. NRCMS need input about 17.8 million Yuan more per year to reimburse all rural PTB outpatients' medical expenses, which only accounted for 0.12% of total NRCMS fund. In those counties, which already implemented case-based payment policy, the number of patients visited CDCs has increased dramatically, follow-up and treatment compliance improved obviously as well. Conclusion: Zero outpatient medical burden for rural TB patients is feasible and realizable through case-based payment under China's NRCMS.


Deep-sea fishes have been poorly sampled globally, and overall knowledge of demersal fish distributions and the drivers of community composition and diversity remain limited. Here, we used nine comparable datasets with species-level identification of fishes from research surveys around the world to test the hypothesis that deep-sea demersal fish assemblage composition on seamounts is consistent between major oceans. Two levels of analysis were undertaken: the first combined all presence-absence data from a seamount, while a second more detailed analysis included catch weight data based on a smaller number of seamounts. Overall, there was a consistent separation of seamounts by region based on the compositions of their fish assemblages. New Zealand and SE Australian seamounts have a very similar ichthyofauna, which differs substantially from seamounts in the eastern South Pacific Ocean off Chile. In the North Atlantic, Bear Seamount appears to be distinct from all others, while seamount fish assemblages off Ireland, the Azores, and Faraday Seamount have some affinities. The Tasman Sea and New Caledonian seamounts show strong intra-regional variation. On an ocean basin scale we therefore reject the hypothesis that the composition of deep-sea demersal fish fauna is homogeneous globally. However, regional patterns of both species composition and relative abundance show some similarities between widely separated geographical locations, especially where orange roughy is a dominant species. Salinity was the main environmental factor identified in a multivariate analysis of environmental covariate data. This is likely to be a result of salinity being a key characteristic defining both Antarctic Intermediate Water and North Atlantic Deep Water, the water masses found over most seamounts examined in this study, and which may explain similarities between deep-sea fish assemblages.


This paper discusses procedures for creating calibrated building energy simulation programs. It begins with reviews of the calibration techniques that have been reported in the previous literature and presents new hourly calibration methods including a temperature bin analysis to improve hourly x-y scatter plots, a 24-hour weather-daytype bin analysis to allow for the evaluation of hourly temperature and schedule dependent comparisons, and a 52-week bin analysis to facilitate the evaluation of long-term trends. In addition, architectural rendering is reviewed as a means of verifying the dimensions of the building envelope and external shading placement that provide goodness-of-fit indicators, including percent difference calculations, mean bias error (MBE), and the coefficient of variation of the root mean squared error (CV(RMSE)). The procedures are applied to a case study building located in Washington, DC, where nine months of hourly whole-building electricity data and site-specific weather data were measured and used with the DOE-2.1D building energy simulation program to test the new techniques. Simulations that used the new calibration procedures were able to produce an hourly MBE of {minus}0.7% and a CV(RMSE) of 23.1% which compare favorably with the most accurate hourly neural network models (Kreider and Haberl, 1944a, b).


Curriculum Reinforcement Learning (CRL) aims to create a sequence of tasks, starting from easy ones and gradually learning towards difficult tasks. In this work, we focus on the idea of framing CRL as interpolations between a source (auxiliary) and a target task distribution. Although existing studies have shown the great potential of this idea, it remains unclear how to formally quantify and generate the movement between task distributions. Inspired by the insights from gradual domain adaptation in semi-supervised learning, we create a natural curriculum by breaking down the potentially large task distributional shift in CRL into smaller shifts. We propose GRADIENT, which formulates CRL as an optimal transport problem with a tailored distance metric between tasks. Specifically, we generate a sequence of task distributions as a geodesic interpolation (i.e., Wasserstein barycenter) between the source and target distributions. Different from many existing methods, our algorithm considers a task-dependent contextual distance metric and is capable of handling nonparametric distributions in both continuous and discrete context settings. In addition, we theoretically show that GRADIENT enables smooth transfer between subsequent stages in the curriculum under certain conditions. We conduct extensive experiments in locomotion and manipulation tasks and show that our proposed GRADIENT achieves higher performance than baselines in terms of learning efficiency and asymptotic performance.


Scale: 0.15 arcsec/pixel Wavelength range: 320 900 nm Two Cameras (detectors) are available (with various binning and region-of-interest options) Blue Camera: [1]optimized for the UV, down to 320nm Red Camera: [2]best response redward of ~400nm with negligible fringing Which Camera: Blue or Red? The Blue Camera [1] is recommended for programs requiring the highest possible throughput [3] blueward of ~4500 A, down to the atmospheric UV cutoff. Also, programs attempting fast time-series photometry should use the Blue Camera [1], since at present it has more flexible choice of Regions of Interest (ROI). For all other programs, the Red Camera [2] provides roughly equal response as the Blue Camera [1] around ~4500 A and is better at redder wavelengths, with almost no fringing out to 9500 A. Imaging: circular 7.2 arcmin diameter field. SDSS, Bessell and Narrow-band filters (4x4 inch square). Up to 4 filters for imaging. The full list of available filters can be accessed in the SOAR filter list page. [4] Spectroscopy: Single Slit and Multi-Object Slit (MOS) Gratings from 400 to 2400 l/mm [5](R~1850 to 14000 with 0.45" slit) Single slits from 0.45 to 10 arcsec wide, 3.9 arcmin long. [6] Order sorting filters (always mounted). Please note that the GG-385 filter has been retired because of poor optical quality. Observers should use the GG-395 instead. MOS mode: masks span 3x5 arcmin rectangular field Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC) available. The SOAR ADC is capable of full correction down to elevations of 30 deg above the horizon. Below that, and down to the 15 deg elevation limit of the telescope, the correction will be only partial; however, we recommend avoinding targets at elevations lower than 20 deg. The ADC is most useful for MOS observations, or when the program does not allow orienting the slit at the paralactic angle.


Metal ions bind to nucleic acids at various positions. This binding can be modulated by using metal complexes with appropriate ligands. Novel mono- and especially dinuclear metal complexes could be a powerful tool to detect rare, but still physiologically relevant, forms of DNA, e.g. the left-handed Z-DNA. In this review, our recent research activities in this area of bioinorganic chemistry are summarized. A special emphasis is laid on the synthetic challenges that arose upon the synthesis of the polyamine ligands. Further, some rather unusual approaches to elucidate the solution structure of copper bound to guanosine monophosphate with the help of pulsed EPR techniques like ENDOR and HYSCORE are described.


Frequent itemset mining (FIM) is a core operation for several data mining applications as association rules computation, correlations, document classification, and many others, which has been extensively studied over the last decades. Moreover, databases are becoming increasingly larger, thus requiring a higher computing power to mine them in reasonable time. At the same time, the advances in high performance computing platforms are transforming them into hierarchical parallel environments equipped with multi-core processors and many-core accelerators, such as GPUs. Thus, fully exploiting these systems to perform FIM tasks poses as a challenging and critical problem that we address in this paper. We present efficient multi-core and GPU accelerated parallelizations of the Tree Projection, one of the most competitive FIM algorithms. The experimental results show that our Tree Projection implementation scales almost linearly in a CPU shared-memory environment after careful optimizations, while the GPU versions are up to 173 times faster than standard the CPU version.


We theoretically and experimentally study self-accelerating and self-breathing Bessel-like beams that follow arbitrary trajectories, including hyperbolic, hyperbolic secant, and three-dimensional(3D) spiraling trajectories. The beams have an overall Bessel-like profile in transverse dimensions; however, the intensity of their central main lobe breathes while traveling along a curved trajectory. Such beams can be readily generated experimentally through appropriate phase modulation of the optical wavefront. The beams contribute to the design of new families of self-accelerating beams.


