Purpose: The present study seeks to examine the efficacy of different training modalities on increasing workplace learning, representatives' intent to transfer what they learned into their work, and importantly how training impacts actual work performance. These relationships are tested in the context of a Chinese division of a multinational pharmaceutical company, where pharmaceutical representatives are tasked with relaying relevant efficacy and safety information on pharmaceutical products to health care professionals who prescribe them to patients. Methods: The present study employed a three-group between-subjects experimental design. Representatives received varying forms of training (instruction only, instruction plus reflection, and instruction, reflection, plus direct feedback) based on experimental conditions. After three training sessions over the course of six weeks, representatives were assessed on how much they learned in the training and their actual work performance through observer assessment of meetings with health care professionals, facilitated by the representatives. Findings: In this study, it was found that the process of actively reflecting on what was learned in training led to increased learning, as well as increased performance, compared to simply studying the material. However, receiving direct feedback on training performance, combined with active reflection training, did not provide any further benefits in terms of learning or work performance. Notably, there were no differences in intent to transfer learned material to work, as all conditions reported high levels of transfer intention. Conclusion: The finding provides insightful evidence to support the benefits of fostering trainees' active reflections for work-based learning in the Chinese industry training scenario. In contrast, receiving direct comments on how students performed from a manager or trainer, as well as advise on how do better in the future, had no effect on increasing learning or performance. Although the effect of direct feedback is not statistically significant in this context, further research should be done in understanding individuals' thoughts and behaviors when received direct feedbacks received in workplace training. Relatively little workplace research has assessed both workplace learning and performance in the same study, specifically in the Chinese context. While training efficacy likely varies across cultures to begin with, compensation structures in China do not provide the same monetary incentives for workplace learning (i.e. chance to increase income) as Western culture. This means that any way to increase workplace learning should be of extra value, as employees otherwise may not engage in it at all.


Vaccination of immunocompromised patients is recommended in many national guidelines to protect against severe or complicated influenza infection. However, due to uncertainties over the evidence base, implementation is frequently patchy and dependent on individual clinical discretion. We conducted a systematic review and meta‐analysis to assess the evidence for influenza vaccination in this patient group. Healthcare databases and grey literature were searched and screened for eligibility. Data extraction and assessments of risk of bias were undertaken in duplicate, and results were synthesised narratively and using meta‐analysis where possible. Our data show that whilst the serological response following vaccination of immunocompromised patients is less vigorous than in healthy controls, clinical protection is still meaningful, with only mild variation in adverse events between aetiological groups. Although we encountered significant clinical and statistical heterogeneity in many of our meta‐analyses, we advocate that immunocompromised patients should be targeted for influenza vaccination.


The Simultaneous Lightness Contrast (SLC) is the condition whereby a grey patch on a dark background appears lighter than an equal patch on a light background. Interestingly, the perceptual lightness difference between these patches undergoes to a substantial augment when the two backgrounds – although maintaining the same luminance average – are patterned shaping what can be named the articulated-SLC. Two are the main interpretations of these phenomena. The layer approach claims that the visual system splits the luminance into separate overlapping layers, corresponding to separate physical contributions, whilst the framework approach maintains that the visual system groups the luminance within a set of contiguous frameworks. To contrast these two viewpoints in a psychophysics experiment run in Virtual Reality conditions, the articulated-SLC phenomenon has been measured by systematically manipulating the belongingness of pairs of luminance ratios sharing the same polarity. This is a crucial test because the two approaches make opposite predictions: According to the framework approach, the SLC should reduce when belongingness is increased (Gilchrist at al., 1999). On the contrary, according to the layer approach the SLC should increase when belongingness is increased (Soranzo & Agostini, 2006). Results show that the SLC increases when perceptual belongingness between the two frameworks is strengthened, supporting the layer approach to lightness perception.


David Joyner and Marshall Hampton's lucid textbook explains differential equations using the free and open-source mathematical software Sage. Since its release in 2005, Sage has acquired a substantial following among mathematicians, but its first user was Joyner, who is credited with helping famed mathematician William Stein turn the program into a usable and popular choice. "Introduction to Differential Equations Using Sage" extends Stein's work by creating a classroom tool that allows both differential equations and Sage to be taught concurrently. It's a creative and forward-thinking approach to math instruction. Topics include: First Order Differential Equations; Incorporation of Newtonian Mechanics; Second Order Differential Equations; The Annihilator Method; Using Linear Algebra with Differential Equations; Nonlinear Systems; Partial Differential Equations; and Romeo and Juliet.


We present an introduction to the canonical quantization of gravity performed in loop quantum gravity, based on lectures held at the 3rd quantum geometry and quantum gravity school in Zakopane in 2011. A special feature of this introduction is the inclusion of new proposals for coupling matter to gravity that can be used to deparametrize the theory, thus making its dynamics more tractable. The classical and quantum aspects of these new proposals are explained alongside the standard quantization of vacuum general relativity in loop quantum gravity.


To the great relief of many, states are now rethinking their draconian criminal justice policies of the past several decades. In addition to shrinking prison and jail populations, reforms are now underway to expand opportunities for relief from the collateral consequences of conviction, such as the loss of the right to vote, serve as a juror, or work in certain occupations, which can impede the ability of ex-offenders to successfully reintegrate into society. In coming years, as states seek to reduce their high recidivism rates, such relief efforts will likely continue to grow in number; as they do, we should expect to see parallel growth in an important horizontal federalism challenge.The challenge comes when ex-offenders, having secured collateral consequences relief in one state, relocate to another and seek to have their restored status recognized there. When this occurs a legal conflict materializes not unlike that of late witnessed with same-sex marriage. Unlike same-sex marriage recognition, however, which was the subject of major public debate and legal attention, restoration recognition — despite its potential impact on many millions more lives — has been largely ignored. This Article aims to remedy the deficit, providing the first comprehensive examination of how restoration recognition thus far has been addressed, and outlining a legislative way forward for states, or Congress, to balance the important comity, federalism, and state autonomy interests implicated.


In the mid 1980s the Trinidad and Tobago Government embarked on a tourism development thrust centered around the island of Tobago. A key feature of this thrust involved extending the Crown Point Airport runway to facilitate wide-bodied aeroplanes. Part of La Guira Bay which is located at the southern end of the runway had to be reclaimed and a coastal protection structure constructed at the central region of the bay. The Institute of Marine Affairs (IMA) was commissioned by the Airports Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (AATT) in 1988 to undertake an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the airport runway extension. The EIA, which included monitoring the construction phase of the project, was completed in 1990. During the period May 1988 to October 1990, field studies revealed that the beach immediately west (downdrift) of the coastal protection structure was experiencing erosion (flanking). The structure was therefore extended by 50 m at its western end. Monitoring during the subsequent operational phase of the project showed that erosion still continued to progress downdrift (west) along the beach, clear evidence that the extended coastal protection structure had failed to arrest the erosion process (flanking) which continued unabated up to October 1992. Erosion was also evident at the eastern and western ends of the beach; however, these latter cases were due to sand mining activities. This paper analyses the findings of the marine geology data that were collected on this project during the period May 1988 to October 1992.


From the Publisher:
Paradigms of AI Programming is the first text to teach advanced Common Lisp techniques in the context of building major AI systems. By reconstructing authentic, complex AI programs using state-of-the-art Common Lisp, the book teaches students and professionals how to build and debug robust practical programs, while demonstrating superior programming style and important AI concepts. The author strongly emphasizes the practical performance issues involved in writing real working programs of significant size. Chapters on troubleshooting and efficiency are included, along with a discussion of the fundamentals of object-oriented programming and a description of the main CLOS functions. This volume is an excellent text for a course on AI programming, a useful supplement for general AI courses and an indispensable reference for the professional programmer.


Staphylococcus aureus has vital importance in veterinary medicine. Within the ruminants, it is one of the major causes of mastitis, the problem that was and is, with no definite solution to date. Along with that, it also affects the health of animals, pets, and poultry in several ways as the tissue tropism for this organism in poultry is the bones and the joints. This review is focused on habitat, species differentiation, differential biochemical tests, pathogenesis, clinical infections, economic importance, public health significance, immune response, the regulation of virulence in the staphylococci, and cytokines response against S. aureus.


Vessel-based anthropogenic impacts on bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in the Indian River Lagoon (IRL), Florida, were investigated by quantifying visible physical injuries to dorsal fins from photo-identification data collected from 1996 to 2006. Forty-three dolphins, 6.0% of the distinctly marked population, had injuries related to vessel impact. Impact was determined from previously published vessel-related wound definitions and the elimination of other possible wound sources. Spatial distribution was determined by dividing the IRL into six segments based on hydrodynamics and geographic features. Dolphins were assigned to a segment(s) and corresponding county according to ranging patterns. Segment 4, consisting of St. Lucie and Martin Counties, had the highest prevalence (9.9/100 distinct dolphins) of boatinjured dolphins and had the highest number of registered boaters per km of habitat. These preliminary data suggest that vessel impacts on dolphins occur disproportionally in the IRL and should be considered a high-priority management issue for local governments. Behavioral data collected during photo-identification surveys support the possibility of a low tolerance and sensitization to vessel interactions. Recommendations to reduce direct and indirect impacts from vessels on dolphins are discussed.


