Milton, it is often stressed, was a sect of one. However, to overemphasize the rebellious nature of Milton's early religious convictions is to conceal a basic biographical fact: he was raised a devout Perkinsian Calvinist, not a radical, free thinking Arminian. Throughout the anti-prelatical tracts, Milton indeed unequivocally aligns himself with orthodox Genevan doctrine on sacraments and preaching, the self-sufficiency and literality of Scripture, and the primitive merits of presbyterianism. Granted, it was his fierce sense of prophetic calling that ultimately drove him in 1641 to temporarily set aside his personal literary ambition as a poet in favor of polemical prose. However, this raises a previously unconsidered question for the earlier poetry of the 1620s-1640s. Is Milton's Genevan sense of elect assurance in the anti-prelatical tracts commensurate with the historical Milton's concurrent desire to become a prophetic poet? As I will argue in this essay, prosaic faith in orthodox Genevan doctrine posed complex difficulties for one claiming to be a "Poet soaring in the high region of his fancies with his garland and singing robes about him." (1) As a committed Perkinsian Calvinist the young Milton faced a simple, but almost crippling intellectual problem: he wanted to soar. The problem may not be immediately obvious, however, and it appears not to have been to Milton. Why shouldn't a devout Perkinsian Calvinist not become a poet of the soaring kind? While Perkins may have indeed warned against the idle uses of the poetic arts, (2) Spenser, for one, had shown that lofty English poetry was not incompatible with Protestant virtues and the dignity of the Reformed Christian soul. Similarly, Joshua Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas' La Semaine, the Divine Weekes and Workes (a poem which young Milton cherished and imitated) must have demonstrated to the aspiring poet the material poetic possibilities contained in biblical subject matter. Yet neither Spenser nor Du Bartas soared. Spenser's imagination tended to move laterally in the distinctly lapsarian, and allegorically unstable realms of ancient and medieval mythologies; while Sylvester's Du Bartas was afraid to allow his "heedful Muse, trayned in true Religion, / Devinely-humane" to soar too high, commanding it instead to keep to the "middle Region" Least, if she should too-high a pitch presume, Heav'ns glowing flame should melt her waxen plume (1.1.137-38) (3) As Alistair Fowler notes, it is with these lines in mind that Milton invokes in the opening of Paradise Lost the "heavenly Muse" to aid his "advent'rous song, / That with no middle flight intends to soar" (1.13-14, my emphases). (4) Milton from a very early age wanted to soar higher than Du Bartas ever did. But shouldn't he then have been afraid of "Heav'ns glowing flame" melting his "waxen plume"? If he ever entertained such fears he certainly does his level best in the earlier poetry and prose to suppress them. Even in such a frivolous Cambridge poem as "At a Vacation Exercise" the young poet affirms that his true calling lies in "some graver subject" (30) Such where the deep transported mind may soar Above the wheeling poles, and at heaven's door Look in, and see each blissful deity (33-35, my emphasis) (5) Milton may be presuming to soar in these rather extravagant lines merely towards the pagan heaven of Mount Olympus, described earlier in "On the Death of a Fair Infant" as being of "ruined roof" (43). But he may by then have set his sights on another mountain altogether--Mount Oreb. Many years later in the opening invocation of Paradise Lost he would openly declare which kind of Muse he sought: Sing heavenly Muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed, (1.6-8) Milton, then, wanted to soar as a poet-prophet of biblical stature. …


This study explored a computerized adaptive test delivery algorithm for latent class identification based on the mixture Rasch model. Four item selection methods based on the Kullback–Leibler (KL) information were proposed and compared with the reversed and the adaptive KL information under simulated testing conditions. When item separation was large, all item selection methods did not differ evidently in terms of accuracy in classifying examinees into different latent classes and estimating latent ability. However, when item separation was small, two methods with class-specific ability estimates performed better than the other two methods based on a single latent ability estimate across all latent classes. The three types of KL information distributions were compared. The KL and the reversed KL information could be the same or different depending on the ability level and the item difficulty difference between latent classes. Although the KL information and the reversed KL information were different at some ability levels and item difficulty difference levels, the use of the KL, the reversed KL, or the adaptive KL information did not affect the results substantially due to the symmetric distribution of item difficulty differences between latent classes in the simulated item pools. Item pool usage and classification convergence points were examined as well.


This paper uses a Finnish policy intervention to study tax competition among local governments. Changes in the statutory lower limits to the property tax rates are used as a source of exogenous variation to estimate the responses of municipalities to tax rates in their neighboring municipalities. I do not find evidence of interdependence in property tax rates among Finnish municipalities. The results are in contrast to the earlier empirical literature, using data from other countries, that has mainly found positive interdependence in tax rates. I compare the causal estimates based on the policy change to the commonly used Spatial Lag estimates and Spatial Instrumental Variables estimates, which are based on highly restrictive assumptions. The comparisons suggest that the standard spatial econometrics methods may have a tendency to overestimate the degree of interdependence in tax rates.


Copyright 1996 Association for Computing Machinery. Permission to make digital/hard copy of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage: the copyright notice, the title of the publication, and its date appear; and notice is given that copying is by permission of ACM, Inc. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.


Physicist Paul Sorensen describes discoveries made at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a particle accelerator at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory. At RHIC, scientists from around the world study what the universe may have looked like in the first microseconds after its birth, helping us to understand more about why the physical world works the way it does -- from the smallest particles to the largest stars.


In order to study the interaction between γ-Fe and carbon, the geometry structures, surface relaxations, adsorption energies and electronic structures for carbon chemisorption at four different adsorption sites on γ-Fe(111) surface at a monolayer coverage of 1 were studied using density functional theory. The electronic structures were compared with the chemisorption of carbon on nickel (111) at the fcc hollow site. Based on the computational adsorption energies, the relative stabilities were described as follows: hcp hollow ≈ fcc hollow > top-on site, whereas the atomic carbon can not occupy the bridge sites stably. The partial density of states indicated the strong C(2p)-Fe(3d, 4s+p) and the wide C(2s+p)-Fe(3d) ionic bonds, which largely confined the electrons of the surface iron. Accordingly, the number of orbitals at the Fermi level for the iron in the surface is obviously less than that in the subsurface. Moreover, comparing the carbon chemisorptions on γ-Fe and nickel surface at the fcc hollow site, one could see that the number of orbitals at the Fermi level for carbon adsorbed on γ-Fe(111) is less than on Ni(111) surface. This could imply the weaker catalysis of γ-Fe than nickel for carbon atom.


This paper considers how the cooperation of physicists and astrophysicists in the field of spectroscopy may be usefully extended. Assuming that an important part of the work is the provision of laboratory data, a review is presented on the present position with regard to the spectra of diatomic and simple polyatomic molecules.In recent years, owing largely to improvements in the equipment available at observatories, there has been a growing interest in molecular spectra among astrophysicists. In particular, band systems have been studied in spectra of cooler stars, spectra of the planets, spectra of comets, absorption and emission spectra of the earth's atmosphere, and absorption in interstellar space.Since in many cases the conditions existing in the astrophysical source differ greatly from those existing in laboratory sources, some of the features of these spectra have proved difficult to identify, and this fact has given considerable stimulus to further laboratory research.As progress is made, however, and the conditions obtaining in these sources are better understood, it appears likely that valuable information regarding physical and chemical processes may be gleaned from behavior under these conditions which cannot be duplicated in the laboratory. Here is the beginning of astrochemistry or even of astrophysics applied to combustion.


Autotransporter proteins constitute a family of outer membrane/secreted proteins that possess unique structural properties that facilitate their independent transport across the bacterial membrane system and final routing to the cell surface. Autotransporter proteins have been identified in a wide range of Gram-negative bacteria and are often associated with virulence functions such as adhesion, aggregation, invasion, biofilm formation and toxicity. The importance of autotransporter proteins is exemplified by the fact that they constitute an essential component of some human vaccines. Autotransporter proteins contain three structural motifs: a signal sequence, a passenger domain and a translocator domain. Here, the structural properties of the passenger and translocator domains of three type Va autotransporter proteins are compared and contrasted, namely pertactin from Bordetella pertussis, the adhesion and penetration protein (Hap) from Haemophilus influenzae and Antigen 43 (Ag43) from Escherichia coli. The Ag43 protein is described in detail to examine how its structure relates to functional properties such as cell adhesion, aggregation and biofilm formation. The widespread occurrence of autotransporter-encoding genes, their apparent uniform role in virulence and their ability to interact with host cells suggest that they may represent rational targets for the design of novel vaccines directed against Gram-negative pathogens.


Introduction This study investigates whether the Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score (ASPECTS) quantification is associated with outcome following mechanical thrombectomy. Objective To determine whether preintervention non-perfect ASPECT scores involving cortical or subcortical regions and the side of the non-perfect ASPECT score affects outcomes. Methods A retrospective review of a prospectively maintained database of patients with acute ischemic stroke involving the anterior circulation who underwent thrombectomy between May 2008 and August 2012 at a single tertiary care center. The device for mechanical thrombectomy used was the penumbra aspiration system (Penumbra Inc, Alameda, California, USA) and the Solitaire stent retriever (ev3, Irvine, California, USA). A 'blinded' neuroradiologist obtained ASPECTS quantification and noted each region demonstrating early changes. Results 149 patients (51.7% female, mean age 66.1±15.1 years) were included with an average National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale of 16.2±6.7. Patients with non-perfect ASPECT scores on pretreatment imaging were more likely to have a hemorrhagic conversion (p=0.04) evident on post-procedure CT. However, functional outcomes were the same. Patients with both cortical and basal ganglia non-perfect ASPECT scores were more likely to be in a persistent vegetative state or expire. No differences were identified in outcome among patients with left- versus right-sided infarcts affecting the basal ganglia or cortical regions. Conclusions These findings support a strategy of selecting candidacy for thrombectomy that does not exclude patients with non-perfect ASPECT scores involving either the basal ganglia or cortical regions. Outcomes were identical among patients with no non-perfect ASPECT scores and those with cortical or subcortical infarcts, despite a higher incidence of hemorrhagic conversion found among those with non-perfect ASPECT scores.


