A delamination model applied to the Lachlan fold belt in eastern Australia shows that lithospheric delamination began in the Early Silurian (∼430 Ma), after crustal thickening in the Wagga-Omeo zone. The delamination induced isostatic uplift farther east to produce localized, transient extensional basins and coeval silicic magmas, which formed by partial melting of the lower crust during asthenospheric upwelling. However, the voluminous granitoid intrusions were emplaced during and after compression, reflecting reestablishment of horizontal compression associated with plate convergence. Continued sinking of the slab produced an east. ward-widening orogenic belt where the granite batholiths and associated thermally softened zones of deformation tracked the direction of delamination. Once the slab was completely detached at ∼400 Ma, the compressive stresses were transmitted across the belt, and delamination recommenced about 1000 km westward against the cratonic margin; the process was repeated at 400-370 Ma. Within 60 m.y., the two sinking slabs had converted a 1700-2000-km-wide continental margin into a 700-km-wide orogenic belt. Important effects of delamination on the upper and middle crust are (1) production of regional-scale, low-pressure metamorphic belts of limited crustal thickness; (2) widespread voluminous silicic magmatism; (3) lack of deep-crustal exposures even with high degrees of crustal shortening; and (4) partial replacement of the lower crust by a mafic underplate that cooled completely after deformation ceased.


Although the camera eye of the octopus is very similar to that of humans, phylogenetic and embryological analyses have suggested that their camera eyes have been acquired independently. It has been known as a typical example of convergent evolution. To study the molecular basis of convergent evolution of camera eyes, we conducted a comparative analysis of gene expression in octopus and human camera eyes. We sequenced 16,432 ESTs of the octopus eye, leading to 1052 nonredundant genes that have matches in the protein database. Comparing these 1052 genes with 13,303 already-known ESTs of the human eye, 729 (69.3%) genes were commonly expressed between the human and octopus eyes. On the contrary, when we compared octopus eye ESTs with human connective tissue ESTs, the expression similarity was quite low. To trace the evolutionary changes that are potentially responsible for camera eye formation, we also compared octopus-eye ESTs with the completed genome sequences of other organisms. We found that 1019 out of the 1052 genes had already existed at the common ancestor of bilateria, and 875 genes were conserved between humans and octopuses. It suggests that a larger number of conserved genes and their similar gene expression may be responsible for the convergent evolution of the camera eye.


The model of compensating differentials in regional labor markets was developed by Roback (1982). The model interprets regional differences in constant quality wages and rents as compensating firms and residents for inter-regional differences in amenities. The model assumes that the costs of relocating to a new city are zero. The results hold in the presence of moving costs for the marginal migrant. This paper extends the Roback model to allow for moving costs which vary among a city's residents and businesses. This modification of the model generates new interpretations of regional differences in rents and (to a lesser extent) wages. The importance of amenities is retained, but housing supply becomes the main other determinant of regional rents. Housing supply was for the most part ignored in the literature following on Roback's initial insight. The new perspective also provides a bridge between the neo-classical perspective implicit in Roback's approach and the newer literature on agglomeration economies.


In 1898, Great Britain added to its colony at Hong Kong a 368-square-mile expanse of mountainous countryside and islands, leased from China for a term of 99 years, which became known as the New Territories. The colonial official, James Stewart Lockhart, after an inspection of the newly acquired extension, called it "the great difference," describing the gulf between the people of the New Territories and their counterparts in the existing, largely urban, British colony. In this book, James Hayes argues that "the great difference" led the colonial government to administer the New Territories and its people differently from the old urban area from the outset, with repercussions that continue to affect present-day Hong Kong. First published in 2006, and now appearing in this paperback edition with a new preface, The Great Difference covers the whole period of the lease and embodies the fruits of its author's studies of the territory and indigenous population over several decades. While not a formal history of the New Territories, it is intended to provide an intimate and knowledgeable overview of this fascinating area and assist other researchers, paving the way for the general history that has yet to be written.


The importance of the development and application of groundwater simulation mathematical models in the protection of aquifer systems is nowadays recognised as an undisputable fact. In this paper a mathematical model that was developed in order to simulate the operation of the Upper Anthemountas aquifer in Chalkidiki, Greece, is presented. The case study application investigated concerned the possible malfunction of the Waste Water Treatment Plant located within the study area. According to this scenario a possible malfunction of the treatment plant could pollute the underlying aquifer. A network of observation wells located downstream of the plant could detect the pollution and predict the time needed to reach the productive wells surrounding the area. This allows the local water resources managers to formulate a priori action-plans including, the alteration of the pumping schedule in order to prevent polluted water to be abstracted from the nearby wells and at the same time protect the public health, along with necessary measures concerning the prevention of further pollution and the restoration of the groundwater aquifer system.


The largest possible average diameter of a bounded cell of a simple hyperplane arrangement is conjectured to be not greater than the dimension. We prove that this conjecture holds in dimension 2, and is asymptotically tight in fixed dimension. We give the exact value of the largest possible average diameter for all simple arrangements in dimension 2, for arrangements having at most the dimension plus 2 hyperplanes, and for arrangements having 6 hyperplanes in dimension 3. In dimension 3, we give lower and upper bounds which are both asymptotically equal to the dimension.


The expansion of married women's property rights was a main achievement of the first wave of feminism in Latin America. As Carmen Diana Deere and Magdalena Leon reveal, however, the disjuncture between rights and actual ownership remains vast. This is particularly true in rural areas, where the distribution of land between men and women is highly unequal. In their pioneering, twelve-country comparative study, the authors argue that property ownership is directly related to women's bargaining power within the household and community, point out changes resulting from recent gender-progressive legislation, and identify additional areas for future reform, including inheritance rights of wives.


Introduction: We report a novel technique for the vaginal placement of a single-incision laparoscopic device to aid in the removal of pelvic and para-aortic lymph nodes in patients undergoing gynecologic cancer surgery. Technique Description: Informed consent for laparoendoscopic single-site total hysterectomy and bilateral salpingooophorectomy with pelvic and para-aortic lymph node dissection was obtained. A single-incision laparoscopic device was placed through a 2.5-cm umbilical incision, and a total laparoscopic hysterectomy with removal of the ovaries and tubes was performed. Preoperative pathologic analysis showed a grade 2 endometrioid adenocarcinoma of the endometrium, and as a result, bilateral pelvic and para-aortic lymph node dissection was completed. To aid in the lymphadenectomy, an additional transvaginal single-incision laparoscopic device was placed. The procedure was completed in 221 minutes, with 125 minutes spent on the pelvic and para-aortic lymph node dissection. There were no intraoperative or postoperative complications. The amount of blood loss was 50 mL. There were 10 pelvic lymph nodes and 5 para-aortic lymph nodes removed, with no carcinoma detected. The patient tolerated the procedure well and was discharged home the next day. Discussion: Placement of a second transvaginal port is a feasible technique that provides great flexibility and assistance for lymph node removal in gynecologic cancer surgery.


The objective for this research was to assess the efficacy of biodegradable containers compared to plastic containers for the production of long-term crops using a subirrigation system. Plastic and various biocontainers were used to grow 'Rainier Purple' cyclamen (Cyclamen persicum L.) in ebb-and-flood benches. After 15 weeks, the physical properties of the containers were tested. The used plastic containers had strengths of 23.3, 23.5 and 21.9 g for the bottom, middle and top zones respectively. The peat, dairy manure and wood fiber containers had strengths of less than 2 kg for each zone. The peat, dairy manure, wood fiber and rice straw containers had used tensile strengths of 0, 0, 3.61 and 5.29 g respectively. Total water for wood fiber containers was significantly higher than plastic containers. Irrigation interval for plastic containers was significantly longer than for wood fiber containers. Plastic, bioplastic, solid ricehull and slotted ricehull containers had no algal or fungal growth. There were no significant differences between biocontainers and plastic containers for days to flower. All biocontainers except wood fiber had significantly higher shoot dry weights than plants grown in plastic containers. The plants grown in the plastic containers had root dry weights of 3.0 g. Solid ricehull, paper, wood fiber and coconut fiber containers had higher plant root dry weights than plastic containers. The bioplastic, solid ricehull and slotted ricehull containers would all be appropriate substitutes for plastic containers. These containers retained high levels of punch and tensile strength, had no algal and fungal growth, required a similar amount of water as the plastic containers and did not negatively affect plant growth. The peat, dairy manure, wood fiber and rice straw containers would not be appropriate substitutes for plastic containers because of the low used strengths, high percentages of algae coverage and shorter irrigation intervals. Paper and coconut fiber containers could be used to substitute for plastic. These containers retained high used strengths, similar total water usage amounts, and did not negatively affect plant growth. These containers had algae but it was less than 9% of the total container. This thesis is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council


The current state of the art of virtual reality allows a user to interact with computer-generated visual worlds and provides a high level of realism. The immersion can be increased significantly by simulating in addition the corresponding room acoustics. A correct acoustical impression is reached by the reproduction of binaural signals and at present already satisfies high demand, but for interactive systems it is mostly limited to sources located in the free field, that is, the filters used for computation are applicable for anechoic environments only. Current real-time-capable room acoustical simulations for virtual environments are mostly based on the principles of geometrical acoustics. However, these approaches do not provide an exact reproduction of a room's sound properties under real-time conditions because of high computation demands, and they are therefore limited to the simulation of just plausible sound fields. Hence faster algorithms are required to further enhance the room acoustical simulation. A modification of the commonly known image source method is presented, which reduces the computation demands of this highly time-expensive approach remarkably. Binary space partitioning trees are used for a fast determination of audible image sources, and an efficient data structure with respect to the real-time auralization process is introduced. Thus a faster determination of the binaural room impulse response is obtained, which is essential for a real-time-capable auralization process. In addition, geometrical relations are used more efficiently to prevent the generation of redundant image sources and to increase the performance of this algorithm. Furthermore, experiments have been carried out to show the current hardware limitations for this modified image source method.