This paper presents the design and experimental testing of the robotic elbow exoskeleton NEUROBOTICS Elbow Exoskeleton (NEUROExos). The design of NEUROExos focused on three solutions that enable its use for poststroke physical rehabilitation. First, double-shelled links allow an ergonomic physical human-robot interface and, consequently, a comfortable interaction. Second, a four-degree-of-freedom passive mechanism, embedded in the link, allows the user's elbow and robot axes to be constantly aligned during movement. The robot axis can passively rotate on the frontal and horizontal planes 30° and 40°, respectively, and translate on the horizontal plane 30 mm. Finally, a variable impedance antagonistic actuation system allows NEUROExos to be controlled with two alternative strategies: independent control of the joint position and stiffness, for robot-in-charge rehabilitation mode, and near-zero impedance torque control, for patient-in-charge rehabilitation mode. In robot-in-charge mode, the passive joint stiffness can be changed in the range of 24-56 N·m/rad. In patient-in-charge mode, NEUROExos output impedance ranges from 1 N·m/rad, for 0.3 Hz motion, to 10 N·m/rad, for 3.2 Hz motion.


Healthcare personnel are front-line workers for disease prevention and control. On 6 Apr 2020, the Department of Disease Control received a notification on a cluster of healthcare personnel in a private hospital infected with coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The event was investigated and a cross-sectional study was conducted to describe the epidemiological characteristics of the cluster, including risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infection. A confirmed COVID-19 case was a person with SARS-CoV-2 virus tested by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction in one reference laboratory; and a probable COVID-19 case was a person who died of pneumonia in the hospital, did not tested for COVID-19, and had an epidemiological linkage to a confirmed case. Among total 2,287 healthcare personnel working at the hospital, 25 were confirmed cases (attack rate 1.1%). Although the attack rate was relatively low, the specific attack rate in the inpatient ward was high (32.4%) due to delayed outbreak detection. Analytic results suggested that attending infection prevention and control (IPC) training was a protective factor for COVID-19 (Odds ratio 0.04, 95% CI 0.00-0.64). In addition, a survey on personal protective equipment (PPE) showed that 66.7% of those conducting sputum suction/drug nebulization and 83.9% of those performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation used inappropriate PPE. Therefore, IPC training, including appropriate use of PPE, should be provided to all healthcare personnel. In addition, healthcare personnel should be alert for COVID-19 infection, and protect themselves according to the standard protocols. Routine screening of healthcare personnel should be performed during the COVID-19 epidemic.


This paper develops a quantitative model of internal city structure that features agglomeration and dispersion forces and an arbitrary number of heterogeneous city blocks. The model remains tractable and amenable to empirical analysis because of stochastic shocks to commuting decisions, which yield a gravity equation for commuting flows. To structurally estimate agglomeration and dispersion forces, we use data on thousands of city blocks in Berlin for 1936, 1986 and 2006 and exogenous variation from the city's division and reunification. We estimate substantial and highly localized production and residential externalities. We show that the model with the estimated agglomeration parameters can account both qualitatively and quantitatively for the observed changes in city structure. We show how our quantitative framework can be used to undertake counterfactuals for changes in the organization of economic activity within cities in response for example to changes in the transport network.


A warming climate results in sea ice loss and impacts to the Arctic water cycle. The water isotope parameter deuterium excess, a moisture source proxy, can serve as a tracer to help understand hydrological changes due to sea ice loss. However, unlocking the sea ice change signal of isotopes from ice cores requires understanding how sea ice changes impact deuterium excess, which is unknown. Here we present the first isotope data linking a gradient of sea ice extents to oceanic water vapor deuterium excess values. Initial loss of sea ice extent leads to lower deuterium excess moisture sources, and then values progressively increase with further ice loss. Our new process‐based interpretation suggests that past rapid (1–3 years) Greenland ice core changes in deuterium excess during warming might not be the result of abrupt atmospheric circulation shifts, but rather gradual loss of sea ice extent at northern latitude moisture sources.


We present an approach to detecting and localizing defects in random color textures which requires only a few defect free samples for unsupervised training. It is assumed that each image is generated by a superposition of various-size image patches with added variations at each pixel position. These image patches and their corresponding variances are referred to here as textural exemplars or texems. Mixture models are applied to obtain the texems using multiscale analysis to reduce the computational costs. Novelty detection on color texture surfaces is performed by examining the same-source similarity based on the data likelihood in multiscale, followed by logical processes to combine the defect candidates to localize defects. The proposed method is compared against a Gabor filter bank-based novelty detection method. Also, we compare different texem generalization schemes for defect detection in terms of accuracy and efficiency.


Language models demonstrate both quantitative improvement and new qualitative capabilities with increasing scale. Despite their potentially transformative impact, these new capabilities are as yet poorly characterized. In order to inform future research, prepare for disruptive new model capabilities, and ameliorate socially harmful effects, it is vital that we understand the present and near-future capabilities and limitations of language models. To address this challenge, we introduce the Beyond the Imitation Game benchmark (BIG-bench). BIG-bench currently consists of 204 tasks, contributed by 450 authors across 132 institutions. Task topics are diverse, drawing problems from linguistics, childhood development, math, common-sense reasoning, biology, physics, social bias, software development, and beyond. BIG-bench focuses on tasks that are believed to be beyond the capabilities of current language models. We evaluate the behavior of OpenAI's GPT models, Google-internal dense transformer architectures, and Switch-style sparse transformers on BIG-bench, across model sizes spanning millions to hundreds of billions of parameters. In addition, a team of human expert raters performed all tasks in order to provide a strong baseline. Findings include: model performance and calibration both improve with scale, but are poor in absolute terms (and when compared with rater performance); performance is remarkably similar across model classes, though with benefits from sparsity; tasks that improve gradually and predictably commonly involve a large knowledge or memorization component, whereas tasks that exhibit"breakthrough"behavior at a critical scale often involve multiple steps or components, or brittle metrics; social bias typically increases with scale in settings with ambiguous context, but this can be improved with prompting.


Abstract : This paper presents a class of adaptive policies in the context of Markov decision processes (MDP's) with long-run average performance measures. Under a recurrence condition, the proposed policy alternates between two stationary policies so as to adaptively track a sample average cost to a desired value. Direct sample path arguments are presented for investigating the convergence of sample average costs and the performance of the adaptive policy is discussed. The obtained results are particularly useful in discussing constrained MDP's with a single constraint. Applications include a wide class of constrained MDP's with finite state space (Beutler and Ross 1985), an optimal flow control problem (Ma and Makowski 1987) and an optimal resource allocation problem (Nain and Ross 1986).


Down syndrome is the most common cause of intellectual impairment, and life expectancy in this group has increased in recent decades, meaning that health care is increasingly focused on quality of life and the management of treatable illnesses. There are frequent problems associated with vision in Down syndrome, including refractive errors, strabismus, reduced vision, and reduced accommodative ability. This review will discuss the importance of accommodative ability; describe the prevalence and nature of accommodative deficits in Down syndrome, which are found in approximately 55%–76% of individuals; discuss the management of this deficit with the prescription of bifocal correction; and summarize the possible etiologies of hypoaccommodation in Down syndrome. Finally, the review will consider practical considerations for the optometrist managing accommodative deficits in patients with Down syndrome.


This paper describes work on a continuing project to form functional composites that contain ceramic nanoparticles using a Solid Freeform Fabrication (SFF) inkjet printing method. The process involves inkjet deposition of monomer/particle suspensions in layers followed by curing each layer in sequence using UV radiation. The reactive monomer is hexanediol-diacrylate (HDODA); the polymer forming reaction proceeds by a free radical mechanism. The liquid monomer containing nanoparticles is essentially a printing ink formulation. Successfully suspending the particles in the monomer is critical. We have developed a surface treatment method for forming stable suspensions of the nanoparticles so that they remain discrete throughout the processing sequence. The SFF process involves careful control of the polymer cure so that the interface between layers is seamless and residual stresses in the composites are eliminated. An immediate use for such composites is in optical applications as gradient refractive index lenses (GRIN). GRIN lenses have planar surfaces, eliminating the need for costly grinding and polishing. The planar surfaces also eliminate optical aberrations that result at the edges of spherical lenses and diminish the accuracy of focus. If the appropriate nanoparticles are fully dispersed they will modify the polymer's refractive index without interfering with light transmission. The effect is additive with volume concentration. Using 'inks' of different compositions in a multiple nozzle inkjet printer allows the formation of composites with precise composition gradients. Since an object is built one planar layer at a time, changes can be made readily both within each layer and from layer to layer. Inkjet printing with picoliter resolution is ideal for this task. Working with SiC nanoparticles in HDODA as a model system for demonstrating the inkjet deposition process, nanocomposite films with a linear concentration gradient varying from 0 to 4.5% (wt) were fabricated on Silicon wafers. These composites are 30 layer films, which total 140μm in thickness. Each layer in the composite is about 5 μm in thickness. Analytical methods for characterizing the dispersion of the nanoparticles in the composite and some of the salient optical properties of the composites also were established. The status of the program is reviewed in this paper.