Background: Mullerian
anomalies are relatively common and contributing to the problems of infertility
and poor pregnancy outcomes. But their molecular
pathophysiology has been insufficiently studied. On the other hand, polycystic
ovary syndrome (PCOS) is found in nearly 80% of women with hyperandrogenism and
also in 8%-25% of normal ones. It seems that anti-mullerian hormone (AMH) which
inhibits the formation of the mullerian ducts in male increases in women with PCOS.
Therefore, the aim of the study is whether PCOS is associated with mullerian anomalies. Methods: In this case-control
study, 83 women with PCOS and 83 cases without PCOS were evaluated with transvaginal
ultrasound (TVS) for the diagnosis of mullerian anomalies. The results of each group
were compared with other groups. Results:
In the PCOS patients, TVS revealed mullerian anomalies in the uterine cavity in
29 out of 83 women. Among 29 patients who had lesions in their uterine cavity, 27
cases had septate uterus and two had arcuate uterus. In the healthy women, TVS revealed
6 septate uterus and 4 arcuate uterus abnormality cases of the uterine cavity. There
were significant correlation between polycystic ovary syndrome of the patients
and the mullerian anomalies lesions (i.e. septate and arcuate uterus) which were seen in them. Conclusion: Mullerian anomalies were more common in women with PCOS
and the most common anomaly was uterine septum. In fact, the present results revealed
that it seemed a cause-effect
relationship between the mullerian anomalies and PCO syndrome may in fact
exist.


This Supporting Document provides historical in-depth characterization information on U-Tank Farm, such as historical waste transfer and level data, tank physical information, temperature plots, liquid observation well plots, chemical analyte and radionuclide inventories for the Historical Tank Content Estimate Report for the Southwest Quadrant of the Hanford 200 West Area.


Several hundred disarticulated dinosaur bones have been recovered from a large quarry at Wulaga (Heilongjiang Province, China), in the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Yuliangze Formation. The Wulaga quarry can be regarded as a monodominant bonebed: more than 80% of the bones belong to a new lambeosaurine hadrosaurid, Sahaliyania elunchunorum gen. et sp. nov. This taxon is characterised by long and slender paroccipital processes, a prominent lateral depression on the dorsal surface of the frontal, a quadratojugal notch that is displaced ventrally on the quadrate, and a prepubic blade that is asymmetrically expanded, with an important emphasis to the dorsal side. Phylogenetic analysis shows that Sahaliyania is a derived lambeosaurine that forms a monophyletic group with the corythosaur and parasauroloph clades. Nevertheless, the exact position of Sahaliyania within this clade cannot be resolved on the basis of the available material. Besides Sahaliyania, other isolated bones display a typical hadrosaurine morphology and are referred to Wulagasaurus dongi gen. et sp. nov., a new taxon characterised by the maxilla pierced by a single foramen below the jugal process, a very slender dentary not pierced by foramina, and by the deltopectoral crest (on the humerus) oriented cranially. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that Wulagasaurus is the most basal hadrosaurine known to date. Phylogeographic data suggests that the hadrosaurines, and thus all hadrosaurids, are of Asian origin, which implies a relatively long ghost lineage of approximately 13 million years for basal hadrosaurines in Asia.


This work introduces a methodology for optimizing neural network models using a combination of continuous and categorical binary indices in the context of precipitation forecasting. Probability of detection and false alarm rate are popular metrics used in the verification of precipitation models. However, machine learning models trained using gradient descent cannot be optimized based on these metrics, as they are not differentiable. We propose an alternative formulation for these categorical indices that are differentiable and we demonstrate how they can be used to optimize the skill of precipitation neural network models defined as a multiobjective optimization problem. To our knowledge, this is the first proposal of a methodology for optimizing weather neural network models based on categorical indices.


We present a statistical study of coherent structures at kinetic scales, using data from the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission in the Earth's magnetosheath. We implemented the multi-spacecraft partial variance of increments (PVI) technique to detect these structures, which are associated with intermittency at kinetic scales. We examine the properties of the electron heating occurring within such structures. We find that, statistically, structures with a high PVI index are regions of significant electron heating. We also focus on one such structure, a current sheet, which shows some signatures consistent with magnetic reconnection. Strong parallel electron heating coincides with whistler emissions at the edges of the current sheet.


This paper reviews the macroeconomic use of national fiscal policy in EMU and examines the rational and scope for a collective insurance system which redistributes income among countries in response to asymmetric cyclical shocks. The analysis of the record of national fiscal policies before and after the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty finds evidence that the quality of fiscal policies has improved in two ways: they are more clearly countercyclical - or less procyclical - and they are more readily used to restore competitiveness than to attempt to boost demand when competitiveness is eroded. These observations suggest that fiscal policy remains a useful instrument. One question is whether it can be augmented - or perhaps substituted for - with a collective insurance system. Collective insurance is one alternative to external borrowing and lending and therefore one way to deal with the concerns that the SGP is meant to address. We examine in more detail two collective insurance systems: tax revenue sharing and unemployment insurance sharing. We find that the earlier is more promising and examine in some detail how it could be set up. It is no panacea, though. Any insurance mechanism entails moral hazard and that moral hazard can, at best, only be mitigated, not eliminated.


Modern frequency power converters generate a wide spectrum of harmonic components. Large converters systems can also generate noncharacteristic harmonics and interharmonics. Standard tools of harmonic analysis based on the Fourier transform assume that only harmonics are present and the periodicity intervals are fixed, while periodicity intervals in the presence of interharmonics are variable and very long. A novel approach to harmonic and interharmonic analysis, based on the "subspace" methods, is proposed. Min-norm harmonic retrieval method is an example of high-resolution eigenstructure-based methods. The Prony method as applied for signal analysis was also tested for this purpose. Both high-resolution methods do not show the disadvantages of the traditional tools and allow exact estimation of the interharmonics frequencies. To investigate the methods several experiments were performed using simulated signals, current waveforms at the output of a simulated frequency converter, and current waveforms at the output of an industrial frequency converter. For comparison, similar experiments were repeated using the fast Fourier transform (FFT). The comparison proved the superiority of the new methods. However, their computation is much more complex than FFT.


Province of Quebec (Canada) is in the process of implementing integrated project delivery (IPD) in its procurement process for public infrastructure to more effectively and efficiently achieve functional, environmental, and economic objectives. This paper analyzes the procurement legislation, regulations, and context of three jurisdictions through a comparative law approach and under the light of Macneil's relational contract theory. It is found that Quebec's procurement process has transactional features that should be counterbalanced, in the context of IPD implementation, by focusing on relational values, whether at the macro or personal level. These relational mechanisms should help legislators and public bodies establishing and operationalizing a viable and relational context of professional services and construction works procurement for IPD projects.


OBJECTIVE
To review individual case histories of children who had died of pneumonia in rural Uganda and to investigate why these children did not survive.

METHODS
This case-series study was done in the Iganga/Mayuge demographic surveillance site, Uganda, where 67 000 people were visited once every 3 months for population-based data and vital events. Children aged 1-59 months from November 2005 to August 2007 were included. Verbal and social autopsies were done to determine likely cause of death and care-seeking actions.

FINDINGS
Cause of death was assigned for 164 children, 27% with pneumonia. Of the pneumonia deaths, half occurred in hospital and one-third at home. Median duration of pneumonia illness was 7 days, and median time taken to seek care outside the home was 2 days. Most first received drugs at home: 52% antimalarials and 27% antibiotics. Most were taken for care outside the home, 36% of whom first went to public hospitals. One-third of those reaching the district hospital were referred to the regional hospital, and 19% reportedly improved after hospital treatment. The median treatment cost for a child with fatal pneumonia was US$ 5.8.

CONCLUSION
There was mistreatment with antimalarials, delays in seeking care and likely low quality of care for children with fatal pneumonia. To improve access to and quality of care, the feasibility and effect on mortality of training community health workers and drug vendors in pneumonia and malaria management with prepacked drugs should be tested.


The preparation of oligoribonucleotides is of great interest for structural and functional investigations in biomolecular chemistry and biology. Relevant RNAs are relatively long and contain often modifications. Two methods for their preparation are currently available: automated chemical synthesis and in vitro transcription. The chemical synthesis allows the preparation of relatively short (< 60mers) pure RNA sequences containing modified nucleotides. In contrast, in vitro transcription is appropriate for the synthesis of long RNA sequences but does not allow the incorporation of modifications. An elegant solution to this dilemma is offered by enzymatic ligations of RNA fragments with T4-DNA ligase, which is template-dependent and therefore highly selective. Here, we present a comprehensive study of parameters, which govern the effectiveness of this ligation. The influence of secondary structures present within templates were studied in detail. That allowed to design a new type of hybrid template, containing both DNA and 2'-OMeRNA nucleotides, which were particularly efficient (Chapter 3.2). Ligation reactions with structured substrates and different types of oligonucleotides were carried out, leading to a better comprehension of the enzyme mechanism. In this context, we found very strong indications for a different recognition of the donor and acceptor substrates by the enzyme (Chapter 3.2 and 3.3). Optimization of the enzymatic ligations with different substrates or templates has showed the importance of secondary structures for design of a successful reaction (Chapter 3.2 and 3.3). The lessons drawn from these preliminary experiments have been employed for the reliable preparative synthesis of natural oligoribonucleotides containing modifications (Chapter 3.4) and the preparation of long RNA sequences (Chapter 3.5).


