Navigational instruments from the bottom of the sea, 16th to 19th century In the last twenty years diving activities of private persons have increased considerably. This has lead to an increasing number of historical objects retrieved from ship-wrecks. Some wrecks have yielded navigational instruments. This article investigates the contribution diving has made to the knowledge of navigational equipment and what is still to be expected. The article concentrates on Dutch material dating from between the end of the 16th century, marking the beginning of Dutch maritime expansion, and the beginning of the 19th century. Among the objects from wrecks which gave considerable information are sounding leads. Especially interesting, both in number and variety, are the leads from the Dutch VOC ship Hollandia (sunk 1743). Compasses are among the instruments rarely found in wrecks. Probably this is mainly due to the materials of which they were made. Examples found are usually incomplete or disintegrated, due to seawater. Knowledge acquired from archives and printed sources indicates that several types of compasses, of which so far as known no copy survived on land, may still be found in wrecks. Many wrecks, both Dutch and foreign, have yielded dividers. By comparing those finds with our knowledge of what the Dutch East Indies Company ships were equipped with, we now have a fairly accurate insight in the types of dividers which were used on the ships of the Company. Much has been learned about instruments for the measurement of the altitude of heavenly bodies. The number of known mariner's astrolabes has, mainly through wreck excavation, increased from 21 in 1966 to 62 in the Spring of 1987. Among the recently found copies are several Dutch ones. They have taught us about the Dutch contribution to the development ofthese instruments. More finds could increase the still scanty information on Dutch makers. To a lesser extent, the same can be said about cross-staffs. Hardly more of these (73 known to the author in mid-1987) than of mariner's astrolabes, have survived the ages. Many are kept in museums and are consequently in a reasonable condition. Nevertheless, staffs from wrecks have supplied additional information. E.g. from the wreck of the Dutch St. Michael (sunk 1747) in which a Dutch made cross-staff was found. It is the only staff presently known to be divided to a maximum accuracy of 2'. The staff found in the wreck of the Spanish Nuestra Senora Atocha (sunk 1622) promises to be the missing link between existing cross-staffs from 1597 and 1677. Hardly spectacular but important are the parts of the oldest dated octant, found in the wreck of the Hollandia (1743). Among the miscellaneous instruments found in various wrecks are hour glasses, part of an 'astrolabium catholicum', a plane scale and parts of globes. These finds generally confirm existing knowledge from printed or archival sources. In conclusion it can be said that a close liaison between divers, historians and museum curators should be maintained. The aim should be to insure that divers keep up the search for historical objects, even if they represent little or no commercial value.


Many site investigations have found that DNAPL is able to penetrate the low permeable layer such as clay or silt-caly layer in subsurface environment. The cumulated DNAPL within the low permeable Layer will gradually diffuse to the high permeable layer to affect he accuracy of investigation and remedial design. As to the deeper zone affected by the penetration of DNAPL, the conventional sampling design investigating only the first unconfined aquifer is no longer suitable for DNAPL investigation. Precisely define the boundary and the distribution of high and low permeable layer is the key to conduct a successful DNAPL investigation. Point information derived from the conventional bore-hole sampling is difficult to be used for locating the DNAPL pollution due to the uncertainty of DNAPL migration and the soluble-phase distribution of the DNAPL partitioned into ground water between the low and high permeable layer. Recently, non-invaded technologies such as geophysical technology have been introduced to provide the plane and space information of pollution in subsurface by integrating few bore-hole dates. The most common used geophysical technologies are ground-penetrating radar method (GPR) and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT). Both methods have their limitations on the pollution investigation when there are interferences exist such as building structure or heavy pavement. A new geophysical technology, geophysical well logging has been developed to overcome above limitations. The information of multi-wells logging could be used to interpret the permeability of subsurface, the dominate flow path and the hot-spot for evaluating the distribution of pollution and the efficiency of remediation in different time sequences. This study would first discuss how DNAPL and its soluble-phase components invade into the low permeable layer based on the field observation. Then, the importance of geophysical technology is introduced with comparing to the limitations of bore-hole investigation. Last, the case studies on using geophysical technologies including geophysical well logging are introduced to snapshot the complex profile of DNAPL distribution for improving future application.


The standard assumption in reinforcement learning (RL) is that agents observe feedback for their actions immediately. However, in practice feedback is often observed in delay. This paper studies online learning in episodic Markov decision process (MDP) with unknown transitions, adversarially changing costs, and unrestricted delayed bandit feedback. More precisely, the feedback for the agent in episode $k$ is revealed only in the end of episode $k + d^k$, where the delay $d^k$ can be changing over episodes and chosen by an oblivious adversary. We present the first algorithms that achieve near-optimal $\sqrt{K + D}$ regret, where $K$ is the number of episodes and $D = \sum_{k=1}^K d^k$ is the total delay, significantly improving upon the best known regret bound of $(K + D)^{2/3}$.


Abstract The influences of nutritional components affecting lipase production from the new Aspergillus niger using wheat bran as substrate were studied by employing Plackett–Burman and central composite statistical designs. Out of the 11 medium components tested, sucrose, KH2PO4 and MgSO4 at final concentrations of 3.0, 1.0 and 0.5 g/L, respectively, were reported to contribute positively to enzyme production (20.09 ± 0.98 U/g ds). The enzyme was purified through ammonium sulfate precipitation followed by Sephadex G-100 gel filtration. Molecular mass of the purified lipase was 57 kDa as evident on SDS-PAGE. Different methods of immobilization were studied and the highest immobilization yield of 81.7 ± 2.18% was reported with agarose (2%) and the optimum temperature was raised from 45 to 50 °C. Immobilized lipase could retain 80% of its original activity at 60 °C after 1 hr of incubation, and was stable at pH values between neutral and alkaline pH. Lipase-catalyzed transesterification process of fungal oil resulted in a fatty acid methyl ester yield consisting of a high percentage of polyunsaturated fatty acids (83.6%), making it appropriate to be used as winter-grade biodiesel. The operational stability studies revealed that the immobilized lipase could keep 70% of its total activity after 5 cycles of the transesterification process.


In this work, thin films of SnS2 with increased Bi content were grown by sulphurization of a thin film of Sn:Bi alloy, at temperatures around 300°C. The effect of the Bi concentration on the optical, electrical and structural properties was determined through measurements of spectral transmittance, conductivity and x-ray diffraction XRD respectively. It was found that the optical constants (refractive index n, absorption coefficient α and energy gap Eg) and the electrical conductivity are significantly affected by the Bi concentration. In particular, a variation of the energy gap between 1.44 and 1.63 eV and a change of the conductivity greater than three orders of magnitude were observed when the content of Bi in the Sn:Bi alloy varied between 0 and 100 %. The analysis of the XRD measurements allowed us to find that the SnS: Bi films grow with a mixture of the SnS2 and Bi2S3 phases, independently of the Bi content.


This paper focuses on the numerical approximation of the solutions of non-local conservation laws in one space dimension. These equations are motivated by two distinct applications, namely a traffic flow model in which the mean velocity depends on a weighted mean of the downstream traffic density, and a sedimentation model where either the solid phase velocity or the solid-fluid relative velocity depends on the concentration in a neighborhood. In both models, the velocity is a function of a convolution product between the unknown and a kernel function with compact support. It turns out that the solutions of such equations may exhibit oscillations that are very difficult to approximate using classical first-order numerical schemes. We propose to design Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) schemes and Finite Volume WENO (FV-WENO) schemes to obtain high-order approximations. As we will see, the DG schemes give the best numerical results but their CFL condition is very restrictive. On the contrary, FV-WENO schemes can be used with larger time steps. We will see that the evaluation of the convolution terms necessitates the use of quadratic polynomials reconstructions in each cell in order to obtain the high-order accuracy with the FV-WENO approach. Simulations using DG and FV-WENO schemes are presented for both applications.


In this paper is presented a proposal of an hibrid control system for navigation of mobile vehicles, that uses sensor based navigation together with map-based trajectory planning. The resulting system is named SNNAP (Sistema Neural para Navegação em Ambientes Pré-Mapeados Neural System for Navigation in Known Environments). This system integrates Neural Networks for avoiding unknown obstacles, and a map-based algorithm for trajectory planning. Are also presented studies of previous proposals, a mobile vehicle simulator named Khepera, in which this approach has been tested, and the steps taken to develop the system.


Aim: Hysterectomy is one of the most prevalent surgical intervention in gynecological field. This study concerns the requirement and necessity of an endometrial sampling to exclude an unpredictable uterine malignancy risk before hysterectomy for benign conditions.
Methods: This is a retrospective and cross-sectional study involving 307 patients who had hysterectomy for benign conditions between years 2014-2018. Prior to hysterectomy, in 162 cases, an endometrial sampling was performed ahead (biopsy group) and in 145 cases, hysterectomy was performed without obtaining an endometrial sampling earlier on (control group). Pre- and post-surgical pathological evaluation reports were collected and compared between the groups.
Results: Features of the patients as mean age, number of previous pregnancies, being at postmenopausal status did not vary significantly between two groups. In the biopsy group, 51.2% of the patients were in the premenopausal period, 40.7% of the patients had postmenopausal bleeding and 52.5% had abnormal uterine bleeding symptoms and these three features were significantly higher than in the control group. In the control group, one case (0.7%) had leiomyosarcoma and another case (0.7%) had endometrial adenocarcinoma. In the biopsy group, endometrial adenocarcinoma was detected in 5 patients (3.1%) as significantly higher than in the control group.
Conclusion: If there are no symptoms, clinical and radiological findings suggesting an endometrial malignancy in patients who planned to undergo a hysterectomy for benign conditions, it is unnecessary to perform a routine endometrial biopsy.