Recent recalibration of the Silurian timescale and improved global chronostratigraphic correlation of Silurian strata significantly altered the Silurian 87Sr/86Sr curve and the temporal extent of available data. Whereas previous Silurian 87Sr/86Sr composites showed a generally monotonic increase throughout the Silurian, revisions to the Silurian timescale now require a major increase in the rate of change in 87Sr/86Sr at or near the onset of the Gorstian Age of the Ludlow Epoch. Similarly, improved chronostratigraphic correlations between Silurian outcrops on Anticosti Island, Canada, and Gotland, Sweden, indicate that the middle part of the Telychian Age, which is roughly 10%–15% of the total duration of the Silurian period, is undersampled and underrepresented in Silurian 87Sr/86Sr composites. A revised Silurian 87Sr/86Sr curve based on 241 new and published analyses confirms the significant increase in the rate of change of 87Sr/86Sr toward more radiogenic values near the base of the Ludlow Series. On the basis of these data, we propose that the rapid trend toward more radiogenic 87Sr/86Sr values is indicative of increased weathering of old sialic crust exposed during the Silurian uplift of portions of Baltica, Laurentia, and Avalonia. Importantly, however, the actual rate of change of 87Sr/86Sr will remain equivocal until the durations of Silurian epochs and ages are better constrained.


Mouse embryos genetically null for all αv integrins develop intracerebral hemorrhage owing to defective interactions between blood vessels and brain parenchymal cells. Here, we have used conditional knockout technology to address whether the cerebral hemorrhage is due to primary defects in vascular or neural cell types. We show that ablating αv expression in the vascular endothelium has no detectable effect on cerebral blood vessel development, whereas deletion of αv expression in central nervous system glial cells leads to embryonic and neonatal cerebral hemorrhage. Conditional deletion of αv integrin in both central nervous system glia and neurons also leads to cerebral hemorrhage, but additionally to severe neurological defects. Approximately 30% of these mutants develop seizures and die by 4 weeks of age. The remaining mutants survive for several months, but develop axonal deterioration in the spinal cord and cerebellum, leading to ataxia and loss of hindlimb coordination. Collectively, these data provide evidence that αv integrins on embryonic central nervous system neural cells, particularly glia, are necessary for proper cerebral blood vessel development, and also reveal a novel function for αv integrins expressed on axons in the postnatal central nervous system.


New geographic localities are noted for chimaera cestodarian, Gyrocotyle rugosa, from the central Atlantic; it and Antillean snake eel, Ophichthus spinicauda; Caribbean lanternshark, Etmopterus hillianus; and dwarf cat shark, Scyliorhinus torrei, for the Caribbean Sea; those, black verilus, Verilus sor- didus; dusky shark, Carcharhinus obscurus; lesser amberjack, Seriola fasciata; and longfinned bulleye, Cookeolus japonicus, for the insular Caribbean; all above (except Antillean snake eel), and bearded brotula, Brotula barbata; bigeye sixgill shark, Hexachus nakamurai; Darwin's slimehead, Gephyroberyx darwinii; longsnout scorpionfish, Pontinus castor; short bigeye, Pristigeny altus; and tropical pomfret, Eumegistus brevorti, for Puerto Rico. Gulf of Mexico, Sargasso Sea, and Mexico are new for Antillean snake eel; French Guiana, Guyana, Isla La Tortuga, Jamaica, Pedro Bank, St. Croix, and St. Thomas for bearded brotula; Barbados, Dominican Republic, Florida, Florida Keys, Gulf of Mexico, St. Thomas, southern Caribbean Sea, and Tortola for bigeye sixgill shark; Honduras for black verilus; St. Croix for Caribbean chimaera; Vieques Island for Caribbean lanternshark; Anguilla, Colombia, Cozumel, Jamaica, Suriname, Venezuela, Yucatan for Darwin's slimehead; Saba Bank for dusky shark; Barbados and the Pedro Bank for lesser amberjack; Bar- bados, Dominican Republic, and Grenada for longsnout scorpionfish; Dominican Republic, Grenadines, and off South America for short bigeye; Campeche Bank, Panama, and Gulf of Mexico for shortjaw lizardfish, Saurida normani; Bahamas, Barbados, Campeche Bank, Cay Sal Bank, Dominican Republic, Grand Bahama Island, Inagua Islands, Panama for tattler, Serranus phoebe; Bimini, Lang Bank, and St. Croix for tropical pomfret. Also 17 depth and 2 size records are noted, and 5 species diagnostic characters modified. All these additions indicate how poorly this ichthyofauna is known.


We show that the wavelength switching behavior of semiconductor tunable lasers can be improved through optical feedback from a stable reference filter. The filter is based on a novel prism-based implementation of a Fox-Smith resonator and has a response consisting of periodically spaced peaks, both in reflection and transmission. The improvement of the wavelength switching behavior stems from the suppression of the thermally induced wavelength drift associated with the switching of the tuning currents.


While greater use of wealth taxes has been widely called for in recent academic and popular literature, they seem to be particularly unpopular among the public. In particular, inheritance tax is often singled out the most disliked of all taxes. The unpopularity of wealth taxes matters because this undermines the use of these taxes as a way of potentially both reducing levels of wealth inequality and of providing alternative revenue streams to a Government in times of economic stress. But do the public really oppose wealth taxes from position of adequate knowledge of these taxes – given their relative limited use, and in inheritance taxes' case, limited incidence? Rather, there is evidence that people are poorly informed about the extent of wealth inequality and the potential for wealth taxes to assist in improving equality. The research reported in this paper explores if information provision to correct false knowledge (or validate correct knowledge) about wealth inequality and inheritance tax could be a suitable, simple, intervention to help raise public support for the wealth taxes? This paper reports results from a face-to-face survey of 2,019 adults aged 16 plus in Great Britain carried out in July 2014. The survey shows that the simple provision of corrective/validating information prompted little change in the positive support for various wealth tax proposals currently being debated. In fact, there is evidence that some of the provision of information, in fact decreased initial levels of comparative support. One implication resulting from this research is that policy-makers will have to engage directly with moral arguments that have been constructed that arguably misinform debates or develop compelling narratives if there is a desire to build support for wealth taxes.


We present results from a coordinated camera and radar study of the auroral ionosphere conducted during March of 2006 from Poker Flat, Alaska. The campaign was conducted to coincide with engineering tests of the first quarter installation of the Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar (PFISR). On 31 March 2006, a moderately intense auroral arc, (~10 kR at 557.7 nm), was located in the local magnetic zenith at Poker Flat. During this event the radar observed 7 distinct periods of abnormally large backscattered power from the F-region. These were only observed in the field-aligned radar beam, and radar spectra from these seven times show naturally enhanced ion-acoustic lines (NEIALs), the first observed with PFISR. These times corresponded to (a) when the polar cap boundary of the auroral oval passed through the magnetic zenith, and (b) when small-scale filamentary dark structures were visible in the magnetic zenith. The presence of both (a) and (b) was necessary for their occurrence. Soft electron precipitation occurs near the magnetic zenith during these same times. The electron density in the vicinity where NEIALs have been observed by previous studies is roughly between 5 and 30×10 10 m −3 . Broad-band extremely low frequency (BBELF) wave activity is observed in situ by satellites and sounding rockets to occur with similar morphology, during active auroral conditions, associated with the poleward edge of the aurora and soft electron precipitation. The observations presented here suggest further investigation of the idea that NEIALs and BBELF wave activity are differently-observed aspects of the same wave phenomenon. If a connection between NEIALs and BBELF can be established with more data, this could provide a link between in situ measurements of downward current regions (DCRs) and dynamic aurora, and ground-based observations of dark auroral structures and NEIALs. Identification of in situ processes, namely wave activity, in ground-based signatures could have many implications. One specific example of interest is identifying and following the temporal and spatial evolution of regions of potential ion outflow over large spatial and temporal scales using ground-based optical observations.


Scholars agree that changes in vegetation have been influencing population sizes of ground-foraging songbirds in Dutch dune grasslands. Due to a lack of knowledge concerning the breeding biology of these species, the mechanisms linking vegetation change and population development remain unclear. Here, I describe the breeding biology of three co-occurring insectivores in Dutch dune grasslands: Meadow Pipit Anthus pratensis, European Stonechat Saxicola torquatus and Northern Wheatear Oenanthe oenanthe. The nestling diet of Meadow Pipits contained many dipterans, such as crane flies (Tipulidae), but almost no beetles and relatively few noctuid caterpillars, whereas beetles and noctuid larvae were important in the diets of both European Stonechat and Northern Wheatear nestlings. Mean brood size was smallest in Meadow Pipit and equal in European Stonechat and Northern Wheatear. Nest depredation was similarly high in the open-nesting Meadow Pipit and European Stonechat, resulting in lower nest success compared to Northern Wheatear, a cavity-breeder. Provisioning rate per nestling was highest in Northern Wheatear, the largest species, with no observed differences between Meadow Pipit and European Stonechat, which resulted in higher per brood provisioning rates for European Stonechat. Since the mean brood size of European Stonechat is larger than that of Meadow Pipit, and since nest depredation generally increases with provisioning rates, one would expect a higher depredation rate in European Stonechat. This suggests that differences in nest site selection between Meadow Pipit and European Stonechat result in relatively lower nest depredation rates in European Stonechat and similar nest success to Meadow Pipit. I suggest that future work should focus on how different vegetation types relate to prey abundance, foraging habitat and vegetation-specific nest depredation, in order to better understand the putative relationships between population growth and vegetation in coastal dune grasslands.