Future climate change is anticipated to result in ecosystem changes, and consequently, many species are expected to become increasingly vulnerable to extinction. This scenario is of particular concern for threatened, endangered, and at-risk species (TER-S) or other rare species. The response of species to climate change is uncertain and will be the outcome of complex interactions and processes. Nevertheless, a simple flexible strategy is needed to help integrate climate change into management planning and actions. This assessment uses SAVS, a vulnerability scoring tool based on ecological principles, to rank individual species of interest within the Fort Huachuca region according to predicted climate change responses and associated population declines balanced with responses expected to incur resilience or population increases. Further, specific areas of vulnerability, research needs, and management implications are identified for each species. Based solely on predicted response to climate change, northern Mexican gartersnake and southwestern willow flycatcher are the most vulnerable to population declines. Results also suggest that climate change will make management of some TER-S more difficult. Several critical management areas are identified that can mitigate negative impacts to benefit multiple species, including fire and fuels, invasive species, natural and artificial waters, and landscape-scale planning. Management planning should be in place that will assist species impacted by extreme events such as prolonged drought, severe wildfires, and intense flooding. The assessment process was also used to identify areas where climate change may present opportunities, as opposed to challenges, for management of TER-S.


Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is an n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid, and various neural diseases and deficits in development of the nervous system are associated with deficiency in this lipid. DHA is a precursor for phosphatidylserine (PS) biosynthesis, and addition of DHA increases PS content in brain or in cultured glial or neuronal cells. Akbar et al. show that supplementation of Neuro 2A cells with varying ratios of DHA and DPA (docosapentaenoic acid, a saturated lipid) showed that DHA promoted the greatest increase in PS concentration and was most effective at preventing apoptosis in cells deprived of serum. Pharmacological inhibition of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) blocked the cell survival effect of DHA, and enrichment of cells with DHA partially rescued the phosphorylation and activity of the protein kinase Akt (a downstream effector in the PI3K pathway) in the absence of serum. Neuro 2A cells enriched with DHA or DPA (both of which increase PS concentration) showed faster recruitment of Akt to the membrane and faster phosphorylation of Akt upon stimulation of the cells with insulin-like growth factor (IGF). DHA resulted in the fastest redistribution, and this faster redistribution was not seen if the cells were grown in serine-depleted medium, suggesting that the increase in PS was responsible for this effect. In support of Akt directly interacting with PS, mutant forms of Akt (R67A or R69A) that may not bind acidic phospholipids translocated to a lesser extent to the membrane upon cell stimulation, and DHA or DPA did not alter the translocation of these mutants to the membrane. Hippocampal neurons from embryonic rats isolated from a rat fed either a normal or an n-3 fatty acid-deficient diet showed that the cells from the deficient rats had 15% less PS and that the cells were more susceptible to cell death following trophic withdrawal than were the DHA-replete cells. Thus, the abundance of PS in the inner plasma membrane leaflet appears to contribute to the recruitment of Akt in the cell survival pathway in neurons, and this may explain the neuronal deficits associated with n-3 fatty acid deficiency. M. Akbar, F. Calderon, Z. Wen, H. Y. Kim, Docosahexaenoic acid: A positive modulator of Akt signaling in neuronal survival. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 102, 10858-10863 (2005). [Abstract] [Full Text]


ADDITIONAL INDEX WORDS. leaf firings, green shoot recovery, deficit irrigation SUMMARY. There is a dearth of information about turfgrass drought resistance and adaptation in the Mediterranean region of Turkey. Turfgrass managers in this region need this information to help them make informed decisions regarding turfgrass selection and management. This research was conducted to assess the drought resistance of bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon), buffalograss (Buchloe dactyloides), bahiagrass (Paspalum notatum), seashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum), zoysiagrass (Zoysia japonica), centipedegrass (Eremochloa ophiuroides), and tall fescue (Lolium arundinaceum) under Mediterranean conditions of Turkey. The study was conducted at two locations, Antalya and Mersin, and was repeated in 2006 and 2007 at both locations. One year after establishment, the turfs were subjected to drought stress for 90 days, which was followed by resumption of irrigation for recovery of the turf. Percentage leaf firing, turfgrass quality, and percent green shoot recovery were recorded. There were inter and intraspecies differences detected for percentage leaf firing and shoot recovery. Bermudagrass, bahiagrass, and buffalograss exhibited superior drought resistance as demonstrated by lower leaf firing and better shoot recovery values when compared with other species studied. Centipedegrass and zoysiagrass demonstrated a high leaf firing and very poor shoot recovery, whereas zoysiagrass and tall fescue wereunable torecoverfromthedrought stressinthe sandy soil. Results showed that 'SWI-1045' (Contessa) and 'SWI-1044' bermudagrass and 'Cody' buffalograss possessed superior drought resistance with acceptable turfgrass quality up to 30 days under drought stress that can be used for waterefficient turf management under the Mediterranean environment.


The global effects of ocean acidification (OA) on coral reefs are of growing concern. Carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of burning fossil fuels, not only has an effect on "global warming", but also on OA which is called the "other CO2 problem". OA combined with high ocean temperatures has resulted in a massive bleaching of coral reefs in the Indian Ocean and throughout Southeast Asia over the past decade, which is ultimately lethal. Here we discuss the option if innovative seaweed bio-technology—the Ulva lactuca bioreactor option, with its H+ ion-absorbing capacity and its huge green biomass production of around 50 MT/ha/year—which can stabilize our "World Ocean" and our global coral reefs. From our calculations, we came to the conclusion that an area covered with "Ulva lactuca bioreactors" with a production capacity of 250 × 1016 ha of seaweed per year is needed to remove all H+ ions that cause OA in our "World Ocean" since the beginning of the "Industrial Revolution" ≈ 250 years ago. This is a daunting task and therefore we have opted for a multi-faceted approach including variability in seaweed species, avoidance of eutrophication & heavy-metal accumulation, prevention of global warming by more green-biomass production and a better estimation of the huge Kelp seaweed populations in temperate zones in order to protect our coral reefs for the short term.


This article draws on the criminological work of Gresham Sykes and David Matza as a starting point for theorizing the nature and appeal of the western jihadi subculture, defined here as a hybrid and heavily digitized global imaginary that extols and justifies violent jihad as a way of life and being. It suggests that at the centre of this subculture are three focal concerns: (1) Violence and Machismo; (2) Death and Martyrdom; and (3) Disdain of the Dunya. More critically, it argues that these three focal concerns have immediate counterparts in the shadow values of the wider society with which western jihadists are in contention. This argument has important implications for debates over radicalization and the attractions of jihadist activism.


Abstract Low take-up of stigma-free social benefits is often blamed on information asymmetries or administrative barriers. There is limited evidence on which of these potential channels is more salient in which contexts. We designed and implemented a randomized controlled trial to assess the extent to which informational barriers are responsible for the prevalent low take-up of government benefits among Colombian conflict-driven internal refugees. We provide timely information on benefits eligibility via SMS to a random half of the displaced household that migrated to Bogotá over a 6-month period. We show that improving information increases benefits' take-up. However, the effect is small and only true for certain type of benefits. Hence, consistent with previous experimental literature, the availability of timely information explains only part of the low take-up rates and the role of administrative barriers and bureaucratic processes should be tackled to increase the well-being of internal refugees in Colombia.


'Same Ole Same Ole' with Regard to Sterile Syringe Availability
Research has shown that the shared use of contaminated needles, syringes, and even drug vials is a major means of transmission for HIV and hepatitis B and C infections. However, fears persist that by allowing injecting drug users access to sterile needles and syringes sends the wrong message resulting in increased numbers of persons injecting illicit drugs and increased crime rates. And as the numbers of those injecting illicit drugs increases so do the numbers of bloodborne infections like HIV and hepatitis. Existing research and other data do not support such fears; however, there is some support for the 'same old same old' with regard to sterile syringe availability.


Discovering the interactions between genes and proteins is seen as one of the core tasks in molecular biology. The quantity of research results in this area is growing at such a rate that it is very dicult for individual researchers to keep track of them. As such results appear mainly in the form of scientific articles, it is necessary to process them in an ecient manner in order to be able to extract the relevant results. Many databases exist that aim at consolidating the newly gained knowledge in a format that is easily accessible and searchable, however the creators of such databases normally make use of human readers who manually 'curate' the relevant papers. This is an expensive and time consuming process, besides, there might be a significant time lag between the publication of a result and its introduction into such databases. In this paper we propose a method for discovery of interactions between genes and proteins from the scientific literature, based on a complete syntactic analysis of the corpus. We report on preliminary results.