The fascinating story of the fall of the Indian princely state of Hyderabad has till now been dominated by the 'court historians' of Indian nationalism. In this book A. G. Noorani offers a revisionist account of the Indian Army's 'police action' against the armed forces and government of Hyderabad, ruled by the fabulously wealthy Nizam. His forensic scrutiny of the diplomatic exchanges between the government of India and the government of Hyderabad during the Raj and after partition and independence in 1947 has unearthed the Sunderlal Committee report on the massacre of the Muslim population of the State during and after the 'police action' (knowledge of which has since been suppressed by the Indian state) and a wealth of memoirs and first- hand accounts of the clandestine workings of territorial nationalism in its bleakest and most shameful hour. He brings to light the largely ignored and fateful intervention of M. A. Jinnah in the destruction of Hyderabad and also accounts for the communal leanings of Patel and K. M. Munshi in shaping its fate. The book is dedicated to the 'other' Hyderabad: a culturally syncretic state that was erased in the stampede to create a united India committed to secularism and development.


This study shows how a combination of denitrification and pesticide removal is possible. A reactor with granulated poly-e-caprolactone (PCL) was operated in an upflow-mode with nitrate and α-endosulfan containing water. The polymer was used as a substrate for denitrification and simultaneously as sorbent for the pesticide α-endosulfan. The experiments showed that nitrate was removed at high denitrification rates and without accumulation of nitrite. α-endosulfan, which was added to the influent, was not found in the effluent. Doubts that the pesticide could interfere with the biological process were not justified here.


Four universities collaborated to develop mechanized systems management (agricultural systems management, agricultural systems technology, etc.) courses to be shared via distance education. Funded by a USDA Higher Education Challenge Grant, these undergraduate and graduate courses were initially offered to students at Iowa State University, Kansas State University, the University of Missouri, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This effort is affiliated with the Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance (Great Plains IDEA). The objectives of this cooperative effort were to: (1) develop a collaborative, multi-state educational effort to add depth and breadth to each university's instructional program in mechanized systems management; (2) capitalize on the strengths of individual faculty members between the institutions; (3) reduce overall faculty teaching load; and (4) focus teaching talents and efforts in specific areas within each of the four institutions, thereby facilitating curriculum review. This presentation will describe how the project was developed, the collaboration between institutions, and the procedures and infrastructure that were created to achieve the objectives.


Engineer-to-order (ETO) companies which use fresh design every time there is a confirmed order from the customer need to have an effective NPD program. Problems such as design iteration or rework, inability to deliver product on time, cost overrun, inability of contractor or supplier to meet the deadlines are detrimental to the success of the project. The objective of this thesis is to formulate an NPD framework for companies producing ETO products with a view to improving the existing NPD process and act as a foundation for an effective NPD program. Three case studies were conducted during the development of the framework. The first case study which was on the design of pultrusion machine revealed that NPD process was complex with significant interactions among many parties. The second case study confirmed that there were vast differences between ETO and make-to-stock (MTS) companies in terms of manufacturing, human resource, production planning and quality. Critical success factors (CSF) for NPD were derived from the first and second case study as well as from literature, and were used to develop, validate and pilot the third case study instruments. Specifications of the framework were determined prior to developing NPD Framework I. The result from the third case study showed that different companies practiced NPD process differently and all companies did not have a formalized NPD program. Feedback from the third case study was used to develop NPD Framework II which was then validated by experts. Validation feedback was used to develop NPD Framework III which addressed all the unique requirements of ETO operations and covered most aspects of NPD. The core of the framework is NPD process which starts from the front end to the back end and guided by NPD philosophy. NPD processes are supported by communication and information management, benchmarking, human resource and project management. The framework acts as a foundation and consists of all relevant elements from the CSF necessary to guide ETO companies in carrying out effective NPD operations.


Traditionally in India the Government owned enterprises has been cursed by people and scholars equally. The notional drivers of change and progress, these giants have been criticized over the years as grossly inefficient, over staffed, bureaucratic and killingly slow in decision making. Though there is little empirical evidence over these claims. A very few studies have been made to establish the contributory factors to these claims. Organizational Culture is a huge contributor in making of an organization its people and its processes, yet very little study is available to refer on impact of Organizational Culture on discretionary behaviors of employees working in the Government owned organizations or PSUs. The current work would focus on bringing out the distinctive impact of Organizational Culture on Organizational Citizenship Behavior in the private and the public sector companies, thus attempting to gauge the degree of impact on both these sectors. The paper takes three different sectors to examine the discretionary behaviors in three divergent sectors namely; Government owned PSU, a modern private sector bank and a prominent IT organization.


The chloride concentration in neurons is in general established by the precise functional expression of the sodium-potassium-chloride cotransporter one (NKCC1) and the potassium-chloride cotransporter two (KCC2). NKCC1 raises the intracellular chloride concentration, while KCC2 extrudes chloride. The intracellular chloride concentration determines the strength and direction of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptor-mediated transmission. In general, the intracellular chloride concentration in neurons is low and causes GABA-mediated inhibition. However, the intracellular chloride concentration in immature neurons is high leading to GABAergic depolarization, which can cause excitation.
The effects of excitatory GABA signaling in early development is still unclear. It has been speculated that excitatory GABA, causing general depolarization in neurons, has profound effects on neuronal activity and neuronal maturation. Therefore, I studied in collaboration with Carsten Pfeffer the development of the hippocampal network during the early phase of postnatal development under conditions when excitatory GABA action is abolished. Here, sodium-potassium-chloride cotransporter one (NKCC1) knockout mice (Nkcc1-/-) were used to reduce the intracellular chloride concentration in immature neurons. Young CA1 pyramidal neurons of Nkcc1-/- mice showed diminished GABAergic depolarization. I found that this reduction was sufficient to cause a delay in the maturation of glutamatergic and GABAergic synapses. This suggests that GABAergic excitation during early postnatal development, increasing the network activity, facilitates the maturation of synaptic networks.
GABAergic depolarization in Nkcc1-/- mice was reduced but not completely abolished; suggesting that additional chloride loading mechanisms might exist. As the anionexchanger three (AE3) was proposed to contribute to chloride accumulation, AE3 knockout (Ae3-/-) mice were also studied. I could not detect any changes in intracellular chloride concentration after loss of AE3 at postnatal day one (P1). However at P5, the disruption of AE3 affected the early network activity pattern, indicating an effect of reduced intracellular chloride concentration. These data showed that NKCC1 establishes high intracellular chloride concentration in neurons providing the basis for GABAergic excitation. The role of AE3 is still not clear; it might contribute to the chloride accumulation in neurons.
In addition to the function of chloride transporters, chloride conductive channels are likely to modulate the intracellular chloride concentration, and therefore could influence neuronal excitability. Especially ClC-2 has been suggested to contribute to chloride extrusion. I investigated the functional role of the voltage-gated chloride channel ClC-2. As specific blockers for ClC-2 are not available, I used ClC-2 knockout (Clcn2-/-) mice. It has been proposed that ClC-2 constitutes a pathway for chloride extrusion to maintain the inhibitory action of GABA in mature neurons. My data provide direct evidence that ClC-2 mediates fast chloride extrusion preventing chloride accumulation. Chloride extrusion by ClC-2 seemed to be important especially in adult hippocampal pyramidal neurons where GABAA receptor activation occurs in high frequency bursts. Interestingly, the chloride-conductance of ClC-2 occurs first in the second postnatal week of developing mice, suggesting that ClC-2 is important in fully developed neurons, but might not be important in immature neurons.
Surprisingly, neurons in Clcn2-/- mice have a very high membrane resistance compared to WT animals, indicating that ClC-2 is active during the resting membrane potential. This might be a general feature of neurons, as I recorded the chloride conductance of ClC-2 in various neuron types. I showed that the resting conductance of ClC-2 affects resting membrane properties, which determine the neuronal excitability. As a consequence, the loss of ClC-2 increases the excitability of a neuron; however, it does not cause hyperexcitation of the hippocampal network. Even more, the network excitability is reduced in ClC-2 KO mice in comparison to the WT. This reduction is caused by an increased inhibition. I found that ClC-2 expressing interneurons increased their inhibitory action onto pyramidal cells after loss of ClC-2.
Taken together, my data reveal that ClC-2 plays a dual role in adult neurons. First, ClC-2 contributes a fast mechanism to extrude chloride after chloride accumulation. Second, ClC-2 provides the chloride leak conductance under resting conditions. The loss of ClC-2 leads to a higher excitability of the neuron due to a strongly increased membrane resistance. Importantly, hyper-excitability of the neuronal network is circumvented by a parallel enhanced inhibition, which can explain the absence of an epileptic phenotype in mice.


We study the impact of firm level choices of ICT, R&D, exporting and importing on the evolution of productivity and its bias towards skilled occupations. We use a novel measure of the propensity of a firm to engage in technology investment and adoption: its employment of workers with STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills and experience who we call "techies". We develop a methodology for estimating firm level productivity that allows us to measure both Hicks-neutral and skill-augmenting technology differences, and apply this to administrative data on French firms in the entire private sector from 2009 to 2013. We find that techies and importing of intermediate inputs raise skill-biased productivity, while imports also raise Hicks-neutral productivity. We also find that higher firm-level skill biased productivity raises low-skill employment even as it raises the ratio of skilled to unskilled workers. This is because of the cost-reducing effect of higher productivity. The techie and trade effects are large, and can account for much of the aggregate increase in skilled employment from 2009 to 2013.