During the first decades of the twentieth century, a time when modern advertising grew in response to a burgeoning consumer culture, American stores displayed products tied to the name of Omar Khayyám. Motivated by Omariana, the intense response to the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám that contributed to an outpouring of illustrated editions, literary parodies, musical scores and dramatic productions, advertisers found a market ripe for Omar‐related consumables and ephemera. While typically discussed among other Oriental‐themed advertising schemes of the time, Omar products were unique in their attachment to a single text. Omar ads responded to the cultural phenomenon of Omariana by relying on the public's familiarity with the text itself and contributing to the popular persona that had already formed around the imagined Omar. Two case studies – Maxfield Parrish's design for Crane's chocolates and the marketing of American Tobacco's Omar cigarettes – investigate how these products appealed to consumers through both visual and literary connections with the Rubáiyát that tapped into popular perceptions about the author and his philosophy. Advertisers of these products drew on themes presented in the text, including Khayyám's prescription to live in the moment and his penchant for worldly pleasures, and connected them to the public's own desire for gratification and escape from their workaday lives. Both companies smartly included free gifts with the purchase of their Omar‐related products, from keepsake boxes, to posters, to popular fiction – fueling the desire for Omar ephemera and thus perpetuating the craze. Collecting and consuming Omar products contributed to a sense of group affiliation; Omar fans were participants – even comrades – in a uniquely modern cultural experience. These products responded to society's search for harmony and a sense of community in an increasingly fragmented world.


Microbial strains have been successfully engineered to produce a wide variety of chemical compounds, several of which have been commercialized. As new products are targeted for biological synthesis, yield is frequently considered a primary driver towards determining feasibility. Theoretical yields can be calculated, establishing an upper limit on the potential conversion of starting substrates to target compounds. Such yields typically ignore loss of substrate to byproducts, with the assumption that competing reactions can be eliminated, usually by deleting the genes encoding the corresponding enzymes. However, when an enzyme encodes an essential gene, especially one involved in primary metabolism, deletion is not a viable option. Reducing gene expression in a static fashion is possible, but this solution ignores the metabolic demand needed for synthesis of the enzymes required for the desired pathway. We have developed "metabolite valves" to address this challenge. The valves are designed to allow high flux through the essential enzyme during an initial period where growth is favored. Following an external perturbation, enzyme activity is then reduced, enabling a higher precursor pool to be diverted towards the pathway of interest. We have designed valves with control at both the transcriptional and post-translational levels. In both cases, key enzymes in glucose metabolism are regulated, and two different compounds are targeted for heterologous production. We have measured increased concentrations of intracellular metabolites once the valve is closed, and have demonstrated that these increased pools lead to increased product yields. We have also incorporated quorum-sensing circuits into the valve design, enabling fully autonomous triggering of flux regulation. These metabolite valves should prove broadly useful for dynamic control of metabolic flux, resulting in improvements in product yields. BIO Dr. Kristala Jones Prather is the Arthur D. Little Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. She received an S.B. degree from MIT in 1994 and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley (1999), and worked 4 years in BioProcess Research and Development at the Merck Research Labs prior to joining the faculty of MIT. Her research interests are centered on the design and assembly of recombinant microorganisms for the production of small molecules, with additional efforts in novel bioprocess design approaches. A particular focus is the elucidation of design principles for the production of unnatural organic compounds with engineered control of metabolic flux within the framework of the burgeoning field of synthetic biology. Prather is the recipient of an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award (2005), a Technology Review "TR35" Young Innovator Award (2007), a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2010), the Biochemical Engineering Journal Young Investigator Award (2011), and the Charles Thom Award of the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (2017). Additional honors include selection as the Van Ness Lecturer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2012), and as a Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2014-2015). Prather has been recognized for excellence in teaching with the C. Michael Mohr Outstanding Faculty Award for Undergraduate Teaching in the Dept. of Chemical Engineering (2006, 2016), the MIT School of Engineering Junior Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching (2010), and through appointment as a MacVicar Faculty Fellow (2014), the highest honor given for undergraduate teaching at MIT.


Seven years on from OWL becoming a W3C recommendation, and two years on from the more recent OWL 2 W3C recommendation, OWL has still experienced only patchy uptake on the Web. Although certain OWL features (like owl:sameAs) are very popular, other features of OWL are largely neglected by publishers in the Linked Data world. This may suggest that despite the promise of easy implementations and the proposal of tractable profiles suggested in OWL's second version, there is still no "right" standard fragment for the Linked Data community. In this paper, we (1) analyse uptake of OWL on the Web of Data, (2) gain insights into the OWL fragment that is actually used/usable on the Web, where we arrive at the conclusion that this fragment is likely to be a simplified profile based on OWL RL, (3) propose and discuss such a new fragment, which we call OWL LD (for Linked Data).


OBJECTIVES
To evaluate patient HIV knowledge and testing experience and assess the effect of an HIV informational handout on HIV testing propensity.

DESIGN
Cross sectional, descriptive techniques were employed to assess demographics, HIV knowledge and HIV testing experience. A randomized controlled trial was performed to determine if an HIV/AIDS information sheet influenced testing propensity.

SETTING
Blantyre Adventist Hospital Outpatient Clinic.

SUBJECTS
Non-emergency patients over 18 years old attending during consulting hours.

INTERVENTIONS
All subjects answered a questionnaire. For the randomized controlled trial component, half received an HIV information handout.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Proportions were calculated to evaluate testing experience. Logistic regression was used to assess impact of written information and demographics on HIV testing propensity.

RESULTS
490 participants were recruited, of whom 57% had never been tested for HIV. Of the untested, 88% had never been offered an HIV test. Of those that had never been offered a test, 46% desired one. The sample was highly knowledgeable about HIV. Reading an information sheet had no impact on HIV knowledge (p=0.736 to 0.788) or desire for testing (p=0.387). However, age (OR=0.97, 95%CI (0.95,0.99)) and gender (OR=1.85, 95%CI (1.06, 3.23)) significantly correlated with testing propensity.

CONCLUSIONS
A large percentage of patients who have never been offered HIV testing desire testing. More frequent HIV test offering by clinicians could improve testing rates. Clinician education programmes should be developed to increase test offering. Furthermore, written health information in a setting of high HIV/AIDS knowledge may not change behaviour. Alternative methods should be employed to encourage HIV testing uptake.


Al–Al thermocompression bonding suitable for wafer level sealing of MEMS devices has been investigated. This paper presents a comparison of thermocompression bonding of Al films deposited on Si with and without a thermal oxide (SiO2 film). Laminates of diameter 150 mm containing device sealing frames of width 200 µm were realized. The wafers were bonded by applying a bond force of 36 or 60 kN at bonding temperatures ranging from 300–550 °C for bonding times of 15, 30 or 60 min. The effects of these process variations on the quality of the bonded laminates have been studied. The bond quality was estimated by measurements of dicing yield, tensile strength, amount of cohesive fracture in Si and interfacial characterization. The mean bond strength of the tested structures ranged from 18–61 MPa. The laminates with an SiO2 film had higher dicing yield and bond strength than the laminates without SiO2 for a 400 °C bonding temperature. The bond strength increased with increasing bonding temperature and bond force. The laminates bonded for 30 and 60 min at 400 °C and 60 kN had similar bond strength and amount of cohesive fracture in the bulk silicon, while the laminates bonded for 15 min had significantly lower bond strength and amount of cohesive fracture in the bulk silicon.


A soil–plant–atmosphere model was used to estimate gross primary productivity (GPP) and evapotranspiration (ET) of a tropical savanna in Australia. This paper describes model modifications required to simulate the substantial C4 grass understory together with C3 trees. The model was further improved to include a seasonal distribution of leaf area and foliar nitrogen through 10 canopy layers. Model outputs were compared with a 5‐year eddy covariance dataset. Adding the C4 photosynthesis component improved the model efficiency and root‐mean‐squared error (RMSE) for total ecosystem GPP by better emulating annual peaks and troughs in GPP across wet and dry seasons. The C4 photosynthesis component had minimal impact on modelled values of ET. Outputs of GPP from the modified model agreed well with measured values, explaining between 79% and 90% of the variance and having a low RMSE (0.003–0.281 g C m−2 day−1). Approximately, 40% of total annual GPP was contributed by C4 grasses. Total (trees and grasses) wet season GPP was approximately 75–80% of total annual GPP. Light‐use efficiency (LUE) was largest for the wet season and smallest in the dry season and C4 LUE was larger than that of the trees. A sensitivity analysis of GPP revealed that daily GPP was most sensitive to changes in leaf area index (LAI) and foliar nitrogen (Nf) and relatively insensitive to changes in maximum carboxylation rate (Vcmax), maximum electron transport rate (Jmax) and minimum leaf water potential (ψmin). The modified model was also able to represent daily and seasonal patterns in ET, (explaining 68–81% of variance) with a low RMSE (0.038–0.19 mm day−1). Current values of Nf, LAI and other parameters appear to be colimiting for maximizing GPP. By manipulating LAI and soil moisture content inputs, we show that modelled GPP is limited by light interception rather than water availability at this site.