During the 1980s, the pendulum swung back from the socialism doctrinaire that dominated the post war period,where public ownership of the productive and services sectors was emphasized. In the early 1980s, new valuesemerged questioning the role of the state in economic activities. As a result, the pressures mounted to shift tomarket economy and to rely on private initiatives to spearhead the development process. Accordingly, governments around the globe, including communist countries, announced their intentions to"rolling back the frontiers of the state". The unsatisfactory performance of public enterprises, it was argued, is adirect consequence of their ownership structure. Therefore, the only enduring remedy that emerged was tochange ownership. In this paper we assess the efficiency arguments for and against privatization with emphasis on developingcountries. It is here argued that the poor performance of public enterprises is due to market structure and lack ofclear objectives rather than structure of ownership. Moreover, although there is evidence that privatized firmshave improved, we assert that the claimed improvement is difficult to measure, due to the major restructuringthat were carried out before privatization to prepare the candidates in order to ensure success of the policy andthe change of environment within which they operate. These methodological problems make such comparisonbefore and after at least a protracted and complicated business and the results highly debatable.


The aim of this thesis was to investigate the physical and electrochemical properties of sub monolayer and monolayer of copper deposition on the polycrystalline iridium, ruthenium and its conductive oxide. The electrochemical methods cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronocoulometry were used to study the under potential deposition. The electrochemical methods to oxidize the ruthenium metal are presented, and the electrochemical properties of the oxide ruthenium are studied.

 The full range of CV is presented in this thesis, and the distances between the stripping bulk peak and stripping UPD peak in various concentration of CuSO4 on iridium, ruthenium and its conductive oxide are shown, which yields thermodynamic data on relative difference of bonding strength between Cu-Ru/Ir atoms and Cu-Cu atoms. The monolayer of UPD on ruthenium is about 0.5mL, and on oxidized ruthenium is around 0.9mL to 1.0mL. The conductive oxide ruthenium presents the similar properties of ruthenium metal. The pH effect of stripping bulk peak and stripping UPD peak of copper deposition on ruthenium and oxide ruthenium was investigated. The stripping UPD peak and stripping bulk peak disappeared after the pH ≥ 3 on oxidized ruthenium electrode, and a new peak appeared, which means the condition of pH is very important. The results show that the Cl- , SO42- , Br- will affect the position of stripping bulk peak and stripping UPD peak: the stripping bulk peak will shift and decrease if the concentration of halide ions is increasing, and the monolayer of UPD will increase at the same time.


Although loss of bone mineral density is a common symptom of chronic inflammatory diseases, its mechanisms are still poorly understood. The PHEX gene encodes a Zn-endopeptidase expressed in osteoblasts and contributes to bone mineralization. Data derived from rodents has indicated co-repression of the PHEX gene by the NF-κB pathway and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP1). The aim of this study was to determine the molecular mechanism involved in TNF-mediated downregulation of PHEX expression in human osteoblasts and human osteosarcoma cell line. We observed that activation of the NF-κB pathway by TNF was manifested as a nuclear increase in RELA and NFKB1 heterodimer. We found that TNF reduced PHEX expression and the proteasome inhibitor reversed this effect in osteosarcoma cell line. Contrary to the effects seen in rodents, inhibition of PARP1 enzymatic activity did not significantly reverse the effect of TNF on the human PHEX gene expression. EMSA studies showed that the number of adenines in the PHEX proximal promoter is crucial for the transcription factors' interactions within that region. The obtained results support the hypothesis indicating the existence of a molecular mechanism of gene repression that involves a poly adenine-rich region of the proximal gene promoters and PARP1 transcriptional activity.


Runtime monitoring is an established technique for enforcing a wide range of program safety and security properties. We present a formalization of monitoring and monitor inlining, for the Java Virtual Machine. Monitors are security automata given in a special-purpose monitor specification language, ConSpec. The automata operate on finite or infinite strings of calls to a fixed API, allowing local dependencies on parameter values and heap content. We use a two-level class file annotation scheme to characterize two key properties: (i) that the program is correct with respect to the monitor as a constraint on allowed program behavior, and (ii) that the program has an instance of the given monitor embedded into it, which yields state changes at prescribed points according to the monitor's transition function. As our main application of these results we describe a concrete inliner, and use the annotation scheme to characterize its correctness. For this inliner, correctness of the level II annotations can be decided efficiently by a weakest precondition annotation checker, thus allowing on-device checking of inlining correctness in a proof-carrying code setting.


A CD19 chimeric antigen receptor–modified T cell product with defined composition has potent antitumor activity. Standardizing the CAR assembly line Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)–modified T cells are engineered to recognize specific tumor antigens. They have shown promising results in clinical trials, primarily in leukemia so far, but it has been difficult to predict therapeutic efficacy and toxicity for individual patients. To address this issue, Turtle et al. treated non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients with CAR-T cells prepared from strictly defined subsets. By carefully controlling the ratio of CD4 to CD8 T cells, the authors were able to identify some of the treatment characteristics that correlate with therapeutic response and toxicity, including the role of the drug regimen used for lymphodepletion before CAR-T cell treatment. CD19-specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)–modified T cells have antitumor activity in B cell malignancies, but factors that affect toxicity and efficacy have been difficult to define because of differences in lymphodepletion and heterogeneity of CAR-T cells administered to individual patients. We conducted a clinical trial in which CD19 CAR-T cells were manufactured from defined T cell subsets and administered in a 1:1 CD4+/CD8+ ratio of CAR-T cells to 32 adults with relapsed and/or refractory B cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma after cyclophosphamide (Cy)–based lymphodepletion chemotherapy with or without fludarabine (Flu). Patients who received Cy/Flu lymphodepletion had increased CAR-T cell expansion and persistence, and higher response rates [50% complete remission (CR), 72% overall response rate (ORR)] than patients who received Cy-based lymphodepletion without Flu (8% CR, 50% ORR). The CR rate in patients treated with Cy/Flu at the maximally tolerated dose was 64% (82% ORR; n = 11). Cy/Flu minimized the effects of an immune response to the murine single-chain variable fragment component of the CAR, which limited CAR-T cell expansion and clinical efficacy in patients who received Cy-based lymphodepletion without Flu. Severe cytokine release syndrome (sCRS) and grade ≥3 neurotoxicity were observed in 13 and 28% of all patients, respectively. Serum biomarkers, one day after CAR-T cell infusion, correlated with subsequent sCRS and neurotoxicity. Immunotherapy with CD19 CAR-T cells in a defined CD4+/CD8+ ratio allowed identification of correlative factors for CAR-T cell expansion, persistence, and toxicity, and facilitated optimization of lymphodepletion that improved disease response and overall and progression-free survival.


The use of computers in education is becoming more and more common as the price of technology drops and its general availability is increased. Unfortunately, building computer based tutoring systems is a difficult process which is fraught with many problems. A significant problem in this area is the lack of reuse of system components between computer tutor developments. This means that each new system must be started from scratch and mistakes from earlier projects can easily be repeated. A complementary difficulty is the variety of specialist skills that are required to build these systems . Typical developers do not usually possess the combination of domain, cognitive science and programming knowledge that is needed to build computer tutors. One solution to these problems is the use of an authoring environment for facilitating the building of computer based tutoring systems. This thesis presents an authoring tool for the construction of computer based tutoring systems teaching procedural tasks in a discovery learning environment . TANDEM (Task ANd Domain Environment Model) provides tools for domain and task definition, sub-domain definition and a domain independent tutoring engine. It is argued that such an environment can provide a non-expert user with access to advanced techniques from artificial intelligence research for knowledge acquisition and representation. Several tasks from the construction process have been automated, thus simplifying this activity. The use of sub-domain partitioning has been considered and techniques for the integration of custom built domain interfaces are described . Also, it is proposed that by providing a domain independent tutoring engine, reuse can be encouraged over numerous domains which can reduce the development time required to build these systems.


We propose a new unified formulation of the current algebra theory in the category of supergeometry. We take a QP pair as the fundamental framework, which is a tower of two dg symplectic manifolds introduced in the author's previous paper. A large class of current algebras with and without anomalous terms are naturally constructed from this structure. Moreover, a new class of current algebras are obtained systematically. The Poisson brackets of currents are described by the derived bracket on the big QP manifold. By taking a canonical transformation on a QP pair, correct anomalous terms in physical theories are derived.


The healthcare system is undergoing a transition from paying for volume to paying for value. Clinicians, as well as public and private payers, are beginning to implement alternative delivery and payment models, such as the patient-centered medical home, accountable care organizations, and bundled payment arrangements. Implementation of these new models will necessitate delivery system transformation and will actively involve all fields of medical care, in particular medicine and surgery. This call to action, on behalf of the American Heart Association's Expert Panel on Payment and Delivery System Reform, serves to offer support and direction for further involvement by the American Heart Association. In doing so, it (1) provides baseline review and definition of the present models and some of the early results of these delivery models, including outcomes; (2) initiates a conversation within the American Heart Association on the impact of payment and delivery system reform, as well as how the American Heart Association should engage in the interest of patients; (3) issues a call to action to our organization and to cardiovascular and stroke health professionals across the country to become educated about these models so to as to understand their impact on patient care; and (4) asks the government and other funding agencies, including the American Heart Association, to begin supporting and prioritizing meaningful research endeavors to further evaluate these models.