About 160 000 specimens of insects, belonging to 1 100 species, and a few millipedes, mostly from museum collections, were investigated with respect to the occurrence of ectoparasitic,laboulbeniaceous fungi in Finland and adjacent parts of the U.S.S.R. In all 166 species of insects (Coleoptera and Diptera) were found to be infested by 88 taxa of Laboulbeniales (81 species from Finland and 42 species from the U.S.S.R.), all are reported from the area for the first time. All the fungus taxa are illustrated and their distribution mapped. Twenty-four taxa are described as new for science : Cantharomyces aploderi n. sp ., Dichomycesfurcifer subsp. subarcticus n. subsp. , Eucantharomyces fennoscandicus n. sp., Fanniomyces copromyzae n. sp., Hydrophilomyces arcuatus n. sp., Laboulbenia carelica n . sp., L. fennica n. sp., L. hastiana n. sp., L. kajanensis n. sp., L. murmanica n. sp., L. oodiphila n. sp., Monoicomyces oxyteli n . sp., Siemaszkoafennica n. sp., Stigmatomyces axystae n. sp., S. bottnica n. sp., S. chthonicus n. sp., S. dichaetae n. sp ., S. hackmanii n. sp., S. manicatae n. sp., S. mantis n. sp., S. setacerae n. sp., S. subterraneus n . sp ., Symplectromyces lapponicus n. sp. and S. rarus n. sp. Five other species are recorded for the first time from Europe: Laboulbenia compressa Thaxter, L. curtipes Thaxter, L. manubriolata Thaxter, Monoicomyces furcata Thaxter and Teratomyces brevicaulis Thaxter. A short review is given of the morphology, host-parasite relationships, distribution, origin and taxonomy of the parasites of the Laboulbeniales. The general conditions for the occurrence of laboulbeniaceous parasites are discussed. The frequency of these parasites on insects in Northern Europe proved to be about I %, which is very low compared with the values for Central Europe, where the frequency is generally 1035 'Yo. The explanation appears to be that in the north the host populations are smaller, more scattered and living under more unpredictable climatological conditions, which lowers the probability of establishment, dispersal and survival of the parasites. This is probably also the reason why many parasites do not extend as far north as their hosts, though another explanation may be an alteration in the life cycle pattern of the host towards the north . In one case, at least, viz. Misgomyces dyschirii Thaxter on Dyschirius globosus (Herbst), the distribution of the parasite is apparently directly limited by certain climatological factors . Preliminary results of investigations of Laboulbenia fennica occurring on whirligig beetles (Coleoptera, Gyrinidae) in several host populations in southern Finland have shown a very constant frequency of the parasite, with no seasonal variation. In contrast, investigations of the Laboulbeniales in Central Europe have revealed two different patterns of population dynamics with distinct seasonal fluctuations .


Body area networks (BANs) are networks of wireless sensors and medical devices embedded in clothing, worn on or implanted in the body, and have the potential to revolutionize healthcare by enabling pervasive healthcare. However, due to their critical applications affecting human health, challenges arise when designing them to ensure they are safe for the user, sustainable without requiring frequent battery replacements and secure from interference and malicious attacks. This book lays the foundations of how BANs can be redesigned from a cyber-physical systems perspective (CPS) to overcome these issues. Introducing cutting-edge theoretical and practical techniques and taking into account the unique environment-coupled characteristics of BANs, the book examines how we can re-imagine the design of safe, secure and sustainable BANs. It features real-world case studies, suggestions for further investigation and project ideas, making it invaluable for anyone involved in pervasive and mobile healthcare, telemedicine, medical apps and other cyber-physical systems.


A variational approach for filling-in regions of missing data in digital images is introduced. The approach is based on joint interpolation of the image gray levels and gradient/isophotes directions, smoothly extending in an automatic fashion the isophote lines into the holes of missing data. This interpolation is computed by solving the variational problem via its gradient descent flow, which leads to a set of coupled second order partial differential equations, one for the gray-levels and one for the gradient orientations. The process underlying this approach can be considered as an interpretation of the Gestaltist's principle of good continuation. No limitations are imposed on the topology of the holes, and all regions of missing data can be simultaneously processed, even if they are surrounded by completely different structures. Applications of this technique include the restoration of old photographs and removal of superimposed text like dates, subtitles, or publicity. Examples of these applications are given. We conclude the paper with a number of theoretical results on the proposed variational approach and its corresponding gradient descent flow.


This paper uses income decomposition techniques to demonstrate the importance of livestock income in improving rural income distribution. It is based on three-year household panel data (1986 to 1989) from rural Pakistan. The paper first decomposes total income among five sources: agricultural, nonfarm, livestock, rental and transfer. This shows that livestock income is inequality-decreasing and that it makes the smallest contribution to overall inequality. The study then decomposes the sources of livestock inequality by type of animal. While livestock income from male animals has a negative impact on equity, livestock income from one female animal (local cow) has a positive effect.


ABSTRACT This study examines the information content on hydrometeors that could be provided by a future HYperspectral Microwave Sensor (HYMS) with frequencies ranging from 6.9 to 874 GHz (millimeter and sub-millimeter regions). Through optimal estimation theory the information content is expressed quantitatively in terms of degrees of freedom for signal (DFS). For that purpose the Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator (ARTS) and its Jacobians are used with a set of 25 cloudy and precipitating profiles and their associated errors from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) global numerical weather prediction model. In agreement with previous studies it is shown that frequencies between 10 and 40 GHz are the most informative ones for liquid and rain water contents. Similarly, the absorption band at 118 GHz contains significant information on liquid precipitation. A set of new window channels (15.37-, 40.25-, 101-GHz) could provide additional information on the liquid phase. The most informative channels on cloud ice water are the window channels at 664 and 874 GHz and the water vapour absorption bands at 325 and 448 GHz. Regarding snow water contents, the channels having the largest DFS values are located in window regions (150-, 251-, 157-, 101-GHz). However it is necessary to consider 90 channels in order to represent 90% of the DFS. The added value of HYMS has been assessed against current Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMI/S) onboard the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and future (Microwave Imager/Ice Cloud Imager (MWI/ICI) onboard European Polar orbiting Satellite – Second Generation (EPS-SG)) microwave sensors. It appears that with a set of 276 channels the information content on hydrometeors would be significantly enhanced: the DFS increases by 1.7 against MWI/ICI and by 3 against SSMI/S. A number of tests have been performed to examine the robustness of the above results. The most informative channels on solid hydrometeors remain the same over land and over ocean surfaces. On the other hand, the database is not large enough to produce robust results over land surfaces for liquid hydrometeors. The sensitivity of the results to the microphysical properties of frozen hydrometeors has been investigated. It appears that a change in size distribution and scattering properties can move the large information content of the channels at 664 and 874 GHz from cloud ice to solid precipitation.


ICT4D – the application of information and communication technologies for international development – is moving to a new phase. This will require new technologies, new approaches to innovation and implementation, new intellectual perspectives and, above all, a new view of the world's poor. All these must be understood if we are to harness digital technologies in the service of some of our world's most pressing problems.

This paper explains the phase change – from "ICT4D 1.0" to "ICT4D 2.0" – and its implications. The background to these phases is reviewed, charting the logic and chronology of applying ICTs in developing countries. The implications of the phase change are then analysed. First, in terms of new technology and application priorities. Then, in relation to new models of innovation we may need to embrace: from laboratory to collaborative to grassroots innovation. Next, in relation to new implementation models for funding, managing, and applying digital technology. Finally, the paper looks at necessary new worldviews to guide our thinking and our policies in this field; integrating perspectives from computer science, information systems and development studies. Additional commentaries and models provide a further set of rich insights into the future of ICT4D.


