One strategy to restore vision in retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration is cell replacement. Typically, patients lose vision when the outer retinal photoreceptor layer is lost, and so the therapeutic goal would be to restore vision at this stage of disease. It is not currently known if a degenerate retina lacking the outer nuclear layer of photoreceptor cells would allow the survival, maturation, and reconnection of replacement photoreceptors, as prior studies used hosts with a preexisting outer nuclear layer at the time of treatment. Here, using a murine model of severe human retinitis pigmentosa at a stage when no host rod cells remain, we show that transplanted rod precursors can reform an anatomically distinct and appropriately polarized outer nuclear layer. A trilaminar organization was returned to rd1 hosts that had only two retinal layers before treatment. The newly introduced precursors were able to resume their developmental program in the degenerate host niche to become mature rods with light-sensitive outer segments, reconnecting with host neurons downstream. Visual function, assayed in the same animals before and after transplantation, was restored in animals with zero rod function at baseline. These observations suggest that a cell therapy approach may reconstitute a light-sensitive cell layer de novo and hence repair a structurally damaged visual circuit. Rather than placing discrete photoreceptors among preexisting host outer retinal cells, total photoreceptor layer reconstruction may provide a clinically relevant model to investigate cell-based strategies for retinal repair.


This research establishes the influence of linguistic traits on human behavior. Exploiting variations in the languages spoken by children of migrants with identical ancestral countries of origin, the analysis indicates that the presence of periphrastic future tense and its association with long-term orientation has a significant positive impact on educational attainment, whereas the presence of sex-based grammatical gender, and its association with gender bias, has a significant adverse impact on female educational attainment.


The goal of this paper is to analyze changes in productivity and their relation with variations in citizens' perceived satisfaction in the field of hospital care and specialized care in the Spanish regional health services for the period 1999-2004. To assess changes in productivity the Malmquist indices and Data Envelopment Analysis methodology are used, completing the analysis with bootstrap procedures. The average results show a rise in productivity accompanied by a drop in citizens' satisfaction. However, the individual analysis does not allow identifying any correlation between variables. The inclusion of the hospital indicator of satisfaction in the production function improves the results, although does not change the regional administrations rankings.


The central highlands of Kenya is generally densely populated and declining land productivity with reduced crop yields has been a major problem facing the smallholder farmers in the region. Land sizes are small and this promotes continuous cropping with limited scope for crop rotation and inadequate soil fertility replenishment. Efficient use of soil N amendments in maize ( Zea mays L.) production is necessary to maximize producer's economic returns and maintain soil and water quality. An experiment was carried out on the humic nitisols in Mucwa location, Meru South District, with the objective of determining maize grain yields and N uptake under different soil N amendments. The experiment was set in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replicates. The results reveal that maize grain yields in the organics and/or mineral N soil amendments was higher than the yields obtained where the recommended mineral fertilizers were used alone. The nitrogen (N) concentration in different parts of the maize crop varied, with the grain having the highest, followed by the stover during the 2005 short rain season. Sole application of calliandra recorded the highest N uptake (170.8 kg N ha -1 ) while the control gave the lowest (49.31 kg N ha -1 ). It is therefore concluded that differences in nutrient release by the organic-mineral N soil amendments can alter net rate of nutrient uptake during crop growth and therefore assist in synchronization of nutrient release and uptake by the growing crop.


Jazz trombonist Chris Barber formed his first band in the late 1940s, but it is the band that he formed in 1952 and has led continuously from 1954, after parting company with trumpeter Ken Colyer, that has established all kinds of records for success and longevity. His 54 year partnership with trumpeter Pat Halcox is the longest such association in jazz history. The Barber band achieved chart success on both sides of the Atlantic, with 'Petite Fleur', and from the middle to late 1950s it was the most popular music act in the UK. The band was one of the first British jazz groups to tour extensively in the United States. It has remained one of the most popular and widely imitated jazz bands in Europe for over half a century. In this candid account of his life and music, Barber tells the story of his band, but also of his many other contributions to music in Britain. He and his guitarist and singer Lonnie Donegan began the skiffle movement. His band pioneered touring with authentic American blues and gospel musicians, including Big Bill Broonzy, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. There were also tours with American jazz soloists, including John Lewis, Trummy Young, Ray Nance and many others. Barber and his colleague Harold Pendleton also launched the Marquee Club in London, which became a legendary jazz and rock venue, as well as becoming the launchpad for the Richmond and Reading Festivals. Barber's band has always been devoted to both jazz and blues, touring for many years with the charismatic Northern Irish singer Ottilie Patterson, (who became Barber's wife) and also including the blues guitarist John Slaughter in the line-up. In 2001, the band became the Big Chris Barber Band, allowing him to continue to play the New Orleans jazz he has always loved, but also to play the big band repertoire of musicians such as Duke Ellington. The Big Chris Barber Band continues to play a full schedule of concerts, confirming Barber's commitment to bringing live jazz to audiences in Britain and on the continent. The book covers the highs and lows of his career and that of the band, as well as his passionate commitment to the cause of spreading the word about jazz and blues to the widest possible public.


The development and the functional characterization of human plasma-derived immunoglobulin (Ig) preparations are of high clinical relevance for the therapy of patients who suffer from antibody depletion, autoimmune or inflammatory disorders. Currently, mainly intravenous immunoglobulin G (IgG) preparations (IVIgs) are in use to treat a broad range of pathological conditions, like primary and secondary immunodeficiencies (PID; SID), but also for immunomodulation. Nevertheless, there is a need to improve the exploitation of the plasma as well as the efficacy of polyclonal Ig preparations without an increase in plasma demand. Especially fractions containing IgA and IgM molecules may be advantageous, because of their versatile pharmacological effects that could be exploited therapeutically.
Trimodulin (name of the active substance, for differentiation from a standard IVIg preparation) is a new plasma-derived Ig preparation for intravenous application and is unique, as it contains besides IgG also defined amounts of IgM as well as IgA molecules compared to currently available standard IVIg preparations. It was developed for the treatment of patients with severe infections and was already tested in a phase II clinical trial (CIGMA study), where a promising potential in the therapy of patients with severe community-acquired pneumonia (sCAP) could be demonstrated. Based on the novelty and complexity of this Ig preparation that contains besides IgG also IgM as well as IgA molecules, there is still a need for a detailed understanding of the complex mode of action (MoA) of trimodulin regarding its antimicrobial as well as its immunomodulatory mechanisms. Particularly the complement system is an important tool of the humoral immune system, because its activation leads to the killing of invading pathogens via various effector functions. Nevertheless, it can also be harmful to the host when the immune system is over-activated and can lead to tissue damage as well as multiple organ failure. Therefore, it is important that the complement system is balanced between activation and inhibition. It was hypothesized that trimodulin exhibits an ambivalent effect regarding complement activation to ensure the neutralization of invading microorganisms but also to protect the host against inflammation caused by a hyper-activated immune system.
In order to evaluate the ability to inhibit complement activation, the binding of trimodulin to activated complement factors (C3b, C4b, C5a and C3a) was analyzed in ELISA settings. It was demonstrated that trimodulin is able to interact with C3b as well as C4b molecules by binding and an overlay of these complement factors. The addition of an IVIg control (Intratect) showed only slight effects and the decrease in the detection of C3b as well as C4b was obviously stronger with the IgM- and IgA-enriched preparation. Moreover, a trend in reducing the detection of C5a with trimodulin was revealed, whereas no interaction of trimodulin with activated C3a molecules could be demonstrated. Furthermore, a complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) assay was used to analyze if trimodulin can even functionally prevent complement activation. Therefore, the CDC of target cells (Ramos cell line) was measured after addition of trimodulin and an obvious reduction in the CDC of Ramos cells was detected. This demonstrated for the first time that trimodulin is able to inhibit activated complement factors, which could be used to prevent inflammation in patients with an over-stimulated immune response. Furthermore, the results clearly showed the benefit of using trimodulin to prevent the over-stimulation of the complement system, over a standard IVIg preparation that was not able to reduce the CDC in this assay.
In order to analyze if trimodulin, which contains besides IgG and IgA also ⋲ 23% IgM, is able to activate the complement system and to induce the opsonophagocytosis of pathogens, two opsonophagocytosis assays (OPAs) were developed. In general, IgM molecules are able to activate the complement system via the classical pathway more effectively than IgG molecules. The OPA using living E. coli bacteria unfortunately did not depict the opsonophagocytic capacity of trimodulin, but showed only the IgG-mediated phagocytosis of the bacteria. This was assumed to be due to a high non-specific killing of the used complement source, which destroyed high amounts of E. coli bacteria even in the absence of trimodulin. For this reason, a second OPA was established by using S. aureus bioparticles and the opsonophagocytic capacity of trimodulin was evaluated in a fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS). The analysis showed that trimodulin was able to activate the complement system concentration-dependently and thereby to trigger the opsonophagocytosis of S. aureus bioparticles by effector cells (HL-60 cell line) in low concentrations. Additionally, it was detected that even in the OPA setting trimodulin was able to inhibit the complement system in high doses.
The results of this PhD thesis obviously support the theory that trimodulin exhibits an ambivalent effect regarding complement activity and are in accordance with various studies that also show dual mechanisms of Ig preparations in activating and inhibiting the complement system. Moreover, it is assumed that the treatment with trimodulin could help to reduce inflammation caused by an over-stimulation of the complement system and simultaneously ensuring the neutralization of harmful pathogens. Furthermore, the PhD thesis gives new insights in the MoA by confirmation of the complement activating as well as inhibitory capacity of trimodulin and emphasizes the crucial advantages of using an IgM- and IgA-enriched preparation compared to a standard IVIg preparation.