This study aims to make theoretical and methodological contributions to knowledge by examining how change is managed and to what extent employees at the Ministry of Interior in the UAE are ready to lead and implement change initiatives. The UAE has nowadays become synonymous with change. The fast growing pace of change is transforming the UAE landscape and the MOI needs to be prepared to implement changes in order to be competitive and comply with the government's Excellence Vision for 2021. This research addresses aspects of change management and readiness for change within a context which is under-researched in the UAE. It examines how change is managed by assessing the level of readiness for change.

Although there is vast literature on change management and many studies have investigated change models and initiatives, this topic still generates plenty of interest and is under-researched in the Arab world and in particular in the UAE public sector. Change management is viewed as imperative and inevitable for the survival and success of an organisation. The extensive literature has revealed that there is no single approach to change management—what works or fits best depends on the organisational and cultural settings which have a direct impact on the success rate of the change project. In general, the change management theories and models appear to be rather abstract and too broad. Although they offer some guidance on how change can effectively be managed, they fall short on supporting their claims with concrete empirical evidence. In addition, there is little research on the drivers or leaders of organisational change and the expertise and know how required to lead the organisation to successful change. In addition, change models and theories tend to overlap and correlate highly with each other.

Based on the nature of the problem and research questions, a predominately positivist paradigm has been selected by this study. However, a mixed method approach is adopted to enhance the effectiveness of this study combining both qualitative and quantitative which help support each other and compensate for each other's weaknesses, thus providing fresh insights and an in-depth understanding of the topic under investigation.

The main findings of the study suggest employees are in general satisfied with the way change has been managed within the MOI. Interestingly, the results also reveal that most change initiatives have not generated a consensus or a united front of satisfaction but feelings of discontent and negative reactions were voiced from several individuals who perceived that the way aspects of change were handled lacked a sense of purpose and inadequate preparation.This minority of employees is not clear about the organisation's strategic vision of the change, showing signs of resistance. This uncertainty is considered as a critical barrier to the change efforts initiated by the MOI leadership to enhance its performance and deliver quality service.

The research contributes towards the change management debate by expanding the academic literature and the findings of this study have practical implications. They provide the MOI with the key mechanisms on how to prioritise and prepare for the different phases of change management activities to address the requirements of the development agenda. This study also helps to raise awareness of the decision makers about the flaws and shortcomings of the current change management practices within the MOI. Finally the findings of this study will enable the development of a change management programme and strategy tailored for the MOI and made by the MOI change management experts.


Mismatch negativity (MMN) is suitable for studies of preattentive auditory discriminability and the auditory memory trace. Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) is an ideal target for early therapeutic intervention because SCD occurs at preclinical stages many years before the onset of Alzheimer's disease (AD). According to a novel lifespan-based model of dementia risk, hearing loss is considered the greatest potentially modifiable risk factor of dementia among nine health and lifestyle factors, and hearing impairment is associated with cognitive decline. Therefore, we propose a neurofeedback training based on MMN, which is an objective index of auditory discriminability, to regulate sensory ability and memory as a non-pharmacological intervention (NPI) in SCD patients. Seventeen subjects meeting the standardized clinical evaluations for SCD received neurofeedback training. The auditory frequency discrimination test, the visual digital N-back (1-, 2-, and 3-back), auditory digital N-back (1-, 2-, and 3-back), and auditory tone N-back (1-, 2-, and 3-back) tasks were used pre- and post-training in all SCD patients. The intervention schedule comprised five 60-min training sessions over 2 weeks. The results indicate that the subjects who received neurofeedback training had successfully improved the amplitude of MMN at the parietal electrode (Pz). A slight decrease in the threshold of auditory frequency discrimination was observed after neurofeedback training. Notably, after neurofeedback training, the working memory (WM) performance was significantly enhanced in the auditory tone 3-back test. Moreover, improvements in the accuracy of all WM tests relative to the baseline were observed, although the changes were not significant. To the best of our knowledge, our preliminary study is the first to investigate the effects of MMN neurofeedback training on WM in SCD patients, and our results suggest that MMN neurofeedback may represent an effective treatment for intervention in SCD patients and the elderly with aging memory decline.


At times it appears as if artifacts are best described as 'not nature' but, even at that, the boundary begins to blur as we consider developments in areas such as genetics and biotechnology where biology and design begin to merge. The realm of artifacts has grown, and so have notions of what they are and could be. Our world is becoming ever more an artificial one, understood as 'made by' rather than 'given to' us. Research is no longer if ever about describing what is, but increasingly about exploring what could be and in many cases therefore also what will be. And so, the subject of design, that of ''the initiation of change in man-made things'' as J. C. Jones (1992), p. 6) put it, has expanded how could it not?


The SOD2 gene encodes the mitochondrial antioxidant enzyme manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD), which converts superoxide (O2 ●) to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Down-regulation of SOD2 has been reported in many cancer cells of diverse tissue origins, and forced over expression of this enzyme in carcinoma cells decreases their tumorigenicity. These findings suggest that SOD2 functions as an initiation or promotion tumor suppressor; however, it remains to be determined whether loss of SOD2 expression is sufficient for tumor formation since homozygous SOD2 knock-out mice die within weeks after birth. Additionally, due to the shortened lifespan of the constitutive SOD2 knock-out mouse limited studies have been performed in assessing the role of SOD2 in tissue-specific development in vivo. Using Cre-loxP genetics, we now have the capability to generate mice in which SOD2 may be knocked out in a cell type-specific manner and these mice can be used to query the effect of loss of SOD2 expression in tissue development, function, and oncogenesis. We primarily focused our studies on the hematopoietic system, but expanded our research to solid organs such as the liver and mammary gland as well. Our findings demonstrate that SOD2 does not act as an initiating tumor suppressing enzyme in any of these unchallenged systems, and in fact the loss of SOD2 may act to delay tumor formation. T-cell specific SOD2 knock-out demonstrated significant immunodeficiency as illustrated by a decreased immune response to influenza challenge secondary to decreased T-cell populations. Furthermore, hematopoietic stem cell specific SOD2 knock-out showed a severe anemia in the red blood cell population due to increased mitochondrial superoxide. Additional analysis revealed the anemia to be a result of a porphyria due to the inactivation of the heme synthesis enzyme ferrochelatase. The observed phenotypes in all conditional hematological SOD2 knockout models were rescued by the addition of mitochondrially targeted anti-oxidants. In conclusion, the tissue specific loss of SOD2 in various hematological organs appeared to


We report on the theory and experiments of scanning micromirrors with angular vertical comb-drive (AVC) actuators. Parametric analyses of rotational vertical comb-drive actuators using a hybrid model that combines two-dimensional finite-element solutions with analytic formulations are described. The model is applied to both AVC and staggered vertical comb-drive (SVC) actuators. Detailed design tradeoffs and conditions for pull-in-free operations are discussed. Our simulation results show that the fringe fields play an important role in the estimation of maximum continuous rotation angles, particularly for combs with thin fingers, and that the maximum scan angle of the AVC is up to 60% larger than that of the SVC. Experimentally, a large dc continuous scan angle of 28.8/spl deg/ (optical) has been achieved with a moderate voltage (65 V) for a 1-mm-diameter scanning micromirror with AVC actuators. Excellent agreement between the experimental data and the theoretical simulations has been obtained.


Consider a firm whose stock returns are affected by market returns and an idiosyncratic market-orthogonal factor. The level of the firm's cash flows depends on the level of the market and the level of the idiosyncratic factor multiplicatively because of compounding. Although a large hedge against the market index minimizes the variance of cash flows, such a hedge does not minimize the costs of financial distress associated with low cash flow realizations below a debt threshold. A hedge ratio based on asset-rate-of-return regression estimates is then incorrect. This holds even in continuous time and with dynamic hedging policies. Our paper provides a simple heuristic for corporations wishing to hedge out the adverse consequences of market risk.


Simplified sewerage is considered the only periurban sanitation technology that has a chance of ensuring that the WHO/UNICEF target of Sanitation for All by the end of 2025 is achieved. On-site sanitation technologies, such as ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrines, pour-flush toilets and ecological sanitation toilets, are either technically infeasible in high-density areas or more expensive than simplified sewerage. Simplified sewerage is often institutionally and professionally acceptable to sewerage authorities simply because it is a sewerage system, albeit different from conventional sewerage in that it uses small-diameter sewers laid at shallow gradients (e.g., 1 00-mm sewers at 1 in ∼200). The success of simplified sewerage in Latin America, principally Brazil, has to be replicated on a truly huge scale in Africa and Asia where most of those without adequate sanitation live. In areas where even simplified sewerage is unaffordable, the only option is to install communal sanitation blocks of the type implemented in India by Sulabh International.