In this book, a continuation of Michael Chanan's investigation of the relation between music and society, the author examines the composer in the light of Jurgen Habermas's study of the public sphere. Taking his cue from the German philosopher's remarks about the bourgeois concert audience, the emergence of criticism and the development of autonomous music, Chanan examines the fate of the composer through successive incarnations, from Handel, Bach and Mozart in the eighteenth century by way of Beethoven, Liszt, Wagner, Mahler and Debussy in the nineteenth, to Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Gershwin, Weill, Ellington, Cage and Boulez in the twentieth. Drawing upon recent work in feminist and gay musicology, the book ranges over themes such as subjectivity and identity in Schubert and Chopin, the ascendancy of the Romantic personality, the lure of the exotic in Milhaud's work, and the political economy of music. A detailed history of the idea of the composer as a public figure, Chanan's book charts both the dramatic change in the listening audience and, simultaneously, the composer's progressive marginalization from the centre of musical life. "It is undoubtedly true, as the music critic Hans Keller used to observe, that more people nowadays hear a single broadcast of a new work by an avant-garde composer than would have heard all Beethoven's symphonies in his own lifetime. But the effects are not only quantitative; they also include radical alterations in the relationship between the audience and the object of aesthetic consumption, which seriously affect the situation of the composer, whose audience may now be wider and larger, but also becomes ever more fragmented and anonymous."


SUMMARY. Solubility represents a limiting factor when testing new compounds in animal experiments, since solubilizing agents generally have pharmacological effects that can interfere with the studied substance. Vehicles are commonly used for solubilizing certain substances including apolar and polar extracts obtained from medicinal plants. In this study, fifteen vehicles were investigated on mice neuromuscular preparations. A known in vitro neuroblocker myotoxin from Bothrops jararacussu venom, bothropstoxin-I, was used as a pharmacological tool for testing the medicinal potential of apolar and polar extracts (hexane, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate and methanol) obtained from Casearia sylvestris Sw. leaves, which in turn were used for testing their solubility and concomitantly to produce no change on basal response of indirectly stimulated mouse phrenic nerve-diaphragm preparations. Taken together in vitro biological system and extracts solubility, our results showed that dimethyl sulphoxide and polyethylene glycol 400 were the better vehicles, and methanol extract solubilized on PEG 400 was the only one able to act against the paralysis induced by the myotoxin. Thus, this study points out to the relevant role that vehicles exhibit for extracting the potential pharmacological activity of plants in a given test system.


We develop a model where the unemployed workers in the city can find a job either directly or through weak or strong ties. We show that, in denser areas, individuals choose to interact with more people and meet more random encounters (weak ties) than in sparsely populated areas. We also demonstrate that, for a low urbanization level, there is a unique steady-state equilibrium where workers do not interact with weak ties, while, for a high level of urbanization, there is a unique steady-state equilibrium with full social interactions. We show that these equilibria are usually not socially efficient when the urban population has an intermediate size because there are too few social interactions compared to the social optimum. Finally, even when social interactions are optimal, we show that there is over-urbanization in equilibrium.


Recent medical advances in the field of regenerative medicine and tissue transplantation have highlighted the importance of umbilical cord blood (UCB) as a valuable alternative source of haematopoietic stem cells, which are potentially life-saving in a vast array of clinical applications. Although less controversial than the use of embryonic stem cells obtained from fetal tissue, the practice of UCB biobanking presents several ethical and regulatory challenges surrounding its procurement and use, especially in developing countries like South Africa, where the majority of the population is vulnerable and prone to exploitation. Currently only private umbilical cord banking is practised in South Africa and the regulatory framework for human tissue use is still rudimentary with no clear guidelines. This environment raises ethical questions about consent and ownership of tissues, the cost-effectiveness of harvesting and storage of UCB, undue influence on donors, and issues of distributive justice such as the fact that UCB, which is potentially life-saving and could be easily obtained, may become a resource unfairly restricted only to the wealthy. In view of the fact that UCB has become a valuable, non-invasive source of stem cells for regenerative therapy, establishment of a public cord blood bank (CBB) in South Africa would vastly improve the availability of haematopoietic stem cells for research and therapeutic uses, and increase the tissue genetic diversity that currently impedes the South African bone marrow registry.


U.S. residential thermostats control approximately 9% of the nation's energy use. Many building codes now require programmable thermostats (PTs) because of their assumed energy savings. However, several recent field studies have shown no significant savings or even higher energy use in households using PTs compared to those using non-PTs. These studies point to usability problems that lead to incorrect use and wasted energy. However, the lack of clear, consistent metrics has hampered the acceptance of usability concerns by thermostat manufacturers. Thus there is a need for metrics specific to PTs that manufacturers can use to evaluate their products.

In this paper, we report on the results of a usability study conducted on five commercially available PTs and the development of four new metrics suitable for use in evaluating thermostat usability. Our study confirmed usability deficits in the current generation of PTs and showed the metrics are correlated with each other as well as agreeing with the qualitative results of the study.


For the last few decades, trophic ecology has usually been investigated by using stable isotopes. However, the isotopic signatures of potential food sources in hydrothermal vent ecosystems are often unknown and so their relative contribution to the consumers' diet, as well as resource partitioning, are then difficult to estimate. Here, we used a recent Bayesian mixing model (stable isotope analysis in R, SIAR) based on delta C-13 and delta N-15 to estimate the contribution of multiple food sources to the diet of eight vent gastropods that can reach high densities at hydrothermal vents (Lepetodrilus elevatus, Lepetodrilus pustulosus, Lepetodrilus ovalis, Eulepetopsis vitrea, Cyathermia naticoides, Peltospira delicata, Peltospira operculata and Rhynchopelta concentrica). These species, known as primary consumers (mostly bacterivores and detritivores), were sampled on the South-East Pacific Rise at 17 degrees 25'S and the North-East Pacific Rise at 9 degrees 50' N and 12 degrees 50' N. Several potential food sources were sampled according to the gastropod habitat on the chimney wall, or mussel beds (proxies of Gammaproteobacteria form I RubisCO, Gammaproteobacteria form II RubisCO and Epsilonproteobacteria, biofilms of siboglinid and alvinellid tubes, biofilms of mussel shells and particulate organic matter). Some of these microbial and detrital sources were confirmed as present in the gut content of some small specimens by transmission electron microscopy. Distinct stable isotopic signatures of the potential food sources allowed calculation of their relative contributions to primary consumers' diets. This revealed that gastropod species living on siboglinid or bathymodiolin habitats are usually generalists, feeding on various pools of microbial or detrital origins. For a particular habitat, sympatric gastropod species partition the food sources, thus avoiding being in competition. Only for the alvinellid habitat Peltospira spp. appeared to be more specialists as the choice of food sources is more reduced.


Background and aims : Monitoring workers' work ability, planning to maintain and improve the work ability, and identifying and controlling its related risk factors are of the most important issues in the field of occupational health. The object of this study was to investigate the influence of factors related to work ability among farmers. Methods : The subjects consisted of 213 male farmers. This research examined the influence of demographic characterization, work-related factors and diseases on farmers' work ability. Work ability was assessed using the Work Ability Index (WAI) and work-related factors were measure by Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ). Spearman correlation coefficient was used to employ to examine the relationship between WAI and its affecting factors. Results : Mean WAI score was 34.6 (SD±10.59) and it had a statistically significant relationship with age, BMI, diseases and work-related factors. The strongest correlation was found for diseases and physical work-related factors such as physical exertion (r=0.309), physical isometric loads (r=0.263), physical demands at work (r=0.322), while psychological factors showed a poorer correlation. Conclusion : According to findings, development of preventive approaches aimed at controlling diseases, eliminating awkward postures, reducing physical isometric loads, physical exertion and physical demands at work, as well as improving psychological work environment have an important role in promotion of the farmers' work ability.


Island societies are states with distinct inherent characteristics and vulnerabilities. Their features are important
constraints in the development and adaption of actions towards environmental disclosure. Since 1992,
international bodies and institutions have been emphasising the importance of international cooperation and
partnerships for helping island societies overcome their inherent obstacles and engage in environmental matters
and consequently environmental disclosure. Although international bodies and institutions have been pointing out
the importance of studying island societies for many years, in academic research it remains relatively unexplored.
This research adopts neo-institutional theory and Scott's theoretical framework on institutional carriers to examine
the role of partnerships in imposing institutional carriers and influencing organisational behaviour towards
environmental disclosure. The study examines island societies that have been cooperating through partnerships
with large developed countries. Social actors are analysed at three levels, partnerships being one of them, (a)
transnational through the European Union, (b) societal through domestic society and politics, and (c) the
organisational field through industrial sectors, in an attempt to examine the role of social actors in shaping the
structure of organisations and ascertain their interaction in diffusing institutional carriers for environmental
disclosure. Qualitative content analysis was used to examine and interpret semi-structured face-to-face interviews
with private and public sector organisations and the governmental environment representative.


In recent years, the internationality of enterprises, relying on adequate management resources, has gained in importance. One resource is the "International Experience of the Board" which for lack of primary datavery often can be measured on the basis of secondary data only. The lack of primary data on the one hand and the public interest on the other hand leads to the creation of partly simplified board indices based on more or less random measures / variables or compositionswith limited informative value.The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the need for an improvement of such indices composed of secondary data and to develop a new concept for a board index("InExWE").The new indexis basedon the available secondary data, too, and has to be seen as a suboptimalsolution but in contrast to some other indices this indexoffers the advantage ofsubdividing "International Experience" into different subareas and separate weighting factors to improve its informative value. First results of a pilot study indicate an additional informative value.