We present firstly the master equation of an electromagnetic perturbation with Weyl correction in the four-dimensional black hole spacetime, which depends not only on the Weyl correction parameter, but also on the parity of the electromagnetic field. It is quite different from that of the usual electromagnetic perturbation without Weyl correction in the four-dimensional spacetime. And then we have investigated numerically the dynamical evolution of the electromagnetic perturbation with Weyl correction in the background of a four-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole spacetime. Our results show that the Weyl correction parameter alpha and the parities imprint in the wave dynamics of the electromagnetic perturbation. For the odd parity electromagnetic perturbation, we find it grows with exponential rate if the value of alpha is below the negative critical value alpha(c). However, for the electromagnetic perturbation with even parity, we find that there does not exist such a critical threshold value and the electromagnetic field always decays in the allowed range of alpha.


Perhaps no decision of the United States Supreme Court concerning the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on "unreasonable search and seizure" has come in for more criticism than Terry v. Ohio, in which the Supreme Court concluded that even absent probable cause to arrest, a brief detention and protective search of an individual comports with the Fourth Amendment "where a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude that criminal activity may be afoot and that the person with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous . . ." Terry is frequently denounced as granting the police excessively broad discretion that threatens the liberty of the innocent, and which facilitates discrimination against minorities and others that the police are all too likely to view as suspicious. Originalists attack Terry as well, claiming that it lacks adequate support in framing-era practice. This paper, part of the 2010 Texas Tech Law Review's Fourth Amendment Symposium, offers a defense of the much-maligned Terry doctrine. It begins with an account of urban crime over the past few decades, and argues that there is a case to be made that Terry's regime of stop-and-frisk deserves a good deal of the credit for the reductions in violent crime that major cities have experienced in recent years. It then considers the originalist attack on Terry, and argues that it runs afoul on the Achilles heel of originalism – it relies on framing era practice and understandings to flesh out the meaning of constitutional text without taking adequate account of the context in which these practices and understandings emerged. Although the historical support for Terry's regime of stop-and-frisk is fairly debatable, framing-era judgments about stop-and-frisk were made in a context so dramatically different from contemporary urban law enforcement that they can offer no useful guide for assessing the constitutional mandate of reasonableness. The paper finally turns to the pragmatic attacks on Terry, and after observing that the evidence that Terry has facilitated unwarranted or discriminatory police conduct is more ambiguous than the critics acknowledge, contends that these critics undervalue the importance of Terry to saving lives in the inner city.


Background: the phytochemical characteristic of Monascus-Fermented Products (MFPs) is well documented. During fermentation, Monascus produce various bioactivities metabolites that have an antioxidant, anti-hypertension, anti-cholesterol, anti-cancer, anti-inflamatory and anti-diabetics effects.
Purpose: to evaluate the antioxidant activity of Monascus-fermented durian seed extracts.
Methods: 50 gm of small cut durian seed was inoculated with Monascus sp. KJR2, which was employed as starter culture, to produce the MFPs. Dried MFDS was extracted at serial ethanol concentrations (0, 20, 40, 60, 70 and 80%) and tested against DPPH radical scavenging activity, phosphomolybdenum reduction and Ferric Reduction Activity Power (FRAP). Additionally, total phenolic and pigments contents were determined.
Results: the MFDS possesses antioxidant activity through DPPH radical scavenging, phosphomolybdenum reduction and FRAP. The highest DPPH radical scavenging of the MFDS extract is at ethanol concentration of 40%, FRAP at 60%, whereas the water extract possesses the highest reducing power of phosphomolybdenum assay. Total phenol and Monascus pigments contribute to the phosphomolybdenum reduction, but not to DPPH radical scavenging and FRAP.
Conclusion: the phytochemical benefit of fermented durian seed extract has been ascertained as
potential antioxidant food ingredient and reinstates its promising position in the region as effective indigenous traditional medicine.


ABSTRACT Background: Promotion of active commuting provides substantial health and environmental benefits by influencing air pollution, physical activity, accidents, and noise. However, studies evaluating intervention and policies on a mode shift from motorized transport to cycling have estimated health impacts with varying validity and precision. Objective: To review and discuss the estimation of air pollution exposure and its impacts in health impact assessment studies of a shift in transport from cars to bicycles in order to guide future assessments. Methods: A systematic database search of PubMed was done primarily for articles published from January 2000 to May 2016 according to PRISMA guidelines. Results: We identified 18 studies of health impact assessment of change in transport mode. Most studies investigated future hypothetical scenarios of increased cycling. The impact on the general population was estimated using a comparative risk assessment approach in the majority of these studies, whereas some used previously published cost estimates. Air pollution exposure during cycling was estimated based on the ventilation rate, the pollutant concentration, and the trip duration. Most studies employed exposure-response functions from studies comparing background levels of fine particles between cities to estimate the health impacts of local traffic emissions. The effect of air pollution associated with increased cycling contributed small health benefits for the general population, and also only slightly increased risks associated with fine particle exposure among those who shifted to cycling. However, studies calculating health impacts based on exposure-response functions for ozone, black carbon or nitrogen oxides found larger effects attributed to changes in air pollution exposure. Conclusion: A large discrepancy between studies was observed due to different health impact assessment approaches, different assumptions for calculation of inhaled dose and different selection of dose-response functions. This kind of assessments would improve from more holistic approaches using more specific exposure-response functions.


The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program, which mandates the commercialization of biofuels through 2022, is the United States' most significant piece of legislation regarding renewable energy. It was first passed in 2005 and revised and expanded in 2007 in order to create a viable market for biofuels based on the policy goals of enhancing domestic U.S. energy security, reducing transportation-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and stimulating rural economic development.

The RFS requires minimum levels of consumption for different kinds of biofuels and requires increasing blending amounts of biofuels into gasoline and diesel fuels by producers and importers each year. Mandates and targets for biofuels as required by the RFS are not a policy exclusive just to the U.S. Sixty-four other countries mandate fixed quantities of ethanol use in gasoline to generally stimulate renewable energy use and to specifically promote production of biofuels.

In the past few years, there have been challenges in complying with the RFS in the U.S. As a result, legislative mandates were modified and reduced to respond to these difficulties. Proponents of the RFS argue that the policy reduces the risk of investing in renewable fuel projects, enhances the country's energy security as well as the rural sector, and addresses climate change concerns. On the other hand, critics argue that policy makers are "picking a winner" by funding biofuels over other types of alternative energy sources, and mandates for biofuels have presented unintended consequences in other areas, such as the food markets, land use patterns and the current gasoline-market infrastructure. Many studies have observed beneficial impacts of mandates on the agricultural markets and on the environment. However, there are very few empirical studies of the actual impact of the RFS on the development of the biofuel industry and none that use an industrial policy approach to analyze this issue.

In this Article, we intend to fill this gap and provide an empirical study addressing whether the RFS is an effective policy instrument that incentivizes an efficient and sustainable development of the biofuels industry. Our analysis uses data from the first-generation ethanol industry between the years 2000 and 2013, and we find that the industry life cycle mediates the effects of the RFS in contributing to production-related economies of scale. More specifically, our empirical findings suggest that the RFS had a significant positive effect on the production capacity of firstgeneration ethanol firms during the early stages of development of the first-generation ethanol industry. But the RFS does not have a statistically significant effect on plant or firm capacity after the first-generation ethanol market entered a mature stage in its product life cycle.


Children undergoing cancer treatments are at risk for impaired fertility. Cryopreserved prepubertal testicular biopsies could theoretically be later matured in vitro to produce spermatozoa for assisted reproductive technology. A complete in vitro spermatogenesis has been obtained from mouse prepubertal testicular tissue, although with low efficiency. Steroid hormones being essential for the progression of spermatogenesis, the aim of this study was to investigate steroidogenesis and steroid signaling in organotypic cultures. Histological, RT-qPCR, western blot analyses and steroid hormone measurements were performed on in vitro cultured mouse prepubertal testicular tissues and age-matched in vivo controls. Despite a conserved density of Leydig cells after 30 days of culture (D30), transcript levels of adult Leydig cell and steroidogenic markers were decreased. Increased amounts of progesterone and estradiol and reduced androstenedione levels were observed at D30, together with decreased transcript levels of steroid metabolizing genes and steroid target genes. hCG was insufficient to facilitate Leydig cell differentiation, restore steroidogenesis and improve sperm yield. In conclusion, this study reports the failure of adult Leydig cell development and altered steroid production and signaling in tissue cultures. The organotypic culture system will need to be further improved before it can be translated in clinics for childhood cancer survivors.