Continuous verification and security analysis of software systems are of paramount importance to many organizations. The state-of-the-art for such operations implements agent-based approaches to inspect the provisioned software stack for security and compliance issues. However, this approach, which runs agents on the systems being analyzed, is vulnerable to some attacks, can incur substantial performance impact, and can introduce significant complexity. In this paper, we present the design and prototype implementation of a general-purpose approach for Non-intrusive Software Introspection (NSI). By adhering to NSI, organizations hosting in the cloud can as well control the software introspection workflow with reduced trust in the provider. Experimental analysis of real-world applications demonstrates that NSI presents a lightweight and scalable approach, and has a negligible impact on the performance of applications running on the instance being introspected.


One of the most frequent English social dialects that we can hear in American cinema is the so-called Black English or Ebonics, whose users are typically (although not exclusively any more) African American characters. In this study, we attempted an approach to the linguistic portrayal of black characters on screen and the translation of these 'black-speech' traits into Spanish by closely examining both the original and dubbed versions of a total sample of 19 films belonging to the genre of Afro-American cinema. We hypothesized that, even when the general tendency would most likely be neutralization, the resulting target text might still be characterized by ethnically marked discourse, having a distinctive and recognizable identity. We believe that the data obtained needs to be complemented with further research in order to accurately prove our hypothesis; however, we could conclude that the target version contains some specific elements that may provide the audience with the necessary clues that would lead them to associate this ethnically marked dubbed discourse with black ethnicity.


Commentators have long recognized the need to coordinate questions at the patent-antitrust intersection with other policy levers available under patent law. In the international context, however, control over patent policy has been fractured and entrusted to diverse decisionmakers. Many details of patent law are tightly coordinated by international agreement, while others related to antitrust are left to national discretion. This Article evaluates the consequences of this fracture, and notes ways in which the prevailing treaty regimes (the Paris Convention and the TRIPS Agreement) distort incentives for national policymaking. National discretion at the patent-antitrust intersection can be expected to result in suboptimally weak inventor rewards implemented at unnecessarily high costs. Alternatively, closer coordination of national patent systems could provide more incentive to conduct research and development at lower cost.


The Best of Business Card Design series features an innovative collection of the most current and best work by top designers worldwide. The "go-to" sourcebook for business card design inspiration, this volume contains no text, other than design credits, which provides for pages packed with business cards, showing front, back, and special elements and materials.This unrivalled resource will be sought by professional designers, corporate executives, and in-house marketing departments as an essential identity and branding tool.


The absorption cross section of CF2Cl2 has been measured as a function of presure and CO2 laser input power at 10.764 μm. The laser was operated in the continuous wave mode providing a continuous energy deposition in the sample. It is shown that the absorption cross section measured has a strong dependence on input power density in the range from 5 to 15 W/cm2 and pressure in the 3 to 50 Torr regime. It is demonstrated that most of these effects can be attributed to the temperature rise in the beam interaction volume.


Big data is creating the potential for a revolution in many domains, including public health. However, big data represents only one of the ingredients to materialize this revolution, and we need to surmount many other sociotechnical elements required to enable it and other various challenges. From the perspective of ministries of health in low and middle income countries (LMICs), I examine some of the drivers of this data revolution and some of the challenges and opportunities big data provides for strengthening health systems. Based on this analysis, I draw some key implications for LMICs governments on how they could seek to harness the potential of big data to address public health concerns they are currently engaged with or expect to do so in the future.


We analyse volume-preserving actions of product groups on Riemannian manifolds. Under a natural spectral irreducibility assumption, we prove the following dichotomy: Either the action is measurably isometric, in which case there are at most two factors; or the action is infinitesimally linear, which means that the derivative cocycle arises from unbounded linear representations of all factors. As a first application, this provides lower bounds on the dimension of the manifold in terms of the number of factors in the acting group. Another application is a strong restriction for actions of non-linear groups. We prove our results by means of a new cocycle superrigidity theorem of independent interest, in analogy to Zimmer's programme.


This paper investigates the fiscal pressure, or the level of public expenditure on old and young economically inactive people, arising from demographic change in relation to the labour market space, or the proportion of the working age population not in full-time employment. The exercise is carried out for 50 countries that cover 75% of the world population. The pressure-to-space indicator ranks Poland, Turkey and Greece high, although, apart from Turkey and India, developing countries generally rank low due to low spending on the old (pensions, healthcare) and on the young (education, family costs). Peculiarly, economies with higher pressure have more space. The hypothesis that ageing economies have started using their labour market space in anticipation of higher demographic pressure is rejected. It is important to note that raising the retirement age in developed economies by five years alleviates fiscal pressure by almost 30% and creates 10% more labour market space.


When perceiving symmetry, an ERP component known as the Sustained Posterior Negativity (SPN) is produced. From around 250ms, amplitudes in posterior electrodes are more negative for symmetrical than random patterns (Makin et al., 2012). This component is thought to be spread over both hemispheres. A role for the corpus callosum has also been highlighted when symmetrical patterns are presented at fixation (Herbert & Humphrey, 1996). We tested this callosal hypothesis by measuring SPN response to peripheral stimuli. Twenty-four participants were presented with a reflection and a random dot pattern. Patterns were both either light or dark red in different trials, and participants made a colour discrimination. Patterns were presented to a single hemisphere by simultaneously positioning one to the left of the fixation cross and the other to the right. We contrasted trials where symmetry was on the left and random on the right, and trials where symmetry was on the right and random on the left. There are two ways to describe the results: Amplitude was lower in the hemisphere contralateral to the symmetrical pattern, than in the opposite hemisphere, contralateral to the random pattern. Put another way - we found an SPN within each hemisphere, where the SPN is defined as lower amplitude for reflection than random. This pattern of results shows that each hemisphere has its own symmetry processing mechanism, which is sensitive to symmetry in the contralateral visual field. This is in sharp contrast to the callosal hypothesis, which suggests a special role for cross-hemispheric connections in symmetry perception. References Herbert, A. M. H. & Humphrey, G. K. (1996). Bilateral symmetry detection: Testing a 'callosal' hypothesis. Perception, 25, 463-480. Makin, A. D. J., Wilton, M. M., Pecchinenda, A., & Bertamini, M. (2012). Symmetry perception and affective responses: A combined EEG/EMG study. Neuropsychologia, 50, 3250-3261. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


Since the early 2000s, zombies have increasingly swarmed the landscape of popular culture, with ever more diverse representations of the undead being imagined. A growing number of zombie narratives have introduced sexual themes, endowing the living dead with their own sexual identity. The unpleasant idea of the sexual zombie is itself provocative, triggering questions about the nature of desire, sex, sexuality, and the politics of our sexual behaviors. However, the notion of zombie sex has been largely unaddressed in scholarship. This collection addresses that unexamined aspect of zombiedom, with essays engaging a variety of media texts, including graphic novels, films, television, pornography, literature, and internet meme culture. The essayists are scholars from a variety of disciplines, including History, Theology, Film Studies, and Gender and Queer Studies. Covering The Walking Dead, Warm Bodies, and Bruce LaBruce's zombie-porn movies, this work investigates the cultural, political and philosophical issues raised by undead sex and zombie sexuality.


Construction technology and on-site construction activities have a direct influence on the life cycle costs of energy efficiently renovated apartment buildings. The systematic inadequacies of the External Thermal Insulation Composite System (ETICS) which occur during the construction phase increase the risk for all stakeholders, reduce mechanical durability and increase the life cycle costs of the building. The economic effect of these shortcomings can be minimised if the risk of the most significant onsite activities is recognised. The objective of the presented ETICS economic assessment concept is to evaluate the economic influence of on-site shortcomings and reveal their significance to the foreseeable future repair costs. The model assembles repair techniques, discusses their direct cost calculation methods, argues over the proper usage of net present value over the life cycle of the building, and proposes a simulation tool to evaluate the risk of on-site activities. As the technique is dependent on the selected real interest rate, a sensitivity analysis is anticipated to determine the validity of the recommendations. After the verification of the model on the sample buildings by the industry, it is expected to increase economic rationality of resource allocation and reduce high-risk systematic shortcomings during the construction process of ETICS. Keywords—Activity-based cost estimating, Cost estimation, ETICS, Life cycle costing.