The subject of this three-part project is poetry. More specifically, the project is a collection of thoughts about poetry, the language of poetry, and poetry-as-philosophy. In its introductory section can be found a description of two competing accounts of language: referent theory, and meaning-is-use. While the latter seems a more complete picture on the whole, or so I assert, one must wonder: does it account for all the ways we use language? Specifically, can it account for the language of our main subject—poetry? I assert not. In this vein, the second part of the project attempts to do what I claim should not be done by asking three questions of the language of poetry; namely, whether or not the sentences in poetry are statements, whether or not they can be bearers of truthvalue, and whether or not they are meaningful. The chapter concludes with the claim that to ask these questions is to misunderstand the nature of poetry. Instead of asking these questions of poetry, I suggest that we might instead ask ourselves if perhaps we aren't mistaken about what these sorts of questions may accomplish—and not just in connection with poetry. In the project's third section, I ask, "When it comes to philosophy, is it possible that our current methodology does not actually serve the purpose it was designed for? Or could it be that this purpose is itself misguided?" In this chapter I assert the latter and consider an alternate methodology, affirming that we should think of poetry as philosophy. The project concludes with an appendix that attempts to demonstrate the practice of, "Showing, Not Saying."


Market structure is determined by the entry and exit decisions of individual producers. These decisions are driven by expectations of future profits which, in turn, depend on the nature of competition within the market. In this paper we estimate a dynamic, structural model of entry and exit in an oligopolistic industry and use it to quantify the determinants of market structure and long-run firm values for two U.S. service industries, dentists and chiropractors. We find that entry costs faced by potential entrants, fixed costs faced by incumbent producers, and the toughness of short-run price competition are all important determinants of long run firm values and market structure. As the number of firms in the market increases, the value of continuing in the market and the value of entering the market both decline, the probability of exit rises, and the probability of entry declines. The magnitude of these effects differ substantially across markets due to differences in exogenous cost and demand factors and across the dentist and chiropractor industries. Simulations using the estimated model for the dentist industry show that pressure from both potential entrants and incumbent firms discipline long-run profits. We calculate that a seven percent reduction in the mean sunk entry cost would reduce a monopolist's long-run profits by the same amount as if the firm operated in a duopoly.


In the search and seizure context, the United States is much more heavily wedded to warrants and exclusion than European countries and in the interrogation setting requires more robust warnings than most nations in Europe. Comparative empiricism is an empirical assessment of the relative effectiveness of these types of differences between nations' regulatory regimes. In the law enforcement context, this type of assessment might be the only realistic means of determining the combination of mechanisms that best protects against government over-reaching without unduly stymying good police-work. Domestic research that attempts to explore differing regulatory approaches either occurs in experimental settings that undermine generalizability or is constrained by national laws that prohibit or limit the ability to manipulate investigatory rules. In contrast, the significant country-by-country differences in approaches to police regulation, combined with the relatively consistent demands of police work across countries, provide a naturalistic setting for testing the effectiveness of a wide array of rules. In particular, comparative empirical work that uses the same metric for gauging effectiveness – this article proposes "hit rates" for searches and seizures and confession and clearance rates for interrogations – can provide a unique source of information to policymakers. After describing the law of search and seizure and interrogation in four European countries, Australia and the United States, this article examines the newest research studying the effects of these rules and lays out an empirical agenda.


This paper is concerned with the seawater reverse osmosis preheating process, and presents a parametric study of the process. The basic transport equations describing the leading element are exhibited and appraised. The leading element, which governs the whole system performance, is studied and analysed. The incorporated and investigated operating parameters are the feed pressure and the temperature for different feed salt concentrations. In addition, different feed flow rates, effects on permeate flux and permeator salt rejection, together with the permeator recovery, are studied. A seawater membrane of a well-known data, for instance FT30SW380HR, is used to perform the study. The membrane water permeability coefficient Kw is determined and correlated. Furthermore, the membrane salt permeability coefficient Ks from the manufacturer system analysis program (ROSA) is given and discussed. The transport governing equations are programmed in a way that facilitates the achievement of a realistic parametric study. The results showed that the permeate flux increases significantly as the feed pressure increases. Also, it increases significantly as the feed salt concentration decreases, and also as the feed temperature and pressure increase. Meanwhile, the permeator salt rejection increases significantly as the feed pressure increases, and decreases significantly as the feed temperature increases. The study of the leading element of the array showed that there are constraints that must be considered, such as maximum membrane flux, maximum applied feed pressure, maximum feed flow rate and maximum feed temperature. Therefore, to attain the maximum membrane flux, the applied feed pressure must be lowered when the feed temperature is increased. In the case where the feed temperature is increased from 18°C to 45°C, a pressure saving of between 7% and 26% is achieved, according to the feed salt concentration and feed flow rate.


No effective vaccine is available for any parasitic disease of humans. The design of such a vaccine presents particular challenges but one new approach is based on the analysis of peptides bound to human leucocyte antigen (HLA) molecules. This approach has now been applied to identify components of a new cytotoxic-T-lymphocyte-inducing vaccine against malaria. A similar approach may be useful in designing vaccines against other complex pathogens.


This article discusses the social development practices of an international collaboration working to reduce energy poverty through the provision of household solar lighting for Indigenous people living in remote communities in the Remexio district in Timor-Leste. The article discusses some of the findings of a practice-based study that uses collaborative inquiry to analyse the working model of 'Lampu Diak', the name of the solar lighting project, and its impacts on the health and well-being of local people and the communities in which they live. Underpinned by a practice-based sociomaterial approach, the analysis characterises the Lampu Diak project as a heterogeneous and distributed network. It discusses four of the developmental social work practices that sustain the project, with a particular emphasis on the introduction of clean, affordable, sustainable solar lighting and the associated 'common funds'. Common funds are informal microcredit schemes managed by community-based self-help groups. The article explores the potential affordances, benefits and pitfalls of common funds and the unanticipated ways in which they continue to unfold and extend the Lampu Diak project. The article contributes an example of how a village-to-village transnational collaboration practises developmental social work in a particular context.


Excessive buffer sizes in access networks may result in long delays, the effect known under the name of bufferbloat. There exist mechanisms that can solve the problem, however their deployment may be difficult or not feasible. In this paper, we explore other approaches that may bring better performance if the known solutions cannot be applied. Our main finding is the paradoxical observation that adding low intensity traffic of short packets improves latency at the price of a slight decrease in throughput. The result comes from the fact that buffer sizes are generally limited to a number of packets, so that filling them with small packets improves the queueing delay. Such a countermeasure does not require any modification at the head of the bottleneck link so an end host can use it to improve its performance. We also notice that the reverse download traffic has beneficial influence on performance, which explains why the negative effect of bufferbloat sometimes appears as alleviated. The paper presents the results of extensive experiments in a realistic setup over an ADSL link as well as on a dedicated testbed to illustrate the performance gains and the effect of several TCP variants.


Photorealism is a complex concept that cannot easily be formulated mathematically. Deep Photo Style Transfer is an attempt to transfer the style of a reference image to a content image while preserving its photorealism. This is achieved by introducing a constraint that prevents distortions in the content image and by applying the style transfer independently for semantically different parts of the images. In addition, an automated segmentation process is presented that consists of a neural network based segmentation method followed by a semantic grouping step. To further improve the results a measure for image aesthetics is used and elaborated. If the content and the style image are sufficiently similar, the result images look very realistic. With the automation of the image segmentation the pipeline becomes completely independent from any user interaction, which allows for new applications.


The report looks at the impact of "good practice"emission reduction policies in nine different areas globally and across six countries: China, Brazil, India, the US, Russia and Japan.

These include renewable energy, a variety of energy efficiency standards (buildings, car fuel efficiecy, appliances and lighting, industry), hydrofluorocarbons (HFC.s), emissions from fossil fuel production, electric cars and forestry.

The authors looked at the most ambitious "good practice" policies around the world that are being implemented now, and calculated the difference these would make if everybody were to apply them.

If all governments follow those governments that currently adopt the best climate policies in just nin different areas, they could reduce emissions close to the levels needed to stay on track to hold global warming below 2 degrees C.

The implementation of good practice policies is projected to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions at 49-50 GtCO2e by 2020, and decrease to 44- 47 GtCO2e by 2030- close to the 2 degrees C emissions range (30-44 GtCO2e) by 2030.

Direct replication of good practice policies is projected to halt emissions growth in most regions sinificantly before 2030. In contrast, current policies are expected to see emissions to increase to around 54 GtCO2e by 2020 and 59-60 GtCO2e by 2030.