This paper describes an experimental investigation into the short-term and long-term behaviors of two types of T-shaped lintels made of fiber-glass reinforced plastic with polyester or vinylester binder. Tests were performed at ambient condition and an elevated temperature of 130°F. Results of the tests indicate that the polyester lintels carried less load than similar vinylester lintels. Also, polyester lintels experienced 30% to 40% loss of strength when they were exposed to the elevated temperature. Vinylester lintels lost only 20%. In general, polyester lintels had shorter creep life and larger creep deflection than the vinylester lintels.


Background:Compared with other chronic illness populations, relatively little is known about heart failure (HF) patient and caregiver spousal/partner dyads and what effect dyadic interactions have on self-care. Objective:The aim of this study was to present a new typology of patient and caregiver dyadic interdependence in HF care, presenting exemplar cases of each type: patient oriented, caregiver oriented, collaboratively oriented, complementarily oriented. Methods:Stake's instrumental case study methodology was used. Interviews were unstructured, consisting of open-ended questions exploring dyad's experiences with HF, audiorecorded, and transcribed. Cases were selected because they exhibited the necessary characteristics and also highlighted a unique, little understood variation in self-care practice. Each case represents a dyad's discussion of caring for HF in their normal environment. Results:From 19 dyads, 5 exemplar case studies illustrate the 4 dyadic types. A fifth, incongruent case, defined as a case where the patient and caregiver indicated incongruent dyadic types, was included to highlight that not all dyads agree on their type. A major theme of Sharing Life infused all of the dyad's narratives. This typology advances the science of dyadic interdependence in HF self-care, explains possible impact on outcomes, and is an early theoretical conceptualization of these complex and dynamic phenomena. Conclusion:The cases illustrate how long-term dyads attempt to share the patient's HF care according to established patterns developed over the trajectory of their relationship. In keeping with the interdependence theory, these couples react to the patient's declining ability to contribute to his/her own care by maintaining their habitual pattern until forced to shift. This original pattern may or may not have involved the dyad working together. As the patient's dependence on the caregiver increases, the caregiver must decide whether to react out of self-interest or the patient's interest. Continued study of the typology is needed in nonspousal/partner dyads.


Since the first membrane applications at the end of the 1980s, the water treatment engineering community has been able to develop reliable low pressure membrane systems that are capable of producing high quality drinking water at a competitive price, making membrane technology an attractive solution to both upgrade existing plants and design new ones. A competitive price means low capital and operating cost, which are inversely proportional to membrane hydraulic performance (permeate flux). Porous membranes lose their hydraulic performance as materials accumulate on their surfaces and/or within their pores, a process called membrane fouling. Although a significant effort has been devoted to elucidating the fouling mechanisms of polymeric membranes by natural organic matter (NOM), no single model has yet been accepted. In fact, most of the existing literature is contradictory, showing that membrane fouling is far from being fully understood. This article reviews over a decade of Ondeo's experience on characterizing and preventing fouling of polymeric membranes by natural organic matter and inorganic compounds. The review focuses on the role of NOM size and hydrophobicity, of membrane chemistry, and of solution pretreatment (coagulation and/or adsorption). In addition, the efficacy of some currently used strategies to minimize membrane fouling is also discussed.


Following infection, naïve CD8+ T cells bearing pathogen-specific T cell receptors (TCRs) differentiate into a mixed population of short-lived effector and long-lived memory T cells to mediate an adaptive immune response. How the TCR regulates memory T cell development has remained elusive. Using a mutant TCR transgenic model, we found that point mutations in the TCR β transmembrane domain (βTMD) impair the development and function of CD8+ memory T cells without affecting primary effector T cell responses. Mutant T cells are deficient in polarizing the TCR and in organizing the nuclear factor κB signal at the immunological synapse. Thus, effector and memory states of CD8+ T cells are separable fates, determined by differential TCR signaling.


Pre-service teachers face a complex educational context and Transformative Inquiry is a useful approach for negotiating this terrain. We interpret the movement of students via the adaptive cycle put forth in panarchy theory as they engage in the inquiry process through 'winter counts', a Plains First Nation tradition, as expressions of their understanding. These image-based expressions demonstrate the emotional, mental, spiritual and physical movement students have made within their inquiry. Panarchy theory moves beyond interpreting systems using simplistic equilibrium models and acknowledging the more complex and dynamic set of equilibria that describes transformation in ecological, social, and economic systems and considers the multiple complexities of systems thinking while providing insight into how change occurs as a constantly adaptive cycle process. Used sparingly within social sciences until recently, we argue it as particularly relevant for seeing Transformative Inquiry through Indigenist and interconnected lenses.


We present and validate a finite-element model for coupled charge and heat transport in monolithically interconnected thin-film solar modules. Using measured current-voltage ( I-V) and lock-in thermography (LIT) measurements of amorphous silicon minimodules, we experimentally validate our model. The entire module volume is represented by two planes (front and back electrodes) which are coupled in vertical direction using 1-D models, leading to a large reduction of the degrees of freedom in the numerical model and contributing to an efficient solution approach. As compared to 3-D models, the vertical coupling of the charge transport is represented by local temperature-dependent I-V curves. These can be obtained by drift-diffusion calculations, single-cell measurements or, as presented here, by an analytical solar cell diode model. Inhomogeneous heat sources such as Joule's heating in the electrodes lead to nonuniform temperature distributions. The explicit temperature dependence in the local I-V curve, therefore, mediates the feedback of the thermal transport on the local electrical cell characteristics. We employ measured I-V curves under partial illumination and analytical solutions for the potential distribution to validate this approach. Further, with LIT measurements of the same modules with and without artificially induced electrical shunts, we verify the computed temperature distributions.


"Detail in Contemporary Kitchen Design" features over 30 kitchen designs from around the world, each created by a notable architect for a specific residence. Arranged into chapters according to the dominant material used in its construction stone, timber and steel each design is accompanied by an image of the whole house, placing it in context and providing a flavour of the general design style, clear photographs of the kitchen itself and a floor plan showing its relation to the other spaces within the house. Detailed photographs and architectural drawings show the arrangement and construction of the kitchens, and sections and elevations reveal the construction details of fitted units and joinery. These drawings have been specially created to a consistent style and to a set number of scales for easy comparison. Dimensions are included as well as model details of all the units and appliances, with suppliers information so that these can easily be sourced. A selection of insightful case studies include interviews with clients, designers and manufacturers and provide an overview of the whole process of commissioning and creating a contemporary bespoke kitchen. An invaluable reference for architects, interior designers and students, this book is also an inspirational guide for anyone who is considering commissioning a high-quality kitchen for their own home.


of a thesis at the University of Miami. Thesis supervised by Associate Professor Douglas O. Fuller. No. of pages in text. (151) This thesis analyzes relationships between global coffee prices, international development schemes, local trading and credit systems, and landscape dynamics in the Bolaven Plateau region of southern Laos. The region is a complex and rapidly changing resource space serving principally as the productive, socio-ecological base of the Lao coffee commodity chain. Fieldwork conducted there in 2009 entailed in-depth interviews and quasi-survey semi-structured interviews. These latter interviews yielded a database of 503 detailed loan/debt histories for 192 coffee smallholder households between 1987 and 2008. These data reveal a socio-economically exploitative cycle of coffee production, chronic indebtedness, and poverty at the base of the chain. This cycle is shown to have evolved as part of the legacy of the rural credit component of an otherwise highly successful coffee chain development project implemented by the World Bank, and concurrent with the most recent articulation of the global coffee crisis. This cycle serves to maintain a particular set of labor-capital relations which impede the advancement of visions for an alternative, more socio-economically and environmentally equitable Lao coffee commodity chain. Land change detection with Landsat TM, ETM+, and ASTER satellite imagery quantifies the pattern and extent of land-use/land-cover change in the region between 1989 and 2008. These data reveal a sustained conversion of forested to agricultural lands, among other notable landscape changes. These environmental transformations correspond primarily to the workings of the Lao coffee chain, as conditioned by the chain's socio-economic relations. They also reflect the formation of other, new commodity chains in the resource space. The development of these chains also undermines the pursuit of an alternative Lao coffee network. The geographic configuration of the Bolaven Plateau region therefore constrains the potentialities of the Lao coffee commodity chain, while, reciprocally, the structure of the chain constrains the lands and livelihoods of those bound to it.