Introduction As web-based online teaching rapidly gains popularity in higher education, instructional approaches proven effective in traditional classroom teaching are transferred into online environments. One instructional approach that has been heavily promoted and widely practiced in both the traditional and online environments is collaborative learning. As collaborative learning takes hold in web-based online teaching, many studies on related issues have been published (An, Kim, & Kim, 2008; Brindley, Blaschke, & Walti, 2009; Janssen, Erkens, Kirschner, & Kansellar, 2009; Prinsen, Volman, & Terwel, 2007; Resta & Laferriere, 2007; Volet, Summers, & Thurman, 2009), and numerous research findings have been reported in support of its usefulness (Brack, Stauder, Doery, & van Damme, 2007; Francescato, Mebane, Porcelli, Attanasio, & Pulino, 2007; Han & Hill, 2007; So & Brush, 2008). Graduate education of library and information science (LIS) is no exception. As more and more LIS programs are delivering courses over the Internet, having instructors teach online and students conduct collaborative learning activities in distributed web environments, researchers began to pay attention to pedagogical as well as technological issues related to online teaching (Harris, Kazmer, & Mon, 2007; Pribesh, Dickinson, & Bucker, 2006). Many studies have been published specifically on online LIS education, mostly from the perspectives of program/course design and student learning. Key issues examined in these studies include: (1) factors influencing student communication styles in problem-based learning (Yukawa, 2007); (2) online interaction (Burnett, Bonnici, Miksa, & Kim, 2007; Du, Havard, & Li, 2005; Stansberry, 2006) and learning experience (Kazmer, 2007); (3) gender difference (Marley, 2007), (4) learning styles and class participation (Simpson & Du, 2004); (5) online LIS program development (Bunn, 2004; Mellon & Kester, 2004 ; Montague & Pluzhenskaia, 2007); (6) course design (Ausburn, 2004; Combes & Anderson, 2006; Kazmer, 2006), and (7) virtual classroom (Kingma & Keefe. 2006; Luo & Kemp, 2008; Nicholson, 2005). However, there is no reported research of distributed collaborative learning in online LIS education on the curricular level, and little is known about instructors' implementation of this instructional approach in course design. Students benefit from collaborative learning only if it is incorporated into course design and online teaching by instructors; therefore, it is equally important to investigate collaborative learning in online education from instructors' perspective as of from students' perspective, especially to look at instructors' actual implementation of this instructional approach. This paper reports a case study of distributed collaborative learning in online LIS education. Essentially a curricular analysis, the study examines instructors' incorporation of collaborative learning components in their design of online courses, in a major LIS program in the United States. The study focuses on the extent of distributed collaborative learning being incorporated, forms and content/task nature of collaborative learning activities, and differences between core and elective courses as well as between part-time and full-time instructors. The remaining content of this paper is organized as follows. First it establishes basic theoretical concepts by reviewing key relevant literature. After stating the research problem and questions, it documents the research method and reports both quantitative and qualitative findings. Finally, the paper concludes by discussing research findings and their implications for online LIS education. Theoretical Concepts Collaborative Learning is a complex and not clearly defined concept (Resta & Laferriere, 2007). In their effort to identify an underlying theoretical framework for describing how collaborative learning occurs in the web environment, Han and Hill (2007) trace collaborative learning (as an educational theory) to its roots in social theories of learning and theories related to situated and shared cognition. …


Reptiles and amphibians are among Egypt's most successful wildlife, found in almost every habitat in the country, from homes to fields and the desert itself. For the first time, "A Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Egypt" provides concise, reliable, and up-to-date information on all Egypt's principal species, with detailed material on their taxonomy, identification, natural history, and ecology. Based on fifteen years of fieldwork, this guide is a valuable tool for experts and amateurs alike in the identification, study, and conservation of these fascinating animals. With an easy-to-use key, high-quality maps, and over 100 color illustrations, this field guide covers 110 species - including tortoises and turtles, lizards, snakes, and crocodiles - found in Egypt. Each entry contains concise information about the species, including English, Latin, and Arabic names; world and Egypt distribution; distinguishing features; habitat and ecology; behavior; and conservation status. Included too are line drawings to illustrate key identification features and differences between species. With a comprehensive bibliography for further research, the guide supplies the accuracy and scientific rigor that scientists look for, while providing an accessible approach for generalists and amateurs. For biologists, nature lovers and anyone interested in Egypt's rich natural heritage, "A Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Egypt" is an ideal reference tool.


South Africa has in recent years passed legislation instituting the world's most rigorous form of affirmative action. The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Bill strives for the "effective participation of black people in the economy" in order to achieve the "economic unity of the nation." Although the professed aims of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) are noble, the program has achieved little success in eradicating poverty, increasing employment, or fostering overall economic growth. Whether the new legislation is government-sponsored discrimination or rightful redress of apartheid injustice, remains a matter of controversy. What is clear is that the initiative is an inadequate approach to extending prosperity. The unfortunate result is the displacement of one elite in favor of another, as income disparity within the black population widens. BEE is based on redistribution according to race rather than wealth or income. Businesses are expected to fulfill rigorous race quotas in a quest for a "demographically representative" staff. Redistribution legislation has made it more difficult for skilled white workers to find employment domestically, resulting in an outflow of skill. Between 1994 and 2001, the percentage of enterprises that perceived the emigration of skilled manpower as "significant" rose from 2 percent to 33 percent. This disturbing skills shortage in many sectors of the economy is accompanied by slow economic growth rates that barely keep pace with population growth. Critics worldwide have addressed another pressing concern with BEE policies, namely the perpetuation of a small black elite by the current system without aiding the masses who are most in need. Although BEE professes to promote the "meaningful participation of black people in the economy," it actually fosters a political cronyism that benefits only an elite few. For instance, in 2003, 60 percent of empowerment deals amounting to 25.3 billion South African rand went to the companies of only two black businessmen. Accordingly, wealthy blacks are enriched at the expense of millions living in poverty. In the case of government employment, where racial preferences commonly outweigh skill-based qualifications, black employees certainly benefit, but the masses of poor black citizens who rely on basic government services such as health care and water face exorbitant costs. Thus, while racial preference allows black contractors to charge much higher prices without the risk of losing business, the burden of excessive cost results in fewer public services for those who need them most. …


The value of local ecological knowledge (LEK) to conservation is increasingly recognised, but LEK is being rapidly lost as indigenous livelihoods change. Biodiversity loss is also a driver of the loss of LEK, but quantitative study is lacking. In our study landscape in SW China, a large proportion of species have been extirpated. Hence, we were interested to understand whether species extirpation might have led to an erosion of LEK and the implications this might have for conservation. So we investigated peoples' ability to name a selection of birds and mammals in their local language from pictures. Age was correlated to frequency of forest visits as a teenager and is likely to be closely correlated to other known drivers of the loss of LEK, such as declining forest dependence. We found men were better at identifying birds overall and that older people were better able to identify birds to the species as compared to group levels (approximately equivalent to genus). The effect of age was also stronger among women. However, after controlling for these factors, species abundance was by far the most important parameter in determining peoples' ability to name birds. People were unable to name any locally extirpated birds at the species level. However, contrary to expectations, people were better able to identify extirpated mammals at the species level than extant ones. However, extirpated mammals tend to be more charismatic species and several respondents indicated they were only familiar with them through TV documentaries. Younger people today cannot experience the sights and sounds of forest animals that their parents grew up with and, consequently, knowledge of these species is passing from cultural memory. We suggest that engaging older members of the community and linking the preservation of LEK to biodiversity conservation may help generate support for conservation.


The orbital-scale variations in biogenic CaCO_3 and opal abundance in two piston cores collected in the central equatorial Pacific (core PC5101 from a southern site at 2°N, and core PC5103 from a northern site at 6°N) were compared to assess latitudinal differences. The correlation between the oxygen isotope stratigraphy of planktonic foraminifera ("Globigerinoides sacculifer") of PC5103 with the LR04 stacks provides the age of PC5103 to be approximately 950 ka. The age of PC5103 was further refined by correlating the CaCO_3 content with the well-dated core RC11-210. The age of PC5101 was also constrained by the same CaCO_3 chronostratigraphic correlation with RC11-210, resulting in an age of approximately 650 ka. Distinct orbital-scale series of CaCO_3 and opal variations appear to be parallel between the two cores during the past 600 ka, which are controlled mainly by eccentricity with an approximate periodicity of 100 ka. It is worth noting that the biogenic CaCO_3 and opal deposition patterns in the two cores differ between interglacial and glacial periods. During interglacial periods the biogenic opal content is higher in the southern core than in the northern core, which corresponds with the present-day condition. In contrast the CaCO_3 content is higher in the northern core, which is contradictory to the present-day northward decreasing CaCO_3 deposition pattern from the Equator. The collection site of PC5101 is approximately 350 m deeper than that of PC5103, which significantly promotes CaCO_3 dissolution and causes unexpectedly high CaCO_3 content at the northern site in contrast to the biogenic opal content.


The fatal conceit is the assumption that the world can be shaped according to human desires. This paper argues that the logic of the fatal conceit can be applied to foreign interventions which go beyond the limits of what can be rationally constructed by reason alone. In suffering from the fatal conceit, these interventions are characterized by: (1) the realization that intentions do not equal results, (2) a reliance on top-down planning, (3) the view of development as a technological issue, (4) a reliance on bureaucracy over markets, and (5) the primacy of collectivism over individualism. These characteristics explain why interventions extending beyond the limits of what can be rationally constructed tend to fail.


Mineral dust and aerosols can directly and indirectly influence shortwave and longwave radiative forcing. In addition, it can cause health hazards, loss of agricultural soil, and safety hazards to aviation and motorists due to reduced visibility. Previous work utilized satellite and ground-based Thermal Infrared (TIR) data to measure aerosol content in the atmosphere. This research used TIR techniques, by creating a fine-grained (2.7-45 μm) mineral spectral library, direct laboratory emission spectroscopic analysis, and spectral and image deconvolution models, to characterize both the mineral content and particle size of dust storms affecting Kuwait. These results were validated using a combination of X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) analyses that were performed on dust samples for three dust storms (May, July 2010, March 2011) from Kuwait. A combination of forward and backward Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) models were used to track air parcels arriving in Kuwait at the time of dust storm sample collection, thus testing the link to dust emitting areas or hotspots in eastern Syria and western Iraq. World soil maps and TIR analysis of surface deposits of these potential hotspots support this interpretation, and identified areas of high calcite concentration. This interpretation was in agreement with prior studies identifying calcite as the major mineral in dust storms affecting Kuwait. Spectral and image deconvolution models provided good tools in estimating mineral end members present in both dust samples and satellite plumes, but failed to identify the accurate particle size fractions present.


