"In all my whole career the Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in. It was the honky-tonk where levee workers would congregate every Saturday night and trade with the gals who'd stroll up and down the floor and the bar. Those guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy, and there was lots of just plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all that jive didn't faze me at all, I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn." So says Louis Armstrong, a tough kid who just happened to be a musical genius, about one of the places where he performed and grew up. This raucous, rich tale of his early days in New Orleans concludes with his departure to Chicago at twenty-one to play with his boyhood idol King Oliver, and tells the story of a life that began, mythically, on July 4, 1900, in the city that sowed the seeds of jazz.


African trypanosomiasis is a disease caused by the Kinetoplastida parasites Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense and T. b. gambiense. The distribution of the disease is split geographically with T. b. rhodesiense found in eastern sub-Saharan Africa and T. b. gambiense in the west of the continent. Current treatment for this fatal disease is wholly unsatisfactory with problems such as extreme toxicity, affordability and the emergence of resistance. The case for the generation of new potential chemotherapies is compelling and urgent.
Phosphodiesterase (PDE) enzymes degrade the secondary signalling molecule cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) to AMP by hydrolysis, thereby modulating and regulating the signal transduction to the effector proteins. The phosphodiesterase enzymes in the PDEB family in T. brucei were shown to be essential to the host-infective bloodstream forms and validated as good drug targets using RNA-interference (Zoraghi, R. and Seebeck, T., 2002; Oberholzer, M., 2007). Prompted by these findings, two series of putative trypanosomal PDE inhibitors, from different sources, were thoroughly assessed in this project for their anti-trypanosomal activity and their intracellular effects on the trypanosome.
The whole-cell in vitro efficacy for each compound, against T. brucei wildtype and the drug-resistant strain TbAT1 knockout, was established by the standard resazurin reduction assay. 25 compounds from Series 1 had EC50 values below 0.5 µM, with 7 under 100 nM and the most active having an EC50 value of 5.8 ± 3.4 nM. For the much smaller Series 2 (GJS Compounds), the most active compound was GJS-128 with an EC50 value of 79.4 ± 10.3 nM. This demonstrates that a number of compounds from both series have potent in vitro activity against trypanosomes that is better than or equal to the current chemotherapeutic compound diminazene, and some Series 1 compounds are on a par with pentamidine and melarsoprol. No major cross-resistance was displayed by the TbAT1 knockout strain to either Series 1 or the GJS series. Similarly, a panel of Series 1 compounds tested against the B48 strain (resistant to pentamidine and melaminophenyl arsenical drugs), and also against Trypanosoma equiperdum wildtype and diminazene resistant (PBR) strains, showed no major cross-resistance displayed by the other resistant strains. This suggests that there would also be little or no cross-resistance from refractory strains in the field, and also that the compounds are active against multiple Trypanosoma species. A small panel of Series 1 compounds were also tested for efficacy against trypanosomes in infected mice. 4 daily doses of 20 mg/kg bodyweight of Compound 48 significantly reduced parasitaemia by approximately 60% compared to untreated controls, however higher concentrations were not tolerated by the mice so a cure could not be demonstrated.
A high-throughput method for monitoring the speed of action of test compounds on trypanosomes in real time was developed, based on the fluorescence of propidium iodide when bound with DNA. Optimisation of the protocol to 96-well plates and low cell densities provided higher resolution and accurate traces of the lysis of trypanosomes in a cell suspension compared to previously used methods, as well as a greatly increased capacity. The propidium iodide assay could also be converted to provide end-point EC50 values that were directly comparable to those established by the standard resazurin reduction assay.
The majority of Series 1 compounds did not increase the intracellular concentration of cAMP on incubation with bloodstream form trypanosomes; those that did only induced a minor elevation of the intracellular concentration of the signalling molecule. Since genetic disruption to phosphodiesterase enzymes resulted in large increases in cAMP levels (Oberholzer, M. et al, 2007; Zoraghi, R. and Seebeck, T., 2002), the lack of increase in cAMP by the Series 1 compounds strongly suggest that they do not sufficiently inhibit the PDEs in live trypanosomes and kill the cells via an alternative pathway.
In contrast, incubation with the GJS compounds did result in significant increases in intracellular cAMP concentration with the most active being GJS-128 recording an approximately 3-fold increase in cAMP over 3 hours at just 30 nM. The concentrations that begin to increase cAMP level are consistent with the EC50 values for trypanosomes cultured in vitro (this study), and is also in line with inhibition data of recombinant TbrPDEB enzymes (work conducted by Dr. Herrmann Tenor, ALTANA Pharma, and Prof. Thomas Seebeck, University of Bern). This gives a clear and consistent link between the cause of cAMP rise (inhibition of PDEB by GJS compounds) and the effect of that concentration increase on bloodstream form trypanosomes (cell death), demonstrating that the GJS series are inhibitors of trypanosomal PDEs and chemically validate PDEs as drug targets for potential new chemotherapies against African trypanosomiasis.
The effect of PDE inhibition on the physiology of the bloodstream form trypanosomes was also investigated. Flow cytometry analysis and the assessment of DNA configuration by fluorescence microscopy after DAPI staining determined that PDE inhibition by GJS-128 resulted in a precise block of the cell cycle in cytokinesis. The replicating trypanosome synthesized and segregated its DNA into two nuclei and kinetoplasts as normal and proceeded to initiate the physical separation of mother and daughter cells. The cleavage furrow between the old and new flagella progressed normally until the point of abscission, at which point division was halted with only a small section of plasma membrane connecting the two almost separated cells. Both cells appeared viable and underwent subsequent rounds of DNA replication, segregation and attempted physical separation that was always blocked near completion. This indicates cAMP signalling plays an important role in the correct physical separation of the replicating bloodstream form trypanosomes.
A trypanosome cell line resistant to GJS-128 was developed by chemical mutagenesis and continuous culture with gradually increasing, but sub-lethal concentrations of the PDE inhibitor. This cell line, termed R0.8, was >15-fold less sensitive to GJS-128 and displayed significant cross-resistance to the other GJS compounds, as well as to stable, membrane permeable cAMP analogues. The mode of resistance was investigated by comparing the cAMP profile of the R0.8 and parental wildtype strains on incubation with GJS-128. No major differences were observed suggesting that both the adenylyl cyclase and phosphodiesterase activities remained unchanged in the PDE inhibitor-resistant strain. In support of this, the sequencing of TbrPDEB1 and TbrPDEB2 in both strains, while uncovering the loss of heterozygosity in the R0.8 line, revealed no mutations that would impact on enzyme function or inhibitor binding in the resistant cell line. These data strongly suggest that the adaptation resulting in resistance to PDE inhibitors is located in the effector proteins downstream of the PDEs and adenylyl cyclases in the cAMP signalling pathway.
Identifying a compound that inhibits phosphodiesterases in trypanosomes and elevates cAMP concentrations, along with the generation of a PDE inhibitor-resistant cell line will allow more detailed examination of all aspects of the cAMP signalling pathway in T. brucei and across the Kinetoplastida. Phosphodiesterases have also been demonstrated to be chemically inhibitable in trypanosomes and could prove to be the target of a new generation of chemotherapies against African trypanosomiasis.


This paper argues that ethnographers can gain increased agency in data-driven corporate environments by increasing their quantitative literacy: their ability to create, understand, and strategically use quantitative data to shape organizations. Drawing on the author's experience conducting strategic user research at a technology company, the paper explores how the ability to engage with quantitative data can increase ethnographers' independence and autonomy within organizations, and can also up-level the role and value of qualitative research. The paper also explores how a deep familiarity with quantitative data can enable ethnographers to imbue quantitative data itself with new forms of agency, and can ultimately give ethnographers the tools to change institutions from within. With a greater understanding of how quantitative data is made and used, ethnographers can ensure that data is collected in representative ways, point out the limitations of existing metrics, and argue for new ways of measuring and understanding social life.