Utilizing action research as the methodology, this study was
developed with the ultimate goal of describing and reflecting on my implementation of one aspect
of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) in an algebra classroom. This implementation focused on the
Problem-Solving Standard of Mathematical Practice (SMP) as described in CCSSM (Making sense of problems and
persevere in solving them). The research
question that guided my work was the following:
How
is the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) Problem-Solving Mathematical
Standard enacted in an algebra class while using a Standards-based curriculum to teach a quadratics unit?

I explored this by focusing on the
following sub-questions:

 Q1. What opportunities to enact
 the components of the Problem-Solving Mathematical Standard are provided
 by the written curriculum? Q2. In what way does the teacher's
 implementation of the quadratics unit diminish or enhance the
 opportunities to enact the components of the Problem-Solving Mathematical
 Standard provided by the written curriculum? Q3. In what ways does the
 teacher's enactment of problem-solving opportunities change over the
 course of the unit?

Reviewing the literature related to the
relevant learning theories (sociocultural theory, the situated perspective, and
communities of practice), I outlined the history of CCSSM, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), National Research Council (NRC),
and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Exploring the details of CCSSM's Standards of Mathematical Content (SMCs) and Standards of
Mathematical Practice (SMPs), I discussed problem solving, the Problem Solving
Components (PSCs) listed in the Problem-Solving SMP of CCSSM, teaching through problem solving, and Standards-based curricula, such as College Preparatory Mathematics (CPM) which is the algebra
curricula I chose for this study.

There are many definitions of the construct problem
solving. CCSSM describes this construct in unique ways specifically related
to student engagement. The challenge for
teachers is to not only make sense of CCSSM's
definition of problem solving and its components, but also to enact it in the
classroom so that mathematical understanding is enhanced. For this reason, studies revealing how
classroom teachers implemented CCSSM,
especially in terms of problem solving, are necessary.

The Critical Theoretic/Action Research Paradigm is often
utilized by researchers trying to improve their own practice; thus, I opted for an action research methodology because it could
be conducted by the practitioner. These methods of data collection and analysis
were employed in order to capture the nature of changes made in the classroom
involving my teaching practice. I chose action research because this study met
the key tenets of research in action, namely, a collaborative partnership
concurrent with action, and a problem-solving approach.

While I knew how I wanted to
change my classroom teaching style, implementing the change was harder than
anticipated. From the onset, I never
thought of myself as an absolute classroom authority, because I always
maintained a relaxed classroom atmosphere where students were made to feel
comfortable. However, this study showed
me that students did view my presence as the authority and looked to me for
correct answers, for approval, and/or for reassurance that they were on the
right track. My own insecurities of not
knowing how to respond to students in a way to get them to interact more with
their group and stop looking to me for answers, while not being comfortable
forcing students to talk in front of their peers, complicated this study. While it was easy to anticipate how I would
handle situations in the classroom, it was hard to change in the moment.

The research revealed the following salient findings: while
the written curriculum contained numerous opportunities for students to engage
with the Focal PSCs, the teacher plays a crucial role in enacting the written
curriculum. Through the teacher's
enactment of this curriculum, opportunities for students to engage with the
Focal PSCs can be taken away, enacted
as written, or enhanced all by the teacher.
Additionally, change was gradual and difficult due to the complexities
of teaching. Reflection and constant
adapting are crucial when it comes to changing my practice.

As a classroom teacher, I value the importance
of the changes that need to be made in the classroom to align with CCSSM.
I feel that by being both a teacher and a researcher, my work can bridge
the gap between research and classroom practice.


This work presents a mathematical framework for the development of efficient algorithms for cyclic convolution computations. The framework is based on the Chinese Reminder Theorem (CRT) and the Winograd's Minimal Multiplicative Complexity Theorem, obtaining a set of formulations that simplify cyclic convolution (CC) computations. In particularly, this work focuses on the arithmetic complexity of a matrix-vector product when this product represents a CC computational operation or it represents a polynomial multiplication modulo the polynomial zN-1, where N represents the maximum length of each polynomial factor and it is set to be a power of 2. The proposed algorithms are compared against existing algorithms developed making use of the CRT and it is shown that these proposed algorithms exhibit an advantage in computational efficiency. They are also compared against other algorithms that make use of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to perform indirect CC operations, thus, demonstrating some of the advantages of the proposed development framework.


The aim of this thesis was to study the effect of apomorphine on non-focal anodal tDCS-induced plasticity and thus further examine the influence of the dopaminergic system on motor cortex plasticity in humans. In a randomized double blind study design, 12 healthy subjects received in four different sessions intracutaneous injections of placebo or 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 mg of apomorphine, a global dopamine agonist, while the effect of anodal tDCS-induced motor cortical plasticity was examined. In accordance with previous research, in the placebo medication condition cortical excitability was significantly enhanced by anodal tDCS. For all dosages of apomorphine explored in the present experiment, anodal tDCS-induced plasticity effects were abolished. 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 mg apomorphine are comparable to low doses of other dopamine agents, such as L-dopa. Hence, those findings are in line with previous research showing that low doses of dopamine lead to an abolishment of plasticity induction. Low doses of apomorphine (i.e. ~0.004 mg/kg) are assumed to mainly stimulate presynaptic dopamine receptors, whose activation leads to a decrease in dopamine neurotransmission through negative feedback mechanisms and thus to a reduction in dopaminergic firing rate. As the activation of presynaptic dopamine receptors reduce excitatory glutamatergic transmission, this can explain why apomorphine abolished the anodal tDCS effect.
However, some questions remain to be explored, for instance the influence of higher doses of apomorphine on tDCS-induced plasticity and consequently more research is needed to fully understand the role of dopamine in neuroplasticity.


We investigate how the network connectivity can affect the degrees of freedom (DoF) of wireless networks. We consider a network of n source-destination (SD) pairs and assume that any two nodes are connected with a positive probability p, independent of other node pairs. We show that, for any arbitrarily small p, a constant DoF is achievable for every SD pair with probability approaching one as n tends to infinity. The achievability is based on the two-hop transmission with decode-and-forward relaying and over each-hop we adopt interference alignment. Considering that an achievable per-user DoF for direct or one-hop transmission can be arbitrarily small as the connectivity probability p decreases, our result shows that, somewhat surprisingly, two-hop transmission is enough to guarantee non-vanishing per-user DoF for any p showing that sparsely connected networks can still provide non-vanishing per-user DoF.


Job loss researchers have focused on the physical and mental well being of White working and middle class men, their families, friends, and coworkers to with immediate reemployment as the outcome. This study focused on low-income rural women dislocated workers and their decision to enroll in community college for retraining or seek immediate reemployment. Participants were 125 women (86 white, 39 African American; x = 42 years) who held a high school diploma or GED and who were laid off from manufacturing jobs within the last 2 years. Differences between two groups of women based on demographic variables and Transition Guide and Questionnaire-Modified (TGQ-M) scores were examined. The TGQ-M was developed to assess an individual's ability to cope with life transitions, based on Schlossberg's (1995) model of 4Ss (situation, self, supports, and strategies). One group enrolled in community college for retraining while the other group sought immediate reemployment. Findings revealed significant relationships between level of education and race/ethnicity and community college retraining. African-American women in this sample perceived themselves as having less support in coping with job loss. Women who chose community college had higher TGQ-M scores overall. Race/ethnicity and perception of support from others were the best predictors of community college retraining. Women, especially older women of color, have the hardest time finding quality employment after layoff. This study raised questions about the reasons why fewer African-American women in this sample enrolled in community college for retraining and had lower Supports scores than white women. Implications for counseling and future research are discussed.


There has been significant stratospheric ozone de- pletion since the late 1970s due to ozone-depleting sub- stances (ODSs). With the implementation of the Montreal Protocol and its amendments and adjustments, stratospheric ozone is expected to recover towards its pre-1980 level in the coming decades. In this study, we examine the impli- cations of stratospheric ozone recovery for the tropospheric chemistry and ozone air quality with a global chemical trans- port model (GEOS-Chem). With a full recovery of the strato- spheric ozone, the projected increases in ozone column range from 1 % over the low latitudes to more than 10 % over the polar regions. The sensitivity factor of troposphere ozone photolysis rate, defined as the percentage changes in surface ozone photolysis rate for 1 % increase in stratospheric ozone column, shows significant seasonal variation but is always negative with absolute value larger than one. The expected stratospheric ozone recovery is found to affect the tropo- spheric ozone destruction rates much more than the ozone production rates. Significant decreases in surface ozone pho- tolysis rates due to stratospheric ozone recovery are sim- ulated. The global average tropospheric OH decreases by 1.7 %, and the global average lifetime of tropospheric ozone increases by 1.5 %. The perturbations to tropospheric ozone and surface ozone show large seasonal and spatial variations. General increases in surface ozone are calculated for each season, with increases by up to 0.8 ppbv in the remote areas. Increases in ozone lifetime by up to 13 % are found in the troposphere. The increased lifetimes of tropospheric ozone in response to stratospheric ozone recovery enhance the in- tercontinental transport of ozone and global pollution, in par- ticular for the summertime. The global background ozone at- tributable to Asian emissions is calculated to increase by up to 15 % or 0.3 ppbv in the Northern Hemisphere in response to the projected stratospheric ozone recovery.