This research paper is focused on the common
concepts of the efficiency and set-valued map. After a short
introduction, we propose some questions regarding the notion
of efficiency and we emphasize the Pareto optimality as one of
the first finite dimensional illustrative examples. We present
the efficiency and the multifunctions in the infinite dimensional
ordered vector spaces following also our recent results
concerning the most general concept of approximate efficiency,
as a natural generalization of the efficiency, with implications
and applications in vector optimization and the new links
between the approximate efficiency, the strong optimization -
by the full nuclear cones - and Choquet's boundaries by an
important coincidence result. In this way, the efficiency is
strong related to the multifunctions and Potential theory
through the agency of optimization and conversely. Significant
examples of Isac's cones and several pertinent references
conclude this study


IntroductionEndurance exercise can influence strength training adaptations when performed concurrently, with both inhibition (Kreamer 1995) and augmentation (Lundberg 2012) of muscular hypertrophy being reported. Our lab has set out to conduct a series of studies to examine the influence of endurance exercise on the acute stimulatory effect of resistance exercise on anabolic processes. In the present study, the effect of endurance exercise on a previously inactive muscle was investigated. The aim was to examine the influence of resistance exercise on mTORC1-signaling and rate of protein synthesis in the triceps brachii muscle with or without preceding intervals of high-intensity cycling. MethodsEight trained males performed, in a randomized fashion, two sessions of heavy resistance exercise (RE) with the triceps muscles, where one session was preceded by intervals of high-intensity cycling (E+RE), 5 x 4 min at 85% of VO2 peak. Mixed muscle protein fractional synthetic rate (FSR) was measured at rest, prior to exercise, and during a 3 hour recovery period following exercise by continuous infusion of L-[ring-13C6] phenylalanine. Muscle biopsies from the triceps brachii was collected twice at rest separated by three hours, directly after resistance exercise and following 90 and 180 min of recovery. Signalling in the mTORC1-and AMPK-pathway was assessed using western blot technique. ResultsThe same amount of work with regard to load, total number of repetitions and total time under tension was performed in the two trials. Muscle protein FSR increased from 0.050 ± 0.006 %/h at rest to 0.078 ± 0.008 and 0.082 ± 0.0016 %/h following E+RE and RE, respectively, with no difference between trials. Phosphorylation (P) of AMPKT172 was increased by 45-65% directly after exercise, similarly in both conditions, and regressed to a level approx. 20% lower than baseline following 180 min of recovery. P-mTORS2448 was increased 76 and 108% above rest directly after the E+RE and RE, respectively, and remained elevated in both trials during the entire recovery period. P-eEF2T56 was 20-36% higher directly after exercise but fell to a level that was 30-36% lower than pre-exercise and remained reduced during the entire recovery, with no difference between trials. Conclusion High-intensity endurance cycling does not influence the acute stimulation of anabolic signalling and muscle protein synthesis in the triceps brachii following resistance exercise. ReferencesKreamer WJ et al. (1995) J Appl Physiol 78(3):976-989Lundberg T et al. (2013) J Appl Physiol 114: 81-89


The aim of this research was to evaluate growth and yield in response to aluminum (Al) stress in several genotypes of chilli (Capsicum annuum L.). The research was conducted in University Farm of IPB, Cikabayan, Bogor from February to August 2006. Ultisol soils from Gajrug (Lebak, Banten) in polybag with pH 4.2, Al-dd 30.08 me/ 100 g and Al-saturated 83.81% was used in this experiment. Eight genotypes of chilli (4 tolerant and 4sensitive) were tested on two different conditions, in media without Al-stress condition (Al-saturated 0.77%) and wich Al-stress (Alsaturated 60.85%). Characters observed were plant height, shoot dry-weight, total number of fruits per plant, number of fruit harvested per plant, fruit dimension (length and diameter), fruit weight harvested per plant, and weight of each fruit. The results showed that there were differences of response to Al-stress among genotypes on the study. PBC 619 and Jatilaba were selected as tolerant genotypes, while Cilibangi 3 and Helm were sensitive. This evaluation of agronomic characters for tolerant and sensitive to Al-stress appeared very consistent with root bioassay results. Based on this result, the root bioassay method can be used to select chili genotypes for Al-stress tolerance.


"Free Will in Montaigne, Pascal, Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire and Sartre" takes the reader on a journey through the corridors of time to explore the evolution of thought regarding free will. The arguments and works presented in this volume raise critical and timeless issues for ethicists, the criminal justice system and the responsible citizen. Montaigne held that humans can break out of the determinist confines of their given cultures and acquired habits by employing reason, welcoming change and promoting education. In "The Nun", Diderot chronicles portraits of pathology, records symptoms and leaves it up to the reader to decide whether the unfortunate victims are products of nature, nurture or both. Rousseau thought that civilized man, having joined society, surrenders his free will to the general will to enjoy protection of his person, family and property. Sartre, an indeterminist, averred that since humans have the capacity to be self-reflective, they can exercise creativity with regard to who and how they choose to be from moment to moment. Freud observed that we are marionettes whose strings are commandeered by various realms competing for dominance - the conscious and subconscious; id, ego and superego. Bernays, Freud's nephew, employed psychoanalytic theory as a tool to advise corporations how to entice the public to purchase their products when confronted with a range of choices. This book opens the door to lively classroom discussion on moral issues. French literature, philosophy, psychology and political science classes will find it an invaluable source presenting a wealth of views on free will.


AIM
The objective of this research was to evaluate the antifungal properties of the association between grape seed and pea by using a nonpharmacological medical device that contains them.

MATERIALS & METHODS
A murine model of vulvovaginal candidiasis, induced by Candida albicans infection, was used.

RESULTS
We showed that topical treatment with the device significantly reduced the fungal burden in vagina and preserved vagina tissue architecture from C. albicans infection.

CONCLUSION
We can support the potential beneficial effect of the association between grape and pea extract present in the medical device. Together these results supported this device as a favorable antifungal agent and a promising synergist with fluconazole in the clinical management of vulvovaginal candidiasis caused by C. albicans biofilms.


ABSTRACT This article explores processes of legitimising health knowledge in three different spaces: the clinic, the home and the multidisciplinary meeting. It considers the ways in which categorisation work, health understandings and therapeutic actions are intertwined. The analysis draws on ethnomethodology and actor-network theory to suggest that in the clinic consultation room, a number of interactional elements in talk about side effects and talk about unorthodox interventions attempt to stabilise the categories used by health experts. In contrast, the household is a centre of knowledge production that may subvert, manipulate or align with expert systems. Fixed and stable expert knowledge becomes flexible and hybridised inside the home. In the multidisciplinary team meeting different forms of authority are called upon in hospital-based cancer care meetings, where health professionals mix scientific understandings with other ways of knowing in determining treatment options. From these empirical observations it is argued that therapeutic actions are not subject in any simplistic way to a dominant mode of understanding, but there are many means of understanding that selectively come into play in relation to the specifics of the interaction that is occurring between patients, health professionals and therapeutic spaces.


Although oil production is just starting in Guyana, the Government of Guyana is well aware that fossil fuels are a finite resource and do not last forever. It therefore continues to take a strategic approach to the development of a sustainable and cleaner energy sector, and the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) is considering energy efficiency measurements as a tool for strengthening energy security, securing a long-term reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and increasing revenue and cost savings. With the support of the Regional Observatory on Sustainable Energies (ROSE), GEA has built a database of energy efficiency indicators that allows for their subsequent analysis. Most of the indicators are based on data available from the Guyana Bureau of Statistics, Guyana Power and Light Inc., the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority and many other stakeholders. This report analyses the information collected on the main sectors of the country, including energy, industry, transportation, agriculture and services, as well as households, and explains the energy efficiency trends in Guyana. This research seeks to strengthen institutional capacities not only to collect, collate and analyse energy efficiency data, but also to strengthen national, evidence-based policymaking capacities.


The novella collection Singing Sleuth: Three Romantic Mysteries is a vital contribution to the creative arts because it fills an artistic gap. Within creative writing, a myriad of romantic stories and police procedurals exist. However, although genre-blending has become popular, it is rare that the romance and the detective story get blended in one plot, let alone three that center on the same protagonist. However, there are many readers who appreciate a bit of romance within a gritty mystery, or vice versa, that the collection does fill a need for.
What is even rarer is a story or collection that cements these two genres and also incorporates a spiritual thread. Singing Sleuth does this not only in its dialogue and characters, but in the restraint it uses. For example, unlike in secular romances, there is no sexual activity except between married couples, and even then, it is discreetly handled. Also, unlike secular mysteries or thrillers, the collection?s violence is not gratuitous or graphic. Therefore, the collection serves a special purpose for a religious audience by giving them an entertaining read without the pitfalls of action they would rather not read about.
In order to write the novella collection, I conducted different types of creative research. Most of this research involved reading inspirational romance and mystery novels, as well as some novella anthologies already on the market that blend the two genres. I also took time to polish my craft in general, using books on plot, structure, and other elements to sharpen my writing. Finally, I was fortunate to be given the contact information for a retired Chicago police officer, who proved a valuable resource because my heroine is a homicide detective. Personal experience also played a major role—having been in theater and choirs for many years, I was able to write the many performing arts scenes with authenticity.
As a result of my research, I was able to create a full and well-developed novella collection that seamlessly blended two opposing genres. I was also able to stretch my writing skills because until this project, I had never written a mystery and only attempted romance. The project required learning many new things, such as how law enforcement works, the complexities of romantic relationships, and how I could grow and mature as a writer.
I believe the implications raised by my project are myriad. First, the existence of such a collection confirms that the genre blend of romance and police procedural can exist. Because the elements of these genres will also draw in readers despite, or perhaps because of, a spiritual thread, the implication also exists that spirituality can be entertaining and creative. However, I think the most serious implication the collection raises is that creativity knows no borders. Others have asked if such a unique collection is publishable. I believe it is, and furthermore, I believe a story like mine will help the writing world to open itself up to even more unconventional projects.