Unoccupied aircraft systems (UAS) are now frequently used in wildlife research, including studies of marine species. Researchers are turning to UAS platforms for population assessment purposes because they may provide flexible, safe, and low-cost data collection. In these cases, it is important that the accuracy and precision of UAS-based approaches are evaluated to ensure data quality and comparability with legacy data. The present study compares image quality and survey performance of two small UAS with that of an occupied aircraft as applied to a population survey and molt-stage assessment of gray seals (Halichoerus grypus) in the northeastern United States. Population surveys using fixed-wing UAS and occupied aircraft provided similar quality imagery with only minor deviations in counts of both adult seals (<1% difference) and pups (3.7% difference). The multicopter UAS proved especially useful for molt-stage assessment when compared to both fixed-wing UAS and occupied aircraft surveys. The results of...


Complementary currencies have spread to many places around the world at the beginning of the 21st century. Creating sustainable economic cycles and short transport routes are often the goals of introducing them. Due to their manageability, regional currencies can be embedded in debates of regional economics and sustainability. Above all, they are suitable for democratic experiments that can show in real environments whether currency designs work as examples of collaborative communities and research. One of these monetary experiments is the climate bonus, which is linked to the local currency Chiemgauer. The research path goes into the daily routine of a real laboratory to find out which methods would be effective enough to deliver carbon savings. The climate bonus creates a monetary network where people can try out new behaviors in a protected space. As a result, three years after the initiation of the project, carbon reductions are above expectations.


What's news? A front-page news story in the United States might not appear in a newspaper in China. Or a minor story on German television may be all over the airwaves in India. But News Around the World shows that the underlying nature of news is much the same the world over and that people--no matter what their jobs or their status in society--tend to hold similar notions of newsworthiness. In this richly detailed study of international news, news makers and the audience, the authors have undertaken exhaustive original research within two cities--one major and one peripheral--in each of ten countries: Australia, Chile, China, Germany, India, Israel, Jordan, Russia, South Africa, and the United States. The nations were selected for study based on a central principle of maximizing variation in geographic locations, economic and political systems, languages, sizes, and cultures. The remarkable scope of the research makes this the most comprehensive analysis of newsworthiness around the globe: *10 countries studied, each with a university country director *2 cities in each country examined, one major and one peripheral *60 news media studied (newspapers, television, and radio news programs), resulting in 32,000+ news items analyzed *80 focus groups with journalists, public relations practitioners, and audience members *2,400 newspaper stories ranked according to newsworthiness and compared with how prominently they were published. News Around the World provides remarkable insight into how and why news stories are reported, testing and improving a theory of cross-cultural newsworthiness and is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand international media and journalism.


The processes leading to drought-associated tree mortality are poorly understood, particularly long-term predisposing factors, memory effects, and variability in mortality processes and thresholds in space and time. We use tree rings from four sites to investigate Pinus edulis mortality during two drought periods in the southwestern USA. We draw on recent sampling and archived collections to (1) analyze P. edulis growth patterns and mortality during the 1950s and 2000s droughts; (2) determine the influence of climate and competition on growth in trees that died and survived; and (3) derive regression models of growth-mortality risk and evaluate their performance across space and time. Recent growth was 53% higher in surviving vs. dying trees, with some sites exhibiting decades-long growth divergences associated with previous drought. Differential growth response to climate partly explained growth differences between live and dead trees, with responses wet/cool conditions most influencing eventual tree status. Competition constrained tree growth, and reduced trees' ability to respond to favorable climate. The best predictors in growth-mortality models included long-term (15–30 year) average growth rate combined with a metric of growth variability and the number of abrupt growth increases over 15 and 10 years, respectively. The most parsimonious models had high discriminatory power (ROC>0.84) and correctly classified ∼70% of trees, suggesting that aspects of tree growth, especially over decades, can be powerful predictors of widespread drought-associated die-off. However, model discrimination varied across sites and drought events. Weaker growth-mortality relationships and higher growth at lower survival probabilities for some sites during the 2000s event suggest a shift in mortality processes from longer-term growth-related constraints to shorter-term processes, such as rapid metabolic decline even in vigorous trees due to acute drought stress, and/or increases in the attack rate of both chronically stressed and more vigorous trees by bark beetles.


Information search relevance is a key challenge for information systems researchers. We propose a framework for development of a new architecture for search, collaborative indexing, employing the collaborative thinking of informed individuals to develop indices. Creator circles of individuals will mark pages of relevance to a topic, or pages that usefully answer questions, through interaction with their web browser. These marked pages will create and continuously add to a domain specific search index. Through searches of this index by members of the creator circles, other members of the organization, or the public, we propose the results returned will have greater relevance and usefulness in finding information, collaborative learning, and collaborative problem solving.


Software testing is often a complex process potentially involving a large number of geographically distributed people with different perspectives and competencies. Software testers, software developers and project managers engage in discussions about the software errors found, they negotiate the relative importance of the bugs, they allocate responsibilities and resources, they coordinate who is doing what, etc. They talk about bugs. In order to coordinate and manage talking about bugs, a number of means for coordination are applied. The aim of this paper is to analyze coordination work in software testing in order to promote general requirements for computer support. We have studied the testing of more than 200,000 lines of code at Foss Electric, a Danish manufacturing company, and focused on two aspects: Firstly, the coordination activities related to the process of distributed registration, classification, diagnosis, correction, and verification of software errors, as well as the monitoring of the state-of-affairs of testing activities. Secondly, the mechanisms used to support the coordination. The analysis resulted in the identification of the need for computer support for coordinating this part of the software testing process, e.g., support of distributed classification, routing of information, and facilities providing an overview of state of affairs.


In this paper we reexamine the link between gender inequality and corruption. We review the literature on the relationship between representation of women in economic and political life, democracy and corruption, and bring in a new previously omitted variable that captures the level of discrimination against women in a society: social institutions related to gender inequality. Using a sample of developing countries we regress corruption on the representation of women, democracy and other control variables. Then we add the subindex civil liberties from the OECD Development Centre's GID Data-Base as the measure of social institutions related to gender inequality. The results show that corruption is higher in countries where social institutions deprive women of their freedom to participate in social life, even accounting for democracy and representation of women in political and economic life as well as for other variables. Our findings suggest that, in a context where social values disadvantage women, neither political reforms towards democracy nor increasing the representation of women in political and economic positions might be enough to reduce corruption.


Sediment nutrient concentrations were generally highest in the deepest regions of both harbours due to sediment focusing. The sediments in the two harbours were the largest nutrient pool. Macroalgae were the largest plant nutrient pool, accounting for over 80% of plant biomass in Princess Royal Harbour and over 50% in Oyster Harbour. Macroalgae contained about 90% of the nitrogen and 70% of the phosphorus pool associated with aquatic plants in Princess Royal Harbour, and about 60% of nitrogen and 34% of the aquatic plant phosphorus pool in Oyster Harbour. The high mean areal macroalgal biomass (406 g m•2) in Princess Royal Harbour was indicative of a highly eutrophic system. This was also supported by the characteristics of biomass, cover and carbonate content of algal epiphytes on seagrasses. The results of this study indicated that Princess Royal Harbour was more eutrophic than Oyster Harbour.