AbstractRisk management techniques used in banks and trading floors are generally not applicable to insurance companies. Risk measures and risk monitoring approaches must be developed to respond to the challenges to the insurance industry. This paper describes the current risk management practices for both life and general insurance businesses, and proposes the corporate model approach that extends the present approaches to provide corporate management solutions, enterprise risk management in particular, for insurers.


Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a broadband wireless data communications technology based on the IEEE 802.16 standard for providing high speed data over a wide area. This wireless network, when based on radio-over-fiber (RoF) technology, provides the most useful solution to the ever increasing demand for larger transmission bandwidth. In this paper, a novel transmission system for seamless integration of RoF with centralized lightwave Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) for Next-Generation Passive Optical Network (NG-PON) based on an integrated external modulator is demonstrated. Here we have investigated the performance limitation when transmitting WiMAX signal over RoF/PON, the change in Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) with the receiver power when varying fiber length with splitter ratio, and the number of Base Stations (BSs) that can be supported at a particular distance in a PON. The result shows that RIN has negative effects by limiting the SNR of the subcarriers.


Complete face recovering (CFR) is to recover the complete face image of a given partial face image of a target person whose photo may not be included in the gallery set. The CFR has several attractive potential applications but is challenging. As far as we know, the CFR problem has yet to be explored in the literature. This paper therefore proposes an identity-preserved CFR approach (IP-CFR) to addressing the CFR. First, a denoising auto-encoder based network is applied to acquire the discriminative feature. Then, we propose an identity-preserved loss function to keep the personal identity information. Furthermore, the acquired features are fed into a new variant of the generative adversarial network (GAN) to restore the complete face image. In addition, a two-pathway discriminator is leveraged to enhance the quality of the recovered image. Experimental results on the benchmark datasets show the promising result of the proposed approach.


This paper investigates the job satisfaction in relation to managerial attitudes towards employees and firm size using the linked employer-employee survey results in Britain. We first investigate the management-employee relationships and the firm size using maximum likelihood probit estimation. Next various measures of job satisfaction are related to the management-employee relations via maximum likelihood ordered probit estimates. Four measures of job satisfaction that have not been used often are considered. They are satisfaction with influence over job; satisfaction with amount of pay; satisfaction with sense of achievement and satisfaction with respect from supervisors. Main findings indicate that management-employee relationships are less satisfactory in the large firms than in the small firms. Job satisfaction levels are lower in large firms. Less satisfactory management-employee relationships in the large firms may be a major source of the observed lower level of job satisfaction in them. These results have important policy implications from the point of view of the firm management while achieving the aims of their organizations in particular in the large firms in the area of management-employee relationships. Improving the management-employee relations in large firms will increase employee satisfaction in many respects as well as increase productivity and reduce turnover. The nature of the management-employee relations with firm size and job satisfaction has not been investigated before.


Community-engaged research calls on us to rethink ourselves as researchers and to address lopsided researcher-researched relationships. As a group of university researchers, we participated in a research-practice partnership that included a research-intensive university, an internationally recognized professional learning network, a ministry of education funder, and a school district in Alberta, Canada. Despite the long-standing, collaborative relationships between these organizations, a spin-off research partnership slid into traditional research practices that limited the project's potential. To critically reflect on these events, we engaged in eight cogenerative dialogues and three semistructured interviews to examine key moments in the partnership more closely. Our findings highlight how limitations in our fields of view as well as significant changes at crucial points in the partnership affected our ability to engage in sustained community-engaged research. We discuss critical learnings about this partnership in particular and offer recommendations that will help future research-practice partnerships assess and sustain their collaborations in meaningful ways.


Party politics in Alberta can seem dull. Election after election the Conservative party is returned to power with a comfortable majority and campaigns are marked by little in the way of suspense (see Bell et al, 2007 and Stewart and Archer, 2000). The last time government changed hands in Alberta was 1971 when the Peter Lougheed led Progressive Conservatives eked out a narrow win over the Social Credit dynasty. Lougheed and the Conservatives positioned them- selves as safe, conservative change. This was also the case when the Progressive Conservatives faced their most serious challenge to date, in 1993. The Liberals, led by former Edmonton mayor Laurence Decore, launched a fiscal attack on the Conservatives, presenting themselves as the safe, conservative alternative (Stewart, 1995). The Ralph Klein Conservatives beat back that challenge and the party has easily carried each subsequent election.


In Plato's practical theory of ideal state, art/ artist is away from the autonomous structuring including the right to be independent from any kind of politics and it should be in charge of a duty depended on educating the good citizens entirely. This situation has been proceeding from Ancient Greek to modern times among philosophers and artists as an intransigence stage regarding their right to speak about higher level political decisions in state government. However, art and politics have been in a constant relationship since the modernist ideology developing with the enlightenment. When we say modern, we refer to the period when modern politics comes in to play. In other words, it is the period that nationstate ruler ship is adopted. In this period, art becomes an essential tool for identity formation of nation-states. Thus, it can be suggested that there are three consecutive art and politics regimes that forms the ideological identity of galleries and museums as well. These three regimes related to art and politics could be represented as the model of state nation, autonomy and avant-garde. The first model in modern approach repeats Platonism. The grandeur of the state is embroidered in art and an ideal nation that represents the magnificent power of the state is created. Therefore, art becomes an evidence for this perfection. The second model resolves the tense in intransigence stage, which exists between politics and art, by categorizing separate disciplines having their own rules. Art is identified in autonomous aesthetics category and it differs from politics as a free, and a reserved sight regime within itself. It is edified on a higher level as a spiritual mirror in modern times. In the third model, art is criticized for being away from life in this sacred autonomy endowed to it, and it is referred with politics for the purpose of community and integration of life once again. This case originates the inception of Avant-garde.The sight or display strategies of galleries, museums and art institutions related to these three art-politics regimes mentioned before are based on developing relationships. Art and cultural institutions in this day and age move on with the refined strategies developing the same dependencies. How will the demand of artartist which involves freedom be manifested? The concern of the artist autonomy could be an eye-opening opportunity as necessary value for building the contemporary time and space via democratization of modernism.


We explore influences on unlisted companies when Portugal moved from a code law, rules-based accounting system, to a principles-based accounting system of adapted International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Institutionalisation of the new principles-based system was generally facilitated by a socio-economic and political context that increasingly supported IFRS logic. This helped central actors gain political opportunity, mobilise important allies, and accommodate major protagonists. The preparedness of unlisted companies to adopt the new IFRS-based accounting system voluntarily was explained by their desire to maintain social legitimacy. However, it was affected negatively by the embeddedness of rule-based practices in the 'old' prevailing institutional logic.


[Excerpt] "Court decisions involving the adequacy of public education raise some obvious separation of powers problems. These include the institutional competency of courts to determine what level of education is adequate and how much funding is necessary to reach that level, and the authority of courts to enforce such judgments. This article will examine these problems through New Hampshire's serial education funding litigation, the Claremont case. [. . .] I will start by briefly reviewing the history of education funding litigation because this context is essential to understanding the Claremont case. I will then undertake a limited review of the Claremont case. Finally, I will consider Claremont from the standpoint of the separation of powers. I begin by examining the text and structure of the State Constitution and then consider whether there are judicially discoverable and manageable standards for determining what level of education is adequate and how much funding is necessary to reach that level. Because there is a textually demonstrable commitment of education funding and education policy to the legislative branch, and because what an adequate education comprises and costs are quintessentially political questions, Claremont represents a clear trespass on legislative powers and should be


A review of:

Gannon-Leary, Pat, Graham Walton, Raffik Cader, Julie Derbyshire, and Ann Smith. "Use of Evidence by Nursing Students: An Interdisciplinary Study." Library & Information Science Research 28.2 (Mar. 2006): 249-64.

Abstract

Objective – To identify the sources used by student nurses when undertaking a health needs analysis of particular client groups, and to determine students' ease in accessing source materials.
Design – Case series, incorporating citation analysis and focus groups.

Setting – Honours Nursing Studies program (Adult Branch), Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom.

Subjects – Citation analysis: 40 students undertaking health needs analysis assignment. Focus groups: 2 groups of 8 students.

Methods – Subjects for the citation analysis were not randomly selected. Citation analysis was performed and references tabulated using a previously piloted pro-forma. Distribution of references between sources was measured using quantitative analysis. Focus groups consisted of self-selecting volunteers from the student cohort undertaking the assignment. Issues of potential bias/coercion relating to research team members being group participant tutors were addressed. Results were analysed through the categorisation of key themes.

Main results – The mean number of sources cited per assignment was 16. More than half (56%) of the sources were published after 1999. Twenty-nine percent of citations were published between 1996 and 1999, and 12% between 1990 and 1995. Only small percentages were published in the 1980s (2%) and 1970s (1%). Journals (37%) formed the largest body of references, followed by books at 27%. UK government publications accounted for 14% of total references; Web-based resources totalled 12%. Students acknowledged the importance of supporting assignments with references. Government publications were recognised as high-quality pieces of evidence. Difficulty was experienced extrapolating evidence from different care settings and moving outside of usual parameters. Students indicated that statistical data was hard to find. Those without home Internet facilities had greater difficulty in accessing information than students with such facilities. Support from information professionals was received, but quality was variable.
Conclusion – Doubts exist as to whether opportunities for student learning to inform educators are being fully exploited. Upon completion of assignments students are arguably in a better position to debate subjects more deeply and so advance understanding. Potential for peer group development may be lost. Collaboration between nursing academics and information professionals offers potential for nursing students and health professionals to advance their exploitation and evaluation of information resources.