We propose a novel confidence scoring mechanism for deep neural networks based on a two-model paradigm involving a base model and a meta-model. The confidence score is learned by the meta-model observing the base model succeeding/failing at its task. As features to the meta-model, we investigate linear classifier probes inserted between the various layers of the base model. Our experiments demonstrate that this approach outperforms various baselines in a filtering task, i.e., task of rejecting samples with low confidence. Experimental results are presented using CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100 dataset with and without added noise. We discuss the importance of confidence scoring to bridge the gap between experimental and real-world applications.


We present new adaptive optics echelle spectra of the near-infrared [Fe ii] lines in the redshifted and blueshifted jets from the T Tauri star RW Aur. The spectra have an unprecedented combination of high spatial and spectral resolution that makes it possible to trace the dynamics of the flow to a projected distance of only 10 AU from the source. As noted by previous studies, the redshifted flow is much slower than its fainter blueshifted counterpart. Our observations clearly show that both the radial velocities and the emission line widths are larger closer to the source on both sides of the jet. The line widths are 20%–30% of the jet velocity on both sides of the flow, significantly larger than would be produced by a divergent constant velocity flow. The observed line widths could arise from a layered velocity structure in the jet or from magnetic waves. A bright knot in the redshifted jet has no concomitant increase in line width, implying that it is not heated by a bow shock. Alternate heating mechanisms include planar shocks, ambipolar diffusion, and magnetic reconnection.


On 1 July 1995 the new Act on the Formation of Partnerschaftsgesellschaften came into effect. Although it was the first company law reform in Germany during this century, legal academia afforded it amazingly little attention. As early as 1976, a bill on the regulation of the status of self-employers was tabled in the lower house of the German parliament (Bundestag) and was passed after the third reading. This bill was, however, vetoed by the senate of the federal parliament, representing the German States (Bundesrat), thus never coming into effect.The coalition agreement between the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) of January 1991 gave impetus to another effort to establish a special type of company for self-employers, many of whom had developed into fast-growing service-rendering enterprises. There was a feeling of urgency for the creation of a special form of association for self-employed persons. One reason for this urgency is the fact that the legal position of self-employers is somewhat more complex than that of other professions.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Alzheimer disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive dementia. The hippocampus is particularly vulnerable to damage at the very earliest stages of AD. This article seeks to evaluate critical AD-associated regional changes in the hippocampus using machine learning methods. MATERIALS AND METHODS: High-resolution MR images were acquired from 19 patients with AD and 20 age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects. Regional changes of bilateral hippocampi were characterized using computational anatomic mapping methods. A feature selection method for support vector machine and leave-1-out cross-validation was introduced to determine regional shape differences that minimized the error rate in the datasets. RESULTS: Patients with AD showed significant deformations in the CA1 region of bilateral hippocampi, as well as the subiculum of the left hippocampus. There were also some changes in the CA2–4 subregions of the left hippocampus among patients with AD. Moreover, the left hippocampal surface showed greater variations than the right compared with those in healthy control subjects. The accuracies of leave-1-out cross-validation and 3-fold cross-validation experiments for assessing the reliability of these subregions were more than 80% in bilateral hippocampi. CONCLUSION: Subtle and spatially complex deformation patterns of hippocampus between patients with AD and healthy control subjects can be detected by machine learning methods.


We present a theoretical model that describes the resolution and linearity of a novel transparent X-ray beam imaging and position measurement method. Using a pinhole or coded aperture camera with pixelated area sensors to image a small fraction of radiation scattered by a thin foil placed at oblique angles with respect to the beam, a very precise measurement of the beam position is made. We show that the resolution of the method is determined by incident beam intensity, beam size, camera parameters, sensor pixel size and noise. The model is verified experimentally showing a sub-micrometer resolution over a large linear range.


We conduct multi-person one-shot ultimatum games that reflect important aspects of collective bargaining. In all treatments a proposer has to divide a pie among herself and two groups of three recipients each. She cannot discriminate within, but across groups. A committee with representatives from one or both groups takes acceptance decisions. In a 2x2 design we vary (i) representation in the decision committee (one vs. both groups) and (ii) the decision rule (unanimity vs. majority voting). We find that (i) representation of a group in the committee is crucial for receiving a significant share, (ii), proposals are balanced only if both groups have veto power (iii) negotiations often fail if the decision environment gives insufficient guidance on what an appropriate proposal is and (iv) non-binding communication substantially reduces rejection rates and proposer shares.


Book synopsis: This book explores the growth of Victorian Hackney, from little more than a village in 1837 when Queen Victoria ascended the throne, to a handsome suburb with well-built and spacious houses.

The book explains how Hackney's suburban development took place, who built the houses in the area and what models they copied. It also describes the first inhabitants of this Victorian suburb and accounts for the social transformation that Hackney has experienced in the century since.


This paper gives an overview of the performance of China's seven regional carbon market pilots and the range of approaches they have used. We assessed the outcomes of these pilots using publicly available secondary market trading data. The differences in market performance are explained by the design of key market elements such as emission allowances, covered sectors, allowance allocation, monitoring, reporting and verification, compliance and penalties, and offset market. The lessons learned from the regional carbon market pilots are used to provide insights that can aid in the design of the upcoming national carbon market.


This exploratory paper, developing a conceptual model of owner-manager characteristics and access to finance, aims to investigate whether the concept of strategic groups plays a role in the process of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) accessing finance. Strategic groups are groups of firms making similar patterns of investments in order to achieve their goals. This paper explores how strategic groups, which represent a classification of SMEs based upon their realised strategies, helps to provide an understanding of the success of SMEs in raising finance. The data, from a representative survey of 400 SMEs conducted by the Barclays Bank Telephone Research Unit, were subject to two-stage cluster analysis, thus codified into strategic groups using the natural rhythm of the data, rather than any subjective and value-laden categories being imposed by the authors. The findings show clear differentiation between strategic groups of SMEs, the characteristics of their owner-managers, and the financing strategies adopted. As such, the paper develops a novel typology of strategic groups of SMEs which, therefore, informs their financing strategies, as well as advising other stakeholders.


Introduction: Long-term complications of diabetes leads to physical and mental weakness
and reduce their quality of life. One of the complications is the chronic wounds of
extremities. Because of its outcome, patient's adaptation can be reduced. The aim of this
study was to compare depression between diabetic patients with and without foot wounds.
Materials and methods: The comparative-descriptive study was performed on diabetic
patients with and without foot wounds that admitted to the hospitals in Qom University of
Medical Sciences in 2014. 100 patients with chronic wounds and 100 patients without the
wounds was recruited by available sampling method for the study. We employed the
"Demographic and clinical" and "Beck depression" questionnaires for gathering the data. The
study data were analyzed by independent t and Chi-square tests using the SPSS (version 13)
statistical software.
Results: Mean and standard deviation of age in patient with and without chronic wound was
52.1±3.9 and 51.5±4.1 years, respectively. Depressive score of patient with and without
chronic wound was also 25.6±9.5 and 8.7±2.1, respectively. Depression score of patient with
underlying disease was higher than patients without underlying disease. The depression score
rises with age. The depression scores were similar in both male and female gender.
Conclusion: The depression in patient with chronic wounds was higher than patient without
the wounds. Also, depression in patients with underlying disease and older age, rises.


Purpose of this paper This paper explores the implementation of lean within two contrasting UK based organizations; a food manufacturer and a healthcare organization. The different contexts provide insight to the strategic desire for efficiency gains and tactical issues and challenges of lean execution and implementation. Design / methodology / approach The research questions developed from the review of the literature were tested using evidence from field-based, action research within a food manufacturer and a National Health Service organization. The reported contrasting case studies contribute to the longer term debate on the adoption and adaptation of leanbased "best practice" within organizations. Findings There are three primary findings: i) that the adoption of lean provides a strategic benefit, as well as providing a basis for a strategy of operational change; ii) that partial, as opposed to full, adoption of lean occurs due to external organizational constraints, such as demand patterns, supplier unreliability, little expertise in deploying change programmes, etc.; and iii) that a company will balance the adoption of the lean ideology against the financial costs and operational risks incurred in full adoption. Practical implications The conclusions drawn add substantially to the on-going commentaries on aspects of lean, and develop interesting questions for future research regards the developed "Cycles of Lean Implementation" concept. What is original / value of paper The conclusion proposes that partial implementation of lean does not necessarily represent a conscious organizational choice, or any lack of conviction, but is representative of external constraints on the organization. This complements previous commentaries on appropriate strategies and develops interesting questions for future research into operational efficiency.