Dense macroalgal beds were found in the south-eastern comer of both harbours. Prevailing wind directions are such that these areas are the most sheltered and therefore are suitable for macroalgal growth and accumulation. Circulation patterns are also compatible with the accumulation of drift algae in this area of the harbours (Mills, 1987).

The rate of loss of seagrass area in the two harbours since 1984 was lower than that estimated between 1981 and 1984 by Bastyan (1986). Considerable losses of biomass are, however, continuing to occur, particularly in Princess Royal Harbour where 60% of above-ground seagrass biomass present in 1984 was lost by 1988. At present, major losses are occurring in the shallow dense seagrass beds, presumably due to macroalgal smothering. Present epiphyte loads were not considered to be high enough to cause significant losses of seagrass.

An increase in light supply is probably responsible for the seagrass regeneration recorded in some deeper areas of Oyster Harbour. This trend is expected to reverse if water quality deteriorates again. Macroalgal biomass in both harbours must be reduced to halt the loss of seagrass beds in shallow waters. The role of algal epiphytes in the decline of seagrass in both harbours may be more significant than implied from the results of this study due to the large interannual variation in nutrient loading to the harbours.


Knowledge about the graph structure of the Web is important for understanding this complex socio-technical system and for devising proper policies supporting its future development. Knowledge about the differences between clean and malicious parts of the Web is important for understanding potential treats to its users and for devising protection mechanisms. In this study, we conduct data science methods on a large crawl of surface and deep Web pages with the aim to increase such knowledge. To accomplish this, we answer the following questions. Which theoretical distributions explain important local characteristics and network properties of websites? How are these characteristics and properties different between clean and malicious (malware-affected) websites? What is the prediction power of local characteristics and network properties to classify malware websites? To the best of our knowledge, this is the first large-scale study describing the differences in global properties between malicious and clean parts of the Web. In other words, our work is building on and bridging the gap between \textit{Web science} that tackles large-scale graph representations and \textit{Web cyber security} that is concerned with malicious activities on the Web. The results presented herein can also help antivirus vendors in devising approaches to improve their detection algorithms.


ABSTRACT We show the first conclusive evidence that Melitasphaeridium choanophorum, a dinoflagellate cyst species until recently considered extinct, is still living in the northern Gulf of Mexico. This suggests the Gulf of Mexico may have acted as a refugium for some warm-water dinoflagellates during past glaciations. Melitasphaeridium choanophorum can be considered a living fossil because cysts with cell contents were found among 15 of the 39 surface sediment samples analyzed from the northern Gulf of Mexico, and from five of 12 samples from a dated core (1962–1997). Melitasphaeridium choanophorum comprises a minor component of the total dinoflagellate cyst assemblages, with a maximum of 1.4% or 15 cysts g-1. It was found in surface sediments with overlying sea-surface temperatures of 16.6 to 31.2 °C (winter and summer), and summer sea-surface salinities of 21.0 to 31.7 psu. The relationship of M. choanophorum with modern sea-surface conditions can be used to infer past oceanographic conditions.


Agriculture is the mainstay of the Kenyan economy accounting for 24% of the GDP and accounting 18% of all formal employment in the country. Agriculture includes crop husbandly and animal production. The livestock sector in Kenya accounts for 10-15 % of the GDP. Au -IBAR, Kenya livestock sector study .The sector employs about 50% of the total labor force in the agricultural sector. The sector contributes over 30% of the agricultural GDP. The livestock resource is estimated at 60 million units comprising of 29 million poultry, 13million cattle, 16 million, goats and sheep., 0.52 million donkey,O.3 \ million pigs and 0.5 million of other exotic livestock. The sector offers an opportunity for increased employment and household economy, if appropriate packages are put in place in production and marketing. Among the inputs required for effective and efficient production are vaccines, dewormers, curative medicines, acaricides and minerals which are provided in the market by veterinary pharmaceutical firms. The purpose of this study was to identify the competitive strategies used by veterinary pharmaceutical firms in Kenya to gain competitive advantage. It also evaluates the effect of the strategies on firm performance. The study was to focus on strategies and approaches employed by the various firms, to establish how this relates to competitive advantage and are manifested in performance. The main objective of the study was to establish the effect of competitive strategies on performance of veterinary pharmaceutical firms in Nairobi County. The specific objectives was be to examine the relationship between cost leadership strategies and performance, to establish the differentiation strategies and their relationship to performance, to examine focus strategies and their relationship with performance. A survey involving the entire population of 30 veterinary pharmaceutical firms was done . .Data was collected using personally administered structured questionnaires. Data collected was edited then coded. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data. This was presented in be percentages, frequency distribution tables and other descriptive statistics mainly mean and standard deviation. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) was used for this analysis. This information has been displayed by use of bar charts, graphs and pie charts. The results of the data analysis were presented and conclusions drawn. From the results it has been concluded that all the three competitive strategies of focus, cost leadership and differentiation have a positive and significant relationship to performance. The study recommends that VPFs should use more of the focus strategy than the other strategies since it has the most significant relationship to performance. This will ensure competitiveness in the market and enhance performance.


Background:  The use of learning styles to guide an educational method is becoming increasingly important, with it contributing to the effectiveness of a learning environment. This study addresses the concept of learning styles with reference to students of the Department of Optometry at the University of the Free State, South Africa – a topic that previously has not received much attention. Aim:  The aim of this study was to identify the learning styles of optometry students as described by Kolb. Kolb's Learning Style Inventory (LSI) was completed by the undergraduate students of the Optometry Department, in order to create a better understanding of how students perceive and process learning and to enhance the learning environment accordingly. Setting:  This study was conducted in the Optometry Department at the University of the Free State. Methods:  Undergraduate optometry students ( N  = 106) who were registered for the 2014 academic year and agreed to participate in the study completed Kolb's LSI to determine their learning styles. Descriptive statistics for categorical data and medians and percentiles for numerical data were calculated. Results:  A response rate of 94.6% was achieved, with female students representing the majority (72.6%). The converger learning style was identified as the most preferred learning style among most students, followed by the assimilator, accommodator and diverger learning styles. Conclusion:  Knowledge of Kolb's learning styles created a better understanding of how students learn, which will benefit the facilitator as well as the students. It is recommended that to enhance the learning environment, curriculum delivery and education methods, the learning styles of students should be kept in mind.


Invasive plant species can alter natural communities and degrade ecosystem function, yet the factors influencing species invasion are poorly understood. Understanding how environmental factors affect plant invasion on compensatory wetland mitigation sites would allow wetland managers to approach invasive species management using a proactive approach (prior to invasion), thus minimizing the likelihood of invasive plants colonizing the system and degrading ecosystem function. In Chapter 1, I introduce the concepts and relevant literature used repeatedly in my project. In Chapter 2, I examine which key environmental factors are associated with altered plant community structure and invasive species prevalence on compensatory wetland mitigation sites. In Chapter 3, I look further into the plant community assemblage at each of my study sites and examine differences in the plant community at varying levels of invasive plant prevalence. For this study, Arthraxon hispidus (small carpet grass), Microstegium vimineum (Japanese stilt grass), and Typha spp. (cattail) were selected as representative invasive plants due to their abundance on non-tidal wetland mitigation sites, as well as their relative differences in ecological tolerance for environmental conditions (e.g., light availability or flooding). Within populations of these species, transects consisting of five 4m2 plots were established on 34 wetland mitigation sites within the Coastal Plain and Piedmont physiographic provinces in Virginia. Along transects, plots were randomly assigned to locations that captured the gradient from completely invaded (invasive species dominant) to uninvaded (invasive species absent or nearly so). For each plot, vegetation abundance data, soil samples, and canopy imagery were obtained for analysis. In Chapter 2, Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) reveals iron, phosphorus, calcium, carbon:nitrogen ratio, canopy cover, and hydrology as correlates with variation in plant community composition across the invasion gradient. In Chapter 3, Spearman rank correlation results show no significant relationship between native species richness and invasive species abundance for any of the three species examined. Further analysis using Sørensen indices of similarity and species accumulation curves corroborate this result. Further study is required to determine causality in the relationships between invasive species and environmental variables, but results demonstrate the need for function-based criteria regarding invasive species management on compensatory wetland mitigation sites. Current standards encourage the use of non-specific herbicides, which may increase the risk of damaging native plant communities and perpetuating the cycle of disturbance and re-invasion on wetland mitigation sites.