Abstract The aim of this work is to provide a synthetic history of the Italian upstream oil and gas industry, from its early start until today. Among European countries, Italy has one of the richest abundance of evidence of hydrocarbon seepages. The populations that have inhabited the country during the various historical periods took advantage of these phenomena, harvesting oil and bitumen from the surface. A testimony of such activity is an ingot of purified bitumen dated as first century AD found in central Italy. In the nineteenth century, seepages attracted the interest of oil companies that began to explore the Apennines. The drilling of the first modern oil well was realized in 1860 near Ozzano (Parma). The first onshore seismic reflection survey was acquired in 1940. The well Caviaga-1 was drilled in 1944 near Milan, discovering a gas field of 12.5 Bcm. It was one of the major European gas fields and it marked the starting point of the modern Italian petroleum industry. The widespread use of seismic reflection triggered an intense period of exploration. The first material oil discoveries were Ragusa (in 1954) and Gela (in 1956), both in Sicily. By the mid-1950s, the first offshore seismic survey started in the Adriatic Sea. In 1959, the drilling of well Gela 21, the first offshore well in Europe, boosted further exploration possibilities. During the following decades, the level of exploration and production (E&P) activities remained high, while from the beginning of the third millennium there has been a general slowdown. Since 2007, the level of exploration drilling has dropped to under 10 wells per year. In 2014, this negative trend was further confirmed with no exploratory wells drilled. The causes of this decline derive from the exploration maturity of the biogenic gas play and from the heavy bureaucratic processes involved in obtaining authorization. However, the main cause is probably the strong opposition from environmentalist associations to any kind of petroleum activities.


A retailer's assortment decision results from a process of give-and-take, during which the retailer may bid manufacturers against one another, and the terms of trade offer plenty of flexibility for allocating the profit among the retailer and manufacturers. We adopt a bargaining framework to capture such an assortment selection process. We investigate the properties of the profit allocations that could emerge in a decentralized supply chain. In our model, the retailer engages in simultaneous bilateral negotiations with all manufacturers. Our model and analysis produce managerial insights that could not be obtained in the absence of a bargaining perspective on assortment planning. For example, we find that when a manufacturer improves its product, such improvements not only benefit the retailer but might even benefit competing manufacturers. In fact, even improvements to out-of-assortment products can increase the profits of the retailer and certain in-assortment manufacturers. Hence, our results suggest that a manufacturer can benefit from collaborating with judiciously chosen competitors.

This paper was accepted by Serguei Netessine, operations management.


After almost thirty years of bloody conflict, the opposing parties in Northern Ireland signed the "Good Friday Agreement" in 1998, a document that specifies how to share power, thus bringing to an end the fighting that had claimed so many lives. What were the processes of conflict resolution that enabled Northern Ireland to move beyond violence and agree to such a settlement? Mari Fitzduff was involved in many of these processes and was a close observer of the others. Drawing on her extensive experience, she outlines the strategic developments, arrived at slowly and with difficulty over the years, that enabled agreement to be reached. These include programs that successfully addressed the inequalities between the Protestant and Catholic communities, resulting in a more positive approach to cultural and political diversity and a significant decrease in tensions. Beyond Violence contains valuable, practical insights for those who are struggling to manage and resolve ethnic, religious, political, or cultural conflicts.


ABSTRACT Objectives Gonorrhoea continues to be a public health concern in Belgium with pharyngeal and rectal infections increasing in persons with high-risk sexual behaviour. Belgian health care practitioners rely on international guidance when managing gonorrhoea resulting in non-adapted suboptimal care for the Belgian patient. This guideline will rectify this situation. Methods This guideline was developed following an evidence-based approach and involving a guideline development group (GDG). Research questions were prioritised by the GDG and researchers conducted a systematic review of the evidence that was assessed using GRADE approach. Results The guideline offers recommendations for gonorrhoea diagnosis, treatment and management for primary care professionals in Belgium and applies a risk group approach. This approach aims for improved identification of at-risk persons and targeted testing of at-risk groups; it includes behavioural questioning when deciding on diagnostic sampling and provides clear advice on treatment. The guideline defines when to add surveillance testing for antibiotic resistance, and what consists of good follow-up. Results A concerted application of this guideline by all stakeholders in Belgium may result in improving the diagnosis of infections and eventually addressing the emerging multi-drug resistance.


Impaction of the third molars has been established as a factor with the potential to damage temporomandibular joints. Furthermore, the trauma resulting from the surgery of third molars has been reported to be a predisposing factor in the progression of temporomandibular joint disorders (TMD) symptoms. The high frequency of third molar surgery can result in an increased number of patients who suffer from chronic oral and facial pains. Thus, it is important to identify those patients who have pre ‐ existing pain or any signs of dysfunction in their temporomandibular joints and masticatory structures, prior to third molar surgery. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between impacted teeth and temporomandibular joint disorders. A retrospective study was conducted by reviewing the case records of patients who underwent treatment in Saveetha Dental College and Hospital from June 2019 March 2020. The study population included 96 patients diagnosed with temporomandibular joint disorders and 98 patients without TMD. Thus the sample size included a total of 194 patients who were evaluated for the presence of impacted teeth. Data was collected and statistical analysis was performed. Microsoft Excel 2016 (Microsoft office 10) data spreadsheet was used to collect data and later exported to SPSS IBM (version 23.0). Descriptive statistics and chi square test were employed with a level of significance set at p<0.05. The most prevalent age group among the patients was 21 - 30 years (34.39%), followed by 31 - 40 years (29.29%). 60.8% were male patients and 39.2% were females. TMD was predominantly present (29.38%) in patients with impacted teeth than in patients without impacted teeth (20.1%) and the results were statistically significant (p=0.003). Within the limits of this study, there is a significant association between the presence of impacted teeth and temporomandibular joint disorders. Therefore, it is important to include an assessment of the temporomandibular apparatus in the pre ‐ operative evaluation of patients with impacted third molars.


This article suggests that the conventional wisdom pitting developed countries against developing countries in arguments over intellectual property rights (IPR) protection is beginning to break down. It challenges longstanding assumptions that developed countries want IPR harmonization and developing countries want maximized flexibilities governing judgments of domestic enforcement of international intellectual property norms. The article illustrates how "pro-IPR" no longer necessarily means "anti-flexibilities" in the enforcement realm. In fact, those espousing strong IPR protection can employ enforcement flexibilities to their own ends, as they adapt both their enforcement mechanisms and their international policy positions to a digital age. The article uses language from a recent dispute between the United States and China involving the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to add contour to the TRIPS enforcement obligations, thus breathing new life into TRIPS flexibilities and illustrating how those flexibilities can benefit developed and developing countries alike. The resulting mutual benefit starts the process of bridging the divide between groups whose opposing positions on IPR have brought TRIPS negotiations to a standstill. The article also illustrates how the dispute has strengthened TRIPS as an intellectual property enforcement instrument – an ironic outcome given that the United States lost on its principal claim. Finally, the article argues that giving dispute settlement panels a mandate, and the power, to take a flexible approach to judging compliance with the Agreement can help TRIPS remain useful and relevant in an age in which the internet is driving rapid technological advances and changing global business.


This study offers a contribution to the discourses surrounding 'silence', arguing that the transformation of the meaning of silence as it shifts between contexts depends upon what it is being defined in opposition to, and that in each case, what is posited in the space marked by silence is of central importance to the discourse surrounding this context. Aware of the interdisciplinary engagements with silence, this thesis presupposes that silence is not 'nothing', and that the question of agency is central to the distinctions between silences. Drawing on a number of theoretical perspectives pertinent to each context, this thesis proceeds by engaging with silence as it is featured in discourses surrounding animals, trauma, secrecy, and listening. These theoretical perspectives are explored also through a number of cultural texts - creative nonfiction, short stories, film, poetry, and also testimony. These case studies are not only illustrative, but also offer further perspectives on each context, and the meaning generated for silence. Unlike most other engagements with silence, this thesis not only takes the definition of silence to be unstable and changeable, but also confronts the question of why 'silence' is used in these discourses, positing that it is its association with space that is being drawn upon across these contexts. This thesis argues that it is because 'silence' comes to be figured as a creator of space, what is at issue in these contexts is what is conceived of as being in this space of silence - Otherness, isolation, individuality, intersubjectivity.


We report our search for doublets in the South Sandwich Islands (SSI) region among 906 earthquakes from January 1982 to December 1998. Event pairs with source separation less than 40 km, which was calculated using PDE locations, were checked using vertical component short period and broadband digital records. Cross correlation coefficients of P (or PKP) waveforms were computed for similarity comparison. Whole waveforms of those event pairs with correlation coefficients larger than 0.8 were checked by eye. By this process, 17 doublets were found, some of which form multiplets. However, only one doublet event pair (14 August 1995 and 28 March 1987) has clear PKP(DF) phases on both records at College, Alaska (COL). The PKP(DF) travel time change measured by cross correlation is a decrease by 0.15 s, with standard deviation 0.02 s, over a time period of about 8 years. This result strongly supports differential rotation of the Earth's inner core relative to the mantle and the crust. The estimated rotation rate ranges from 0.4° to 1° per year eastward. The special case of a locked inner core can then be ruled out. We also checked the precision of PDE and ISC locations using the 17 doublets. Results show that both catalogs have relatively high location precision. Standard deviations in latitude, longitude and depth are less than 4 km, 6 km, and 10 km respectively, supporting prior claims of detection of inner core rotation [Song and Richards, 1996].


To slow COVID-19, many countries have shut down part of the economy. Older individuals have the most to gain from slowing virus diffusion. Younger workers in sectors that are shuttered have most to lose. In this paper, we build a model in which economic activity and disease progression are jointly determined. Individuals differ by age (young, retired), by sector (basic, luxury), and health status. Disease transmission occurs in the workplace, through consumption, at home, and in hospitals. We study the optimal economic mitigation policy for a government that can redistribute across individuals, but where redistribution is costly. Optimal redistribution and mitigation policies interact, and more modest shutdowns are optimal when redistribution is more costly. We find that the shutdowns that were implemented in mid-April were too extensive, but a partial shutdown should remain in place through the fall. A deeper and longer shutdown is preferred if a vaccine is imminent.