Abstract Daytime refuges are important to nocturnal rodents for protection from predators and environmental extremes. Because refuges of forest-dwelling rodents are often associated with woody debris, we examined refuge use by 37 radio-collared Peromyscus gossypinus (cotton mice) in experimental plots with different levels of woody debris. Treatment plots had six times (≈ 60 m3/ha) the volume of woody debris as control plots (≈ 10 m3/ha). Of 247 refuges, 159 were in rotting stumps (64%), 32 were in root boles (13%), 19 were in brush piles (8%), and 16 were in logs (6%); 10 refuges could not be identified. Stumps were the most common refuge type in both treatments, but the distribution of refuge types was significantly different between treatment and control plots. Root boles and brush piles were used more on treatment plots than on control plots, and logs were used more on control plots than on treatment plots. Refuge type and vegetation cover were the best predictors of refuge use by cotton mice; root bole refuges and refuges with less vegetation cover received greater-than-expected use by mice. Abundant refuges, particularly root boles, may improve habitat quality for cotton mice in southeastern pine forests.


School nurses have a large scope of practice (American Nurses Association [ANA] & National Association of School Nurses [NASN], 2011). However, school administrators often misunderstand, and therefore under appreciate, the school nurses' role (Junious et al., 2004). In addition, few schools meet the 1:750 nurse to student ratio recommended by the NASN and the ANA (2011); high nurse to student ratios negatively affect school nurses' job satisfaction (Maughn & Adams, 2011). Several studies found that interventions by the school nurse positively impacted students (Bonauito, 2007; Denny et al., 2012), while others have linked the presence of a school nurse with improved attendance (Pennington & Delaney, 2008; Telljohann, Dake, & Price, 2004). The current study surveyed nurses working at schools in Illinois, and adds to this body of research by examining the relationship between the time school nurses spend on classroom health education and their job satisfaction as well as the correlation between classroom education, job satisfaction, and student attendance. School nurses were more satisfied when they made more visits to the classroom for health education, and when they thought that students received adequate health education from the school nurses. School nurses who served higher numbers of students were less likely to think that stud~nts received adequate health education. Attendance rates were not significantly correlated with nurses' job satisfaction or number of classroom visits. This results suggest that when nurse are able to practice to the extent of their education, they are more satisfied with their jobs, and feel like they are able to


Current techniques for analyzing chromatin structures are hampered by either poor resolution at the individual cell level or the need for a large number of cells to obtain higher resolution. This is a major problem as it hampers our understanding of chromatin conformation in single cells and how these respond to environmental cues. Here we describe a new method, chromatin in situ proximity (ChrISP), which reproducibly scores for proximities between two different chromatin fibers in 3-D with a resolution of ~170Å in single cells. The technique is based on the in situ proximity ligation assay (ISPLA), but ChrISP omits the rolling circle amplification step (RCA). Instead, the proximities between chromatin fibers are visualized by a fluorescent connector oligonucleotide DNA, here termed splinter, forming a circular DNA with another circle-forming oligonucleotide, here termed backbone, upon ligation. In contrast to the regular ISPLA technique, our modification enables detection of chromatin fiber proximities independent of steric hindrances from nuclear structures. We use this method to identify higher order structures of individual chromosomes in relation to structural hallmarks of interphase nuclei and beyond the resolution of the light microscope.


Palynological analysis of the Shishtu 2 Member (Shishtu Formation) located in the Howz-e-Dorah area (southeast Tabas, central Iran Basin) suggests a middle Tournaisian—late Viséan age for this rock unit. The Shishtu 2 Member consists of shale, sandstone, dolostone and limestone. Three palynological assemblages are recognised and mainly correlated with the miospore biozones of Northern Gondwana. A microfloristic comparison with other sections in Western Gondwana (South America) is also proposed. We identify a sedimentary hiatus between the Shishtu 1 and Shishtu 2 members. Our findings suggest that the Mush Horizon is the lowermost part of the Shishtu 2 Member, contrary to the Iranian literature where it is considered to be the uppermost part of the Shishtu 1 Member.


A DFB laser with an asymmetric coupling coefficient is proposed for flip-flop operation. It has been demonstrated in simulation that a high confinement factor of the active region and use of an asymmetric configuration result in very short rise and fall times. In our simulation, nearly 10ps fall time and 5ps rise time have been observed


This study investigates the theatrical activity in New Orleans between 1860 and 1865 and provides a daybook including all recorded performances in the city during this period. Many active theatres existed in New Orleans prior to 1860. Three theatres, the St. Charles, the Varieties, and the Academy of Music dominated professional English-language dramatic offerings. They brought in the most renowned performers of the period and presented lavish dramatic productions, minstrel shows, circuses and concerts. This study explores the impact of the war on the theatrical activity of these three theatres and attempts to chronicle the adjustments necessary to continue operation. The investigation also attempts to answer specific questions about the kinds of entertainment offered in these three theatres, the changes in company personnel and management and the impact of the war on touring companies and stars visiting the city. In addition, the study explores the changes in theatrical activity brought about by the Federal occupation of New Orleans in April, 1862. The material is divided into two major sectins. Part I provides a history of the New Orleans stage and is organized into five chapters: 1) A Historical Background of New Orleans through 1865: A Foundatin for Theatrical Development; 2) Theatrical Activity in New Orleans Preceding the Civil War; 3) Theatrical Activity in New Orleans 1860-1862: The Beginning of the Civil War and the Crescent City Under Siege; 4) Theatrical Activity in New Orleans 1862-1865: Occupation and Recovery; 5) Survival and Transition. Part II is a daybook consisting of the title of every recorded production in New Orleans between the fall of 1860 and the spring of 1865, the names of playwrights and lists of casts for the period. This daybook also contains a Performer Index, listing in alphabetical order each performance and the dates of his recorded performances in New Orleans, a Play Index listing the performance dates for each play presented in New Orleans, and a Playwright Index listing every known author of plays and the titles of his plays produced in New Orleans.


Ten years ago, the rights and responsibilities associated with copyright protection were largely defined by federal law. Today, while those explicit rules are obviously still important, a meaningful discussion of copyright protection can't help but also include technological protections - like the encryption technologies that serve to discourage consumers from making unauthorized copies of their DVDs, or the watermarks that to some degree allow copyright holders to detect when their audio or video content shows up without permission on a site like YouTube. These so-called "digital rights management" or DRM technologies are impacting every aspect of the copyright equation. In this podcast, we therefore set out to take a comprehensive tour of the technology, law, and strategy of DRM. Guests include Ed Felten from Princeton University and Randy Picker from the University of Chicago. UCLA's Doug Lichtman hosts. (Podcast available for free in the archives at ipcolloquium.com.)


This paper presents Biglook, a widget library for an extended version of the Scheme programming language. It uses classes of a Clos-like object layer to represent widgets and Scheme closures to handle graphical events. Combining functional and object-oriented programming styles yields an original application programming interface that advocates a strict separation between the implementation of the graphical interfaces and the user-associated commands, enabling compact source code. The Biglook implementation separates the Scheme programming interface and the native back-end. This permits different ports for Biglook. The current version uses GTK+ and Swing graphical toolkits, while the previous release used Tk.


Casein phosphopeptide-amorphous calcium phosphate (CPP-ACP) has the ability to enhance enamel and dentine remineralisation and thus has been incorporated in new medicaments for such clinical problems as tooth hypersensitivity and early carious lesions. The current study investigated whether the application of CPP-ACP in the proprietary paste, Tooth Mousse™, would influence the subsequent resin adhesion to dentine. Bonding effectiveness was assessed by microtensile bond strength test and scanning electron microscopy. A three-step etch-and-rinse adhesive (OptiBond FL) or a two-step self-etch adhesive (Clearfil SE Bond) was bonded to three groups of dentine surfaces: no treatment; 5 min or 5 days CPP-ACP application. The microtensile test was performed and bond strength data were analysed using ANOVA and Tukey–Kramer post hoc test. Etching characteristics on respective dentine surfaces and resin–dentine interface were observed under SEM. Bond strengths of Clearfil SE Bond to dentine appeared to be similar for all tested groups. OptiBond FL, however, showed lower bond strengths following the application of CPP-ACP for both time periods. Under SEM observations, the CPP-ACP treated dentine displayed a layer of residue or precipitate attached to the surface after the phosphoric acid treatment. The sectioned specimens also showed the resin–dentine interface with less intertubular linking of resin tags, which could mean mineralisation of these channels, hence preventing resin infiltration. The presence of CPP-ACP on the dentine surface, therefore, may compromise bonding effectiveness of etch-and-rinse adhesive system. However, CPP-ACP application may be beneficial to the dentine bonding of self-etch adhesive system, as the chemical interactions between calcium and functional monomers of the adhesives might be enhanced to some degree.


The simplest model of a scattering experiment is given by solving Schrödinger's equation for a plane wave impinging on a localized potential. A potential \(V(r)\) might represent what a fast electron encounters on striking an atom, or an alpha particle a nucleus. Obviously, representing any such system by a potential is only a beginning, but in certain energy ranges it is quite reasonable, and we have to start somewhere!