This thesis explores the experiences of homeless young people with a particular focus on the process of making the journey out of homelessness. It consists of a literature review, a research paper and a critical appraisal. The literature review comprises a narrative approach exploring the meaning of 'home' in relation to the lives of homeless young people. It explores, synthesises and critically appraises a range of inter-disciplinary research to consider the physical, psychological and social dimensions to this concept. The review then considers the clinical implications of these ideas for supporting homeless young people to regain a sense of 'home' in their lives. The research paper explores the experiences of seven young people making the journey out of homelessness. The research, developed in collaboration with a research advisory group of young people, adopted a narrative methodology to explore participants' stories. The findings are presented as a 'shared story' containing five chapters. The findings illustrate the psychological and social mediators which impact on young people's experiences of navigating the journey out of homelessness. The contributions of these narratives are discussed in relation to guiding interventions to address the psychological wellbeing of homeless young people. Finally, the critical appraisal presents my reflections on the research journey and is divided into five chapters. The first chapter details my hopes and motivations when embarking on the research project. The second chapter reflects upon the process of how I conceptualised and planned the project, including the challenges I faced in attempting to do this this. The third chapter provides an account of my experience of undertaking the research project. Finally, the fourth chapter summarises my reflections about the future dissemination of the research and how my experiences conducting this research have impacted on my personal and professional development.


OBJECTIVE
To identify whether there is a relationship between the depth of facial wrinkles and the density of the retinacula cutis in the subcutaneous tissue of the skin.

DESIGN
Wrinkle depth was assessed with image analysis on the forehead and the lateral canthus of human cadavers. The density of the retinacula cutis was measured in Azan-Mallory-stained skin sections obtained around the wrinkles.

SETTING
Gross Anatomy Section, Kagoshima University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences.

PARTICIPANTS
Fifty-five male and female cadavers (35-93 years old).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
The maximum depth of each wrinkle was used to represent the wrinkle's degree. In the skin sections, the density of the retinacula cutis was measured around the deepest point of each wrinkle in a 1-mm-wide area (the wrinkle-specific area) and a 10-mm-wide area that included the wrinkle (the wrinkle-inclusive area).

RESULTS
In both the wrinkle-specific and wrinkle-inclusive areas, the retinacula cutis densities became lower in the forehead and in the lateral canthus areas. When a wrinkle was shallow, the density was lower in the wrinkle-specific area than in the wrinkle-inclusive area. With wrinkle progression, the density difference between the wrinkle-specific and the wrinkle-inclusive areas gradually decreased until there was no apparent difference.

CONCLUSIONS
Facial wrinkles seem to develop above sites of reduced lower retinacula cutis density. As a wrinkle develops, the density decreases in both the wrinkle-specific and the wrinkle-inclusive areas, whereas the density difference between those areas vanishes.


We present a computation reduction technique called computation sharing differential coefficient (CSDC) method, which can be used to obtain low-complexity multiplierless implementation of finite-impulse response (FIR) filters. It is also applicable to digital signal processing tasks involving multiplications with a set of constants. The main component of our proposed CSDC method is to combine the strength of the augmented differential coefficient approach and subexpression sharing. Exploring computation reuse through algorithmic equivalence, the augmented differential coefficient approach greatly expands the design space by employing both differences and sums of filter coefficients. The expanded design space is represented by an undirected and complete graph. The problem of minimizing the adder cost (the number of additions/subtractions) for a given filter is transformed into a problem of searching for an appropriate subexpression set that leads to a minimal adder cost. A heuristic search algorithm based on genetic algorithm is developed to search for low-complexity solutions over the expanded design space in conjunction with exploring subexpression sharing. It is shown that up to 70.1% reduction in the adder cost can be obtained over the conventional multiplierless implementation. Comparison with several existing techniques based on the available data shows that our method yields comparable results for multiplierless FIR filter implementation.


This thesis focuses on the portrayal of St. John the Baptist in Florence during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The first chapter is devoted to the examination of
the Baptist's legend as outlined in the Bible and apocryphal texts in order to draw a
picture of the saint's legend as the Florentines of the Renaissance would have
understood it. The interest in the image of the Baptist stemmed from his position as
patron saint of the city. As a result of this state of affairs, a discussion of the origins
of the city's adoption of the saint is essential to our understanding of his importance
in Florence. This analysis together with a description of the Festival of the Baptist
celebrated in the city, forms the background to a fuller understanding of the works of
art under discussion.
The examination of Florentine works of art dealing with the Baptist's life
concentrates on eight full pictorial cycles. These comprise four projects for the
Florentine Baptistery (the mosaic programme in the Baptistery; Andrea Pisano's
bronze doors; the Silver Altar; a set of embroidery vestments), a state-commissioned
altarpiece by Giovanni del Biondo, and three privately commissioned cycles (frescoes
in the chapels of the Peruzzi, the Castellani, and the Tornabuoni families). The
examination of these works focuses initially on the textual sources which may have
inspired the work of art itself, and the influence of different patrons on the portrayal
of the saint. The significance of the cultural and social data reflected by these works
are what this thesis aims to draw attention to.


Contemporary challenges are such – in terms of scale, type and urgency – that a deep shift is needed in urban disciplines just to start dealing with them. Some of us have recently argued that what we still miss is the serious consideration of the factor of time in urbanism, or, in other words, a deeper "time-conscious" approach (Thwaites, Porta, Romice, & Greaves, 2008). Inevitably, that means focusing on change as the essential dynamic of evolution in the built environment, which in turn leads to re-addressing concepts like control, self-organization and community participation. After time and change have been finally firmly placed at the centre stage, the whole discipline of urban planning and design, its conceptual equipment as well as its operational toolbox, reveals its weaknesses under a new light and calls for the construction of a different scenario. This paper poses the problem of this scenario in disciplinary terms, it argues about its premises and outlines its essential features. The scope of this paper is not to deliver a comprehensive model for a new approach to urban planning and design, but to set the right framework and rise the right questions so that we can start thinking of issues such as urban regeneration, informal settlements and massive urbanization, community participation and representation, beauty and humanity in space, in a different way.


SUMMARY : Circumstances that give rise to samples of dead animals from natural populations are considered and five important particular situations are emphasized. In two of these situations it is possible to estimate the absolute mortality rates of animals in the natural populations concerned. In the other three situations the populations comprise two or more different types of animal and only the relative mortality rates of these can be estimated. The most obvious examples of the first two situations come from bird banding experiments. Models for such experiments are therefore briefly reviewed. A Poisson model for samples of dead animals from a population with an unknown initial size is proposed and is shown to produce survival rate estimates that can be readily calculated on the assumption that the survival rate per unit time becomes constant for older animals. This model is of value since the estimation does not require iterative computer calculations whereas other models making essentially the same assumptions do require these. The third and fourth situations that have been considered concern large populations with relatively small numbers of deaths. The relative mortality rates of the different types of animals in the populations can be estimated by comparing the proportions of dead animals of the different types with the corresponding proportions of live animals. The final situation discussed occurs when animals have associated with them values for certain characters X1, X2, . . ., Xp and the relative mortality rates of animals with different X values is to be determined by comparing the distribution of the X's for live and dead animals.


Election forensics is increasingly popular in Political Science as a tool for detecting electoral fraud. It helps find suspicious patterns in turnout and vote distribution. It also gains traction in media and among the public. However, courts have not yet considered the potential of this technique. This is despite the fact that the judiciary is often the ultimate arbiter of electoral disputes and the impact of judgments can be far-reaching. This article suggests that election forensics can be a useful tool for courts. It can help them establish basic thresholds for determining electoral fraud. This would contribute to the integrity of the democratic process and enhance the legitimacy of courts themselves. Nevertheless, caution is required to avoid overreliance on forensic tools.


There is no doubt that access to finance is of crucial importance for the ongoing and sustainable growth and profitability of small and medium enterprises sector (SMEs) through its role in facilitating the creation of new businesses and nurturing the innovation process as well as promoting the growth and development of existing businesses, which in turn, boost national economic growth. The main motive of this paper is that SMEs significantly differ from large firms in terms of their financial decisions and behaviour. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to review the literature on the various financing sources of SMEs taking into account the effects of both SME characteristics and those of the owner–managers on SME financial behaviour.


Aim/Purpose: The goal of this study was twofold: first, to examine how learners' behavioral engagement types affect their final grades in an online programming course; and second, to explore which factors most strongly affect student performance in an online programming course and their connection to the types of cognitive engagement.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic situation, information technology educational methods and teaching have been transforming rapidly into online or blended. In this situation, students learn course content through digital learning management systems (LMSs), and the behavioral data derived from students' interactions with these digital systems is important for instructors and researchers. However, LMSs have some limitations. For computer science students, the traditional learning management system is not enough because the coding behavior cannot be analyzed. Through the Opined platform, we collected log data from 217 undergraduates enrolled in a Python programming course offered by Feng Chia University in Taiwan in the spring semester of 2021.

Methodology: We applied the evaluation framework of learning behavioral engagement conducted on a massive open online course (MOOC) platform and integrated it with the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach. PLS-SEM is widely used in academic research and is appropriate for causal models and small sample sizes. Therefore, this kind of analysis is consistent with the purpose of our study.