As this country faces rising health care costs, it has become increasingly clear that we cannot afford all medically beneficial care. Advances in technology are pushing health care costs to an unsustainable level. Some savings can be achieved by eliminating waste in the health care system. The health care system is plagued by a good deal of excess capacity as well as considerable inefficiency in administrative activities. Elimination of waste, however, would not free up enough resources to cover all potentially useful medical services. Moreover, the public has a host of welfare needs, including better housing, education, and environmental protection, but has a limited purse. If we are to have any money left to pay for these other goods, we must place greater limits on spending for health care services. In short, rationing of health care is inevitable. This Article focuses on a critical issue for health care rationing: How can we ration health care in a way that does not discriminate unfairly on the basis of sickness? Many individuals have argued that health care costs can be contained by eliminating care for patients who have poor prognoses and for whom health care yields less benefit than for other patients. Proposals to control health care costs also call for less coverage for some categories of illnesses than for others. But these proposals for containing costs raise important concerns about equity. Differential funding by type of disease may reflect invidious biases against people who suffer from disfavored illnesses. Denial of care to patients who would gain less benefit from treatment appears to base rationing decisions on objectively fair criteria, but these differences in prognoses among patients often reflect the biases inherent in social policies and structures. A patient with a psychiatric disorder may realize little benefit from treatment primarily because the stigma of psychiatric illness has led researchers and funders of research to neglect psychiatric illness when developing treatments for disease. Moreover, patients may have a poor prognosis, not because their condition is inherently difficult to treat, but because it has been historically disfavored by the operation of society's policies and institutions. Anti-discrimination statutes, in their language and legislative history, recognize that persons with disabilities need protection not only against current invidious bias but also against discrimination arising out of biases inherent in social structure. Accordingly, the statutes include a principle of reasonable accommodations that requires the implementation of measures that will help compensate for these biases. This Article argues that courts have not given adequate recognition to the principle of reasonable accommodations embedded within the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ("ADA") and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and therefore have not fulfilled congressional intent to prevent unfair discrimination on the basis of sickness. To remedy the deficiencies in existing standards, this Article proposes a new standard that is explicitly designed to address discrimination from biases inherent in the social structure. This "destructured disability standard" should more fully realize the goals that are an essential part of current anti-discrimination law.


Games on graphs have become an indispensable tool in modern computer science. They provide powerful and expressive models for numerous phenomena and are extensively used in computer- aided verification, automata theory, logic, complexity theory, computational biology, etc. The infinite games on finite graphs we study in this thesis have their primary applications in verification, but are also of fundamental importance from the complexity-theoretic point of view. They include parity, mean payoff, and simple stochastic games. We focus on solving graph games by using iterative strategy improvement and methods from linear programming and combinatorial optimization. To this end we consider old strategy evaluation functions, construct new ones, and show how all of them, due to their structural similarities, fit into a unifying combinatorial framework. This allows us to employ randomized optimization methods from combinatorial linear programming to solve the games in expected subexponential time. We introduce and study the concept of a controlled optimization problem, capturing the essential features of many graph games, and provide sufficent conditions for solvability of such problems in expected subexponential time. The discrete strategy evaluation function for mean payoff games we derive from the new controlled longest-shortest path problem, leads to improvement algorithms that are considerably more efficient than the previously known ones, and also improves the efficiency of algorithms for parity games. We also define the controlled linear programming problem, and show how the games are translated into this setting. Subclasses of the problem, more general than the games considered, are shown to belong to NP intersection coNP, or even to be solvable by subexponential algorithms. Finally, we take the first steps in investigating the fixed-parameter complexity of parity, Rabin, Streett, and Muller games.


Entrepreneurship development in Tanzania is of no doubt very important as it creates employment opportunities to cater for people who can not secure formal employment these includes non schooled, school dropouts, school leavers, colleges leavers, retired and employed people due to pension and salary insufficiencies respectively. Policies emphasizing entrepreneurship development have been put in place and various researches based on entrepreneurship have been conducted, results and recommendations have been given to work on but unemployment problem is still alarming.

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors influencing entrepreneurship development in Lindi municipal, to see if there are challenges to work on. The study employed interview, questionnaire and observation methods during data collection, whereby the sample of 50 respondents from the Lindi municipal was involved.

Results indicate that there are many unexploited entrepreneurial opportunities; there are factors which favour entrepreneurship development and some which hinder it. The study recommends the following; entrepreneurship should be dealt in categorically, school curricula should include entrepreneurship development, financial institutions should be entrepreneurial focused, to build self esteemed entrepreneurs government should adopt into entrepreneurship revolution, to educate and to sensitize people on entrepreneurship and the religious leaders should be reminded on their role of developing entrepreneurship in their respective areas given that they are close to the people and they have power to influence people.


The paper examines how young people describe experiences of bullying when participating in an Internet community dedicated to young people experiencing mental health problems. The micro-analytic focus demonstrates how young people construct their identities in relation to their telling about their experiences of being victims of bullying, reporting on two distinct ways that they framed their postings. The posters either disclosed their experiences about bullying in relation to a wider self-presentation of experiences of bullying (bullying being part of their past and a partial reason for their problems), or more straightforwardly asked for help and advice from other participants to find ways of dealing with ongoing bullying. Finally, the paper demonstrates how contributors orient to the Internet community, and calls for more research based on unsolicited naturalistic data for such issues as bullying.


This study focuses on the possible impact of the MFA phase-out on the world economy. Starting from analyzing trends in world textile and apparel trade, the study found that the developing countries were a growing factor in world T&A trade in recent decades. Moreover, using trade data from 91 countries over 37 years, the study indicates a strong positive relationship between trade in textile and apparel and the standard of living. The study further focuses on the possible impacts of the MFA phase-out on the world T&A using an intertemporal, global general equilibrium model. The study found the the MFA phase-out would enlarge world trade of T&A and developing countries will further gain market share in world total exports. Even though the developing countries currently free from the MFA quota restraints may lose their market shares, as world T&A prices are lowered by improving the efficiency of world T&A trade post-MFA, consumers are better off by consuming cheap commodities.


The study investigates as to how different attributes influence the retail price using milk as a case study. The analysis of this study is based on the 'revealed preference theory' using 'hedonic price analysis'. For this purpose the data was collected by use of a questionnaire and by obtaining milk samples from the household consumers of Faisalabad city of Pakistan. Linear functional form was used to estimate influence of milk components and sensory variables as perceived by consumers on the price of milk. Findings of the study indicate that various attributes (i.e., fat, solid-not-fat, total plate count, aroma, color, etc.,) has significant impact on the price of milk. The results suggest that the government should take appropriate measures to improve the quality of milk through check-points and installation of milk testing laboratories. Provision of cooling tanks/chilling units should be installed at producer-centres/associations; and refrigerated transportation would also help to improve the quality of milk and prevent milk spoilage.


Cut a scene from the USA Network television series Monk, create a promo for Seaworld's Belief documentary, and master filters and effects as you edit a segment of BBC Motion Gallery's Living Colour documentary. Completely revised for Final Cut Pro 6 and featuring all-new footage, this best-selling, Apple-certified guide provides a strong foundation in all aspects of video editing. Renowned author Diana Weynand starts with basic video editing techniques and takes you all the way through Final Cut Pro's powerful advanced features. Each chapter presents a complete lesson in an aspect of video editing and finishing, using actual broadcast footage. After marking and editing clips to create a rough cut, you'll learn how to trim and refine the cut before moving on to complex tasks such as mixing sound, adding titles, creating transitions and motion effects, applying filters, real-time color correcting, and working with multi-format and multi-camera footage.


The study investigates development of new intermodal transport solutions with specific focus on solutions where customers, the shippers, choose to develop and manage their own intermodal solutions instead of buying the transport service in the market. The purpose of the paper is to study the design aspects of customer managed intermodal transport system development to see what makes such systems competitive. Focus is on why shippers develop such solutions; how they solve fundamental performance problems; and what characterises such shippers. Shippers engage in development and management of intermodal solutions based on perceived weak signals about future threats and opportunities. Intermodal solutions are designed to meet cost, quality, and environmental requirements. Shippers engaging in development of such solutions have large and concentrated flows. Furthermore, they have strong environmental policies, and are highly dependent on efficient transport. Finally, they are major buyers in the transport market having previous experience in using rail/intermodal.