Efficient collection and redistribution of the direct and diffuse components of daylight in buildings remains a major objective of advanced fenestration systems. Such systems, including novel solar blinds, new glazing or coating materials and daylight-redirecting devices, can improve significantly the penetration of daylight in deep rooms to reduce electricity consumption while improving visual comfort conditions greatly; at the same time, they can lead to larger solar gains in winter combined with lower solar loads in summer. To allow their integration in buildings and benefit from their potential as energy-efficient strategies, an in-depth and accurate knowledge of their directional optical properties is necessary. These properties are described by Bidirectional Transmission (or Reflection) Distribution Functions, abbreviated BT(R)DF, that express the emerging light flux distribution for a given incident direction. Such detailed transmission or reflection functions are intended to be used by the building industry to optimize the luminous performances of innovative solutions for windows and to describe photometric properties of complex glazing and shading materials according to a common format. On the other hand, they will allow daylighting simulation tools to improve their potentialities and integrate complex fenestration systems reliably in the simulation models. Their accurate assessment requires an appropriate experimental equipment. An innovative bidirectional goniophotometer, based on digital imaging techniques, was designed and set up for that purpose: instead of scanning the emerging light flux distribution by moving a sensor from point to point, an original method was used that comprises a rotating diffusing screen on which the emerging light flux is reflected towards a digital video-camera, used as a multiple-points luminance-meter. This novel approach significantly reduces the time needed to monitor BT(R)DF data, lowering it down to a few minutes per incident direction instead of several hours for conventional assessment methods, which is a critical parameter in BT(R)DF assessment as about a hundred incident directions are usually required. At the same time, it allows the gathering of continuous transmitted (reflected) light distribution figures, only limited in resolution by the pixellisation of the digital images. Moreover, by taking advantage of the considerable luminance range reached when images are captured and superposed at different integration intervals, combined to the appreciable flexibility in the data processing offered by digital imaging-based techniques, a remarkable accuracy can be achieved when assessing BT(R)DF data. This PhD thesis explains the different conception, calibration and processing stages that were necessary to develop the bidirectional goniophotometer into a functioning, validated measurement device. Its design for combining BTDF and BRDF assessments is described, the various calibration procedures for converting the CCD camera into a reliable multiple-points luminance-meter are detailed, as well as the image and data processing phases. An in-depth validation of the performed measurements was realized based on different approaches and led to a relative error on BT(R)DF data of only 10%, allowing to confirm the high accuracy and reliability of this novel device.


This practice-led research project investigates how East Asian Art traditions can be understood through reference to the condition of Western contemporary visual culture. Proceeding from Chinese thought and aesthetics the traditional concept of landscape painting 'Shan-Shui-Hua' is recreated within the new Western genre of the 'video-painting'. The main features of the traditional Chinese landscape painting merges with Western moving image practice creating new modes of 'transcultural art' - a crossover of Western and Asian aesthetics - to explore form, and questions digital visualisation practice that
aims to represent realistic space. Confronting the tools of modern computer visualisation with the East Asian concept creates an artistic artefact contrasting, confronting and counterpointing both positions.


The intelligent grid has been envisioned as a next- generation framework to modernize power grid and improve its efficiency and sustainability. Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) has become indispensable in a smart grid to support the real-time and reliable information exchange. However, computerizing the metering system also introduces numerous new vectors for energy fraud. Energy fraud is a notorious problem in electric power system, which can cause great economic losses in business. This paper presents a graph-theoretic strategy of reconfiguration switching scheme incorporating microgrids to localize potential fraudulent area. First, a graph transformation from a distribution network to a spanning tree is proposed. A mathematical conversion from the graph to adjacency or incidence matrix is then formed. The switching procedures based on the matrix level are utilized to detect fraud in accordance with anomaly score and likelihood of the fraudulent events.


Health is an important matter for both individuals and states. Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 (UDHR), health has been categorised as a human right. In the years following this Declaration, many international treaties and national constitutions have emphasised this issue;for example, article 12 of the International Convention of Economic, Social and Cultural rights 1966 (ICESCR). However, as this thesis notes, the language in which this right is cast varies. This, it is argued, is problematic for any attempt to vindicate the right and ensure its justiciability. Accordingly an alternative definition is explored and clarified in what follows.
In first chapter, the focus is on arguing that, the current phrases such as 'right to health', 'right to medical care', 'the human right to highest attainable standards of health' and 'right to health protection' are vague and weak and may prevent a clear understanding of the expectations that people may legitimately have. The main outcome is to describe a workable and more precise right which can also be legally enforced; that is, the right to health care.
In the second chapter, the legal sources of the right to health care in international law are explored. In particular, it is argued that there are obligations on states to implement this right and, as members of the international community and the main subject of international law, to take all necessary steps to put it into practice by translating these obligations into domestic law, thus ensuring that health care is treated as a human right In addition, this chapter also describes the general principles of human rights, such as non-discrimination, participation and equity, that ought to be taken into account by the state`s authorities when they implement the right in question.
The following two chapters are devoted to examining the status of the right to health care in the United Kingdom and Libya as models of developed and developing countries.According to health Act No 106 of 1973, health care appear to be simply human right in theory in both national law and international commitments however in practice the government as well as the judiciary did not take it seriously. As result, the case laws have not considered such right as human right nor a legal right for Libyans.
In the UK, the reluctance of the government to treat health care as legal right has not stopped judges to evaluate health decisions makers and adjudicate whether such decisions were proper with the case in question. Thus, the chance for UK citizens to review the decisions of the health authorities is wider under the judicial review in terms of legal right rather than human right.
In the conclusion, it is proposed that the main problem in according the right to health care the status of a human right is not in fact related to any inability of the judiciary to deal with social and economic rights, nor is it reliant on disagreement about the legal nature of the right and whether it should be categorised as a negative or a positive right, but relates rather to the meaning of the right and what it should include. It is further proposed that the right defended in this thesis – the right to health care – can solve this problem by clarifying the nature and content of the right. The UK experience shows that when such clarity exists, the debate about whether or not the right exists or is justiciable becomes irrelevant. Equally, the state can ignore the international distinctions between types of right and invest health care with the status of a justiciable right in domestic law. While the interim Libyan Government refers to a right to health care in its new constitution, it is clear that political will is necessary to translate it into reality. The Libyan state has much to learn from the healthcare and legal structures of the United Kingdom; particularly it can learn from examination of the mechanisms by which the UK, and other European nations and organisations, have effectively avoided the debate about whether or not the right to health care can be categorised as a human right by developing jurisprudence that renders it clear and justiciable in and of itself.


An algorithm is proposed for performing harmonic analysis of tonal music. The algorithm begins with a representation of a piece as pitches and durations; it generates a representation in which the piece is divided into segments labeled with roots. This is a project of psychological interest, because much evidence exists that harmonic analysis is performed by trained and untrained listeners during listening; however, the perspective of the current project is computational rather than psychological, simply examining what has to be done computationally to produce "correct" analyses for pieces. One of the major innovations of the project is that pitches and chords are both represented on a spatial representation known as the "line of fifths"; this is similar to the circle of fifths except that distinctions are made between different spellings of the same pitch class. The algorithm uses preference rules to evaluate different possible interpretations, selecting the interpretation that most satisfies the preference rules. The algorithm has been computationally implemented; examples of the program9s output are given and discussed.


Nikolaos Halikiopoulos Mantzaros (1795–1872) was a noble from Corfu and is better known today as the composer of the Greek national anthem. However, recent research has proved his importance as a teacher and as one of the most learned composers of his generation, renowned, in Italy and France as well as Greece. The aim of this article is to present Mantzaros' developing relationship as dilettante composer to the emerging European nineteenth-century music and aesthetics, as featured through his existing works and writings. In his early works (1815–27) Mantzaros demonstrates a remarkable creative assimilation of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century operatic idioms, whereas his aristocratic social status allowed him an eclectic relationship with music in general. From the late 1820s, Mantzaros also began setting Greek poetry to music, in this way offering a viable solution to the demand for 'national music'. From the mid-1830s onwards, Mantzaros' already existing interest in Romantic idealism was broadened, affecting his work and thoughts. He stopped composing opera-related works and demonstrated a dual attitude towards music. On the one hand he continued composing popular music for the needs of his social circle, but on the other he developed an esoteric creative relationship with music. The latter led him as early as the 1840s to denounce the 'extremities of Romanticism' and to seek the musical expression of the sublime through the creative use of 'the noble art of counterpoint'. This way he attempted to propose a re-evaluation of nineteenth-century trends through an eclectic neoclassicism, without neglecting the importance of subjective inspiration and genius.


In this report, we demonstrate that the use of a GaN seeding layer prepared by droplet epitaxy prior to the growth of epitaxial GaN on Si (111) can lead to the formation of oriented arrays of Y-shaped nanoislands (nanotripods) and nanowires and affects the surface density of the nanostructures. From the transmission electron microscopy studies, it is shown that at least some of the seeding islands have a cubic zinc-blende (ZB) GaN structure, and their {111} facets act as the nucleation centers for further growth of GaN nanorods with a wurtzite (WZ) structure. It is also demonstrated that even if the Ga droplets are deposited on the silicon surface prior to the nitridation, a silicon nitride interlayer between silicon and GaN will be inevitably formed in the further growth process. The density and the position of the seeding centers can be controlled with growth parameter variation during the droplet epitaxy; thus the technique proposed and studied in this report can be used for the preparation of site- and density-controlled arrays of nanostructures.