The present taxonomic revision of Harpullia was started by the second author as the main part of her work for a M. Sc. in biology at Leiden University. She concentrated on a revision of the species occurring in New Guinea, paid only a more superficial attention to the rest of the genus. The first author supervised her work, completed it, and worked it up for publication. It is hoped that this taxonomic revision will be followed by two more papers, one on the pollen-morphology by Dr. J. Muller, secondly one on the systematics of the genus by the first author of the present paper. The system that will probably emanate from the last named paper is already used in the present one and, accordingly, will be sketched here. The genus is, as with Radlkofer (1933-1934), divided into two subgenera, namely a supposedly more primitive one, Otonychium, with only two species, H. pendula (1) and H. arborea (2), and the other one, Harpullia, with the further 24 species. Contrary to Radlkofer, however, we refrained from a further subdivision into sections, but grouped the species of the latter subgenus in a more informal way. The first rather loose group of supposedly relatively primitive species encompasses H. austro-caledonica (3), H. giganteacapsula (4), H. longipetala (5), and H. species nova (26). Next comes a mainly Australian group of species characterized by winged petioles and leaf rachises, viz. H. frutescens (6), H. alata (7), H. rhyticarpa (8), and probably the New Guinea H. rhachiptera (9). The likewise Australian species H. hillii (10) seems to take a position in between some groups, as explained in the note under that species. Included in the third group are H. cupanioides (11), H. vaga (12), H. crustacea (13), H. camptoneura (14), and H. hirsuta (15). To the fourth group belong three New Guinea species characterized by deeply lobed fruits, viz. H. leptococca (16), H. carrii (17), and H. oococca (18). The fifth and last group, considered to be the most derived one, is characterized by rami- or cauliflory. This group encompasses 6 or 7 mutually closely allied species, viz. H. solomonensis (19), H. ramiflora (20), H. myrmecophila (21), H. cauliflora (22), H. petiolaris (23), H. largifolia (24), and probably H. peekeliana (25).


As part of the IDEFICS obesity intervention study, baseline opinions about key issues were elicited from the parents of children about to take part in the intervention in eight European countries. This was done by a questionnaire, in which a set of questions was specifically designed to investigate attitudes towards ethical and public-policy aspects of interventions on healthy lifestyle and diet. The aim of these questions was partly to elicit parents' views concerning the ethics and effectiveness of interventions, responsibilities of schools and parents themselves, and also to gain some indication as to how parents might view some of the policy options available. Here we present analysis of three of the questions on public-policy regarding healthy eating: 1. "I feel that the authorities don't do enough to support healthy eating." 2. "There should be a controlled restriction on advertising of high-fat and high-sugar foods." 3. "Very unhealthy foods should be highly taxed while healthy foods should be subsidised." We report here that there are statistically significant differences between the respondents both by country, and by gender. There is strong support among parents for controlled restriction on advertising of high-fat and high-sugar foods, as well as supporting of taxation of 'unhealthy' foods and subsidising of 'healthy' foods. In most countries men are more critical of authorities' support of healthy eating than women, and they are also more in favour of taxation and subsidising of certain types of food.


Underwater acoustic modelling is an important aspect of Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS) system design and algorithm development. Sea-trials are an expensive and time-consuming exercise and simulations provide an efficient and economic alternative. However, there are few simulators (in the open literature) that can efficiently provide realistic SAS data for large, complicated scenes. Conventional side-scan sonar simulators are not suitable for SAS data simulation. These simulators utilise narrow-beam and narrow-band approximations; typical SAS systems are wide-beam and wide-band and these approximations are invalid. Moreover, conventional side-scan sonar is a non-coherent imaging technique and SAS processing relies on the phase. Existing SAS simulators are capable of modelling very simple scenes only. They utilise a decomposition of the scene into point or smooth facet primitives, which is very inefficient. Many primitives are required and this imposes a severe restriction on scene complexity and size. This thesis presents a rigorous mathematical framework for the modelling of SAS imagery. A novel acoustic scattering model is developed and its implementation in a wide-beam and wide-band, multiple-receiver Interferometric SAS (InSAS) simulator is detailed. The scattering model utilises a decomposition of the scene into rough (rather than smooth) facet primitives. The use of rough facet primitives provides a significant increase in computational efficiency since scenes are decomposed into fewer primitives. This facilitates the simulation of larger and more complicated scenes. Each rough facet is characterised by its far-field beampattern. The statistics of the beampattern are related to the facet shape and roughness statistics using the Kirchhoff approximation. The beampattern is realised from its first and second-order statistics. The SAS imagery is obtained using a coherent sum of the facet responses and occlusions and multiple-scattering are resolved by ray-tracing. The simulator is implemented for use on a parallel computing cluster. The simulator is shown to provide realistic SAS data that is qualitatively and quantitatively similar to real data. The simulated results are considered, in many ways, superior to the simulated results in the literature.


This trenchant study analyzes the rise and decline in the quality and format of science in America since World War II. During the Cold War, the U.S. government amply funded basic research in science and medicine. Starting in the 1980s, however, this support began to decline and for-profit corporations became the largest funders of research. Philip Mirowski argues that a powerful neoliberal ideology promoted a radically different view of knowledge and discovery: the fruits of scientific investigation are not a public good that should be freely available to all, but are commodities that could be monetized. Consequently, patent and intellectual property laws were greatly strengthened, universities demanded patents on the discoveries of their faculty, information sharing among researchers was impeded, and the line between universities and corporations began to blur. At the same time, corporations shed their in-house research laboratories, contracting with independent firms both in the States and abroad to supply new products. Among such firms were AT&T and IBM, whose outstanding research laboratories during much of the twentieth century produced Nobel Prize–winning work in chemistry and physics, ranging from the transistor to superconductivity. Science-Mart offers a provocative, learned, and timely critique, of interest to anyone concerned that American science—once the envy of the world—must be more than just another way to make money.


Online intermediaries have always been regulated, locked in heated battles around intermediary liability for copyright or privacy reasons (Tusikov, 2016; Gorwa 2019). But a notable trend is the rapidly growing use of policy to try and govern user-generated content with a host of other perceived social or individual harms, such as disinformation, hate speech, and terrorist propaganda (Kaye, 2019; York 2019; Suzor 2019). Even as increasing academic and policy attention is paid to the global 'techlash', and leading voices outlining the various ways in which expression online is currently under threat, our understanding of the overall policy landscape remains ad hoc and incomplete. The goal of this paper is thus to present some initial observations on the state of harmful content regulation around the world, drawing upon a new original dataset that seeks to capture the global universe of harmful-content regulatory initiatives for user-generated content online. The first part of the paper presents descriptive results, showing the evolution (and notable increase) in policy development in the past two decades. The second half of the paper provides insight into which specific issue areas have attracted the most formal and informal regulatory arrangements, and assesses the scope (what kind of actors are seen as being a 'platform,' and how that is defined), key policy mechanisms (takedown regimes, transparency rules, technical standards), and sanctioning procedures (fines, criminal liability) enacted in these regulations.


The suction process in reciprocating compressors is strongly affected by the valve dynamics and the pulsating flow throughout the suction muffler. This paper describes a simplified computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model to simulate the flow through the muffler, suction valve and a small region inside the cylinder. The proposed method is applied to predict the suction process of a small reciprocating compressor and its adequacy is compared with a more time elaborate model in terms of accuracy, computation cost and usability.


Background: It has been suggested that an oxidative mechanism is involved with the impaired endothelium-dependent vasodilatation that occurs after a high-fat meal. Hypothesis: The study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of a single oral dose of vitamin C (2g) on postprandially impaired endothelium dependent vasodilatation in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). Methods: This study included 74 patients with CHD and 50 subjects without CHD with risk factors. The two groups were divided into two subgroups that did or did not receive 2g of vitamin C (CHD/VitC and CHD/control, n=37; non-CHD/VitC and non-CHD/control, n=25) after a high-fat meal (800 calories, 50g fat). Serum levels of triglyceride, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and high-density liporotein cholesterol in the fasting state and at 2,4,5 and 7 h after the high-fat meal were measured. Endothelial function was assessed in the brachial artery by high-resolution ultrasound at baseline and at 4h postprandially.