Deborah Sawyer discusses this crucial yet unresolved question in the context of contemporary and postmodern ideas about gender and power, based on fresh examination of a number of texts from Hebrew and Christian scripture. Such texts offer striking parallels to contemporary gender theories (particularly those of Luce Irigaray and Judith Butler), which have unravelled given notions of power and constructed identity. Through the study of gender in terms of its application by biblical writers as a theological strategy, we can observe how these writers use female characters to undermine human masculinity, through their 'higher' intention to elevate the biblical God. God Gender and the Bible demonstrates that both maleness and femaleness are constructed in the light of divine omnipotence. Unlike many approaches to the Bible that offer hegemonist interpretations, such as those that are explicitly Christian or Jewish, or liberationist or feminist, this enlightening and readable study sustains and works with the inconsistencies evident in biblical literature.


Cysteine cathepsins are important regulators and signaling molecules of an unimaginable number of biological processes, while they concurrently play an essential role in cancer progression, invasion and metastasis. The purposes of our study were to: a) compare the expression levels of cathepsins B, H and L in the supernatants of colon cancer tissues from 74 patients versus the corresponding enzymic expressions of supernatants in the adjacent normal colorectal tissues; and b) correlate our results to the grade of the malignancy by using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The findings indicated that cathepsins B, H and L of all malignant tissues exhibited significantly higher expression levels than their corresponding controls. Furthermore, cathepsin B expression levels doubled in all tumor samples and this increase remained quite steady with tumor stage advancement, in contrast to cathepsin H expression which rose significantly as malignancy progressed. Specifically, cathepsin H concentration was higher than the corresponding control: 155% in B1 stage and 204.44% in D stage. Among the three investigated proteases, cathepsin L has shown the highest increase, which in D stage stood 261.03% higher than the corresponding control. The results at hand suggested that cysteine protease H and L expression levels could be of critical value in the diagnosis and progression of colon cancer.


Glass fibres slowly degrade due to dissolution when exposed to water. Such environmental aging results in the deterioration of the mechanical properties. In structural offshore and marine applications, as well as in the wind energy sector, R-glass fibre composites are continuously exposed to water and humid environments for decades, with a typical design lifetime being around 25 years or more. During this lifetime, these materials are affected by various temperatures, acidity levels, and mechanical loads. A Dissolving Cylinder Zero-Order Kinetic (DCZOK) model was able to explain the long-term dissolution of R-glass fibres, considering the influence of the pH, temperature, and stress corrosion. The effects of these environmental conditions on the dissolution rate constants and activation energies of dissolution were obtained. Experimentally, dissolution was measured using High Resolution Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (HR-ICP-MS). For stress corrosion, a custom rig was designed and used. The temperature showed an Arrhenius-type influence on the kinetics, increasing the rate of dissolution exponentially with increasing temperature. In comparison with neutral conditions, basic and acidic aqueous environments showed an increase in the dissolution rates, affecting the lifetime of glass fibres negatively. External loads also increased glass dissolution rates due to stress corrosion. The model was able to capture all of these effects.


ABSTRACT The 2009 L'Aquila event highlighted the importance of crisis communication and pushed the use of scientific methods to drive alternative risk mitigation strategies. For instance, van Stiphout et al. (2010) suggested a new approach for objective short‐term evacuation decisions: probabilistic risk forecasting combined with cost–benefit analysis. We apply this approach to a scenario earthquake sequence that simulated a repeat of the 1356 Basel earthquake, one of the most damaging events in central Europe. We analyze the simulated earthquake catalog and explore how we might provide decision support and information throughout such a crisis. Specifically, we describe a method that extends recent developments in short‐term seismicity forecasting and apply it to the Basel scenario. Compared with van Stiphout et al. (2010), we use an advanced aftershock forecasting model and more detailed settlement data to permit spatial forecasts and district‐wise decision making. With this method, we can make predictive statements about earthquake consequences, specifically quantified in terms of human loss. For instance 1 min after the simulated M  6.6 mainshock, the probability for an individual to die within the next 24 hours is four orders of magnitude higher than the long‐term average but remains far below 1%. The final cost–benefit analysis adds value beyond making probabilistic forecasts: it provides objective statements that may justify evacuations. We find that if a foreshock of M  5.5 or larger precedes the M  6.6 mainshock, evacuations in the central part of the city would be justified. To deliver supportive information in a simple form, we propose a warning approach in terms of alarm levels.


A 910MHz high efficiency RF transceiver for Wireless Body Area Network in medical application is presented in this paper. High energy efficiency transmitter and receiver architectures are proposed. In wireless body sensor network, the transmitter must have higher efficiency compared with the receiver because a large amount of data is sent from sensor node to receiver of the base station and smaller amount of data is received. Using colpitts oscillator in the proposed transceiver with injection-lock technique, the efficiency of transmitter and receiver has been improved. The designed transceiver consumes 1 mW at -6 dBm output with 5 Mbps data rate. Energy consumption of transmitter and receiver are 864 pJ/(bit×mW) and 114 pJ/bit, respectively. The proposed transmitter was designed in 0.18 μm RFCMOS technology.


Inspired by ethnographic analogies and interpretations of late Dorset symbolic representations an attempt is made to understand the material evidence concerning spiritual worlds and cosmology of the earliest human societies of the eastern Arctic, designated "early Arctic Small Tool tradition" (early ASTt) by archaeologists. Excellently preserved archaeological finds from two permanently frozen Saqqaq sites (ca. 2400–900 B.C.) in Disco Bay, West Greenland, form the starting point of the analyses, and comparative materials from Pre-Dorset and Independence I sites in Canada are included. Analyses of technology and design suggest that the material culture of the early ASTt acted as a constant reminder of strict cultural norms within which these geographically widespread and mobile pioneering people operated. This homogenous materiality ensured cultural and social coherence in a pioneering society, which constantly was on the move into unknown and uncertain landscapes. Analyses of decorated objects, possible amulets, and fragments of drums—the earliest in the Arctic—suggest that the early ASTt material culture was an integral part of an animistic cosmology.


During the fourteenth century, Venetian chronicles, art, and ceremony fostered provocative analogies between angelic annunciation and the political voice of the Venetian populace. Such analogies imagined a city whose civic and heavenly members were united through the sound of unanimity. At the intersection of the state's civic and celestial bodies stood the doge, considered to be the image of the Republic and of its patron, Saint Mark. A complex of sung ceremonies and musical compositions addressed to the doge dramatized the notion that the voice, as a ritual instrument, could engender real political or spiritual change in the state and its leaders. Performances of acclamations to the doge positioned him within Venice's sacred and civic hierarchies, while state art and ceremony forged symbolic resemblances between ducal acclamation and angelic annunciation. A repertory of occasional motets evidences polyphonic play with the notion that vocal rituals centered on the doge could activate the spiritual ideals of the state: the anonymous Marce, Marcum imitaris (c. 1365) draws a sonic analogy between spiritual likeness and musical imitation in order to dramatize the concept of the doge as Mark's image, whereas Johannes Ciconia's Venecie mundi splendor/Michael qui Stena domus elides a text dedicated to the Annunciate Virgin with one addressed to the doge, creating musical echoes and simultaneities in its praises of Venice's temporal and celestial leaders.