Circular economy's (CE) noble aims maximize resource efficiency (RE) by, for example, extending product life cycles and using wastes as resources. Modern society's vast and increasing amounts of waste and consumer goods, their complexity, and functional material combinations are challenging the viability of the CE despite various alternative business models promising otherwise. The metallurgical processing of CE-enabling technologies requires a sophisticated and agile metallurgical infrastructure. The challenges of reaching a CE are highlighted in terms of, e.g., thermodynamics, transfer processes, technology platforms, digitalization of the processes of the CE stakeholders, and design for recycling (DfR) based on a product (mineral)-centric approach, highlighting the limitations of material-centric considerations. Integrating product-centric considerations into the water, energy, transport, heavy industry, and other smart grid systems will maximize the RE of future smart sustainable cities, providing the fundamental detail for realizing and innovating the United Nation's Sustainability Development Goals.


The rapid translation from bench to bedside that has been seen in the application of regenerative medicine to cardiology has led to exciting new advances in our understanding of some of the fundamental mechanisms related to human biology. The first generation of cells used in phase l-ll trials (mainly bone marrow mononuclear cells) are now entering phase III clinical trials with the goal of producing a cell-based therapeutic that can change the outcome of cardiac disease. First generation cell therapy appears to have addressed safety concerns as well as showing "activity" in numerous published meta-analyses. With the knowledge gained to date, the field is moving towards the next generation of cells-the "engineered" cell-that have been developed to display a phenotype that will further enhance the myocardial repair/salvage process. This almanac review covers the latest basic research that may soon have application to humans as well as the results of the latest clinical trials.


An experimental study was conducted to evaluate the pressure drop characteristics of residential duct system components that are either not available or not thoroughly (sometimes incorrectly) described in existing duct design literature. The tests were designed to imitate cases normally found in typical residential and light commercial installations. The study included three different sizes of flexible ducts, under different compression configurations, splitter boxes, supply boots, and a fresh air intake hood. The experimental tests conformed to ASHRAE Standard 120P--''Methods of Testing to Determine Flow Resistance of HVAC Air Ducts and Fittings''. The flexible duct study covered compressibility and bending effects on the total pressure drop, and the results showed that the available published references tend to underestimate the effects of compression in flexible ducts that can increase pressure drops by up to a factor of nine. The supply boots were tested under different configurations including a setup where a flexible duct elbow connection was considered as an integral part of the supply boot. The supply boots results showed that diffusers can increase the pressure drop by up to a factor of two in exit fittings, and the installation configuration can increase the pressure drop by up to a factor ofmore » five. The results showed that it is crucial for designers and contractors to be aware of the compressibility effects of the flexible duct, and the installation of supply boots and diffusers.« less


We consider reconstruction of a manifold, or, invariant manifold learning, where a smooth Riemannian manifold $M$ is determined from intrinsic distances (that is, geodesic distances) of points in a discrete subset of $M$. In the studied problem the Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ is considered as an abstract metric space with intrinsic distances, not as an embedded submanifold of an ambient Euclidean space. Let $\{X_1,X_2,\dots,X_N\}$ bea set of $N$ sample points sampled randomly from an unknown Riemannian $M$ manifold. We assume that we are given the numbers $D_{jk}=d_M(X_j,X_k)+\eta_{jk}$, where $j,k\in \{1,2,\dots,N\}$. Here, $d_M(X_j,X_k)$ are geodesic distances, $\eta_{jk}$ are independent, identically distributed random variables such that $\mathbb E e^{|\eta_{jk}|}$ is finite. We show that when $N$ is large enough, it is possible to construct an approximation of the Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ with a large probability. This problem is a generalization of the geometric Whitney problem with random measurement errors. We consider also the case when the information on noisy distance $D_{jk}$ of points $X_j$ and $X_k$ is missing with some probability. In particular, we consider the case when we have no information on points that are far away.


• There is a vast literature on robust estimators, but in some situations it is still not easy to make inferences, such as confidence regions and hypothesis testing. This is mainly due to the following facts. On one hand, in most situations, it is difficult to derive the exact distribution of the estimator. On the other one, even if its asymptotic behaviour is known, in many cases, the convergence to the limiting distribution may be rather slow, so bootstrap methods are preferable since they often give better small sample results. However, resampling methods have several disadvantages including the propagation of anomalous data all along the new samples. In this paper, we discuss the problems arising in the bootstrap when outlying observations are present. We argue that it is preferable to use a robust bootstrap rather than to bootstrap robust estimators and we discuss a robust bootstrap method, the Influence Function Bootstrap denoted IFB. We illustrate the performance of the IFB intervals in the univariate location case and in the logistic regression model. We derive some asymptotic properties of the IFB. Finally, we introduce a generalization of the Influence Function Bootstrap in order to improve the IFB behaviour. Key-Words: • influence function; resampling methods; robust inference. AMS Subject Classification: • 62F25, 62F40, 62G35. 170 C. Amado, A. Bianco, G. Boente and A. Pires Robust Bootstrap 171


Surgical scheduling is complicated by naturally occurring, and human-induced variability in the demand for surgical services. We used time series methods to detect, model and forecast these behaviors in surgical demand time series to help improve the scheduling of scarce surgical resources. With institutional approval, we studied 47,752 surgeries undertaken at a large academic medical center over a six-year time frame. Each daily sample in this time series represented the aggregate total hours of surgeries worked on a given day. Linear terms such as periodic cycles, trends, and serial correlations explained approximately 80% of the variance in the raw data. We used a moving variance filter to help explain away a large share of the heteroscedastic behavior mainly attributable to surgical activities on specific US holidays, which we defined as holiday variance. In the course of this research, we made a thoughtful attempt to understand the time series structure within our surgical demand data. We also laid a foundation, for further development, of two time series techniques, the multiwindow variance filter and cyclostatogram that can be applied not only to surgical demand time series, but also to other time series problems from other disciplines. We believe that understanding the non-stationarity, in surgical demand time series, may be an important initial step in helping health care managers save critical health care dollars. i


Different rationally behaving individuals can make different decisions even under same conditions. Concept of risk preference is one way of describing this discrepancy. Risk preference refers to the way decision-makers weight different risky options. Expected utility theory is a popular way to treat this weighting mathematically. Previous research in the field of structural health monitoring has shown that in a multi-stakeholder decision-making, discrepancies in risk preferences between the stakeholders can have large effects on the feasibility of structural health monitoring implementation. Results from that previous research obtained using expected utility theory showed that under certain conditions, differences in stakeholder risk attitudes can make the value of structural health monitoring system even negative. As the overall aim of structural health monitoring is to enable systematic data-based management of infrastructure, understanding of risk preferences and their effect on the structural health monitoring decision-making is of paramount importance. In this work, we created a risk preference assessment tool that is derived from Domain-Specific Risk-Taking scale. We propose the tool and explain its development and validation. The validation results indicate that the proposed assessment tool is technically sound and has high potential in the future valuation of human factors influencing decision-making based on structural health monitoring.


The choroid plexus epithelium is a secretory epithelium par excellence. However, this is perhaps not the most prominent reason for the massive interest in this modest-sized tissue residing inside the brain ventricles. Most likely, the dominant reason for extensive studies of the choroid plexus is the identification of this epithelium as the source of the majority of intraventricular cerebrospinal fluid. This finding has direct relevance for studies of diseases and conditions with deranged central fluid volume or ionic balance. While the concept is supported by the vast majority of the literature, the implication of the choroid plexus in secretion of the cerebrospinal fluid was recently challenged once again. Three newer and promising areas of current choroid plexus-related investigations are as follows: 1) the choroid plexus epithelium as the source of mediators necessary for central nervous system development, 2) the choroid plexus as a route for microorganisms and immune cells into the central nervous system, and 3) the choroid plexus as a potential route for drug delivery into the central nervous system, bypassing the blood-brain barrier. Thus, the purpose of this review is to highlight current active areas of research in the choroid plexus physiology and a few matters of continuous controversy.


The recent attention to election law implies that questions of reapportionment, voting rights, campaign finance, and the counting of votes belong to the same category of legal questions. In each instance, the evolving Supreme Court jurisprudence emphasizes appearances. The appearance of legislative districts, the appearance of corruption, and the appearance of partisanship are just some of the distinct ways in which the Court has concluded that appearance matter. As with other appearances, what looks to some observers like a gerrymandered district or a corrupting contribution is seen by others as a legitimate apportionment or an innocent expression of political support. This essay encourages greater attention to what is at issue in these cases so that we can learn what "election law" is really all about.


With current rates of land degradation reaching ten to twelve million ha per year, there is an urgent need to scale up and out successful, profitable and resource-efficient sustainable land management practices to maintain the health and resilience of the land that humans depend on. As much as 500 million out of two billion ha of degraded land, mainly in developing countries, have restoration potential, offering an immediate target for restoration and rehabilitation initiatives.1 In the past, piecemeal approaches to achieving sustainable land management have had limited impact. To achieve the ambitious goals of alleviating poverty, securing food and water supplies, and protecting the natural resource base, we need to recognize the inter-connectedness of the factors driving land degradation, so that solutions can be taken to scale, transforming management practices for millions of land users. An analysis of the critical barriers and incentives to achieve scaling up suggests that the most appropriate options should be selected through the involvement of stakeholders at all levels, from local to national and international. New incentives for land managers as well as the public and private sectors are required to achieve a land degradation-neutral world.