In this chapter, we propose a robust active fault-tolerant control (AFTC) scheme for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with simultaneous actuator and sensor faults described via Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) multiple models. First, by transforming the sensor fault into pseudoactuator fault, a novel T-S sliding-mode observer (TS-SMO) with two discontinuous terms is developed to provide separate estimates of the actuator and sensor faults for the purpose of fault compensation. The robustness of the proposed observer against uncertainties has been taken into account via H∞ norm minimization. Second, we use obtained on-line fault estimation information to design dynamic output feedback controller (DOFC) for robustly compensating the effects of actuator and sensor faults from the system inputs and outputs and guarantee the stability of the overall closed-loop system. The stability proof with H∞ performances and D-stability constraints is formulated as a linear matrix inequalities (LMI) optimization problem. The effectiveness of the proposed robust AFTC approach to treat simultaneous actuator and sensor faults is illustrated using a nonlinear inverted pendulum with cart system.


Urban agriculture is rising steadily in popularity in the United States and Canada - there are stories in the popular press, it has an increasingly central place in the growing local food movement, and there is a palpable interest in changing cities to foster both healthier residents and more sustainable communities. The most popular form of urban agriculture, community gardening, contributes significantly to developing social connections, building capacity, and empowering communities in urban neighborhoods. Older, industrial cities such as Cleveland, Detroit, and Buffalo, with their drastic loss of population and their acres of vacant land, are emerging as centers for urban agriculture initiatives - in essence, becoming laboratories for the future role of urban food production in the postindustrial city. Because urban agriculture entails the use of urban land, it has implications for urban land-use planning, which is controlled and regulated by municipal governments and planning agencies. This PAS Report provides authoritative guidance for dealing with the implications of this cutting-edge practice that is changing our cities forever.


Due to the inevitably vast scale of virtualised cloud computing systems, management of the numerous physical and virtual components that make up their underlying infrastructure may become unwieldy. Many software packages that have historically been installed on desktops / workstations for years are slowly but surely being ported to cloud computing. The virtualisation management problems that are apparent today are only set to worsen as cloud computing systems become ever more pervasive. Backing cloud computing systems are equally elaborate database systems, many platforms of which have made extensive use of distributed computing and virtualisation for years. The more recent emergence of virtualised big data systems with similarly vast scale problems has escalated the urgent requirement for creative management of the numerous physical and virtual components. The thesis will initially synopsise previous investigatory research concerning these emerging problems and studies the current disposition of virtualisation management including the associated concepts, strategies and technologies. The thesis then continues, to describe the structure and operation of an object mapping declarative language to support the management of these numerous physical and virtual components. The ultimate aim is to develop a Virtualisation Management System (VMS), a software framework that is fully extensible in nature and which combines the rich capability of an imperative assembly with the concise simplicity of a declarative language. It is through this declarative language that human interaction and decision making may be richly yet concisely specified before being converted through object mapping to the comparable imperative assembly for execution. It is also through parsing this declarative language that autonomic algorithms may be able to integrate with and operate the VMS through a suitably defined plug-in based mechanism. The thesis will ultimately demonstrate via scenarios both basic and complex that the VMS is able to specify, observe, regulate and adapt its virtualisation management domain to the changing disposition of the numerous physical and virtual components that constitute cloud computing and big data systems.


In this paper we study social aspects of using the Like button for purposes of impression management, identity construction, and maintenance of social ties online. On the theoretical level our investigation combines Goffman's notion of face-work with concepts of social network analysis, shedding light on what we dub 'nano-level' interaction and sociality on social networking sites. Our data come from a 2013 classroom survey in which 26 Finnish university students were asked about their motives for and ways of using the Like button. Our results show that though the Like button was designed to allow users to express their positive evaluations of the contents of Facebook posts, comments, and pictures, it was in actual fact used for a wide variety of purposes, from dating efforts to conversation regulation and maintenance of social ties. Our results also reveal that the networked Facebook audience affects the users' liking behavior, and that users reflect their liking based on previous likes.


Area of occurrence and Conditions. The limestones in the bottom of a certain portion of lake Huron are undergoing a peculiar kind of erosion, which, from want of better terms to describe the process, may be called honeycombing and pitting. The portion of the lake in which this phenomenon is most prevalent is that around Grand Manitoulin island, the Indian peninsula and in Big gap, which lies between them and connects the main body of the lake with Georgian bay. This curious form of erosion appears to be progressing most rapidly under a considerable depth of water, say, from 50 or 100 feet, down to greater depths, but it may also be going on in shallower water. The existence of the honeycombed limestone all over the bottom of this part of lake Huron is well known to every one living in the vicinity, and especially to the fishermen, to whom . . .


In response to widespread and ongoing service delivery protests across South Africa, Parliament has established a special committee to investigate and gather information about the causes of these protests. This ad hoc committee is tasked with conducting visits to urban and rural areas, holding public hearings and generally exercising coordinated oversight in respect of service delivery and, more particularly, the problems impeding service delivery.


Mixture modeling is a classical unsupervised learning method with applications to clustering and density estimation. This dissertation studies two challenges in modeling data with mixture models. The first part addresses problems that arise when modeling observations lying on constrained spaces, such as the boundaries of a city or a landmass. It is often desirable to model such data through the use of mixture models, especially nonparametric mixture models. Specifying the component distributions and evaluating normalization constants raise modeling and computational challenges. In particular, the likelihood forms an intractable quantity, and Bayesian inference over the parameters of these models results in posterior distributions that are doubly-intractable. We address this problem via a model based on rejection sampling and an algorithm based on data augmentation. Our approach is to specify such models as restrictions of standard, unconstrained distributions to the constraint set, with measurements from the model simulated by a rejection sampling algorithm. Posterior inference proceeds by Markov chain Monte Carlo, first imputing the rejected samples given mixture parameters and then resampling parameters given all samples. We study two modeling approaches: mixtures of truncated Gaussians and truncated mixtures of Gaussians, along with Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling algorithms for both. We also discuss variations of the models, as well as approximations to improve mixing, reduce computational cost, and lower variance.The second part of this dissertation explores the application of mixture models to estimate contamination rates in matched tumor and normal samples. Bulk sequencing of tumor samples are prone to contaminations from normal cells, which lead to difficulties and inaccuracies in determining the mutational landscape of the cancer genome. In such instances, a matched normal sample from the same patient can be used to act as a control for germline mutations. Probabilistic models are popularly used in this context due to their flexibility. We propose a hierarchical Bayesian model to denoise the contamination in such data and detect somatic mutations in tumor cell populations. We explore the use of a Dirichlet prior on the contamination level and extend this to a framework of Dirichlet processes. We discuss MCMC schemes to sample from the joint posterior distribution and evaluate its performance on both synthetic experiments and publicly available data.


There is a reluctance to incorporate Fishers' Ecological Knowledge (FEK) into the evidence base used to underpin marine management decisions. FEK has proved to be useful as an alternative reference of biological changes in data-poor scenarios. Yet, recreational fisher knowledge has rarely been included in scientific studies despite being a source of FEK. Here, the use of recreational FEK to assess the conservation status of marine ecosystems in Galicia (NW Spain) was evaluated. Galicia has a highly complex marine socioecological system that includes both a large global commercial fleet and a powerful recreational sector, alongside other important stakeholders (e.g., tourism, aquaculture). Anglers and spear fishers were asked to provide their perceptions of the conservation status of fish stocks and the impacts on marine ecosystems. Face-to-face interviews were transcribed into text and analyzed using text mining tools. Key concepts were used to quantify fishers' perceptions of changes in their target fish stocks and quantify the main impacts on marine ecosystems. Overfishing and habitat loss, followed by reduction in biodiversity, pollution, and warming temperatures were considered to be the main drivers of the poor status of cephalopods and finfish stocks. Perceived temporal declines in fish stocks were consistent with available biological data, highlighting the potential for recreational FEK to be used to assess long-term ecological changes. It was important to seek opinions from different users, including fishers from traditional commercial and recreational fisheries, as these groups had good knowledge of the impacts on natural and cultural community heritage. The poor status of ballan wrasse (Labrus bergylta) and kelp beds was identified, which was of concern due to it being a key species in coastal ecosystems. Use of FEK is a good approach to develop knowledge of these systems, but broader monitoring programs are needed to protect the future of these ecosystems.


The study, consisting of two independent experiments, was conducted to evaluate the role of seed priming with ascorbic acid (AsA) in drought resistance of wheat. In the first experiment, seeds of wheat cultivars Mairaj-2008 and Lasani-2008 were either soaked in aerated water (hydropriming) for 10 h or not soaked (control). In the second experiment, seeds of same wheat cultivars were soaked in aerated (2 mm) AsA solution (osmopriming) or water (hydropriming) for 10 h. In both experiments, seeds were sown in plastic pots (10 kg) maintained at 70 % and 35 % of water-holding capacity designated as well watered and drought stressed, respectively. Both experiments were laid out in a completely randomized design with six replications. Drought caused delayed and erratic emergence and disturbed the plant water relations, chlorophyll contents and membranes because of oxidative damage; however, root length in cultivar Lasani-2008 was increased under drought. Hydropriming significantly improved the seedling emergence and early growth under drought and well-watered conditions; however, improvement was substantially higher from osmopriming with AsA. Similarly, osmopriming with AsA significantly improved the leaf emergence and elongation, leaf area, specific leaf area, chlorophyll contents, root length and seedling dry weight. Owing to increase in proline accumulation, phenolics and AsA, by seed priming with AsA, plant water status was improved with simultaneous decrease in oxidative damages. These improved the leaf emergence and elongation, and shoot and root growth under drought. However, there was no difference between the cultivars in this regard. In conclusion, osmopriming with AsA improved the drought resistance of wheat owing to proline accumulation and antioxidant action of AsA and phenolics, leading to tissue water maintenance, membrane stability, and better and uniform seedling stand and growth.