Hairy cell leukemia or tricholeukemia is an entity within chronic lymphoproliferative syndromes with own characteristics different from those of other lymphoid neoplasias. It is a chronic leukemia characterized by an indolent and long clinical course, marked splenomegaly, pancytopenia and presence of characteristic hairy lymphocytic cells in peripheral blood, bone marrow and spleen. The diagnosis of this disease is not always Figueredo Thiel SJ 6 easy from the clinico-hematologic point of view because of its own characteristics that avoid good cytologic extractions for a correct visualization of its cells. Due to this, a diagnostic anatomopathological confirmation complemented with special techniques is necessary in most cases. The objective of this study is to describe the morphological aspects of this pathology from the anatomopathological point of view, in its biological and histological character with the different special techniques used currently for diagnosis in hematopathology in Paraguay. Findings were then correlated with hematologic clinics and laboratory, therapeutic schemes used, response and evolution of patients. The cytological and biopsy materials were analysed in the Section of Hematologic Pathology, Department of Pathology, Health Sciences Research Institute (IICS, National University of Asuncion), during five years, since its creation in 1997 to 2002, using enzymatic cytohistochemical techniques in cytologies and paraffin cuts, immunohistochemistry, transmission and scan electronic microscopy. These materials include samples from bone marrow biopsies, aspirates and imprints, peripheral blood, splenectomies and liver wedge of seven consecutive cases found in 53 patients with chronic lymphoproliferative syndrome of the main hospitals of the country. This work remarks the importance of pathological anatomy and its special techniques in hemotopathology, mainly the bone marrow biopsy, to achieve a certainty final diagnosis in hairy cell leukemias. It is possible to evidence morphological cell and tissue changes as well as alterations that confirm the diagnosis in first place, analyse the prognosis criteria in second place and finally evaluate the therapeutic response of these patients.


Human understanding of narrative texts requires making commonsense inferences beyond what is stated in the text explicitly. A recent model, COMET, can generate such inferences along several dimensions such as pre- and post-conditions, motivations, and mental states of the participants. However, COMET was trained on short phrases, and is therefore discourse-agnostic. When presented with each sentence of a multi-sentence narrative, it might generate inferences that are inconsistent with the rest of the narrative.

We present the task of discourse-aware commonsense inference. Given a sentence within a narrative, the goal is to generate commonsense inferences along predefined dimensions, while maintaining coherence with the rest of the narrative. Such large-scale paragraph-level annotation is hard to get and costly, so we use available sentence-level annotations to efficiently and automatically construct a distantly supervised corpus.

Using this corpus, we train PARA-COMET, a discourse-aware model that incorporates paragraph-level information to generate coherent commonsense inferences from narratives. PARA-COMET captures both semantic knowledge pertaining to prior world knowledge, and episodic knowledge involving how current events relate to prior and future events in a narrative. Our results confirm that PARA-COMET outperforms the sentence-level baselines, particularly in generating inferences that are both coherent and novel.


Mexico is the primary center of origin and diversity for maize (Zea mays L.). Farmers grow the crop largely under rain-fed conditions. Mexico is at considerable risk from climate change because of predicted rising temperatures, declining rainfall, and an increase in extreme weather events. Small-scale maize farmers are particularly vulnerable because of their geographical location as well as their limited adaptive capacity. Recommended climate change adaptation strategies include farmers' increased use of heat and drought stress-tolerant maize. Farmer adoption of improved germplasm has been disappointing because of inefficient seed input chains and farmers' preference for landraces for culinary, agronomic, and cultural reasons. Scientists have tended to overlook the fact that maize landraces have a critical role to play in climate change adaptation. Landraces may already exist that are appropriate for predicted climates. Furthermore, within the primary gene pool of maize and its wild relatives there exists unexploited genetic diversity for novel traits and alleles that can be used for breeding new high yielding and stress-tolerant cultivars. The breeding component of adaptation strategies should focus more on improving farmers' landraces. The desired result would be a segmented maize seed sector characterized by both (improved) landraces and improved maize varieties. The public and private sector could continue to provide farmers with improved maize varieties and different actors, including farmers themselves, would generate seed of improved landraces for sale and/or exchange.


Microfibrillar reinforced composites (MFC) have attracted considerable academic and practical interests after the concept was introduced more than a decade years ago. This new type of composites will be created by blending of two polymers with different melting temperatures and processing the blend under certain thermo-mechanical conditions to generate in-situ formed microfibrils of the higher melting polymer grade of temperature in the blend. The compression molded microfibrillar composites were reported to possess excellent mechanical properties and thus they are promising materials for different applications. In the present work, a typical immiscible polymer blend PET/PP was selected for the preparation of PET/PP, PET/PP/TiO2 microfibrillar reinforced composites. The objective of this study is to analyse the processing-structure-property relationship in the PET/PP based MFCs. The morphology of the PET microfibrils and the dispersion of the TiO2 nanoparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and discussed. The crystallization behaviour of PET and PP was studied by means of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The thermomechanical and mechanical properties of the composites were determined by dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) and uniaxial tensile tests and the related results discussed as a function of the composition of the corresponding system. During stretching of the PET/PP extrudate, the PET dispersed phase was deformed into microfibrils. These microfibrils were still well persevered after compression molding of the drawn strands. Therefore the PET microfibrils acted as the reinforcement for the PP matrix. Compared with neat PP, the tensile properties of the PET/PP MFC were greatly improved. For the PET/PP/TiO2 MFC, the effects of polypropylene grafted maleic anhydride (PP-g-MA, introduced as compatibilizer) and TiO2 particles on the structure and properties of drawn strands and composites were investigated. Upon the addition of PP-g-MA, the preferential location of TiO2 particles changed: they migrated from the PET dispersed phase to the continuous PP matrix phase. This was accompanied with structural changes of the drawn strands. The microfibril formation mechanism was also investigated. After injection molding of the microfibrillar composites, the preferential location of TiO2 particles was still preserved. DMTA analysis of drawn strands, the tensile and impact tests of the composites demonstrated that the mechanical properties of the drawn strands of the microfibrillar composites were strongly dependent on the respective structures of the tested materials. To further investigate the preferential location of TiO2 particles in the PET/PP blend which were discovered during the preparation of PET/PP/TiO2 MFCs, PET/PP/TiO2 ternary nanocomposites were prepared according to four blending procedures. The preferential location of TiO2 nanoparticles was influenced by the blending sequence and the amount of PP-g-MA incorporated. Furthermore, it was discovered that TiO2 nanoparticles exerted a compatibilizing effect on the morphology of the composites. Three different compatibilization mechanisms of nanoparticles were proposed depending on the location of the nanoparticles.


We analyze patient reviews of doctors using a novel probabilistic joint model of topic and sentiment based on factorial LDA (Paul and Dredze 2012). We leverage this model to exploit a small set of previously annotated reviews to automatically analyze the topics and sentiment latent in over 50,000 online reviews of physicians (and we make this dataset publicly available). The proposed model outperforms baseline models for this task with respect to model perplexity and sentiment classification. We report the most representative words with respect to positive and negative sentiment along three clinical aspects, thus complementing existing qualitative work exploring patient reviews of physicians.


The effects of burn severity on avian communities are poorly understood, yet this information is crucial to fire management programs. To quantify avian response patterns along a burn severity gradient, we sampled 49 random plots (2001-2002) at the 17351-ha Cerro Grande Fire (2000) in New Mexico, USA. Additionally, pre-fire avian surveys (1986-1988, 1990) created a unique opportunity to quantify avifaunal changes in 13 pre-fire transects (resampled in 2002) and to compare two designs for analyzing the effects of unplanned disturbances: after-only analysis and before-after comparisons. Distance analysis was used to calculate densities. We analyzed after-only densities for 21 species using gradient analysis, which detected a broad range of responses to increasing burn severity: (I) large significant declines, (II) weak, but significant declines, (III) no significant density changes, (IV) peak densities in low- or moderate-severity patches, (V) weak, but significant increases, and (VI) large significant increases. Overall, 71% of the species included in the after-only gradient analysis exhibited either positive or neutral density responses to fire effects across all or portions of the severity gradient (responses III-VI). We used pre/post pairs analysis to quantify density changes for 15 species using before-after comparisons; spatiotemporal variation in densities was large and confounded fire effects for most species. Only four species demonstrated significant effects of burn severity, and their densities were all higher in burned compared to unburned forests. Pre- and post-fire community similarity was high except in high-severity areas. Species richness was similar pre- and post-fire across all burn severities. Thus, ecosystem restoration programs based on the assumption that recent severe fires in Southwestern ponderosa pine forests have overriding negative ecological effects are not supported by our study of post-fire avian communities. This study illustrates the importance of quantifying burn severity and controlling confounding sources of spatiotemporal variation in studies of fire effects. After-only gradient analysis can be an efficient tool for quantifying fire effects. This analysis can also augment historical data sets that have small samples sizes coupled with high non-process variation, which limits the power of before-after comparisons.