The per capita acre age of cultivated summer legumes is decreasing in Egypt.
Improving the efficiency of agricultural resources utilization is needed to
increase the output per unit area in marginal and sandy lands. Excessive
applied irrigation water and nitrogen (N) mineral fertilization are common
agricultural practices that often negatively influence soil and environmental
quality in crop production systems in Egypt. By intercropping, it should
help to raise total agricultural production under limited agricultural
resources. These have been a surge of interest in this work on intercropping
summer legumes with corn to explore their effects and improve their
productivities to increase farmer's income. Intercropping provides practical
solutions for increasing crop and livestock production, as well as, soil
productivity for rural and Bedouin farmers in Egypt and Arab communities
that live in marginal and sandy lands without any additional agricultural
resources. Peanut and soybean are excellent worldwide oil and protein crops,
meanwhile cowpea is an excellent worldwide protein crop. These legumes
are produced through intercropping in wide areas in many countries.
Intercropping should technically increase oil and protein production to
compensate oil and protein shortages in Egypt and the Arab world. Results
of 40 years (1979-2019) of scientific research on intercropping enabled
development of technological packages for intercropping summer legumes
with corn to realize high yield of both crops under different environments
in Egypt to increase crop and livestock production, as well as farmer's
income. A symbiotic relationship was found between summer legumes and
corn under intercropping culture which led to a reduction in N mineral
fertilization of the two crops and in turn reduced the environmental
pollution by preserving groundwater from the pollution. This relationship is
fixing of legume plants to the atmospheric N by rhizobia fixing bacteria that
live in legume roots which facilitate it to absorb by intercropped corn roots
and in turn increase the ability of corn plants to tolerate water shortage that
is characterized by these lands. Meanwhile corn plants protect summer
legume plants from high temperatures where these legumes are grown under
temperate regions, so intercropping reduced transpiration resulting from
legume leaves and increased the ability of summer legume plants to tolerate
water shortage in these lands. From 36 years ago, rural farmers intercropped
20377 hectare of soybeans with corn realizing 4.7 ton/hectare of corn grains
equivalent to the national average yield of solid corn, in addition to a bonus
of about two tons of soybean seeds which reflected positively on farmer's
income under different environments. In another study, field trials were
conducted under limited irrigation water by growing soybean with corn
realizing 3.65 ton/hectare of corn grains equivalent to 71% of corn grain
yield under solid culture, in addition to a bonus of about two tons of
soybean seeds in sandy soil. Also, field trials were conducted to raise land
usage under limited irrigation water by growing corn in peanut fields
realizing 2.78 ton/hectare of peanut pods equivalent to 86% of the national
average of yield of solid peanut under sandy soils, in addition to five tons of
corn grains which reflected positively on farmer's income. In another study,
a field trial was conducted to feed livestock by removing corn plants as fresh
fodder at 85 days from corn planting where it gave 17.70 ton/hectare of
corn fresh fodder +1.62 ton/hectare of peanut pods under intercropping
culture in sandy soil. The amount of N provided by summer legumes varied
according to legume species under sandy soil conditions. Soybean plants
gave intercropped corn plants an amount of N estimated at 20% of the
recommended N fertilizer rate of corn; meanwhile this amount reached
12.5% by intercropping cowpea with corn under limited N conditions.
Land equivalent ratio (LER) exceeding 1.10 in field trails and farmer fields
which reflected positively on famer's income. Intercropping corn in peanut
fields left 40% N and 30% phosphor (P) for the following winter crops
under sandy soil conditions. These are examples for the potential
contribution of intensive cropping systems to enhance agricultural (crop and
livestock) production without any additional Agricultural resources.


This brief presents the design and analysis of a 5.5-V class-D stage used in two fully integrated watt-level, +32.0 and + 29.7 dBm, outphasing RF power amplifiers (PAs) in standard 130- and 65-nm CMOS technologies. The class-D stage utilizes a cascode configuration, driven by an ac-coupled low-voltage driver, to allow a 5.5-V supply in the 1.2-/2.5-V technologies without excessive device voltage stress. The rms electric fields (E) across the gate oxides and the optimal bias point, where the voltage stress is equally divided between the transistors, are computed. At the optimal bias point, the rms E, the power dissipation of the parasitic drain capacitance of the common-source transistors, and the equivalent on-resistances are reduced by approximately 25%, 50%, and 25%, compared to a conventional cascode (inverter) stage. To the authors' best knowledge, the class-D PAs presented are among the first fully integrated CMOS outphasing PAs reaching +30 dBm and demonstrate state-of-the-art output power and bandwidth.


Background/Context There are few examples from classrooms or the literature that provide a clear vision of teaching that simultaneously promotes rigorous disciplinary activity and is responsive to all students. Maintaining rigorous and equitable classroom discourse is a worthy goal, yet there is no clear consensus of how this actually works in a classroom. Focus of Study What does highly rigorous and responsive talk sound like and how is this dialogue embedded in the social practices and activities of classrooms? Our aim was to examine student and teacher interactions in classroom episodes (warm-ups, small-group conversations, whole-group conversation, etc.) and contribute to a growing body of research that specifies equity in classroom practice. Research Design This mixed-method study examines differences in discourse within and across classroom episodes (warm-ups, small-group conversations, whole-group conversation, etc.) that elevated, or failed to elevate, students' explanatory rigor in equitable ways. Data include 222 secondary science lessons (1,174 episodes) from 37 novice teachers. Lessons were videotaped and analyzed for the depth of students' explanatory talk and the quality of responsive dialogue. Findings The findings support three statistical claims. First, high levels of rigor cannot be attained in classrooms where teachers are unresponsive to students' ideas or puzzlements. Second, the architecture of a lesson matters. Teachers and students engaging in highly rigorous and responsive lessons turned potentially trivial episodes (such as warm-ups) of science activity into robust learning experiences, connected to other episodes in the same lesson. Third, episodes featuring one or more forms of responsive talk elevated rigor. There were three forms of responsive talk observed in classrooms: building on students' science ideas, attending to students' participation in the learning community, and folding in students' lived experiences. Small but strategic moves within these forms were consequential for supporting rigor. Conclusions/Recommendations This paper challenges the notion that rigor and responsiveness are attributes of curricula or individual teachers. Rigorous curriculum is necessary but not sufficient for ambitious and equitable science learning experiences; the interactions within the classroom are essential for sustaining the highest quality of scientific practice and sense-making. The data supported the development of a framework that articulates incremental differences in supporting students' explanatory rigor and three dimensions of responsiveness. We describe implications for using this framework in the design of teacher programs and professional development models.


This portfolio is concerned with two new developments in my composition. Firstly, I have incorporated theatrical techniques in addition to and as an enhancement of my purely sonic writing. Secondly, I have aimed to engage with, and attempt to clearly communicate a central concept with each piece. This commentary outlines the various inspirations behind these goals, details the techniques I used, and reflectively discusses the results and reactions to the pieces.