Contribution: In today's fast-paced world of information technology, online learning is becoming an important form of learning around the world. Especially in computer science, programming courses teach many skills, such as problem-solving, teamwork, and creative thinking. Our study contributes to the understanding of how behavioral engagements in distance programming learning affect student achievement directly and through cognitive engagement. The results can serve as a reference for practitioners of distance programming education.

Findings: Our results demonstrate that: (1) online time and video-watching constructs had significant effects on the self-assessment construct, self-assessment and video-watching constructs had significant effects on the final grade construct, and online document reading was not a significant factor in both self-assessments and final grades; (2) video watching had a most significant effect than other behavioral constructs in an online programming course; (3) cognitive engagement types are inextricably linked to the development of a behavioral engagement framework for online programming learning. The mediation analysis and the importance-performance map analysis supported the importance of cognitive engagement.

Recommendations for Practitioners: (1) Online education platform developers and university policymakers should pay close attention to the development of self-assessment systems and design such systems based on students' cognitive skills. (2) Instructors are advised to put substantial effort into the creation of videos for each course session and to actively promote students' interest in the course material.

Recommendation for Researchers: The empirical results reported in this study allow a better understanding of the connection between behavioral engagement and final achievement. However, there are still great challenges in trying to explore more kinds of engagement, like emotional or social engagement. It would be interesting to deepen the results obtained by integrating programming behavior like debugging and testing.

Impact on Society: Online programming courses allow students to improve their coding skills and computer science background. Students' behavioral engagement strongly affects their academic achievement, their ability to complete a course successfully, and the quality of the learning process. Our work can encourage more people who are different majors in society to learn coding in an online environment even not only computer science students. Moreover, the findings of this study can be recommendations for understanding students' learning behavior and the development of distance programming learning.

Future Research: We suggest for future studies: (1) include a wider range of participants, such as students enrolled in MOOCs environments; (2) include more log data items that can express various students' behavior, depending on the reliability and validity of the research model; and (3) conduct more detailed studies of the effects of emotional engagement as well as additional aspects of students' social engagement to elucidate the factors affecting students' behavioral participation and performance more thoroughly.


The results of methodical investigation, aimed on testing of the performances of free opensource CFD toolbox OpenFOAM in the field of simulation of hydraulic units' dynamics using Finite Volume Method and dynamic meshes are presented. The following key features are reviewed: the choice of appropriate algorithms managing dynamic sliding meshes; design of the model case for the FSI-problem of interaction between a moving regulating element (plunger) and power fluid; plunger dynamics simulation for the prototype of the flow rate regulator of new design; transient analysis of regulator's internal flow; analysis of stability and computational efficiency. As the example simplified axisymmetric regulator model with incompressible power fluid is considered. The main steps of model case preparation are described. The model case is designed to simulate the problem of plunger equilibration under hydrodynamic forces and spring reaction. Results are given also for a preliminary steady-state simulation with fixed plunger, they have been used as initial conditions. Detailed description is given for the methods of mesh motion simulation, which follows plunger, as well as technology of sliding meshes (GGI), used for the piston throttle hole overlapping. Results are given for transient simulation: velocity, pressure fields, forces graphs, acting on the plunger, its displacement over time. The mechanism of jet streams and vertical flows creation in regulator's flow channel is described. Methodical investigation, held in this paper, confirms that OpenFOAM in the "extend" version can be successfully used as an alternative for commercial CFD codes, as it contains all necessary tools to create and simulate cases incorporating dynamic meshes. It provides means for simulation of transient problems of hydraulic units which have moving parts.


This is a paper about the meanings of aesthetics, authority, street art, and graffiti. It is about the potential that graffiti has to disrupt the codes that emanate from the post-industrial, capitalist city, and the ways in which law making authorities have attempted to curb that potential. The regulation of public space involves control over the visual appearance of that space. The Graffiti Prevention Act (Vic) 2007 is one instrument employed in regulating the aesthetics of space. The legislation defines street art as illegal and imposes harsh penalties for the creators of this form of public art. As Margaret Davies writes in Asking the Law Question, the illegality of an act cannot be seen at face value – it is only after we see the act through the filter of the law that it is seen as criminal. I use this as a starting point in asking why graffiti is a criminal act.


Low-lying reef islands in the Solomon Islands provide a valuable window into the future impacts of global sea-level rise. Sea-level rise has been predicted to cause widespread erosion and inundation of low-lying atolls in the central Pacific. However, the limited research on reef islands in the western Pacific indicates the majority of shoreline changes and inundation to date result from extreme events, seawalls and inappropriate development rather than sea-level rise alone. Here, we present the first analysis of coastal dynamics from a sea-level rise hotspot in the Solomon Islands. Using time series aerial and satellite imagery from 1947 to 2014 of 33 islands, along with historical insight from local knowledge, we have identified five vegetated reef islands that have vanished over this time period and a further six islands experiencing severe shoreline recession. Shoreline recession at two sites has destroyed villages that have existed since at least 1935, leading to community relocations. Rates of shoreline recession are substantially higher in areas exposed to high wave energy, indicating a synergistic interaction between sea-level rise and waves. Understanding these local factors that increase the susceptibility of islands to coastal erosion is critical to guide adaptation responses for these remote Pacific communities.


Since around 2005, states and localities have been using criminal trespass laws to target undocumented immigrants for unlawful presence. Specifically, in April 2010, Arizona passed SB 1070: Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act. SB 1070 creates crimes involving trespassing by "illegal aliens" and harboring or concealing unlawful aliens. This paper argues that state trespass laws that criminalize unlawful presence of immigrants are unconstitutional regulations of immigration and are a preempted exercise of state power. In evaluating the constitutionality of state trespass laws that criminalize immigration status, this paper proceeds in three parts. The first part of the paper details how as a sovereign nation, U.S. laws have excluded undesirable categories of people from admission and have attempted to criminalize specific immigration violations. The second part explains and critiques the sections of SB 1070 that create separate state criminal offenses for violating federal immigration laws - namely unlawful presence or criminal trespass. The third part analyzes the constitutionality of the criminal provisions of SB 1070 that make it a state crime to be unlawfully present in the state in relation to specific provisions of the INA and federal immigration policy. The paper concludes that state trespass laws that criminalize unlawful presence of immigrants and attempt to delegate immigration enforcement to state officials are unconstitutional regulations of immigration and are therefore a preempted exercise of state power.


A time-dependent 3D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model has been developed to investigate the temporal periodic interaction between Europa and the Jovian magnetosphere. The temporal variations are caused by the periodic variations of the magnetospheric plasma at Europa. As a new feature compared to existing stationary models, periodic induced magnetic fields, caused by electromagnetic induction in a potential subsurface ocean, are included. The MHD-flow problem and the internal induction problem are solved simultaneously by making use of the periodicity and the quasi-stationarity of the problem. The ideal MHD equations have been extended in order to account for the effects of Europa's neutral atmosphere and the internal periodic induced magnetic fields on the plasma interaction. At the beginning of this work, Galileo magnetometer data acquired on four passes by Europa were used to investigate whether a fixed permanent dipole moment is present in the interior of the moon in addition to the induced dipole moment previously identified. We thereby confirm the presence of an inductive response and find that the dipole coefficients of the constant intrinsic field contribute at best in a very minor way to the magnetic field. The induced magnetic fields caused by the time variable plasma interaction are calculated in an interactive process. It is shown that the influence of these secondary induced magnetic fields is small compared to the induction caused by the time-varying background field. In addition, the influence of the induction on the plasma interaction is being studied. It is shown that the Alfven current system is deformed and displaced due to the induced magnetic fields. Furthermore, the plasma wake of Europa is deformed due to the induction. The resulting structure of Europa's plasma wake could explain why Galileo measurements did not detect high plasma densities along the E4 trajectory. By comparing the simulation results to the Galileo spacecraft measurements of three passes by Europa, we place the so far strongest constraints on the conductivity and the thickness of Europa's subsurface ocean. We find for the conductivity of Europa's ocean values of 500 mS/m or larger to be most suitable to explain the magnetic flyby data. If the ocean conductivity is less than 1 S/m, we suggest that the internal ocean has to be thicker than 25 km. The magnetic field and the plasma density measured during the Galileo E4 flyby are reproduced fairly well in the simulation. For the agreement between the data and our model, we see no need for a deviation of the upstreaming plasma flow from the nominal corotation direction.