Various known Ca2+ channel blockers and intracellular Ca2+ antagonists have been tested for effects of inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3)-induced Ca2+ release from isolated canine brain microsomes. In agreement with previous reports, heparin, p-chloromercuribenzoic acid, W-7, cinnarizine, flunarizine, certain local anesthetics, La3+, and Ca2+ inhibit the release of Ca2+ induced by addition of IP3. In addition, we report here pronounced inhibition of IP3-induced Ca2+ release by low levels of Cd2+, by relatively high concentrations of TMB-8, and by phytic acid. In contrast, a number of blockers of other Ca2+ channels (nifedipine, verapamil, dantrolene, dithiothreitol, and ruthenium red) have relatively little or no effect on IP3-induced Ca2+ release from brain microsomes. The relative ineffectiveness of substances that inhibit Ca2+- or caffeine-induced Ca2+ release from skeletal muscle sarcoplasmic reticulum suggests that release of Ca2+ from caffeine- and IP3-sensitive neuronal Ca2+ stores is likely to be mediated by different channels. Further evidence that different channels are involved is presented by way of demonstration of the lack of Ca2+-induced Ca2+ release from these brain microsomes and the lack of effect on sarcoplasmic reticulum caffeine-induced Ca2+ release of certain inhibitors of IP3-induced Ca2+ release used here. Among IP3-induced Ca2+ release blockers, La3+ appeared to be exceptional in its ability to stimulate microsomal Ca2+ uptake sufficiently to attenuate release of Ca2+ induced by IP3. Most blockers of IP3-induced Ca2+ release appear not to function by way of inhibiting K+ counter-ion movements (valinomycin does not reverse the inhibition) but rather by way of direct interaction with the IP3 receptor or the Ca2+ channel that mediates the IP3-induced Ca2+ release. Inhibition of [3H]IP3 binding to the microsomes by phytic acid, heparin, pyrophosphate, p-chloromercuribenzoic acid, and Ca2+ could be demonstrated but not by the other substances tested.


A transition-metal-free synthetic approach to synthesize indolizines from α-bromo-substituted enals and simple 2-substituted azaarenes has been developed. A variety of functional groups were tolerated under mild reaction conditions. Moreover, Michael addition, intramolecular N-alkylation and aromatization were involved in this convergent and feasible "one-pot" tandem reaction to afford the annulation products in moderate to good yields.


This paper presents a new family of logic gates for ultra low energy computing using pulsed power CMOS logic. The logic gates use the principles of adiabatic switching principle and results show that in typical cases 90% of the energy can be recovered with operating frequency around IMHz. Constant capacitance condition is enforced in our designs so that signals' energy can be efficiently recycled in the chip. We also present a detailed analysis and modeling of energy dissipation. The models were experimentally validated using the circuit simulator SPICE. We also simulated a serial adder (mod 2) implemented using the reversible logic principle. The design can recover 85% of energy while operating at a frequency of 1.67MHz. For a naturally reversible buffer chain, 95% of energy can be recovered at 1.1 MHz.


INTRODUCTION AND AIMS
As alcohol use has decreased among Finnish adolescents, we aim to assess: (i) time trends in alcohol use, heavy episodic drinking (HED) and potential explanatory variables among adolescents; (ii) the relationship between trends of explanatory variables and trends in alcohol use and HED; and (iii) which of the explanatory variables can account for the temporal change in alcohol use and HED.

DESIGN AND METHODS
The analyses are based on European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs data collected from 15- to 16-year-old Finnish adolescents in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015.

RESULTS
The decline in alcohol use and HED among underage youth in Finland is associated with at least three factors: (i) obtaining alcohol has become more difficult; (ii) parents know better than before where their children spend their Friday nights; and (iii) the risk attached to going out with friends on drinking has decreased.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Formal policy measures and adults' attitudes have probably affected the availability of alcohol for adolescents, and thus they partly explain the decline in youth drinking. This decline coincides with the introduction of new digital technologies, new forms of interaction within families and peer groups, and more conscientious teenagers. All these changes are not necessarily causes of the decline but are part of a similar broader change in adolescents' lives.


Producing high-quality whole-genome shotgun de novo assemblies from plant and animal species with large and complex genomes using low-cost short read sequencing technologies remains a challenge. But when the right sequencing data, with appropriate quality control, is assembled using approaches focused on robustness of the process rather than maximization of a single metric such as the usual contiguity estimators, good quality assemblies with informative value for comparative analyses can be produced. Here we present a complete method described from data generation and qc all the way up to scaffold of complex genomes using Illumina short reads and its application to data from plants and human datasets. We show how to use the w2rap pipeline following a metric-guided approach to produce cost-effective assemblies. The assemblies are highly accurate, provide good coverage of the genome and show good short range contiguity. Our pipeline has already enabled the rapid, cost-effective generation of de novo genome assemblies from large, polyploid crop species with a focus on comparative genomics. Availability w2rap is available under MIT license, with some subcomponents under GPL-licenses. A ready-to-run docker with all software pre-requisites and example data is also available. http://github.com/bioinfologics/w2rap http://github.com/bioinfologics/w2rap-contigger


Abstract Background Coronary angiography (CAG) or stress imaging has been performed in almost all Thai patients with left ventricular (LV) systolic dysfunction. If CAG results reveal insignificant coronary stenosis, such patients are diagnosed with nonischemic cardiomyopathy (NICM); however, CAG is considered to provide no benefit and may even harm these patients because it is invasive. Objectives To identify predictors associated with significant coronary artery disease (CAD) (stenosis) in Thai patients with LV systolic dysfunction without angina and without LV regional wall motion abnormality and create a prediction score. Method Retrospective data from patients at a single tertiary-care center with LV systolic dysfunction (LV ejection fraction <50%) diagnosed between August 2000 and October 2014 were separated into a group with ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM) and a group with NICM according to CAG. Predictors associated with CAD found in normal populations were determined. Multivariate analysis was used to identify predictors associated with significant coronary stenosis in patients with LV systolic dysfunction to develop a model to create a prediction score. Results We included data registered from 240 Thai patients with LV systolic dysfunction. Predictors associated with ICM were age (>60 years), sex (male), and a history of diabetes mellitus (DM). Predictors associated with NICM were body mass index (BMI) >25 kg/m2 and the presence of left bundle branch block (LBBB) on electrocardiography. A simplified equation to predict significant CAD in patients with LV systolic dysfunction is: 3(male sex) + 3(age >60 y) – 5(BMI >25 kg/m2) - 5(LBBB) + 5(DM) - 5. The sensitivity and specificity of this score are 60.5% and 85.1%, respectively. Conclusion Our prediction score has modest sensitivity, but high specificity for predicting significant CAD and can be used to determine who should not undergo CAG.


Parallel computing on clusters of workstations and personal computers has very high
potential, since it leverages existing hardware and software. Parallel programming
environments offer the user a convenient way to express parallel computation and communication.
In fact, recently, a Message Passing Interface (MPI) has been proposed as an industrial
standard for writing "portable" message-passing parallel programs. The communication
part of MPI consists of the usual point-to-point communication as well as collective
communication. However, existing implementations of programming environments for clusters
are built on top of a point-to-point communication layer (send and receive) over local
area networks (LANs) and, as a result, suffer from poor performance in the collective
communication part.
In this paper, we present an efficient design and implementation of the collective
communication part in MPI that is optimized for clusters of workstations. Our system consists
of two main components: the MPI-CCL layer that includes the collective communication
functionality of MPI and a User-level Reliable Transport Protocol (URTP) that interfaces
with the LAN Data-link layer and leverages the fact that the LAN is a broadcast medium.
Our system is integrated with the operating system via an efficient kernel extension
mechanism that we developed. The kernel extension significantly improves the performance of
our implementation as it can handle part of the communication overhead without involving
user space.
We have implemented our system on a collection of IBM RS/6000 workstations con-
nected via a lOMbit Ethernet LAN. Our performance measurements are taken from typical
scientific programs that run in a parallel mode by means of the MPI. The hypothesis behind
our design is that system's performance will be bounded by interactions between the kernel
and user space rather than by the bandwidth delivered by the LAN Data-Link Layer. Our
results indicate that the performance of our MPI Broadcast (on top of Ethernet) is about
twice as fast as a recently published software implementation of broadcast on top of ATM.


Plant cells defend against fungal attack through an innate immunity pathway in which infection triggers glucosinolate synthesis, stimulating formation of a protective callose. Plant cells mobilize a cell-autonomous response to the sites of attempted fungal penetration, resulting in the polarization of the peroxisome. The mechanism driving this polarization has remained unclear. Now Clay et al. and Bednarek et al. show that the preinvasion resistance mechanism is due to the coordinated and infection-induced biosynthesis of a specific glucosinolate molecule. This molecule is made and delivered to the outside of the cell through the action of the peroxisomal proteins (PEN2 and PEN3) and is produced via a biochemical reaction that uses myrosinase products as a substrate. Bednarek et al. show that derived compounds of PEN2 play a key role as antifungal compounds and that this route of synthesis occurs in living cells and only in response to infection. Clay et al. have discovered how these myrosinases and their related breakdown products act as signaling molecules in the Arabidopsis defense response. Thus, a family of metabolites controls this nonhost resistance pathway. P. Bednarek, M. Piślewska-Bednarek, A. Svatoš, B. Schneider, J. Doubský, M. Mansurova, M. Humphry, C. Consonni, R. Panstruga, A. Sanchez-Vallet, A. Molina, P. Schulze-Lefert, A glucosinolate metabolism pathway in living plant cells mediates broad-spectrum antifungal defense. Science 323, 101–106 (2009). [Abstract] [Full Text] N. K. Clay, A. M. Adio, C. Denoux, G. Jander, F. M. Ausubel, Glucosinolate metabolites required for an Arabidopsis innate immune response. Science 323, 95–101 (2009). [Abstract] [Full Text]