For any business to compete successfully in the modern, globalised business environment, it needs to mobilise its suppliers and customers to co-operate in order to reduce unnecessary costs and inefficiencies between them and to ensure the best value for the final customer. The focus is on management of the supply chain as a whole (or a system) and maximum value for the final customer of the supply chain, instead of on management for the maximum benefit of one of the parties in the supply chain. If the supply chain is seen as a system of organisations with one aim (value for the final customer), it is logical that a problem in one part of the supply chain must affect the workings and efficiency of the system or supply chain as a whole. This article reports on an exploratory empirical study to illustrate the effect of problems at one party in the supply chain on the whole supply chain. The study was done at automotive component manufacturers. To determine how problems at one place permeate through the whole supply chain, correlation testing was done between supply-side, internal operations, and distribution or customer-side problems. The study found that problems experienced at one place in the supply chain had a negative impact throughout the supply chain. Automotive supply chains should therefore be managed more as a system, taking into consideration the effect of decision making and actions at one part of the supply chain on other parts of the supply chain. There should be a supply chain wide co-operative effort to find solutions to inefficiencies at all places in the supply chain.


This contribution synthesizes the results of an inquiry by the SEEurope network on the current legal framework and practices in 28 European countries regarding non-financial and sustainability-related reporting by European companies. The object was to analyze whether company policy with regard to sustainabilityrelated issues is documented and reported to the workforce. The outcome confirms the absence of the notion of workers' representatives involvement at aggregate level, both practical and theoretical. In view of recent efforts at EU level to stimulate companies to go beyond the traditional financial and economic reporting, the results of this exploratory study are rather patchy. Even in the best performing countries there is little evidence that non-financial reporting practices of companies go beyond traditional items. Moreover, workforce and workplace conditions are not seen as a key part of sustainability concerns and workers' representatives are not prominently involved in the long-term sustainability policy of their companies. Last but not least, the crisis has placed labor organizations on the defensive in the sense that sustainability issues come to be perceived as a "luxury" at a time when labor law and collective bargaining are subject to organized deregulation attacks.


BACKGROUND
Risk factors associated with persistent pain after breast cancer treatment are needed to develop prevention and treatment strategies to improve the quality of life for patients with breast cancer.

OBJECTIVES
To identify factors associated with persistent pain in women undergoing breast cancer treatments.

STUDY DESIGN
Retrospective study.

SETTING
Regional hospital in the Netherlands.

METHODS
The primary outcome was pain associated with surgery at more than 6 months postoperatively and patients were stratified based on the associated visual analog" scale score they reported: reporting no pain as "no pain," pain 1 - 29 mm as "mild pain," and pain 30 - 100 mm as "moderate/severe pain." Secondary outcomes were function, symptom, and total quality of life scores. Predefined risk factors analyzed for association with outcomes included: age, smoking status, diabetes, body mass index (BMI), disease stage, surgery type, axillary lymph node dissection, reoperation, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and hormone therapy.

RESULTS
Of the 718 patients who were approached, 492 were included (follow-up 2.5 ± 1.8 years). Thirty-five percent of patients developed persistent pain (n = 122 "mild pain," n = 53 "moderate/severe pain'"). Age, BMI, surgery type, axillary lymph node dissection, disease stage, reoperation, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy were identified as potential risk factors in univariate ordinal regression analyses (P < 0.10). Age (P < 0.01) and BMI (P = 0.04) remained independently predictive in the multivariate model. BMI and age were associated with odds ratios (ORs) of 1.04 (95% confidence intervals (CI): 1.00 - 1.08) and 0.97 (95% CI: 0.95 - 0.99), respectively per point and year increase. BMI was associated with a higher symptom score (r = 0.14, P < 0.01), a lower level of function (r = -0.11, P = 0.01), and lower total quality of life scores (r = -0.13, P < 0.01).

LIMITATIONS
The retrospective nature of this study makes it prone to response and misclassification bias.

CONCLUSIONS
BMI and age may be risk factors for persistent postoperative pain after breast cancer treatment.

KEY WORDS
Persistent postsurgical pain, breast cancer treatment, BMI, age, chronic postoperative pain, breast cancer surgery.


This 8-year-old female came to her paediatrician with an 18-day history of facial swelling. A biopsy was performed at that time, and was interpreted as indicating Burkitt's lymphoma. Findings from blood studies and chest radiographs were normal. Clinical examination revealed an 8 x 9 cm hard tumour attached to the left side of the mandible. Enlarged firm submandibular lymph nodes were also present. What is your diagnosis?


An important social concern in mathematics education is that the educational attainment of pupils may be influenced by teachers' competence in the curricular area they are teaching. This paper provides some insight into the relationship between student primary teachers' mathematics subject knowledge and their reported confidence to teach that subject. Eighty Bachelor of Education first year students completed an attitudes survey as well as an online mathematics competence test which consisted of 28 randomly generated questions from a bank of approximately 300 questions based on the attainment targets of the Scottish curriculum 5–14 document at level F with some E. Students were asked to rank teacher attributes. Though 98% of the students ranked basic numeracy skills as the most important, 65% of the cohort did not possess these skills. Moreover 95% suggested confidence was important, but confidence levels were found to be low even among students with higher than minimum entry requirements to the undergraduate primary teaching programme. It is perhaps not the level of mathematics that needs to be changed but the nature of mathematics taught and learned at that level that needs to be addressed. This in turn has implications for the approaches and the programmes deployed by Initial Teacher Education courses.


The goals of antitrust law were the subject of debate in the United States during the 2016 election campaign and thereafter. While consumer welfare and efficiency have become the lodestars of antitrust enforcement, other goals such as fostering jobs, combating inequality, limiting foreign control of domestic assets, containing political power, and preserving small businesses all have attracted renewed interest. This article explores the choices triggered by this debate: Whether and how antitrust enforcement should take these other goals into account; whether the United States should adopt a "net benefits" test in reviewing transactions, similar to the tests already adopted in other countries; which arms of government, such as the antitrust agencies and CFIUS, should have responsibility for implementing these other goals; and how conflicting goals should be prioritized. The article contrasts the law in the United States with approaches taken in other jurisdictions and presents proposals for change.


Various measures using the two horizontal components of recorded ground motions have been used in a number of studies that derive ground‐motion prediction equations and construct maps of shaking intensity. We update relations between a number of these measures, including those in Boore et al. (2006) and Boore (2010), using the large and carefully constructed global database of ground motions from crustal earthquakes in active tectonic regions developed as part of the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center–Next Generation Attenuation‐West2 project. The ratios from the expanded datasets generally agree to within a few percent of the previously published ratios. We also provide some ratios that were not considered before, some of which will be useful in applications such as constructing ShakeMaps. Finally, we compare two important ratios with those from a large central and eastern North American database and from many records from subduction earthquakes in Japan and Taiwan. In general, the ratios from these regions are within several percent of those from crustal earthquakes in active tectonic regions.

[Electronic Supplement:][1] Figures of ground‐motion intensity measure (GMIM) ratios, and csv files with average ratios and the coefficients of fits to the ratios.