The Free Trade Agreement entered into between the United States and the Republic of Korea (KORUS FTA) contains government procurement provisions in Chapter 17. Although each respective procurement market has already been opened to the other party under the WTO Government Procurement Agreement, this access has been very limited, not only because the market has traditionally been exclusive against foreign suppliers, but also because there were several preferential regulations and policies for domestic firms in the course of awarding procurement contracts. This Article analyzes how Chapter 17 of the KORUS FTA expands upon the WTO Government Procurement Agreement with the hope of bringing Korean firms greater access to the U.S. procurement market and vice versa. It also examines relevant U.S. and Korean statutes and regulations to see how foreign procurement is made and whether there are any barriers to the other side's firms. With this analysis, the Article explores better and more efficient ways in which Korean and U.S. firms could further increase government contracts with the other side's government. The Article asserts that the KORFUS FTA will bring, relatively, more benefits to Korean firms. Further, because most of the commodities made in the United States are not quite competitive in terms of price as compared with those of Korea in the procurement market, any interested U.S. firms may want to focus on service sectors that are competitive and not dealt with by Korean firms. * Associate Professor of Law, Chung-Ang University School of Law based in Seoul, South Korea; J.D., Attorney at Law & Arbitrator; email@example.com; 84 Heukseog-Ro, Dongjak-gu, Seoul 156-756, South Korea. CHUNG_FINAL_WEB.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 6/20/14 7:36 PM Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business 34:299 (2014) 300 TABLE OF CONTENTS


This study was designed to assess the potential of transferring a calibration model from pharmaceutical powder mixtures to compacts of identical compositions using prediction augmented classical least squares (PACLS). A 2-factor, 5-level, full-factorial design was used to generate powder mixtures and compacts with a variety of formulation compositions. Spectra representative of powder mixtures were used for calibration, while spectra collected on both unrelaxed and relaxed compacts were used as the prediction dataset. The CLS augmentation strategy was to add empirically determined spectral shapes representative of the density differences between powder mixtures and compacts to the original K matrix. The performance of PACLS was compared to other commonly used modeling techniques, including classical least squares (CLS) and partial least squares (PLS) with and without spectral pretreatments and standardization. Significantly improved prediction performance (p < 0.05) was demonstrated by PACLS approaches compared to other techniques. This work demonstrated a technique to orthogonalize the spectral differences between powder and compact samples, allowing the prediction of chemical properties in compacts. Specific precautions for applying PACLS in a calibration transfer from powder mixtures to compacts are also discussed.


ABSTRACT The adsorption of boron (boric acid) from aqueous solutions on alumina has been investigated at pH 8.0, I = 0.1 M NaClO4, T = 22 ± 3°C, and under normal atmospheric conditions. The characterization of the adsorbed species was performed by Raman spectroscopy and the spectroscopic speciation was assisted by theoretical DFT calculations. Evaluation of the spectroscopic data points to the formation of inner-sphere surface complexes and indicates the formation of two different types of adsorbed boron species. The theoretical calculations corroborate the spectroscopic data and indicate that at low boron concentration the monodentate surface species dominates, whereas increased boron concentration favors the formation of a bidentate surface species. Assuming low coverage, the conditional formation constant for the monodentate surface species has been evaluated to be log  β ∗ = 4.1 ± 0.1.


Non-Hispanic Blacks (NHB) have a greater prevalence cardiovascular disease (CVD) and CVD risk factors, and they appear at an earlier age compared with non-Hispanic Whites. Impaired vascular function is a major contributing factor to CVD risk, and NHB have impaired vascular function compared with non-Hispanic Whites. In addition to the known biological factors, socioeconomic and environmental determinants of CVD are particularly important for NHB. Chronic exposure to racial discrimination (racialized stress) throughout the lifespan represents an allostatic load whereby the stress-response mechanism is activated repeatedly. This activates the central nervous system and other physiological systems that can cause CVD. High allostatic scores are associated with being NHB or Hispanic. The purpose of this review article is to describe the racial health disparities in the CVDs, the social determinants of CVD disparities, and how racial discrimination impacts them.


Thomas M. Franck's The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance has lived a dual existence. On the one hand, it is almost universally cited as having brought international lawyers into the freewheeling debate of the early 1990s among scholars of international relations, comparative politics, and political theory about the so-called "Third Wave" of democratization. On the other hand, the article is not infrequently described as a legal avatar of post-Cold War Western triumphalism, often sharing a sentence or a footnote with Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man. From the standpoint of the two authors of this essay—one a long-time defender of Franck's thesis and the other a long-time critic—both of these broad-brush characterizations of the article contain elements of truth, but both are also woefully incomplete.


Formal theories and rational choice methods have become increasingly prominent in most social sciences in the past few decades. Proponents of formal theoretical approaches argue that these methods are more scientific and sophisticated than other approaches, and that formal methods have already generated significant theoretical progress. As more and more social scientists adopt formal theoretical approaches, critics have argued that these methods are flawed and that they should not become dominant in most social-science disciplines.Rational Choice and Security Studies presents opposing views on the merits of formal rational choice approaches as they have been applied in the subfield of international security studies. This volume includes Stephen Walt's article "Rigor or Rigor Mortis? Rational Choice and Security Studies," critical replies from prominent political scientists, and Walt's rejoinder to his critics.Walt argues that formal approaches have not led to creative new theoretical explanations, that they lack empirical support, and that they have contributed little to the analysis of important contemporary security problems. In their replies, proponents of rational choice approaches emphasize that formal methods are essential for achieving theoretical consistency and precision.


This Dialogues takes the 2017–18 exhibition Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985 as a starting point to discuss Latin American art today, addressing its history, legacy, and contribution to positive social change through the prism of feminism. Seeking to challenge hegemonic readings of the categories of "Latin America" and "feminism" while reinstating the contribution of Latin American women, Latina/Latinx, and Chicana/Chicanx artists to art and critical thought today, the exhibition Radical Women proposed novel ways of displaying art from the region by embracing multiplicity, attending to the particularity of different contexts, and bringing to the fore common threads of critical and creative practice. Building on that premise, these contributions expand on the original exhibition's time frame and consider the persistence of feminism and its changing status in Latin American art after 1985. They explore recent artistic practices, curatorial projects, and art historical scholarship; reflect on strategies of display, audience engagement, societal concerns, and epistemological premises; and consider different ways of conceptualizing Latin American and feminist identities, legacies, and genealogies today. By doing so, this Dialogues seeks to enrich and diversify our understanding of past and current practices, as well as highlight the intricate connections and resonances that exist between the two. Contributions by curators (Fajardo-Hill, Rjeille), scholars (Fernández, Lamoni), and artists (Antivilo, Motta) span issues in political activism, ecology, technology, education, genealogy, colonization, heritage, and memory. What emerges is a sense of the field's present concerns and the ways this is shaping the future direction of feminism in Latin American art and art history.


In the next two decades Scotland is facing tough greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets as well as the upcoming shutdown of a number of existing thermal plants. Given the limited timeframe it would seem imperative that Scotland's energy policy is developed with public preferences in mind, as political unpopularity and public objections, with the associated need for lengthy public enquires, are likely to mean that targets are more likely to be missed. As such, appraisal of any potential energy option should not be limited to consideration of financial viability but should also take full account of environmental and social costs. The primary aim of our study was to determine public preferences and willingness to pay for alternative energy options, such as wind, nuclear and biomass against the current generation mix, all of which may form an integral part of the future generation portfolio for Scotland. One method of determining social costs is through stated preference techniques, one of which is choice experiments – the method applied in the current study. Our analysis is based on a postal survey sent out to a random sample of 1000 households across Scotland. People were asked to choose between four energy options: wind, biomass, nuclear and current energy mix, depending on which energy option and associated mix of attributes they prefer. Attributes were: distance from respondent's home, carbon emissions reduction, local biodiversity impacts, land requirements (a fixed attribute) and an annual electricity bill increase (the cost attribute). Our results suggest that carbon-neutral energy options tend to have a positive willingness to pay associated with them and be more favoured by the population over the current energy mix with distance from the respondent's home, increases in biodiversity and increases in energy bill all having a significant impact on preferences. We also found variation in preferences according to socio-economic groupings, for example respondents with children tend to have a higher preference towards renewable technologies than those without. In addition to the overall sample, we also investigated divergence in preferences between three areas of Scotland (Highlands and Islands; Central; and South). The results indicate that, depending on the geographical location, people's preferences for energy generation technologies vary. Our results suggest that Scottish energy policy need not only be planned accounting for public preferences for different energy options but also regional divergence of preferences within the country.


We present spectroscopic observations of galaxies in 4 clusters at z = 0.7-0.8 and in one cluster at z ∼ 0.5 obtainec with the FORS2 spectrograph on the VLT as part of the ESO Distant Cluster Survey (EDisCS), a photometric and spectroscopic survey of 20 intermediate to high redshift clusters. We describe our target selection, mask design, observation and data reductior procedures, using these first 5 clusters to demonstrate how our strategies maximise the number of cluster members for which we obtain spectroscopy. We present catalogues containing positions, I-band magnitudes and spectroscopic redshifts for galaxies in the fields of our 5 clusters. These contain 236 cluster members, with the number of members per cluster ranging from 30 to 67. Our spectroscopic success rate, i.e. the fraction of spectroscopic targets which are cluster members, averages 50% and ranges from 30% to 75%. We use a robust biweight estimator to measure cluster velocity dispersions from our spectroscopic redshift samples. We also make a first assessment of substructure within our clusters. The velocity dispersions range from 400 tc 1100 km s -1 . Some of the redshift distributions are significantly non-Gaussian and we find evidence for significant substructure in two clusters, one at z ∼ 0.79 and the other at z ∼ 0.54. Both have velocity dispersions exceeding 1000 km s -1 but are clearly not fully virialised; their velocity dispersions may thus be a poor indicator of their masses. The properties of these first 5 EDisCS clusters span a wide range in redshift, velocity dispersion, richness and substructure, but are representative of the sample as a whole. Spectroscopy for the full dataset will allow a comprehensive study of galaxy evolution as a function of cluster environment and redshift.


This paper presents a case study on the use of the IEC 61499 reference component architecture in automotive electronics that is a traditional domain of embedded systems application. The proposed design approach allows for combination of distributed embedded control with off-line and on line simulation. The benefits of the approach are: the higher level of design leading to the increased level of component re-use, the flexibility and hardware independence, increased reliability on account of the use of predictive control and formal verification.