Pseudomonas syringae is best known as a plant pathogenic bacterium that causes diseases in a multitude of hosts, and it has been used as a model organism to understand the biology of plant disease. Pathogenic and non-pathogenic isolates of P. syringae are also commonly found living as epiphytes and in the wider environment, including water sources such as rivers and precipitation. Ice-nucleating strains of P. syringae are associated with frost damage to crops. The genomes of numerous strains of P. syringae have been sequenced and molecular genetic studies have elucidated many aspects of this pathogen's interaction with its host plants.


The spirits of the dead return in many shapes and in many locations in Ireland. There are the wraith-like ghosts and the full-bodied type, the dangerous and damaging, the threatening and the merely frightening. There are notorious buildings where down through the centuries spectres have been seen or heard, some, such as Leap Castle, where psychics have been overwhelmed by the intensity of the atmosphere. There are families pursued by spirits who warn them of impending death or seem to be trying to get back at them for some long-forgotten wrongdoing. Here are stories and details of the amazing variety of hauntings to be experienced throughout the country.


type="main"> Analysis of commodity chains has provided important insights on how power, resource and market access mediate the distribution of benefits and risks. Given this analytical potential, Commodity Chain Analysis (CCA) is now being applied to the study of biofuels and carbon markets to gain systematic insight into the circumstances, relationships and transformations involved in their production and exchange. By building on and adapting this approach to three distinct case studies (biofuels in Madagascar and forest carbon in Cambodia and Laos), this article contributes new insights on the emergence of value within market environmentalism. The analysis highlights methodological challenges in applying CCA to commodified forms of nature, and the significance of knowledge and value negotiations. All three cases illustrate that it remains highly uncertain whether or not market exchange can ultimately be realized. As in the case of traditional commodities, pre-existing conditions of power and access shape modes of production and network configuration. Parallel and intersecting commodity networks (e.g. for land and timber) also require us to think beyond the traditional single-commodity focus. Thus, the authors call for an expanded analytical focus in applying CCA to non-material 'green' commodities which places greater emphasis on value negotiations and connections within new 'commodity frontiers'.


Recreational fishers are increasingly competing for space and resources with commercial fishers worldwide, but have been poorly studied. In particular, the impacts of spearfishing competitions on the temperate fish assemblages have seldom been analysed. In Galicia (NW Spain), there are currently 5000 spear fishers, and 500 of them participate in spearfishing competitions. An historic archive of spearfishing competitions was used to assess their influence on the subsequent competitions in the area and to analyse their effect on the fish abundances estimated by underwater visual censuses. The annual recreational catch of the spear fishers was also estimated and comparisons with the commercial landings were performed. The spear fishers targeted 29 species, although six accounted for 95% of the catch. Most of the species show low vulnerabilities to fishing pressure and only Dicentrarchus labrax, among frequently caught species, can be considered as moderately vulnerable. The overall impact of spearfishing competitions on fish populations was limited, although some competitions temporarily reduced the abundances of Labrus bergylta , the main target species, by up to 83%. Spear fishers caught a large proportion of the total catch of common species, with recreational catches of some species (e.g. L. bergylta ) matching or exceeding the commercial catch. The inclusion of this fishery in the management models of the coastal ecosystems is strongly recommended.


We study the nature of filter methods for feature selection. In particular, we examine information theoretic approaches to this problem, looking at the literature over the past 20 years. We consider this literature from a different perspective, by viewing feature selection as a process which minimises a loss function. We choose to use the model likelihood as the loss function, and thus we seek to maximise the likelihood. The first contribution of this thesis is to show that the problem of information theoretic filter feature selection can be rephrased as maximising the likelihood of a discriminative model. From this novel result we can unify the literature revealing that many of these selection criteria are approximate maximisers of the joint likelihood. Many of these heuristic criteria were hand-designed to optimise various definitions of feature "relevancy" and "redundancy", but with our probabilistic interpretation we naturally include these concepts, plus the "conditional redundancy", which is a measure of positive interactions between features. This perspective allows us to derive the different criteria from the joint likelihood by making different independence assumptions on the underlying probability distributions. We provide an empirical study which reinforces our theoretical conclusions, whilst revealing implementation considerations due to the varying magnitudes of the relevancy and redundancy terms.We then investigate the benefits our probabilistic perspective provides for the application of these feature selection criteria in new areas. The joint likelihood automatically includes a prior distribution over the selected feature sets and so we investigate how including prior knowledge affects the feature selection process. We can now incorporate domain knowledge into feature selection, allowing the imposition of sparsity on the selected feature set without using heuristic stopping criteria. We investigate the use of priors mainly in the context of Markov Blanket discovery algorithms, in the process showing that a family of algorithms based upon IAMB are iterative maximisers of our joint likelihood with respect to a particular sparsity prior. We thus extend the IAMB family to include a prior for domain knowledge in addition to the sparsity prior.Next we investigate what the choice of likelihood function implies about the resulting filter criterion. We do this by applying our derivation to a cost-weighted likelihood, showing that this likelihood implies a particular cost-sensitive filter criterion. This criterion is based on a weighted branch of information theory and we prove several novel results justifying its use as a feature selection criterion, namely the positivity of the measure, and the chain rule of mutual information. We show that the feature set produced by this cost-sensitive filter criterion can be used to convert a cost-insensitive classifier into a cost-sensitive one by adjusting the features the classifier sees. This can be seen as an analogous process to that of adjusting the data via over or undersampling to create a cost-sensitive classifier, but with the crucial difference that it does not artificially alter the data distribution.Finally we conclude with a summary of the benefits this loss function view of feature selection has provided. This perspective can be used to analyse other feature selection techniques other than those based upon information theory, and new groups of selection criteria can be derived by considering novel loss functions.


People with disabilities face barriers when attempting to gain access to health care settings. Using qualitative analysis of three physician focus groups, we identified physical, communication, knowledge, structural, and attitudinal barriers to care for people with disabilities. Physicians reported feeling overwhelmed by the demands of practicing medicine in general and the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 specifically; in particular, they felt that they were inadequately reimbursed for accommodations. Some physicians reported that because of these concerns, they attempted to discharge people with disabilities from their practices. Increasing health care access for people with disabilities will require increasing the accessibility of space and the availability of proper equipment, improving the education of clinicians about the care of people with disabilities, and removing structural barriers in the health care delivery system. Our findings also suggest that physicians' bias and general reluctance to care for people with disabilities play a role in perpetuating the health care disparities they experience.


SUMMARY Despite infection control measures, an important increase in the extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae incidence density occurred in our hospital from 2006 onwards. This study, focusing on the 2005–2007 period, was performed in an attempt to explain this increase. ESBLs were characterized, isolates were typed by ERIC2-PCR, and sequence type (ST) of clustered isolates was determined. Temporal-spatial relationships of patients were analysed to assess possible cross-contamination. Of the 74 ESBL-producing isolates, 30 (40%) were detected at admission, 53 (71·5%) produced CTX-M enzymes, 40 displayed unique ERIC2-PCR profiles and 34 were assigned into six clusters: ST16 (n = 21), ST101, ST48, ST35, ST13, and ST436. Relationships were identified in 22 of the 34 patients harbouring clustered isolates. This study highlights the complex epidemiology of ESBL-producing K. pneumoniae in the mid-2000s with potential cross-contamination for only 30% of the 74 patients in our hospital, and the emergence of clones that are currently spreading worldwide.


Commercial-off-the-shelf operating systems (COTS OSs) are increasingly chosen as key building blocks in embedded system design due to their rich feature-set available at low costs. Unfortunately, as the complexity of such OSs increases, testing key OS components such as device drivers (DD) to ensure continuous service provision becomes increasingly challenging. Despite the improving test efforts targeting DDs, they still represent a significant cause of system outages as the test coverage is invariably limited by the inability to exhaustively assess and cover the operational states. Consequently, if representative operational execution profiles of DDs within an OS could be obtained, these could significantly improve the understanding of the actual operational DD state space and help focus the test efforts onto the execution hotspots. Focusing on characterizing DD operational activities while assuming no access to source code, our work enables profiling the runtime behavior of DDs solely based on I/Oand functional-call tracking. Such profiles are used to improve test adequacy against real-world workloads by enabling similarity quantification across them. The profiles also reveal execution hotspots in terms of functionalities activated in the field, allowing for dedicated test campaigns.