 [1]: http://www.bssaonline.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1785/0120160250/-/DC1


It is important that we convert from fossil energy to wind and solar energy. Wind energy is currently the cheapest form of renewable energy, but it is usually a poor match to utility electrical generation in the Great Plains of the United States. Concentrating solar power (CSP) plants are a better match to utility electrical loading, but so far none of these plants have been constructed in the Great Plains. Part of the reason no CSP plants have been constructed is lack of confidence in the solar resource data required (direct normal irradiance or DNI for short). There are several models for converting global solar radiation to DNI, and one of them is the DISC model. Both DNI data and global radiation data were collected at the USDA-Agricultural Research Laboratory at Bushland, Texas, for the years 2009 and 2010. Using the DISC model and measured global radiation data, DNI was calculated and compared to measured DNI data. The total annual solar energy estimated with the model was 5% greater than what was actually measured which was fairly close. However, on a monthly or hourly basis, the percentage difference could be as high as 25%. Analysis of individual months and daysmore » resulted in some recommendations for improving the DISC model. Some of the poor correlations between measured solar energy and calculated solar energy using the DISC model implied that another model (DIRINDEX) might be better. Therefore, additional work is planned to investigate the DIRINDEX model with the same data set to see if the correlation improves. This work may potentially lead to the increased use of solar energy for electrical generation, which will decrease the use of fossil fuels and the environmental pollution from fossil fuel power plants. Direct normal irradiance (DNI) is required in the performance estimation of concentrating solar energy systems. The objective of this paper is to compare measured and modeled DNI data for a site in the Texas Panhandle (Bushland, Texas) to determine the accuracy of the model and where improvements might be required. The DNI model used was the Direct Insolation Simulation Code (DISC) which was developed at the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Boulder, Colorado. We have determined that a portion of the DISC standard deviation error is due to inaccurate modeling of the first and last hour of the day, but other inaccuracies of the DISC model are also discussed. The accuracy of the DISC model improves as the time scale increases (e.g. hour to month to year) due to errors cancelling, and for Bushland, Texas, the DISC model during 2009 predicted 5% more solar energy than the measured DNI.« less


Field and greenhouse studies were conducted in 2000, 2001, and 2002 to evaluate the response of imidazolinone-resistant (IR) corn and selected weeds to trifloxysulfuron applied postemergence (POST). Treatments included a nontreated control and S-metolachlor applied preemergence at 1,075 g ai/ha followed by (fb) trifloxysulfuron POST at 0, 3.8, 7.5, 11.2, and 15 g ai/ha. IR corn visible injury was less than 6% from field applications of trifloxysulfuron. Visual symptoms were transient, and IR corn yield was not affected by trifloxysulfuron. Common ragweed, common lambsquarters, annual grass species (giant foxtail and large crabgrass), and carpetweed were controlled at least 95% by S-metolachlor fb trifloxysulfuron applications. Morningglory species (ivyleaf morningglory, pitted morningglory, and tall morningglory) were controlled at least 97% in 2000 and greater than 77% in 2001 from S-metolachlor fb trifloxysulfuron. Jimsonweed was not adequately controlled. S-metolachlor alone controlled annual grass species 90% but did not control the broadleaf weeds that were present. Wheat was planted following IR corn harvest, and non-IR corn was planted the following spring. No visible response was observed to rotational wheat or non-IR corn crops. Rotational non-IR corn yield was not affected by trifloxysulfuron and was not different from the yield of corn treated with S-metolachlor alone. In greenhouse studies, IR corn was injured 10% at 10 d after treatment with 380 g/ha trifloxysulfuron POST, but recovery was rapid. Based upon results, trifloxysulfuron may be used as an herbicide in IR corn, and rotational wheat and non-IR corn may be planted at normal intervals after cotton harvest. Nomenclature: Trifloxysulfuron; S-metolachlor; carpetweed, Mollugo verticillata (L.) #3 MOLVE; common lambsquarters, Chenopodium album L. # CHEAL; common ragweed, Ambrosia artemisiifolia L # AMBEL; giant foxtail, Setaria faberi Herrm. # SETFA; ivyleaf morningglory, Ipomoea hederacea (L.) Jacq. IPOHE; jimsonweed, Datura stramonium L. # DATST; large crabgrass, Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop. # DIGSA; pitted morningglory, I. lacunosa L. # IPOLA; tall morningglory, I. purpurea (L.) Roth # IPOPU; corn, Zea mays L. 'Pioneer 32Z18 IR', 'Pioneer 33G26'; wheat, Triticum aestivum L. 'Pocahontas'. Additional index words: Carryover, sulfonylurea. Abbreviations: ALS, acetolactate synthase enzyme (EC 22.214.171.124); DAT, days after postemergence treatment; fb, followed by; IR, imidazolinone-resistant; POST, postemergence; PRE, preemergence; WAP, weeks after planting.


New Research in Information Behaviour, co-edited by Professor Amanda Spink and Dr. Jannica Heinstrom provides an understanding of the new directions, leading edge theories and models in information behaviour. Information behaviour is conceptualized as complex human information related processes that are embedded within an individual's everyday social and life processes. The book presents chapters by a range of scholars who show new research directions that often challenge the established views and paradigms of information behaviour studies. Beginning with an evolutionary framework, the book builds our understanding of information behaviours over various epochs of human existence from the Palaeolithic Era and within pre-literate societies, to contemporary behaviours by 21st century humans. Drawing upon social and psychological science theories the book presents a more integrated and holistic approach understanding of information behaviours. This book is directly relevant to information scientists, information professionals and librarians, social and evolutionary psychologists, social scientists and people interested in understanding more about their own information behaviours.


The flammability properties of pure Nylon 6 and Nylon with nano-clay of 5 % are examined in this study, TGA (Thermogravity Analysis) and DSC (Differential Scanning Calorimeter) data were obtained with a variety of heating rates. The decomposition rate was found from the analysis of TGA data based on the mass loss fraction. The rate of reaction was described by a first-order Arrhenius equation in terms of the active species and the char fraction. DSC yields the change of enthalpy of material as a function of temperature under the controlled temperature heating. The value of the temperature dependent specific heat capacity and heats of melting and decomposition of the materials were determined. With the kinetic and thermodynamic properties from TGA/DSC, the burning rate of thin polymers under radiant heat was formulated. The model results will be in terms of the derived TGA/DSC kinetic and thermodynamic properties compared to the data from the cone calorimeter experiments conducted by Xin Liu[1].


Directed acyclic graph (DAG) has been widely used in parallel and distributed applications. It is made up by the tasks that are decomposed from the complex application processes. To reduce the intra-tasks dependency time and the total workflow processing time, a promising design named cluster based schedule was put forward. The most popular way for generating the clusters is the genetic algorithm (GA) based method. However, in the GA based clustering processes, different priorities calculation methods lead to totally different results. Aiming at having a deep cognition of the effects of the priorities, this paper comparatively studied the tasks schedule performance with different priorities calculation methods. The experiment results show that the longest path priority can lead to a better schedule performance compared with the other ones.


[1] The ocean surface vector wind can be measured from space by scatterometers. For a set of measurements observed from several viewing directions and collocated in space and time, there will usually exist two, three, or four consistent wind vectors. These multiple wind solutions are known as ambiguities. Ambiguity removal procedures select one ambiguity at each location. We compare results of two different ambiguity removal algorithms, the operational median filter (MF) used by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and a two-dimensional variational analysis method (2d-VAR). We applied 2d-VAR to the entire NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) mission, orbit by orbit, using European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) 10-m wind analyses as background fields. We also applied 2d-VAR to a 51-day subset of the NSCAT mission using National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) 1000-hPa wind analyses as background fields. This second data set uses the same background fields as the MF data set. When both methods use the same NCEP background fields as a starting point for ambiguity removal, agreement is very good: Approximately only 3% of the wind vector cells (WVCs) have different ambiguity selections; however, most of the WVCs with changes occur in coherent patches. Since at least one of the selections is in error, this implies that errors due to ambiguity selection are not isolated, but are horizontally correlated. When we examine ambiguity selection differences at synoptic scales, we often find that the 2d-VAR selections are more meteorologically reasonable and more consistent with cloud imagery.