A specific pathway protects damaged DNA from error-prone repair. The genetic disease Fanconi anemia (FA) results from mutations in a series of genes involved in a DNA repair pathway that helps process the damage caused by erroneous chemical cross-links between the two strands of the DNA double helix. The double-stranded breaks in DNA that arise from such cross-links can be repaired in an error-free manner or through an error-prone repair pathway. Pace et al. show that the FA pathway can drive repair through the error-free pathway. The FA FANCC gene shows a genetic interaction with a component of the error-prone repair pathway, Ku70, inhibiting its action and thereby promoting the error-free pathway. P. Pace, G. Mosedale, M. R. Hodskinson, I. V. Rosado, M. Sivasubramaniam, K. J. Patel, Ku70 corrupts DNA repair in the absence of the Fanconi anemia pathway. Science 329, 219–223 (2010). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Diel patterns of distribution of fishes in nearshore (15–80 m depth) and offshore (>80 m) waters of the Apostle Islands region of Lake Superior were described using bottom trawls, mid-water trawls, and acoustic gear during day and night sampling. These data revealed three types of diel migration: diel vertical migration (DVM), diel bank migration (DBM), and no migration. DVM was expressed by fishes migrating from benthopelagic to pelagic strata and DBM was expressed by fishes migrating horizontally from deeper waters in the day to shallower waters at night while remaining within the benthopelagic stratum. Most fishes that did not exhibit diel migration showed increased nighttime densities as a result of increased activity and movement from benthic to benthopelagic strata. Rainbow Smelt (Osmerus mordax), Cisco (Coregonus artedi), Bloater (C. hoyi), Kiyi (C. kiyi), juvenile Trout-Perch (Percopsis omiscomaycus), and adult siscowet (Salvelinus namaycush siscowet) exhibited DVM. Lake Whitefish (C. clupeaformis), lean Lake Trout (Salvelinus namaycush namaycush), and juvenile siscowet exhibited DBM. Adult Trout-Perch and adult Pygmy Whitefish (Prosopium coulteri) exhibited a mixture of DBM and DVM. Burbot (Lota lota), Slimy Sculpin (Cottus cognatus), Spoonhead Sculpin (C. ricei), and Deepwater Sculpin (Myoxocephalus thompsonii) did not exhibit diel migration, but showed evidence of increased nocturnal activity. Ninespine Stickleback (Pungitius pungitius) exhibited a mixture of DVM and non-migration. Juvenile Pygmy Whitefish did not show a diel change in density or depth distribution. Species showing ontogenetic shifts in depth distribution with larger, adult life stages occupying deeper waters included, Rainbow Smelt, lean and siscowet Lake Trout, Lake Whitefish, Pygmy Whitefish, Ninespine Stickleback and Trout-Perch. Of these species, siscowet also showed an ontogenetic shift from primarily DBM as juveniles to primarily DVM as adults. Across all depths, fishes expressing DVM accounted for 73% of the total estimated community areal biomass (kg ha−1) while those expressing DBM accounted for 25% and non-migratory species represented 2% of the biomass. The proportion of total community biomass exhibiting DVM increased with depth, from 59% to 95% across ≤30 m to >90 m depth zones. Along the same depth gradient, the proportion of total community biomass exhibiting DBM declined from 40% to 1%, while non-migrators increased from 1% to 4%. These results indicate that DVM and DBM behaviors are pervasive in the Lake Superior fish community and potentially provide strong linkages that effect coupling of benthic and pelagic and nearshore and offshore habitats.


This study argues that metadata of library catalogs can stand autonomously, providing valuable information detached from the resources they point to and, therefore, could be used as data in the context of the Semantic Web. We present an analysis of this perception followed by an implementation proposal for a Master's thesis and PhD dissertation repository. The analysis builds on the flexibility of the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and takes into account the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD) in order to reveal the latent academic network by linking its entities to a meaningful and computationally processable set. Current library catalogs retrieve documents to find answers, whereas in our approach catalogs can provide answers that could not be found in any specific document.


This report details the results of the Port of Weipa seagrass monitoring program including the most recent survey in August 2012. Seagrasses in the Port of Weipa were in a reasonable condition in 2012, with the biomass of monitoring meadows remaining similar to or increasing from the previous year. However there were some reductions in area of meadows and there is still an overall declining trend in seagrass biomass for some meadows over the 13 years of monitoring, indicating seagrasses may remain vulnerable to further natural or anthropogenic stress. Importantly, however, the key meadow on the western bank of the Embley River that is closest to maintenance dredging activity has shown a significant increase in biomass and is likely to be resilient to planned maintenance dredging activities in 2013.

Changes in seagrass biomass between 2011 and 2012 varied for the core monitoring meadows. Biomass increased significantly in the Enhalus acoroides dominated meadow on the western bank of the Embley River (A2), the largest monitoring meadow, but did not change in the smaller E. acoroides dominated and Halodule uninervis dominated meadows. Biomass in A2 in 2012 was similar to other high biomass years such as 2002 and 2010, and coincided with the re‐appearance of moderate/dense biomass hotspots similar to those recorded in 2010. Biomass in two of the smaller monitoring meadows (A3 and A6) more than doubled between 2011 and 2012 although the highly variable nature of these meadows meant that this change was outside the ability of statistical analysis to detect change.

Biomass for the core monitoring meadows has varied considerably between years, with an overall trend of decline in three (A2, A6, A7) of the five meadows in the 13 years of monitoring. These declines are likely associated with natural shifts in tidal exposure and changes in light and temperature associated with local climate conditions. These changes were significantly correlated with the amount of daytime tidal exposure in the month prior to the survey as well as the amount of solar radiation in the twelve months prior to monitoring.

In 2012, meadow area around the major port operations (IMA) was below the thirteen‐year average of 1035 ± 66 ha. Total meadow area within the IMA reduced by 5.8% between August 2011 and 2012 reversing a 3 year trend of increasing area. While the declines were recorded for all of the meadows, all but meadow A2 remained within the range of previously recorded values.

The 12 months prior to the 2012 survey were characterised by above‐average rainfall and below‐average tidal exposure. Preliminary results from light and temperature loggers deployed since September 2010 indicate a strong influence of tidal cycles on photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and water temperature, with the highest PAR recorded during midday low tides, particularly in the shallower intertidal meadows. The PAR data set obtained so far also indicates PAR is reduced between October and March each year, coinciding with increased rainfall. Continued collection of fine‐scale light and temperature data within the monitoring meadows will enhance the ability of the program to pinpoint some of the causes of seagrass changes.

Seagrasses have been resilient to the impacts associated with regular port maintenance dredging during the life of the monitoring program. However, the continued low biomass of some of the meadows in Weipa may leave them vulnerable to additional stresses including those associated with dredging. Ongoing monitoring will provide the information necessary to inform the management of maintenance and capital dredging programs in Weipa to ensure the protection of these seagrasses. It forms an integral component of the Dredge Technical Advisory Consultative Committee's assessment of potential dredge mitigation strategies that may need to be applied to continue to protect seagrasses within the port. Results from 2012 monitoring show the large meadow on the western bank of the Embley River (A2) that is closest to the majority of maintenance dredging in the port was in a relatively robust condition. The relatively high biomass of this meadow indicates that it should remain resilient to planned maintenance dredging activities in 2013, provided the duration of dredging remains relatively short and that there are no major loses associated with climate or other impacts leading up to the 2013 dredging campaign.


Producing a small deployment version of an application is a challenge because static abstractions such as packages cannot anticipate the use of their parts at runtime. Thus, an application often occupies more memory than actually needed. Tailoring is one of the main solutions to this problem i.e., extracting used code units such as classes and methods of an application. However, existing tailoring techniques are mostly based on static type annotations. These techniques cannot efficiently tailor applications in all their extent (e.g., runtime object graphs and metadata) nor be used in the context of dynamically-typed languages. We propose a run-fail-grow technique to tailor applications using their runtime execution. Run-fail-grow launches (a) a reference application containing the original application to tailor and (b) a nurtured application containing only a seed with a minimal set of code units the user wants to ensure in the final application. The nurtured application is executed, failing when it founds missing objects, classes or methods. On failure, the necessary elements are installed into the nurtured application from the reference one, and the execution resumes. The nurtured application is executed until it finishes, or until the developer explicitly finishes it, for example in the case of a web application. resulting in an object memory (i.e., a heap) with only objects, classes and methods required to execute the application. To validate our approach we implemented a tool based on Virtual Machine modifications, namely Tornado. Tornado succeeds to create very small memory footprint versions of applications e.g., a simple object-oriented heap of 11kb. We show how tailoring works on application code, base and third-party libraries even supporting human interaction with user G. interfaces. These experiments show memory savings ranging from 95% to 99%.


Understanding the behavior of an impurity strongly interacting with a Fermi sea is a long-standing challenge in many-body physics. When the interactions are short-ranged, two vastly different ground states exist: a polaron quasiparticle and a molecule dressed by the majority atoms. In the single-impurity limit, it is predicted that at a critical interaction strength, a first-order transition occurs between these two states. Experiments, however, are always conducted in the finite temperature and impurity density regime. The fate of the polaron-to-molecule transition under these conditions, where the statistics of quantum impurities and thermal effects become relevant, is still unknown. Here, we address this question experimentally and theoretically. Our experiments are performed with a spin-imbalanced ultracold Fermi gas with tunable interactions. Utilizing a novel Raman spectroscopy combined with a high-sensitivity fluorescence detection technique, we isolate the quasiparticle contribution and extract the polaron energy, spectral weight, and the contact parameter. As the interaction strength is increased, we observe a continuous variation of all observables, in particular a smooth reduction of the quasiparticle weight as it goes to zero beyond the transition point. Our observation is in good agreement with a theoretical model where polaron and molecule quasiparticle states are thermally occupied according to their quantum statistics. At the experimental conditions, polaron states are hence populated even at interactions where the molecule is the ground state and vice versa. The emerging physical picture is thus that of a smooth transition between polarons and molecules and a coexistence of both in the region around the expected transition.