Intrigued by Robinson and Southgate's 2010 work on "entering a semiotic matrix," we expand their model to include the juxtaposition of all signs, symbols, and mental categories, and to explore the underpinnings of creativity in science, religion, and art. We rely on an interdisciplinary review of human sentience in archaeology, evolutionary biology, the cognitive science of religion, and literature, and speculate on the development of sentience in response to strong selection pressure on the hominin evolutionary line, leaving us the "lone survivors" of complex, multiple lines of physical and cultural evolution. What we call Matrix Thinking—the creative driver of human sentience—has important cognitive and intellectual features, but also equally important characteristics traced to our intense sociability and use of emotionality in vetting rational models. Scientist, theologian, and artist create new cultural knowledge within a social context even if alone. They are rewarded by emotional validation from group members, and guided by the ever present question, "Does it feel right?"


Purpose

This review aims to discuss concepts and theories from cognitive psychology, identifies tourism studies applying them and discusses key areas for future research. The paper aims to demonstrate the usefulness of cognitive psychology for understanding why tourists and particularly pleasure travellers demonstrate the behaviour they exhibit.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper reviews 165 papers from the cognitive psychology and literature regarding pleasure travel related to consciousness, mindfulness, flow, retrospection, prospection, attention, schema and memory, feelings and emotions. The papers are chosen to demonstrate the state of the art of the literature and provide guidance on how these concepts are vital for further research.

Findings

The paper demonstrates that research has favoured a behaviourist rather than cognitive approach to the study of hedonic travel. Cognitive psychology can help to understand the mental processes connecting perception of stimuli with behaviour. Numerous examples are provided: top-down and bottom-up attention processes help to understand advertising effectiveness, theories of consciousness and memory processes help to distinguish between lived and recalled experience, cognitive appraisal theory predicts the emotion elicited based on a small number of appraisal dimensions such as surprise and goals, knowledge of the mental organisation of autobiographical memory and schema support understanding of destination image formation and change and the effect of storytelling on decision-making, reconstructive bias in prospection or retrospection about a holiday inform the study of pleasurable experience. These findings indicate need for further cognitive psychology research in tourism generally and studies of holiday travel experiences.

Research limitations/implications

This review is limited to cognitive psychology and excludes psychoanalytic studies.

Practical implications

Cognitive psychology provides insight into key areas of practical importance. In general, the use of a cognitive approach allows further understanding of leisure tourists' behaviour. The concept of attention is vital to understand destination advertising effectiveness, biases in memory process help to understand visitor satisfaction and experience design and so on. Use of cognitive psychology theory will lead to better practical outcomes for tourists seeking pleasurable experiences and destination managers.

Originality value

This is the first review that examines the application of concepts from cognitive psychology to the study of leisure tourism in particular. The concepts studied are also applicable to study of travellers generally.


Based on the time history analysis method, some curve long-span rigid frame bridge with super high pier in Sichuan was taken as the studying case, and a studying of natural vibration characteristics and seismic response. Comparative study was emphasis carried on seismic performance between the partial curve bridge and the straight. In addition, the exhaustive research to about between crosswise relation to the structure overall rigidity contribution and to the structure and the seismic performance influence is conducted. The conclusion of the study shows that the seismic performance of the straight long-span rigid frame bridge with super high pier is surpassing the curve bridge. The curve linear has little influence to the base frequency of this kind of structure, and The rigidity is mainly effected by the bridge pier. If additionally builds the crosswise relation between the structure, the dynamic characteristic of the structure will be improved greatly. The height of this type bridge has great influence on the dynamical stability, the height is lower and the dynamical stability is better, which is more advantageous to the structure seismic behavior.


Macrophages (Mϕ) orchestrate inflammatory and reparatory processes in injured connective tissues but their role during different phases of tendon healing is not known. We investigated the contribution of different Mϕ subsets in an equine model of naturally occurring tendon injury. Post mortem tissues were harvested from normal (uninjured), sub-acute (3–6 weeks post injury) and chronically injured (>3 months post injury) superficial digital flexor tendons. To determine if inflammation was present in injured tendons, Mϕ sub-populations were quantified based on surface antigen expression of CD172a (pan Mϕ), CD14highCD206low (pro-inflammatory M1Mϕ), and CD206high (anti-inflammatory M2Mϕ) to assess potential polarised phenotypes. In addition, the Lipoxin A4 receptor (FPR2/ALX) was used as marker for resolving inflammation. Normal tendons were negative for both Mϕ and FPR2/ALX. In contrast, M1Mϕ predominated in sub-acute injury, whereas a potential phenotype-switch to M2Mϕ polarity was seen in chronic injury. Furthermore, FPR2/ALX expression by tenocytes was significantly upregulated in sub-acute but not chronic injury. Expression of the FPR2/ALX ligand Annexin A1 was also significantly increased in sub-acute and chronic injuries in contrast to low level expression in normal tendons. The combination of reduced FPR2/ALX expression and persistence of the M2Mϕ phenotype in chronic injury suggests a potential mechanism for incomplete resolution of inflammation after tendon injury. To investigate the effect of pro-inflammatory mediators on lipoxin A4 (LXA4) production and FPR2/ALX expression in vitro, normal tendon explants were stimulated with interleukin-1 beta and prostaglandin E2. Stimulation with either mediator induced LXA4 release and maximal upregulation of FPR2/ALX expression after 72 hours. Taken together, our data suggests that although tenocytes are capable of mounting a protective mechanism to counteract inflammatory stimuli, this appears to be of insufficient duration and magnitude in natural tendon injury, which may potentiate chronic inflammation and fibrotic repair, as indicated by the presence of M2Mϕ.


Antiretroviral drugs can protect people from becoming infected by HIV. But so-called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, only works if people take pills daily—which studies show they have trouble doing. Now, monkey experiments with an integrase inhibitor that9s injected show how a single shot protects them from the AIDS virus for 11 weeks on average. The drug lasts even longer in humans, which may provide a promising new approach to PrEP.


Abstract. Iodine monoxide (IO) differential slant column densities (DSCD) have been retrieved from a new multi-axis differential optical absorption spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS) instrument deployed at the Izana subtropical observatory as part of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) programme. The station is located at 2370 m a.s.l., well above the trade wind inversion that limits the top of the marine boundary layer, and hence is representative of the free troposphere. We report daily observations from May to August 2010 at different viewing angles. During this period, the spectral signature of IO was unequivocally detected on every day of measurement. A mean IO DSCD of 1.52×10 13 molecules cm −2 was observed at the 5° instrument elevation angle (IEA) on clear days using a single zenith reference for the reported period, with a day-to-day variability of 33% at one standard deviation. Based on the simulation of the DSCDs using radiative transfer calculations with five different hypothesized IO profiles, the IO mixing ratio is estimated to range between 0.2 and 0.4 pptv in the free troposphere. Episodes of Saharan dust outbreaks were also observed, with large increases in the DSCDs at higher IEA, suggesting an enhancement of IO inside the dust cloud.


In November 2007, an international strategy design team composed of government, business, and academic experts met in Glasgow to consider the elements, objectives, and requirements for a strategic intelligence capability on energy and environmental security. The discussion built on the proceedings of a workshop held in D.C. on 19 September, which assembled nearly forty experts to consider models for a similar capability (see Annex 1 for this workshop paper). In developing the concept for a strategic intelligence capacity on energy and environmental security, the Glasgow Group made the following observations: - At the national level, decision-makers lack sufficient knowledge regarding how key energy and the environmental security relationships can affect regional and global stability - A viable strategic intelligence capability for energy and environmental security issues does not lend itself to the traditional national security framework - Today's strategic environment features security-related challenges that are global in scale and systemic in nature, and can best be assessed with a strategic intelligence capability that is similarly global and systemic - The Glasgow Group suggests building a new global commons security capability; i.e., an energy and environmental knowledge ecosystem in which a broad diversity of entities contribute to knowledge creation, aggregation, filtering and sense-making - The proposed knowledge ecosystem could fill a current void in communicating to both public and private-sector decision-makers the national and international security implications of energy and environmental issues - This strategic intelligence knowledge ecosystem will be open to government, commercial, and not-for-profit interests, enabling early warning for informed decision-making about possible energy and environmental impacts on a global scale - The system will draw on diverse expertise, such as virology, evolutionary biology, network research, developmental economics, disaster management, political science, international relations, and various dynamical systems assessments methodologies in order to consider interdependent security-related phenomena - There is a critical role for system cultivators who foster and sustain the collaborative, knowledge-creating community by targeting its activities to produce actionable, strategic intelligence on energy and environmental security concerns What follows in this paper are the views of the Glasgow Group, a team that met informally at the facilities of the Scottish Enterprise Network in a gathering co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence's Energy and Environmental Security Directorate. Participants in the meeting included experts from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology's Center for Security Studies, the New School University in New York, Emory University in Atlanta, Idaho National Laboratory, and additional business and academic experts from both Europe and the United States. This paper does not necessarily represent the official positions of any institutions or governments with which the participants are affiliated.


Automatic feature extraction using neural networks has accomplished remarkable success for images, but for sound recognition, these models are usually modified to fit the nature of the multi-dimensional temporal representation of the audio signal in spectrograms. This may not efficiently harness the time-frequency representation of the signal. The ConditionaL Neural Network (CLNN) takes into consideration the interrelation between the temporal frames, and the Masked ConditionaL Neural Network (MCLNN) extends upon the CLNN by forcing a systematic sparseness over the network's weights using a binary mask. The masking allows the network to learn about frequency bands rather than bins, mimicking a filterbank used in signal transformations such as MFCC. Additionally, the Mask is designed to consider various combinations of features, which automates the feature hand-crafting process. We applied the MCLNN for the Environmental Sound Recognition problem using the Urbansound8k, YorNoise, ESC-10 and ESC-50 datasets. The MCLNN have achieved competitive performance compared to state-of-the-art Convolutional Neural Networks and hand-crafted attempts.