Abstract This study tests a typology of family homelessness based on patterns of public shelter utilization and examines whether family characteristics are associated with those patterns. The results indicate that a substantial majority of homeless families stay in public shelters for relatively brief periods, exit, and do not return. Approximately 20 percent stay for long periods. A small but noteworthy proportion cycles in and out of shelters repeatedly. In general, families with long stays are no more likely than families with short stays to have intensive behavioral health treatment histories, to be disabled, or to be unemployed. Families with repeat stays have the highest rates of intensive behavioral health treatment, placement of children in foster care, disability, and unemployment. The results suggest that policy and program factors, rather than family characteristics, are responsible for long shelter stays. An alternative conceptual framework for providing emergency assistance to homeless families is discussed.


Abstract. The Common Loon (Gavia immer), a top trophic-level piscivorous predator, was used as an indicator species to assess mercury exposure and risk in aquatic ecosystems in the Adirondack Park of New York State. Mercury levels in Common Loons were related to long-term reproductive success to evaluate the effects of mercury contamination on the breeding population in the Park and enable the development of a mercury hazard profile. Common Loons were sampled and monitored on selected study lakes from 1998–2007. Lake acidity correlated with Common Loon mercury levels, with more acidic lakes exhibiting higher mercury concentrations in Common Loons. Based on mercury body burden estimated by blood mercury exposure, 21% of males and 8% of females were at high risk for behavioral and reproductive impacts, while feather mercury exposure estimated that 37% of males and 7% of females were at high risk. Female and male Common Loons in the highest exposure category showed a 32% and 56% reduction, respectively, in the number of chicks fledged per year, compared to individuals in the lowest exposure category. Thirteen percent of the Adirondack Common Loon eggs sampled were at high risk for mercury exposure. Population model results indicated that the portion of the Adirondack Common Loon population with high mercury levels has a reduced growth rate (&lgr; = 1.0005), compared to Common Loons with low body burdens of mercury (&lgr; = 1.026). The results of this project will assist in the continued refinement of State and Federal policies and regulations that effectively address the ecological impacts mercury and other environmental contaminants pose to freshwater ecosystems. Received 21 January 2013, accepted 26 May 2013.


Little is understood about national defence and its unique conflicts in spatial planning. Additionally, a growing body of literature describes agonism applied to planning conflicts. By studying the military training lands in Jægerpris and the conflict surrounding it, this article sheds light on the Danish National Defence's role and authority in spatial planning. This simultaneously contributes to a better understanding of agonism and irreconcilable planning conflict. This is done using Pieter Stallen's work to describe noise conflicts as social events, Chantal Mouffe's concept of agonism applied as fair procedure and Torben Dyrberg's power concept to deconstruct the social aspect of noise management procedures. The conflict history is studied through newspaper articles and interviews with the main actors. The main arguments are that the noise management is perceived widely different by the National Defence, Frederikssund Municipality and the neighbours of the training lands. These perceptions surfaces as antagonism in the procedures of the noise management. The hegemony of the National Defence exiles the other discourses from the noise management, which further entrenches the conflict. Despite this hegemony, the National Defence voluntarily made accommodations, suggesting potential for agonistic discussion to facilitate better cooperation.


Households whose balance sheets were dominated by housing, particularly those in depressed markets and those exposed to high-cost predatory mortgages, were deeply exposed to the downside risk that became reality during the Great Recession. These households tended to be lower-income, minority, and have lower educational attainment, meaning they were already struggling with low net worth prior to the recession. This Research Brief examines household net worth and asset ownership in 2005 and 2011 across different demographic groups, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation. This Brief also provides an overview of some of the issues around household financial stability, why balance sheets mattered so much going into the recession, and how they are impacting the subsequent recovery.


Social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Xing have been reporting exponential growth rates and have millions of registered users. In this paper, we introduce a novel de-anonymization attack that exploits group membership information that is available on social networking sites. More precisely, we show that information about the group memberships of a user (i.e., the groups of a social network to which a user belongs) is sufficient to uniquely identify this person, or, at least, to significantly reduce the set of possible candidates. That is, rather than tracking a user's browser as with cookies, it is possible to track a person. To determine the group membership of a user, we leverage well-known web browser history stealing attacks. Thus, whenever a social network user visits a malicious website, this website can launch our de-anonymization attack and learn the identity of its visitors. The implications of our attack are manifold, since it requires a low effort and has the potential to affect millions of social networking users. We perform both a theoretical analysis and empirical measurements to demonstrate the feasibility of our attack against Xing, a medium-sized social network with more than eight million members that is mainly used for business relationships. Furthermore, we explored other, larger social networks and performed experiments that suggest that users of Facebook and LinkedIn are equally vulnerable.


This article aims to analyse the process of formation of sports public policy in Lithuania within the theoretical context of hierarchy governance. This study consisted of collection and analysis of official documents regarding sports public policy formation from 2011 until 2018. The data collection was aimed at uncovering of key components of the process of public policy formation – environmental analysis, strategic planning, competence and decision-making power, and stakeholders. The main findings of the research concluded that Lithuanian sports governance, along with the majority of other European countries, is defined as bureaucratic configuration. The main responsibility within the process of sports public policy formation falls on the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports and active national non-government sports organisations, while principal objectives of the Lithuanian sports public policy formation are laid out in strategic documents. However, the implementation needs to be centred on institutional and personal responsibility, proper environmental regard and tolerance, and the ability to listen and to reach an agreement.


Background. Over 4.3 million mothers and newborns receive maternity care in the United States each year (Sakala & Corry, 2008). Childbirth is the leading reason for hospitalization yearly in the United States, with 23% of all individuals discharged from hospitals being either a mother or a newborn. The most common operating room procedure is cesarean section, and six of the fifteen most commonly performed hospital procedures are associated with childbirth (Sakala & Corry, 2008). Women may be led to believe that these medical interventions during labor and delivery are necessary without ever being properly educated, resulting in an intervention filled experience that places unnecessary risks on both mother and baby (Lothian, 2012). While extensive research has proven the benefits of an intervention-free birth for low risk pregnancies, the rates for these interventions continues to rise. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2014), cesarean sections in low risk pregnancies in the United States rose from 18.4% in 1997 to 32.7% in 2013. Federal regulations and guidelines state that every woman has the right to make maternity care decisions based on accurate up-to-date information (Goldberg, 2009). Prior to giving birth, expecting mothers should be given the ability to make decisions regarding which interventions, if any, will be administered during the progression of labor. Despite the research that supports both shared decision-making and informed decisionmaking models, women undergoing maternity care are often uninformed, leaving them unable to make proper decisions. This misinformation leads to maternity patients agreeing with practitioners' predetermined decisions and not being active decision-makers in their own care (Stevens & Miller, 2012). A possible reason for expecting mothers not taking an active role in their decisionmaking may be a direct result of providers under-accommodating expressed patients' needs relaying labor and delivery-related information. Method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with three mothers who gave birth to their first child within the past two years. Interviewees were recruited by a maternity nurse affiliated with a private university. Mothers had varied labor experiences but all delivered via cesarean section. Interview questions explored the lived experience of labor and delivery and how provider communication affected mothers' decisions to receive or not receive a medical intervention. Results. A qualitative analysis using the constant comparison method revealed five themes related to labor and delivery decision-making: (1) reason for C-section/lack of decision-making, (2) provider's description of risks/benefits, (3) delivery day communication, (4), pre-delivery day communication, and (5) overall provider satisfaction. Discussion. It was discovered that the participants in this research were not as involved in their decision-making as is recommended by the shared decision-making model. However, despite not being the final decision maker participants were satisfied overall with their provider. The results may inform medical education training for providers in maternity care, as well as patient education materials for expecting mothers. Additional research in this area is needed to further determine the affect patient-provider communication has on maternity care decision-making.