The aim of the study is to identify regularities in buying pork per annum and to investigate the seasonality of sales of selected meat products on the basis of data obtained by Tarczynski S.A. Group. The data analysis used multiplicative model, which focuses on the analysis of the seasonality factors. Analysis of the data indicates that companies more and more consciously shape its needs for the purchase of raw material. The companies carried out close monitoring of sales opportunities each assortment group to the maximum extent advantage of sales


ABSTRACTObjectiveThe majority of standard coding systems applied to health data are hierarchical: they start with several major categories and then each category is broken into subcategories across multiple levels. Running statistical models on these datasets, may lead to serious methodological challenges such as multicollinearity between levels or selecting suboptimal models as model space grows exponentially by adding each new level. The aim of this presentation is to introduce an analytical framework that addresses this challenge. ApproachData was from individuals who claimed Transport Accident Commission (TAC) compensation for motor vehicle accidents that occurred between 2010 and 2012 in the state of Victoria, Australia and provided consent for Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) linkage (n=738). PBS and MBS records dating from 12 months prior to injury were provided by the Department of Human Services (Canberra, Australia). Pre-injury use of health service items and pharmaceuticals were considered to indicate pre-existing health conditions. Both MBS and PBS listings have a hierarchical structure. The outcome was the cost of recovery; this was also hierarchical across four level (e.g. total, medical, consultations, and specialist). A Bayesian Model Averaging model was embedded into a data mining framework which automatically created all the cost outcomes and selected the best model after penalizing for multicollinearity. The model was run across multiple prior settings to ensure robustness. Monash University's High Performance Computing Cluster was used for running approximately 5000 final models.ResultsThe framework successfully identified variables at different levels of hierarchy as indicators of pre-existing conditions that affect cost of recovery. For example, according to the results, on average, patients who received prescription pain or mental health related medication before the injury had 31.2% higher short-term and 36.9% higher long-term total recovery cost. For every anaesthetic in the year before the accident, post-injury hospital cost increased by 24%, for patients with anxiety it increased by 35.4%. For post-injury medical costs, every prescription of drugs used in diabetes (Category A10 in ATC) increased the cost by 8%, long term medical costs were affected by both pain and mental health. ConclusionBayesian model averaging provides a robust framework for mining hierarchically linked health data helping researchers to identify potential associations which may not have been discovered using conventional technique and also preventing them from identifying associations that are sporadic but not robust.


Biofilms make an important contribution to survival and transmission of bacterial pathogens in the food chain. The human pathogen Campylobacter jejuni is known to form biofilms in vitro in food chain-relevant conditions, but the exact roles and composition of the extracellular matrix are still not clear. Extracellular DNA has been found in many bacterial biofilms and can be a major component of the extracellular matrix. Here we show that extracellular DNA is also an important component of the C. jejuni biofilm when attached to stainless steel surfaces, in aerobic conditions and on conditioned surfaces. Degradation of extracellular DNA by exogenous addition of DNase I led to rapid biofilm removal, without loss of C. jejuni viability. Following treatment of a surface with DNase I, C. jejuni was unable to re-establish a biofilm population within 48 h. Similar results were obtained by digesting extracellular DNA with restriction enzymes, suggesting the need for high molecular weight DNA. Addition of C. jejuni genomic DNA containing an antibiotic resistance marker resulted in transfer of the antibiotic resistance marker to susceptible cells in the biofilm, presumably by natural transformation. Taken together, this suggest that eDNA is not only an important component of C. jejuni biofilms and subsequent food chain survival of C. jejuni, but may also contribute to the spread of antimicrobial resistance in C. jejuni. The degradation of extracellular DNA with enzymes such as DNase I is a rapid method to remove C. jejuni biofilms, and is likely to potentiate the activity of antimicrobial treatments and thus synergistically aid disinfection treatments.


The BRAHMS collaboration has measured transverse momentum spectra of pions, kaons, protons, and antiprotons at rapidities 0 and 3 for Cu+Cu collisions at sNN=200 GeV. As the collisions become more central the collective radial flow increases while the temperature of kinetic freeze-out decreases. The temperature is lower and the radial flow weaker at forward rapidity. Pion and kaon yields with transverse momenta between 1.5 and 2.5 GeV/c are suppressed for central collisions relative to scaled p+p collisions. This suppression, which increases as the collisions become more central, is consistent with jet quenching models and is also present with comparable magnitude at forward rapidity. At such rapidities, initial state effects may also be present and persistence of the meson suppression to high rapidity may reflect a combination of jet quenching and nuclear shadowing. The ratio of protons to mesons increases as the collisions become more central and is largest at forward rapidities.


Proper short-circuit protection in dc distribution systems has provided an austere challenge to researchers as the development of commercially-viable equipment providing fast operation, coordination and reliability still continues. The objective of this thesis is to analyze issues associated with short-circuit protection of low-voltage dc (LVDC) distribution systems and propose a short-circuit protection methodology based on solid-state circuit breakers (SSCBs) that provides fault-current limiting (FCL). Simulation results for a simplified notional 1-kVdc distribution system, performed in MATLAB/SIMULINK, would be presented to illustrate that SSCB solutions based on reverse-blocking integrated gate-commutated thyristors (RB-IGCT) are feasible for low-voltage dc distribution systems but requires connecting several devices in parallel to open fast-rising fault currents. To validate the implementation of the FCL function, the coordination between upstream and downstream SSCBs during a fault at different operating conditions of the system is presented. In addition, several fault-detection techniques would be compared by means of the let-through energies, and the impact of FCL on the thermal handling requirements of the RB-IGCT would also be discussed. ©2017 by Sharthak Munasib All Rights Reserved


The characteristics of Eperythrozoon ovis isolated from sheep and goats blood were studied by several approaches. Detection of E. avis from naturally infected sheep and goats was compared by light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), indirect immunofluorescent antibody test (IFAT) and confocal microscopy. It was concluded that the Giemsa staining is cheap, fast and easy to perform, but it may not be specific when E. ovis become difficult to distinguish from stain deposits or dust particles. The IFAT was rapid, specific and sensitive, but it required specific hyperimmune serum and sometimes it produced background glow that degrades the images. The confocal microscopic examination greatly enhanced images of E. ovis and was more sensitive than IFAT. The SEM and TEM are indispensable tools for the unambiguous identification of H. ovis morphology and it also provide ultrastructural detail of the organism. In vitro culture and maintenance of E. ovis was successfully done upto 408 hours in tissue culture media. After intensive screening, the following conditions were found to be optimal for maintenance of red blood cell attachment by E. ovis, heparin as the anticoagulant for blood collection, incubation with Eagle's medium under 5% C02 and supplemented with inosine and foetal calf serum, and refreshment of medium every 12 hours. An attempt to propagate F. ovis in 8 days old embryonated chicken eggs by
inoculating through the yolk sac, chorioallantoic membrane and allantoic sac was carried out. Infectivity was checked impression smears made from organs (liver, spleen and yolk sac membrane) of dead and live embryoes and stained with Giemsa and further confirmed by IFAT. Among the three routes of inoculation, yolk sac was the most suitable route for propagation of E. ovis. Large number of E. ovis organisms were seen in yolk sac membrane. Western blotting analysis of the purified sample using hyperimmune serum
prepared by injecting purified E. ovis antigens collected from infected sheep into rabbits, revealed five protein bands with MW 180, 172, 118, 95 and 80 kDa were identified as the E. ovis specific bands. Among the 5 selected proteins MW 95 kDa was the most dominant. These protein were detected from infected sheep and goats indicating that the protein profiles of E. ovis isolated from sheep and goats were similar. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of the 16S rRNA gene was investigated to determine its potential as a means of detecting E. ovis infection in sheep and goats. PCR produced a specific product of approximately 1500 bp from infected but not uninfected samples. Sensitivity studies indicated that the peR protocol was capable of amplitying total genomic E. ovis DNA in quantities as low as 20 ng. In conclusion, this study discussed for the first development of PCR based assay to detect E. ovis from naturally infected sheep and goats. It seems that the PCR assay is specific and very sensitive compared to other test. Development of in vitro maintenance
study provides information about the establishment of in vitro culture system for the maintenance and propagation of E. ovis. This study also indicated that the protein profiles of E. ovis isolated from sheep and goats were similar.


Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are often deployed to sample the desired environmental attributes and deliver the acquired samples to the sink for processing, analysis or simulations as per the application needs. Many applications stipulate high granularity and data accuracy that results in high data volumes. Sensor nodes are battery powered and sending the requested large amount of data rapidly depletes their energy. Fortunately, the environmental attributes (e.g., temperature, pressure) often exhibit spatial and temporal correlations. Moreover, a large class of applications such as scientific measurement and forensics tolerate high latencies for sensor data collection. Accordingly, we develop a fully distributed adaptive technique for spatial and temporal in-network data compression with accuracy guarantees. We exploit the spatio-temporal correlation of sensor readings while benefiting from possible data delivery latency tolerance to further minimize the amount of data to be transported to the sink. Using real data, we demonstrate that our proposed scheme can provide significant communication/energy savings without sacrificing the accuracy of collected data. In our simulations, we achieved data compression of up to 95% on the raw data requiring around 5% of the original data to be transported to the sink.


Molecular clockwork from cyanobacteria The cyanobacterial circadian clock oscillator can be reconstituted in a test tube from just three proteins—KaiA, KaiB, and KaiC—and adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Tseng et al. studied crystal and nuclear magnetic resonance structures of complexes of the oscillator proteins and their signaling output proteins and tested the in vivo effects of structure-based mutants. Large conformational changes in KaiB and ATP hydrolysis by KaiC are coordinated with binding to output protein, which couples signaling and the day-night transitions of the clock. Snijder et al. provide complementary analysis of the oscillator proteins by mass spectrometry and cryo–electron microscopy. Their results help to explain the structural basis for the dynamic assembly of the oscillator complexes. Science, this issue p. 1174, p. 1181 The molecular interactions that make the cyanobacterial circadian clock tick are revealed. Cyanobacteria have a robust circadian oscillator, known as the Kai system. Reconstituted from the purified protein components KaiC, KaiB, and KaiA, it can tick autonomously in the presence of adenosine 5′-triphosphate (ATP). The KaiC hexamers enter a natural 24-hour reaction cycle of autophosphorylation and assembly with KaiB and KaiA in numerous diverse forms. We describe the preparation of stoichiometrically well-defined assemblies of KaiCB and KaiCBA, as monitored by native mass spectrometry, allowing for a structural characterization by single-particle cryo–electron microscopy and mass spectrometry. Our data reveal details of the interactions between the Kai proteins and provide a structural basis to understand periodic assembly of the protein oscillator.