This thesis is concerned with the formation, assessment, and application of surface layers in a semiconductor, A surface layer is defined to be a layer substantially the whole of which controls the potential distribution and electric field at the surface of a semiconductor, As such, it is very shallow, typically 100A deep. Two methods of doping surface layers are considered, firstly direct implantation of impurities at low energies and secondly recoil implantation of impurities from a thin film. The profiles arising from these two approaches are predicted particularly for the preferred system of antimony in silicon. Assessment techniques based on the metal-semiconductor (Schottky) barrier are developed with the aim of relating the total current passing through a Schottky barrier to the total electrical activity in a surface layer. This is shown to be a particularly powerful technique when the distribution of impurities is symmetrical about a point below the surface. Electrical assessment of surface layers formed by direct implantation of antimony at energies in the range 5-15keV are reported as well as results on layers formed by recoil implantation from an antimony film using either krypton or neon bombardment. Rutherford backscattering measurements are used to monitor such things as recoil yield and inert gas retention and using backscattering at 'glancing incidence' to increase the depth resolution, relevant features of directly implanted surface layers are obtained. Having formed surface layers they are then applied to the Schottky barrier system. It is shown that using surface layers to control the sign and magnitude of the surface field, the effective barrier height of a Schottky diode can be controlled over a wide range and considerable flexibility is brought to the system. This can be done without major degradation of any other characteristic of the diode. The unique situation which arises using implanted surface layers enables one to obtain basic information about current transport in the Schottky barrier vital to the assessment techniques mentioned above. In particular, an estimate is made of the tunnelling effective mass in the direction in silicon.


Joseph dreams of making a coat as beautiful as a butterfly's wings. One day a man asks Joseph's father, a tailor, to make him a vest with some beautiful cloth. Joseph uses the extra cloth to make his coat. He wears his coat for many years until it is too worn to wear. What does Joseph do with his old coat, and what memories does he make with the coat?


Many predictive resource scaling approaches have been proposed to overcome the limitations of the conventional reactive approaches most often used in clouds today. In general, due to the complexity of clouds, these reactive approaches were often forced to make significant limiting assumptions in either the operating conditions/requirements or expected workload patterns. As such, it is extremely difficult for cloud users to know which – if any – existing workload predictor will work best for their particular cloud activity, especially when considering highly-variable workload patterns, non-trivial billing models, variety of resources to add/subtract, etc. To solve this problem, we conduct comprehensive evaluations for a variety of workload predictors under real-world cloud configurations. The workload predictors cover four classes of 21 predictors: naive, regression, temporal, and non-temporal methods. We simulate a cloud application under four realistic workload patterns, two different cloud billing models, and three different styles of predictive scaling. Our evaluation confirms that no workload predictor is universally best for all workload patterns, and shows that Predictive Scaling-out + Predictive Scaling-in has the best cost efficiency and the lowest job deadline miss rate in cloud resource management, on average providing 30% better cost efficiency and 80% less job deadline miss rate compared to other styles of predictive scaling.


Schizophrenia is one of the most severe and disabling psychiatric disease that affects about 1 % of the adult worldwide population. Aetiology of schizophrenia is still unknown but genetic and environmental factors are suspected to play a major role in its onset. Recent epidemiologic studies indicate that infectious agents may contribute to some cases of schizophrenia. In particular, several epidemiological, behavioural and neurochemical studies suggested the existence of an association between schizophrenia and past history of primo-infection by the Toxoplasma gondii. However, they are some limitations for this hypothesis among which the lack of correlation between the geographic distribution of both diseases and of direct evidence for the presence of the parasite in schizophrenic patients. Nevertheless the identification of physiopathological mechanisms related to the parasite could provide a better comprehension to the outcome of schizophrenia. Studies on the link between toxoplasmosis and schizophrenia may provide interesting data for the diagnosis and the development of new treatments for this disorder.


This report documents the excavation and analysis of a large, isolated ceramic vessel discovered in the spring of 1988 in the Hite Marina area of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah Project #89-NA-051N. Several college students from Western State College in Colorado (Dean Brian, Matt How, Cathy Arvey, and Mike Donaldson) were hiking in the area when Dean Brian discovered the pot. Aware of the possible significance of such a find, Matt How immediately contacted Park Archeologist Kris Kincaid and informed her of the vessel's location. Matt later returned with his family, Micky and JoNell How, when archeologists Kincaid and Ralph Hartley of the Midwest Archeological Center visited the site. An assessment of the vessel, its location and condition resulted in plans for its removal by Midwest Archeological Center personnel scheduled to work in Glen Canyon during the summer of 1988. The How family returned again with archeologists to help excavate the pot from site 42SA20779 on June 23, 1988. 1 Such isolated artifacts have often been ignored by archeologists because they were thought to provide little insight into the patterns of aboriginal life. Conversely, analysis of this vessel was conducted within a framework which allows the vessel to be placed within a context of adaptive storage and caching behavior for the prehistoric Southwest. These results are achieved by careful examination of the vessel itself, the environmental context in which it was found, and the materials found in association with the vessel during excavation. In addition, a review of the literature concerning similar cache sites and ethnographic accounts of caching behavior, as well as adaptive behavior theory, allow construction of an explanatory framework within which this site, 42SA20779, and similar sites can be interpreted.


Immunoreactive insulin (IRI), C-peptide, and proinsulin were determined in 46 fasting nondiabetic persons. The means ± S.D. for IRI, C-peptide, and proinsulin (in pmol/ml.) in the 46 nondiabetics were 0.054 ± 0.027, 0.39 ± 0.12, and 0.014 ± 0.009, respectively. The molar ratio between C-peptide and IRI varied from 4.0 to 16.7, with a mean value of 7.9 ± 3.4. Proinsulin constituted 5–36 per cent of IRI, with a mean of 20 ± 10 per cent. Sera from 24 diabetics aged 17–67 years treated with conventional crystalline insulin for durations of from one to 29 years (mean: 15 years), all of whom had circulating insulin antibodies, were extracted with acid ethanol. Total IRI varied from 2.0 to 22.6 pmol/ml. C-peptide was detectable in only three patients (0.05, 0.08, and 0.15 pmol/ml.). In contrast, human proinsulin was found in all patients and ranged from 0.09 to 9.4 pmol/ml., corresponding to 1 to 45 per cent of total IRI. Species-specific immunoassays for bovine and porcine proinsulin revealed the presence of bovine proinsulin in 23 of the patients (mean 0.36 ± 0.20 pmol/ml.) and porcine proinsulin in eight patients (mean 0.15 ± 0.13 pmol/ml.). Total proinsulin constituted 5 to 64 per cent, mean 22 per cent, of total IRI, while human proinsulin amounted to 1 to 45 per cent, mean 10 per cent, of IRI. Although no insulin secretion could be detected in 21 of the patients, as judged by the amount of C-peptide, the B-cell was still able to secrete proinsulin. Insulin antibodies bind a portion of the secreted proinsulin, thus prolonging its half-life and increasing its concentration in serum.


The time is ripe for a comprehensive mission to explore and document Earth's species. This calls for a campaign to educate and inspire the next generation of professional and citizen species explorers, investments in cyber-infrastructure and collections to meet the unique needs of the producers and consumers of taxonomic information, and the formation and coordination of a multi-institutional, international, transdisciplinary community of researchers, scholars and engineers with the shared objective of creating a comprehensive inventory of species and detailed map of the biosphere. We conclude that an ambitious goal to describe 10 million species in less than 50 years is attainable based on the strength of 250 years of progress, worldwide collections, existing experts, technological innovation and collaborative teamwork. Existing digitization projects are overcoming obstacles of the past, facilitating collaboration and mobilizing literature, data, images and specimens through cyber technologies. Charting the biosphere is enormously complex, yet necessary expertise can be found through partnerships with engineers, information scientists, sociologists, ecologists, climate scientists, conservation biologists, industrial project managers and taxon specialists, from agrostologists to zoophytologists. Benefits to society of the proposed mission would be profound, immediate and enduring, from detection of early responses of flora and fauna to climate change to opening access to evolutionary designs for solutions to countless practical problems. The impacts on the biodiversity, environmental and evolutionary sciences would be transformative, from ecosystem models calibrated in detail to comprehensive understanding of the origin and evolution of life over its 3.8 billion year history. The resultant cyber-enabled taxonomy, or cybertaxonomy, would open access to biodiversity data to developing nations, assure access to reliable data about species, and change how scientists and citizens alike access, use and think about biological diversity information.


Developmental idealism (DI) theory suggests that individuals who endorse DI schemas about marriage are more likely to choose their own spouses and do so for love. Such DI schemas conflict with South Asian gender schemas about marriage for women, but not for men. In turn, such conflict and compatibility may create gender differences in incorporating DI into expectations and experiences of marital choice and love in South Asia. Connections between endorsing DI as an abstract model of the world and using DI as a concrete guide for marriage may also differ by gender. Using survey data from Nepal, the author finds that men are more likely than women to expect to choose their own spouse and do so for love. Their parents' expectations show the same gender differences. Men are also more likely to choose their own spouses in practice. Connections between abstract and concrete DI are not stronger among men though.