This chapter reviews the purpose and use of models from the field of complex systems and, in particular, the implications of trying to use models to understand or make decisions within complex situations, such as policy makers usually face. A discussion of the different dimensions one can formalise situations, the different purposes for models and the different kinds of relationship they can have with the policy making process, is followed by an examination of the compromises forced by the complexity of the target issues. Several modelling approaches from complexity science are briefly described, with notes as to their abilities and limitations. These approaches include system dynamics, network theory, information theory, cellular automata, and agent-based modelling. Some examples of policy models are presented and discussed in the context of the previous analysis. Finally we conclude by outlining some of the major pitfalls facing those wishing to use such models for policy evaluation.


A precise understanding of why units in an artificial network respond to certain stimuli would constitute a big step towards explainable artificial intelligence. One widely used approach towards this goal is to visualize unit responses via activation maximization. These synthetic feature visualizations are purported to provide humans with precise information about the image features that cause a unit to be activated - an advantage over other alternatives like strongly activating natural dataset samples. If humans indeed gain causal insight from visualizations, this should enable them to predict the effect of an intervention, such as how occluding a certain patch of the image (say, a dog's head) changes a unit's activation. Here, we test this hypothesis by asking humans to decide which of two square occlusions causes a larger change to a unit's activation. Both a large-scale crowdsourced experiment and measurements with experts show that on average the extremely activating feature visualizations by Olah et al. (2017) indeed help humans on this task ($68 \pm 4$% accuracy; baseline performance without any visualizations is $60 \pm 3$%). However, they do not provide any substantial advantage over other visualizations (such as e.g. dataset samples), which yield similar performance ($66\pm3$% to $67 \pm3$% accuracy). Taken together, we propose an objective psychophysical task to quantify the benefit of unit-level interpretability methods for humans, and find no evidence that a widely-used feature visualization method provides humans with better"causal understanding"of unit activations than simple alternative visualizations.


Aims The objectives of this study were to analyse the effect of heart failure (HF) on several proteins of nuclear pore complex (NPC) and their relationship with the human ventricular function. Methods and Results A total of 88 human heart samples from ischemic (ICM, n = 52) and dilated (DCM, n = 36) patients undergoing heart transplant and control donors (CNT, n = 9) were analyzed by Western blot. Subcellular distribution of nucleoporins was analysed by fluorescence and immunocytochemistry. When we compared protein levels according to etiology, ICM showed significant higher levels of NDC1 (65%, p<0.0001), Nup160 (88%, p<0.0001) and Nup153 (137%, p = 0.004) than those of the CNT levels. Furthermore, DCM group showed significant differences for NDC1 (41%, p<0.0001), Nup160 (65%, p<0.0001), Nup153 (155%, p = 0.006) and Nup93 (88%, p<0.0001) compared with CNT. However, Nup155 and translocated promoter region (TPR) did not show significant differences in their levels in any etiology. Regarding the distribution of these proteins in cell nucleus, only NDC1 showed differences in HF. In addition, in the pathological group we obtained good relationship between the ventricular function parameters (LVEDD and LVESD) and Nup160 (r = −0382, p = 0.004; r = −0.290, p = 0.033; respectively). Conclusions This study shows alterations in specific proteins (NDC1, Nup160, Nup153 and Nup93) that compose NPC in ischaemic and dilated human heart. These changes, related to ventricular function, could be accompanied by alterations in the nucleocytoplasmic transport. Therefore, our findings may be the basis for a new approach to HF management.


Real-world datasets often have missing values associated with complex generative processes, where the cause of the missingness may not be fully observed. This is known as missing not at random (MNAR) data. However, many imputation methods do not take into account the missingness mechanism, resulting in biased imputation values when MNAR data is present. Although there are a few methods that have considered the MNAR scenario, their model's identifiability under MNAR is generally not guaranteed. That is, model parameters can not be uniquely determined even with infinite data samples, hence the imputation results given by such models can still be biased. This issue is especially overlooked by many modern deep generative models. In this work, we fill in this gap by systematically analyzing the identifiability of generative models under MNAR. Furthermore, we propose a practical deep generative model which can provide identifiability guarantees under mild assumptions, for a wide range of MNAR mechanisms. Our method demonstrates a clear advantage for tasks on both synthetic data and multiple real-world scenarios with MNAR data.


to study the efficiency of pollination in different genotypes of P. salicina using natural self-pollination treatments, cross-pollination treatments with P. and Summary: The low productivity in the Japanese plum ( Prunus salicina Lindl) is related with self-incompatibility characteristics , so other species or varieties that act as pollinators need to be present to improve fruit production. The objective of this work was to study the efficiency of pollination in different genotypes of P. salicina using treatments of natural self-pollination, cross-pollination with P. armeniaca cv. Giada and open pollination. These treatments were evaluated through viability techniques and in vitro and in vivo germination of pollen grains; the growth of pollen tubes along the pistil was also observed. Genotypes used in this study showed differences for each one of the pollination treatments. Some genotypes showed signs of self-sterility and interincompatibility with P. armeniaca cv. Giada, while others showed partial self-fertility characteristics or pseudocompatibility. Moreover, some genotypes showed a higher affinity coefficient with cv. Giada and these will be indicating a possible intercompatibility. These studies will be an important contribution breeding and selection of intra and intercompatible genotypes to be used in commercial orchards.


The first and most basic problem with documentation is that the consumer of software applications does not want to use the documentation included with a software product for one or more reasons. Studies, and papers, have been done on the effect that documentation has on a user's satisfaction with a software application; its ease of use, how quickly a user can learn to use the application, and on how documentation should be standardized. The premise of this thesis is that an improvement to the software maintenance processes can be achieved by limiting maintenance requests to "actual" problems with software, versus "perceived" problems caused by inadequate end-user documentation. After analyzing the literature within the computer science communities on the software maintenance process, and the literature within the educational and psychological communities on learning, retention, and the effect of software documentation on the end-user, a modification to the Foster Model was conceived. This model incorporates the concept of an Interactive Documentation Program (IDP), which allows for the end-user to utilize end-user directed and task-based documentation to improve their skills with the operation of commercially available off-the-shelf "office application" software as well as in-house developed software of a similar nature. To ascertain the viability of this concept, a world-wide survey of end-users is concerning their needs, desires, expectations, and complaints concerning end-user documentation was conducted. Combining the statistical results of the analysis of this survey with the concept of the IDP resulted in a new visuaUy-based and task oriented documentation paradigm called hypervideo.


Fifteen sites on nine second- and third-order streams in the Mount Cameroon area, with varying degrees of human disturbance, were sampled during wet and dry seasons over 21 months in 2003–2005 to estimate their potential for sustainable exploitation of ornamental fishes. In total, 35 species of fish representing 22 genera and 14 families were captured. By biotope, fish populations per 20 m averaged 528 ± 318.5 fish (8.0 ± 3.02 species) in runs, 86 ± 60.9 fish (2.4 ± 1.06 species) in riffles and 819 ± 480.0 fish (7.8 ± 3.15 species) in pools. Riffles contained significantly fewer individuals and species than either runs or pools. Shannon's index was similar for runs and pools, averaging 1.646 ± 0.429 and 1.548 ± 0.345, respectively, but differed significantly for riffles, averaging 0.652 ± 0.473. There were no significant differences in number of individual fish, number of species or Shannon's index among stream order or season, reflecting the stability of these ecosystems throughout the year. Regression of number of fish per 20 linear m of stream, number of species and Shannon's index against a subjective scale related to stream degradation was significant. In particular, the polluted Limbe River sites had significantly fewer individual fish, fewer species and a lower Shannon index across all biotopes than other sites. Fishing efficiency of local gears was estimated at 27% for easily captured species and 14% for the more difficult ones, and could be used to make relative estimates of fish abundance as a means of monitoring changes in fish abundance. Although species diversity in south-western Cameroon was high, typical of tropical streams globally, total abundance was low, and therefore it is unlikely that a profitable ornamental fish trade could be sustained on the basis of fish captured exclusively from the wild.