*@ Summary Aggressive fibromatosisrepresents (AF) a semimalignant tumour which has a locally destructive and invasive growth tendency but does not metastasize because of its high recurrence rate, the tumour remains a surgical problem. AF is rare group of fibroproletlative tumour started initially as painful masses developing slowly affecting mainly the limbs, neck, trunk, and the abdomen in that order. The disease process of (AF) regardless of the site of presentation, sex, or the age of the patient, endocrine, genetic and physical factors seem to play an important role in the development of the disease. Recent innovation in the field of molucular biology showed the abnormalities in (AF) is at the level of chromosomes in the form of gene mutation and chromosomal anomalies. Other studies showed that the pathogenesis of (AF) is related or modulates by hormone. Physical trauma seemed to have role in the development of the tumour. Whether (AF) is benign or malignant tumour is still in the field of theories. Many investigators put this type of tumour in the category of malignant lesion even in the absence of distal metastasis. The modalities of treatment of (AF) is widely different but surgery makes the major bulk, provided there is a good preoperative demonstration of the lesion by contrast solution and MR imaging, in the recurrent types of (AF) the combination of other modalities of treatment, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, cytotoxic and noncytotocix with and without surgery could be the most appropriate way of management. In this paper the character, pathogenesis, development method of detecting and the different modalities of treatment have been reviewed from literature.


Say what you mean, mean what you say, and talk your way to the top. Communication is the single most important key to a manager's success. What you say - and how you say it - sets the tone for every personal interaction, whether you're dealing with a troublesome employee, a competitive coworker, or a demanding boss. Yet few people are actually trained to handle common managerial situations."Perfect Phrases for Managers and Supervisors" is a practical crash course in communication skills for the workplace, written by a leading consultant in the field. Filled with sample scripts for typical scenarios, and hundreds of effective "PowerPhrases", it gives you all the tools you need to establish your role as a leader - and achieve your goals with your coworkers' support. Learn how to: choose the right words at the right time; set a tone of mutual trust and respect; deal with difficult employees and delicate problems; talk to your boss and stay in the loop; conduct interviews and performance reviews; handle friendships in the workplace; discipline workers or terminate employment; present new ideas, procedures, or policies; and, open up healthy communications that benefit everyone. Your effectiveness in the workplace depends on how you talk to others. This essential all-purpose guide provides the perfect words and phrases that get the job done.


Reef and Rainforest is a photographic portrayal of marine and terrestrial life in one of the world's most biodiverse regions – the tropics of north-eastern Australia, together with the South Pacific nations of Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

The photographs were taken over a period of more than 30 years while the author was living in the Solomon Islands and northern Australia. They depict life on the coral reefs, in the rainforests and in adjacent tropical savannahs. From detailed macro studies to sweeping scenics and aerials, the photographs are impressive for both their technical/compositional expertise and the unique insight they provide into the behavioural nuances of marine and terrestrial wildlife. Almost all the wildlife images are of free-living, non-posed subjects, photographed as they were encountered.

Along with the stunning photography, the detailed and reflective captions are drawn from the author's experiences. Reef and Rainforest conveys the richness and diversity of the natural world with maximum visual impact.


CPU performance is increasingly limited by thermal dissipation, and soon aggressive power management will be beneficial for performance. Especially, large parts of the chip (including the caches) will be frequently power-gated in order to reduce leakage power. Therefore, the cache content is lost whenever the CPU is idle, which causes a performance loss when execution is resumed, due to the high number of cache misses when the working set is fetched from external memory. In a server system, the first network request during this period suffers from increased response time. For common workloads, we measured as much as 34% response time overhead due to cold caches. In this thesis, we present a technique to reduce this overhead by preheating the caches in advance before the network request arrives at the server: Our design predicts the working set of the server application by analyzing the cache contents after similar requests have been processed. As soon as an estimate of the working set is available, a predictable network architecture starts to announce future incoming network packets to the server, which then loads the predicted working set into the last-level cache in anticipation of the packets. When the network packet arrives after this preheating step is complete, the server application can process the network request with warm caches and therefore with improved performance. We evaluate our design with a proof-of-concept prototype based on Linux, on a system with ARM CPUs. Our experiments show that cache preheating can reduce the response time overhead caused by cold caches by an average of 80%. We demonstrate that our prototype does not cause significant runtime overhead, and we show that the time required to load the working set into the cache is low enough that it is possible to exploit the full potential of cache preheating on current server CPUs.


LIPID's research areas range from new facade technologies to interactive visualization methods or climate-based performance metrics with a common overarching goal of promoting energy-efficiency and human comfort and health within buildings. Ongoing projects include new calculation methods, evaluation tools, instruments and metrics that aim to support this integration effort in the course as well as the lab environments. Daylighting is chosen as a strategic focus, being inherent to architectural design and one of the main drivers of a building's technical performance and resulting human comfort and health.


Some critics question whether research on complementary and alternative modalities for patients with cancer can be done efficiently in traditional clinical settings. This article reviews a program of complementary medicine research that has been done in a traditional clinical setting over the past 30 years. Trials using complementary therapies for both symptom management and cancer treatment done by the Mayo Clinic and the North Central Cancer Treatment Group are reviewed. Twenty-seven studies have been developed using complementary therapies, addressing such issues as mucosal and epidermal toxicity, hot flashes, lymphedema, anorexia and cachexia, insomnia, cognitive dysfunction, fatigue, and cancer treatment. Nineteen of them have been completed and have had results published in peer-reviewed clinical journals, whereas two manuscripts are in press. Two other trials have recently completed accrual, and the data are being analyzed so that manuscripts can be prepared. In addition, four clinical trials are actively accruing patients. The data presented in this article demonstrate that complementary and alternative medicine research can be done in a scientifically sound manner. Well-designed and adequately powered studies can be implemented, and large numbers of patients can be accrued. The resulting research evaluations can be published in peer-reviewed medical journals.


In this study, a global data set on size-fractionated chlorophyll distributions collected in the open ocean (depth >400 m) is used to investigate phytoplankton community size structure in relation to temperature and inorganic nutrient availability in an attempt to identify the individ- ual and shared effects of these 2 factors. The macroecological patterns show an increase in the fraction of large phytoplankton with increasing nutrient availability and a decrease with increas- ing temperature. We empirically demonstrate that temperature has both a nutrient-independent effect and a nutrient-shared effect on phytoplankton community size structure. We argue that the nutrient-independent effect is likely a direct effect of temperature, whereas the nutrient-shared effect may be an indirect effect of temperature (where thermal stratification influences the intro- duction of nutrients to surface waters). When regional differences in the average contribution of large cells were accounted for, the nutrient-independent effect of temperature explained 8% of the variation in phytoplankton community size structure compared with the 23% explained by the nutrient-shared effect. The results suggest that the relationship between phytoplankton commu- nity size structure and temperature change is the same in all ocean regions and leads to a decrease in the relative contribution of large cells in the community as temperature increases regardless of ambient nutrient availability. As phytoplankton size is an important factor influenc- ing carbon transport to the deep ocean, it is important to incorporate any possible direct tempera- ture effect on phytoplankton community size composition in models addressing carbon flow and metabolism in a warming ocean.


Background: Our objective in this study was to prospectively evaluate the effects of conventional closure techniques, intracostal suture, and intercostal nerve preservation on postoperative morbidity and longterm pain management. Materials and Methods: This prospective study was conducted between 2012 and 2015. Three different closure techniques were applied to patients who underwent posterolateral thoracotomy: conventional suture technique, intracostal suture technique, and intracostal suture technique with intercostal nerve preservation. Early postoperative pain level was assessed using a visual analog scale; pain at postoperative six months was assessed with the LANNS pain scale. Results: Seventy-three male patients (82%) and 16 (18%) female patients were included in the study. Suturing time differed significantly between the groups. At postoperative day 0, 1, and 2, there were significant differences between the groups in pain scores when at rest and while coughing (p < 0.001). Complications occurred in 22 patients (24.7%). There were no significant differences in complications between the groups (p = 0.603). Chronic pain at postoperative six months was more prevalent in group A compared to groups B and C (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Compared to the conventional technique, the intracostal suture technique with intercostal muscle flap is yields better outcomes in terms of early and chronic postoperative pain.


Stress among nurses is still perceived as a challenge experienced by the nursing profession. Several studies have shown the negative impact of stress on both nurses and patients. However, little is known about the factors influencing stress among nurses in Rwanda.
Aim: The overall aim of the study was to explore the factors contributing to nurses' stress and related coping strategies used by nurses in the University Teaching Hospital of Butare (UTHB), Rwanda.
Methods: The researcher used a non-experimental, descriptive study to explore the factors contributing to nurses' stress and related coping strategies used by nurses in the University Teaching Hospital of Butare, Rwanda. This study was informed by a stress and coping theoretical framework. A questionnaire was used to collect the demographic characteristics of participants, while nurses' stressors were assessed using the questionnaire of nurse's stressors previously developed by Bianchi. The ways of coping were evaluated using the ways of coping elaborated by Folkman & Lazarus. A convenient sampling of 85 registered nurses, working at UTHB, participated in this study. Permission to conduct the study was requested and obtained from the University of KwaZulu-Natal Ethics Committee, the Kigali Health Institute -Institutional Review Board and the management of UTHB. The data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 15, and was summarized using descriptive statistics. The results were presented in tables and graphs.
Results: The findings of the study revealed that registered nurses at UTHB face a variety of stressors such as shortages of staff and materials, facing death and dying, dissatisfaction with the work environment, work overload and time spent on bureaucratic activities. It was shown that consequences of stress vis-a-vis registered nurses could be low quality of care, job dissatisfaction and burnout syndrome. Among the major strategies of coping with stress, registered nurses have indicated problem solving, social support and accepting responsibility. This study indicates that stress can be prevented and managed by using
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nursing strategies such as team work, effective communication improving work conditions and fostering the managerial nursing strategies in working unit.
Conclusion: Drawing from these findings, it can be inferred that nurses' stressors need to be addressed in order to create a working environment conducive to high quality of care and also to enhance nursing staff morale, satisfaction, motivation and retention.


An overview of the present status of development of a hollow foam shell designed to produce high yields when used in a krypton fluoride inertial fusion energy (IFE) reactor is presented. Prototype shells have been produced from a 100 mg/cm3 density CH foam with an ~4-mm diameter and 300 μm wall thickness. A triple-orifice droplet generator was used to form the shells using solutions of an internal water phase, an oil phase (divinylbenzene monomer, dibutyl phthalate solvent, and a radical initiator), and an external water phase. The lowest percent of nonconcentricity measured for a completed shell was 3%, and the lowest average percent of nonconcentricity for a batch of shells was 7%. A technique to overcoat the shells with a 1- to 5-μm-thick full-density polymer layer using an interfacial polycondensation reaction is being developed. Methods to further optimize dimensions to produce shells that meet IFE specifications are also discussed.


After many proposed and temporary regulations and recent legislative changes, major portions of the new anti-tax shelter rules are now final. Although targeted at abuses, the regime is broad and can unexpectedly impact lawyers and accountants involved in common business transactions. This article is meant to help tax practitioners navigate these complicated rules in daily practice addressing questions such as . . . There are so many rules - which apply to taxpayers and which apply to advisors? Do I need to worry about disclosure even when I don't have a tax-motivated transaction? What if I didn't disclose a transaction that I now understand to be a reportable transaction? What are my options? My partnership sent me a listed transaction protective disclosure - does this affect my personal return? I am a taxpayer - should I care if my advisor's correspondence states that it does not provide me penalty protection - What am I paying them for? I am an advisor - if I add the Circular 230 caveat to all of my correspondence, is it business as usual? If I prepare tax returns, am I governed by the Circular 230 rules on "covered opinions"? What if I prepare studies or reports for taxpayers under section 382 or section 482? Should I be nervous if someone tells me my e-mail was a covered opinion on a transaction where I am a material advisor on an undisclosed reportable transaction that is also a "listed transaction"? We answer these questions at the end of this article. This article focuses on two pieces of the anti-tax shelter rules: (1) the rules that define "reportable" transactions and require taxpayers and advisors to disclose those transactions and (2) the Circular 230 rules that govern tax opinions. The article does not discuss other parts of the regime such as (i) the strengthened reasonable cause exception and the disqualified advisor/opinion rules under new section 6662A; (ii) individual state tax shelter rules; and (iii) audit independence rules for accounting firms doing tax work for their audit clients.


The Great Gatsby is valued for the vividness with which it renders an historical era; perhaps more than by any other American novel written in the 1920s, we are convinced that we hear the voices of people speaking from that decade before the advent of talking motion pictures. As narrator, Nick is the medium by which those voices are heard and, as principal speaker in the text, he serves as a translator of the dreams and social ambitions of the people who surround him. But the dilemma for readers of the novel is how to interpret Nick's voice: is he genuinely critical of Gatsby's romantic imagination and the culture that informed it, or does his suave talk conceal an essentially conservative nature? Major statements on the novel in the last twenty years identify important elements of cultural criticism in the text. Ross Posnock's Lukacsean reading, grounded in Marx's account of commodity fetishism, views Fitzgerald (and the story's narrator) as primarily a critic rather than an exponent of the American Dream; his assurance of the speaker's critical purpose is such that he can claim "the novel's account of man's relation to society . . . profoundly agrees with Marx's great discovery that it is social rather than individual consciousness that determine's man's existence" (p. 202).(1) Even Judith Fetterley, in her denunciation of the text's misogyny, allows that "certainly there is in the Carraway/Fitzgerald mind an element that is genuinely and meaningfully critical of the Gatsby imagination and that exposes rather than imitates it" (p. 99).(2) Less certain of the text's radical intent is a 'queer' reading by Edward Wasiolek who locates one of the novel's meanings in the conservatism of what he alleges to be Nick's repressed homosexuality. According to Wasiolek, Nick does not act on his intense feelings for Gatsby, but remains a voyeur, and he draws attention to a masturbatory image and rhythm in the last lines of the text ("So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past") to suggest a regressive infantilism at the novel's center.(3) And in a deconstructionist study that negotiates the competing claims of psychoanalysis, feminism, and Marxism, Gregory S. Jay suggests in passing that Nick's identification with Gatsby belongs to that conservative order of social bonding wherein women are viewed as possessions in male power games.(4) But Jay also argues for the radical nature of the text asserting that The Great Gatsby is "a work of cultural criticism that enacts . . . the intellectual analysis of how the social subject can never be conceived, even ab ovo, as the inhabitant of a world outside commodification, exchange, spectacle, and in speculation" (pp. 164-65). Then Jay asks, concerning the moment in the text when Daisy weeps over Gatsby's shirts, does Nick reproduce the scene for us to read critically, or does he endorse Daisy's emotion--her thrill and sense of loss at both the reach and the limits of Gatsby's imagination? In other words, he asks (as if uncertain about the large claims he has made of the text's design), where does Nick stand? In this essay we shall approach the question of critical intent and execution through an examination of the novel's style.(5) We shall use traditional accounts of English syntax to describe Fitzgerald's at sentence level, but we shall also use techniques from discourse analysis and linguistic pragmatics that will help us invesitage stylistic features that operate beyond the sentence, in the arena of language as socially situated, as utterance addressed and received both within the text and as an exchange between reader and writer. One of the major criticisms of stylistics, voiced strongly by Stanley E. Fish, is that observable formal patterns are in themselves without value, or else that stylistics assigns them value in a wholly arbitrary fashion, without regard to contexts of reception and reader expectation (p. 70).(6) Respectful of such criticisms, we point out that our analysis is inspired by advances in critical linguistics that insist that style is motivated--by context, by differentials of position, by political interest. …


Reviews Law, Crime, Punishment and Society Greg Marquis Black Eyes All of the Time. Anne McGillivray and Brenda Comaskey. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. 200 pp. Discrimination and Denial. Systemic Racism in Ontario's Legal and justice Systems, 1892-1961. Clayton James Mosher. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998. 230 pp. Essays in the History of Canadian Law VIH In Honour ofR.CX. Risk. Eds. G. Blaine Baker and Jim Phillips. Toronto: Osgoode Society, 1999. 585 pp. The Expanding Prison: The Crisis in Crime and Punishment and the Search for Alternatives. David Cayley. Toronto: House of Anansi Press Ltd., 1998. 388 pp. Final Appeal. Decision Making in Canadian Courts of Appeal. Ian Greene et al. Toronto: James Lorimer and Company Ltd., 1998. 235 pp. Justice in Paradise. Bruce Clark Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999.371 pp. Making Sense of Sentencing. Eds. Julian V. Roberts and David P. Cole. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. 363 pp. Manufacturing Guilt- ngfi Convictions in Canada. Barrie Anderson with Dawn Anderson. Halifax Fernwood Press, 1998. 143 pp. Women on Guard: Discrimination and Harassment in Corrections. Maeve McMahon. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. 202 pp. Legal studies in Canada are experiencing a golden age as articles, anthologies and monographs produced by academics trained in the 1980s and 1990s continue to appear. Nine books, nearly 50 authors and more than 2,000 pages of text and notes later, this reviewer is suffering from intellectual fatigue, but the type that comes from a good workout. In terms of Canada's legal history, the Osgoode Society has been the leading force for publication for two decades. As of 1999 it had produced more than three dozen monographs or collections of essays. Its most recent anthology is edited by G. Blaine Baker and Jim Phillips, law professors who are also noted legal historians. Essays in the History of Canadian Law VIII evolved out of a 1998 conference dedicated to pioneering legal scholar R.C.B. Risk. In the 1970s the American-trained Risk published on the relationship between law and the economy in nineteenthcentury Ontario. Significantly, these essays did not appear in history publications, but in law journals. His work is largely unknown to most Canadian historians, but Risk has exerted an important influence on legal history scholars associated with law faculties. His stature is acknowledged by two scholars of international repute, Robert Gordon and David Sugarman, and his body of work and its effect are assessed in an insightful chapter by G. Blaine Baker. Most of the contributors to the Risk festschrift are involved with law schools, and the tone of most chapters tends towards classic legal history. Many of the contributions will challenge undergraduate students of history or criminal justice. Exceptions include Constance Backhouse's study of a racially motivated murder of a member of the Onyota'a:ka (Oneida) First Nation in 1902, a case study that underscores the lack of research on race and law in Canadian history. Hamar Foster's examination of Indian title in British Columbia and John McLaren's article on Chinese criminality in British Columbia from 1890 to 1920 also have broader appeal than mainstream legal history. White society "racialized" the Chinese not only through stereotypes, but through criminal law and law enforcement, especially in the areas of gambling, prostitution and opium smoking. McLaren indicates that although the Chinese in British Columbia were subjected to legal and bureaucratic racism, police harassment and informal discrimination, as a "despised minority" they also appealed to the rule of law and the courts for protection. On a more mundane level they utilized the civil courts for disputed commercial transactions. Because most criminal convictions against the Chinese were summary offences, it was rare for them to surface in appeal courts. …