Genocide studies have expanded rapidly over the last twenty years, impelled by events such as the Bosnian and Rwandan tragedies and aided by the interdisciplinary confluence between comparative politics, history, anthropology and other social sciences. The challenge from historical sociology is particularly meaningful and few scholars are better equipped to achieve this task than Michael Mann. His explanation, linking genocide to 'democracy', is a relatively novel one. However, while scholars from various disciplines broadly agree on the link between genocide and modernity, the description of ethnic cleansing as the 'dark side of democracy' is more controversial. This article assesses Mann's claim, contrasting it with recent research in the field: after situating Mann's contribution within the structure–agency debate, I question whether causality and human responsibility are lost. I then explore the broader, recent trend of 'demo-skepticism' to which the book belongs. Its main weakness is a contraction of the concept of democracy into that of 'majority rule'. This is accompanied by an intermittent overlap between the concepts of democracy, liberalism and neoliberalism, under the umbrella term 'liberal democracy'.


Abstract
The Wagner theory, developed 80 years ago, is an analytical method for solving problems
where a body with small deadrise angle impacts onto an undisturbed water surface of infinite
depth. In this study, two-dimensional impact models based on the Wagner theory are
developed which account for the elasticity of the body, for large horizontal speed of the body
and flow separation from the body.
In chapter 3, the problems of inclined rigid and elastic plates, impacting the fluid vertically,
are solved. The elastic plate deflection is governed by Euler's beam equation, subject
to free-free boundary conditions. In chapter 4 and 5, impact problems of rigid and elastic
plates and blunt bodies with high horizontal speed are considered. A smooth separation of
the free surface flow from the body is imposed by Kutta's condition and the Brillouin-Villat
condition. In chapter 6, we account for fluid separation from the body in the free vertical
fall of a rigid plate and a blunt body. In all problems considered in this thesis, the rigid
and elastic plate motions, the fluid flow, and the positions of the turnover regions and the
separation points are coupled.
We found that hydrodynamic forces on an elastic body can be significantly different
from those on a rigid body. In particular, the elasticity of the body can promote cavitation
and ventilation. It is shown that horizontal speed of the body increases the hydrodynamic
forces on the body and the jet energy significantly. For free-fall problems at high horizontal
speed, the body can exit the fluid after entering if the forward speed is large enough. It is
illustrated that the hydrodynamic forces on the body and the motion of the body strongly
depend on the separation model. For the Brillouin-Villat separation criterion, we found that
the position of the separation point is sensitive to the body vibration.


With rising personal and public debt, public and private employers increasingly shifting financial responsibility to individuals, and an increase in both the number of financial investment options and predatory lending practices, today's students need to be financially literate.This paper defines financial literacy and justifies its place in the mathematics curriculum. After describing the gaps in young people's understanding of financial literacy, which is more pronounced among women and minorities, this paper provides examples of financial literacy exercises. College students' solutions demonstrated that the level of financial literacy is low. The majority of students were unfamiliar with financial principles and concepts. Students found it difficult to estimate answers and judge the reasonableness of their solutions. Reading comprehension and general cognitive skills led students to incorrect answers. The difficulties students had reinforce the need for financial education and developing students' general cognitive skills.


The tenth poem of Propertius Book 4 is the most remarkable in a collection full of surprises for its readers, and appears to mark a significant departure from his previous work. If Propertius had never written his final book of poetry, we might characterize him on the basis of his earlier books as the quintessential Latin love elegist: he rejects not only a military career, but even the less demanding task of celebrating Augustus' victories, in favour of the love elegist's self-indulgent life of leisure: cf. e.g. Prop. 2.1.39–46. In the first poem of Book 4, however, Propertius announces what appears to be a wholly different poetic programme; in place of the erotic elegies of the previous books is a new 'serious' purpose: Propertius will sing about national, religious and antiquarian themes, as the 'Roman Callimachus' (Propertius 4.1a.63–4). However, as soon as the next poem, Propertius is commanded to return to his usual theme of obsessive elegiac love for one woman, a topic described as haec tua castra ('this is your sphere of operations', 4.1b.135). The poems which follow in Propertius 4 tend to strike a balance between antiquarian seriousness and elegiac frivolity. For example, in 4.4, Propertius relates the Vestal Virgin Tarpeia's betrayal of Rome, connecting several contemporary urban landmarks with the poem's heroine, but he remains true to his earlier colours by presenting Tarpeia as an elegiac lover who falls in love at first sight and betrays her city out of passion.


Objective: The purposes of this study were to evaluate the psychometric characteristics and perform a factor analysis of McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire (MQOL) in a sample of recovered depressed patients. Methods: Present study was a cross sectional research. Data were obtained from a sample of recovered depressed patients. A total of 354 participants (67 males, 287 females) were assessed using the structured clinical interview for DSM-IV disorders (SCID) to ensure their full recovery from their most recent episode of depression. Then, they completed a series of self-report measures, including the McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis using LISREL-8.54 and Cronbach's alpha using SPSS-16 were done for analyzing data. Results: Descriptive statistics for the MQOL were performed, and confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the fitness of the hypothesized factor structure. The Cronbach α coefficients were calculated for the questionnaire and its each subscale to examine the internal reliability, which was found to be high for the overall questionnaire as well as its each subscale, as α coefficients ranged from 0.58 (for the physical scale) to 0.88 (for the existential scale). Conclusion: MQOL can be employed as a tool for assessing quality of life in research and practice in these patients. A B S T R A C T Article info:


Technological and economical developments require contracting parties to be informed and advised: informed about the characteristics of the services or the goods they order; well advised about their choices and options; informed about the remedies that may be used against them; and well protected from the consequences of a lack of information or notification. This book analyses several aspects of these information and notification duties. It is the result of fruitful collaboration as part of the Ius Commune Research School's Contract Law and Law of Obligations research programme. Information and notification duties were the theme of a contract law workshop during the 19th Ius Commune Conference in Edinburgh in November 2014. This book contains the proceedings of that workshop, with contributions by Sanne Jansen (Leuven), Johanna Waelkens (Leuven), Johan Vannerom (Leuven), Carien de Jager (Groningen), Joasia Luzak (Amsterdam), Gerard de Vries (Amsterdam), and Mark Kawakami and Catalina Goanta (Maastricht), with an introduction by Ilse Samoy (Leuven) and Marco B.M. Loos (Amsterdam).


As a concept related to several scientific fields such as accounting, economics, finance and law, corporate governance motivates the individual and accumulative goals and reinforces the effective application of the resources and necessitates the responsiveness to the other stakeholders. Furthermore, implementing corporate governance might lead to the optimum allocation of the resources and enhancement of the information transparency and economic growth. This study investigates the impact of some corporate governance mechanisms on the firm value by comparing the value and usage of the cash holdings with the weak and strong corporate governance systems. The employed corporate governance mechanisms in this study are composed of the institutional ownership of the stocks, ownership concentration and CEO duality. To measure the firm value in terms of the value of the cash holding, the difference between the annual stock returns and the return of the three factor Fama-French model has been employed. The sample is composed of 102 listed firms on the Tehran Stock Exchange during a period from 2005 to 2009. Multivariate regression and Pearson correlation coefficients are used to test the research hypotheses. The findings reveal that the concentration of the institutional ownership and CEO duality are significantly and directly associated with the firm value.