ABSTRACT Most fish species use fast starts to escape from predators. Zebrafish larvae perform effective fast starts immediately after hatching. They use a C-start, where the body curls into a C-shape, and then unfolds to accelerate. These escape responses need to fulfil a number of functional demands, under the constraints of the fluid environment and the larva's body shape. Primarily, the larvae need to generate sufficient escape speed in a wide range of possible directions, in a short-enough time. In this study, we examined how the larvae meet these demands. We filmed fast starts of zebrafish larvae with a unique five-camera setup with high spatiotemporal resolution. From these videos, we reconstructed the 3D swimming motion with an automated method and from these data calculated resultant hydrodynamic forces and, for the first time, 3D torques. We show that zebrafish larvae reorient mostly in the first stage of the start by producing a strong yaw torque, often without using the pectoral fins. This reorientation is expressed as the body angle, a measure that represents the rotation of the complete body, rather than the commonly used head angle. The fish accelerates its centre of mass mostly in stage 2 by generating a considerable force peak while the fish 'unfolds'. The escape direction of the fish correlates strongly with the amount of body curvature in stage 1, while the escape speed correlates strongly with the duration of the start. This may allow the fish to independently control the direction and speed of the escape. Summary: Fish larvae may independently adjust the direction and speed of their fast start escape response, a manoeuvre crucial for survival.


Background. This article examines the therapeutic effects of phonophoresis with ketoprofen in gel form in patients with enthesopathy of the elbow. Ultrasonic therapy and phonophoresis have their primary application in the physical therapy of this disorder. The main aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of phonophoresis. Material and methods. The research group consisted of 19 patients diagnosed with enthesopathy of the lateral and medial epicondyle. In the statistical analysis we included 28 elbow joints treated with phonophoresis. The effects of therapy were compared with a control group of 20 patients who were treated with only ultrasound therapy. The therapeutic series consisted of 10 treatments, using the pulse mode of ultrasound and an intensity of 0.8 W/cm2 in both groups. The clinical examination (objective assessment) and interview (subjective assessment) consisted of specific tests, and were separately collected. Reasults. The positive effects of phonophoresis using a pharmacologically active gel with ketoprofen were shown to be highly significant in both assessments, objective and subjective. The pain symptoms in the elbow resolved in most of the patients. There were statistically significant differences between phonophoresis and ultrasound therapy. Conclusions. Our results support the application of phonophoresis with ketoprofen in the treatment of epicondylitis.


The objective of this paper is to reflect on our experience in a serious game research project, named SimParc, about multi-agent support for participatory management of protected areas for biodiversity conservation and social inclusion. Our project has a clear filiation with the MAS-RPG (Multi-Agent-Simulation – Role-Playing Games) methodology developed by the ComMod action-research community about participatory management of renewable resources, where multi-agent simulation (MAS) computes the dynamics of the resources and role-playing game (RPG) represents the actions and dialogue between stakeholders about the resources. Meanwhile, we have explored some specific directions, such as: dialogue support for negotiation; argumentation-based decision making and its explanation; technical assistance to the players based on viability modeling. In fact, in our project multi-agent based simulation focuses on the negotiation process itself, performed by human players and some artificial participants/agents, rather than on the simulation of the resources dynamics. Meanwhile, as we will see, we have also reintroduced the modeling of the socioecosystem dynamics, but as a local technical assistance/analysis tool for the players and not as a global system modeling. In this proposed chapter, we aim at discussing the rationales for these specificities and for the whole project, as well as summarizing the architecture of our prototype system, current results and experience produced and, last but not the least, lessons learned and prospects for future works.


Beyond its value as industrial input, including in jewelry, gold as a financial asset provides no cash flow or monetary dividend, nor a positive carry, and thus its value depends on non-directly measurable factors. However, its ancestral property as a store of value and a 'safe haven' especially in the face of heightened uncertainty and grave disruptions to the financial system would call for a role in the new financial architecture emerging after the global crisis. Absent a return to a fully fledged gold standard or to a gold exchange standard as prevailed pre-1971, gold could provide at least a partial anchor for monetary aggregates in a world that is increasingly multipolar, that is, where one economy would not be able to sustain the dominant international role of its currency without jeopardizing its internal stability as a result of an unsustainable external debt service (Triffin dilemma).The ongoing real decoupling trend of emerging markets from mature economies will lead to a secular re-centering of the world's economic and financial geography. This implies that the size of the US economy will shrink relative to other economies and therefore the world will gradually revert to a situation similar to that prevailing before WWI when the first wave of globalization took place.During the XIX century and up to WWI, the gold standard provided the foundation for the expansion of international trade and the international financial relations. At that time none of the four or five large economies (including their colonial empires) was dominant. In that environment characterised by intense rivalries among major powers, the anchor for the world monetary and payments relationships was gold, i.e. an asset whose supply was independent from the discretionary decisions of national or supranational authorities.After World War I, and especially after WWII, an economic landscape took shape that was unusual from an historical standpoint (at least since the fall of the Roman Empire). With Europe undergoing reconstruction from the devastation and ravages of war while imposing restrictions on trade and payments, the US became the dominant economy in global trade and investment relations (especially considering that the Soviet Union and, after WWII, China decided to pursue a closed door policy in international economic relations, while India pursued a protectionist model of economic development). The US dollar became the international currency for payments and reserves, thanks to its peg to gold until 1971, the size, depth and liquidity of its financial markets, the dominance of the US as a capital exporter and thereafter thanks to its overwhelming size and military reach.The Triffin Dilemma, which figured prominently in the international monetary policy discussions right after WW II, posits that the country issuing the reserve currency is bound to run an ever increasing current account deficit as world trade and payments increase in order to allow reserve accumulation and until its foreign liabilities become unsustainable. Against that the US obtained an 'exorbitant privilege, enabling it to pay for its imports with its own currency. This dilemma could be side stepped as long as the US economy grew at least as fast as the world global average and had no serious rival on the world stage. However, the global financial crisis which originated in the US severely shook confidence in US banks, financial institutions and markets, which along with the emergence of China and India (with a 10-15 year lag), has reignited these dormant worries. Moreover fiscal laxity in the US, aggravated by the uncertainty over the cost of the health care reform combined with the large unfunded liabilities related to social security and other entitlement programmes, raises the spectre of a scenario in which the international role of the dollar could suddenly come into question.The US cannot continue to run indefinitely a current account deficit without jeopardizing the stability of the world economy. In a multipolar world the size of a single country would not be large enough to sustain its role as supplier of the dominant reserve currency and international liquidity. The alternative would be to devise a financial system relying on several major currencies as was the case before WWI. But should such a multi-currency system be left to market forces to set exchange rates or could it benefit from being anchored to an asset such as gold which not issued by a national authority? Should we base an alternative global monetary system on national fiat currencies or should we move towards a gold exchange standard? The answer of this paper is that international liquidity should be supplied on a large scale by an international currency such as the SDR, whose value should be tied to a basket of major currencies and gold, with the weight of the latter set at 20-25%.


Cotton and cotton/polyester-blended fabrics were finished with polyorganosiloxanes and their hydrophobicity and soft handle were investigated. Aminofunctional polysiloxanes with high molecular weight were synthesized and characterized with measurements of viscosity and content of aminofunctional groups. In order to determine the hydrophobicity of fabrics, a test-method was developed according to ISO 8022. General conditions such as content of emulsion, drying conditions, particle size of emulsion and structure of polyorganosiloxanes were investigated in this work. The hydrophobicity was finally determined by model systems of silanes by means of contact angles, SEM and AFM. The hydrophobicity of fabrics is explained on account of the formation of film, the polarity and the reorientation of aminofunctional groups. It became confirmed, that strengthening the interaction through aminofunctional groups on the interface leads to an improvement in the hydrophobicity. The porosity of the surface which was confirmed by means of microscopic investigations causes an increase of the measured contact angles through the lotuseffect. An aging effect was also found: If a substrate let be on air, which is a hydrophobic medium, the hydrophobic groups are oriented to the surface while the hydrophilic groups arrange themselves inwards. On the other hand if it let be in a polar medium, the reciprocal effect occurs. The results can be summarized as follows: Polysiloxane with primary amino groups in the
 side chain make it possible to modify fabrics in such a way that they
 become simultaneously very hydrophobic and soft.
 The purposeful synthesis of high molecular
 polysiloxanes with many side aminofunctional groups allows to maximize
 this effect.
 The hydrophobicity is caused by the interaction
 of the aminofunctional groups with the polar part of cellulose
structure.
 Investigations to model surfaces show, that the
 hydrophobicity can be increased additionally through the lotuseffect.
 AFM measurements show, that the aminofunctional
 polysiloxanes with high molecular weight form a thin, regular film on
 the substrate.