This paper proposes the use of dynamic factor models as an alternative to the VAR-based tools for the empirical validation of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) theories. Along the lines of Giannone et al. (2006), we use the state-space parameterisation of the factor models proposed by Forni et al. (2007) as a competitive benchmark that is able to capture weak statistical restrictions that DSGE models impose on the data. Beyond the weak restrictions, which are given by the number of shocks and the number of state variables, the behavioural restrictions embedded in the utility and production functions of the model economy contribute to achieve further parsimony. Such parsimony reduces the number of parameters to be estimated, potentially helping the general equilibrium environment improve forecast accuracy. In turn, the DSGE model is considered to be misspecified when it is outperformed by the state-space representation that only incorporates the weak restrictions.


Where a well-known technology is provided to a population that has long been acquainted with its use, the problems of predicting patterns of social behavior are relatively simple. The difficulties arise when a new technology is introduced to a population which is not accustomed to it. It is in these circumstances that there are few if any local lessons from the past to apply, so that it becomes important to rely either on comparable experience elsewhere or analysis based on established relationships of human behavior, preference and motivation. In this paper we point out some of the all too abundant evidence that behavior factors may be critical to the success of new water and sanitation installations and to their effects on public health, note those situations in which behavioral factors in fact are critical, suggest some of the circumstances which affect the development of new patterns of behavior, and indicate those situations in which a system of community participation may avoid unnecessary expense or failure.


The troubled history of democracy in Latin America has been the subject of much scholarly commentary. This volume breaks new ground by systematically exploring the linkages among the historical legacies of large landholding patterns, agrarian class relations, and authoritarian versus democratic trajectories in Latin American countries. The essays address questions about the importance of large landownders for the national economy, the labor needs and labor relations of these landowners, attempts of landowners to enlist the support of the state to control labor, and the democratic forms of rule in the twentieth century."


Zingiberaceae species have been used in traditional medicine since many years. First, ethnobotany of Zingiberaceae was studied in the past literature. The secondary data reviewed showed that about 54 species of Zingiberaceae from 12 genera were used as traditional medicine. E. belalongensis, E. velutina, Z pseudopungens and Z vinosum were selected for further investigation. Secondly, preliminary phytochemical screening tests using test tube and thin layer chromatography (TLC) were performed. The results showed that f1avanoid, alkaloid and saponin were present in the sample extracts. The total phenolic and flavonoid content of sample extracts were evaluated by using folin-ciocalteu and aluminium chloride colorometric method, respectively. The total phenolic and flavonoid content for methanolic extract were in the range of 5.3-41.7 mg GAE/g and 1.9-8.5 mg CE/g, respectively. Rhizome of Z vinosum displayed the highest value of total phenolic and flavonoid content. Evaluation of antioxidant activity was conducted using free radical-scavenging assay (DPPH), radical scavenging assay (ABTS) and ferric reducing power (FRAP assay). Rhizome of E. belalongensis had the highest DPPH with 49.5 ± 3.1 mg M/g in terms of AEAC (acid ascorbic equivalent antioxidant activity). However, rhizome of E. velutina showed the highest for ABTS with 3.2 ± 0.18 mM trolox equivalent/mg samples. FRAP value of E. velutina (stem) displayed high ferric reducing power with a value of 2.5 ± 0.16 mmol/g. Antioxidant activity of methanolic extracts was higher than aqueous extracts except for the ABTS assay. The third part of this study was to determine the cytotoxicity effects of the extracts by using MTT assays against several cancer cell lines such as MCF-7 (hormone dependent breast cancer), MDA-MB-231 (non-hormone dependent breast cancer), Hela (cervical cancer) and CaOV3 (ovarian cancer). The cancer cell lines were treated by sample extracts with concentration of 60-140 µg/ml at 48 and 72 hours. The sample extract only showed positive effect to the MDA-MB-231 cell lines with IC50 in between 51-96 µg/ml except for Z pseudopungens. The sample extracts that were effective to MDA-MB-231 were further analysed by cell cycle analysis for 48h and 72h by flow cytometry. Analysis of cell cycle showed cells were arrested in the sub-Gl phase. Etlingera species exhibited the highest antioxidant activity and anti-proliferative activity as compared to Zinglber species. The correlations indicated that the total amount of polyphenols is the major contributor to antioxidant and anti-cancer activity. With promising antioxidant and antiproliferative properties, methanolic extracts of E. belalongensis, E. velutina and Z vinosum have great potential to be developed into natural remedies based on herbal products, applicable to the food and nutraceutical industries.


The association of HLA antigens with vitiligo remains controversial issue. In order to determine which, if any, HLA markers were associated with an increased risk of vitiligo, we investigated HLA antigens in 50 patients with vitiligo and in 50 controls. Vitiligo patients had significant increase in HLA-A1, A19, B16, CW4, CW 6, DR 4, DR7 and DQ3 compared to controls. Familial vitiligo is marked by increased frequency of HLA-A28, B16, B27, B48, CW2 and DQ3, while non-familial vitiligo is marked by increased frequency of HLA-A1, CW6 and DR13. These findings suggest that immunogenetic mechanism may be responsible for vitiligo. Also there may be heterogeneity in the pathogenic process between familial and nonfamilial vitiligo.


The Integrated Multidisciplinary Optimization Objects (IMOO) System delivers physics-based multidisciplinary analysis and optimization (MDAO) capabilities that are required to develop next generation subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic aircraft. The software tools and approaches accurately model prediction of vehicle performance, interdisciplinary couplings, and system-level evaluation of the benefits and risks. M4 Engineering (experts in high fidelity MDAO processes) is working with NASA Glenn (who is currently developing a Python-based MDAO framework called OpenMDAO) to combine their specialties to deliver a modular design environment suitable to the high fidelity analysis and design of coupled systems. The key elements of this toolset include an object-oriented integration framework, common objects, and analysis modules that based on custom data types. The IMOO system utilizes Geometry Manipulation by Automatic Parameterization (GMAP) and RapidFEM for advanced parametric geometry and grid generation technology for aerodynamic and structural models. Both GMAP and RapidFEM are in-house applications developed by M4 Engineering. M4 Engineering is developing the IMOO System using multiple, incremental builds each with their own unique example problem. The Aerodynamics Module is the software component in IMOO that enables calculation of the aerodynamic performance of an arbitrary vehicle design, as well as pressure loads on the vehicle surface. It uses a unique blending of the results between Low Fidelity and High Fidelity results to generate an accurate Mid Fidelity Aerodynamic Database quickly.


The aim of this thesis is to analyze the relationship between politics and media in Greece. The relations of the two fields are defined mainly by the underdevelopment of Greek capitalism.
This fact had a decisive contribution in the delay of democratization of the political institutions but also in the delay of development of a massive press. During its emergence, the Greek press was an instrument for the propagatory of national ideas and supporting the movement for national liberation. Later it played an important role in the creation of a constitutional state. The press during that phase was not simply political, but a political institution of power. Even during the period of political divisions of the Greek political system, press functioned inside these divisions, not only by supporting but also by expressing either conservative or liberal political forces.
The appearance of radio and later of television was connected with state interference and state control. Both these media, until recently, comprised an integral ideological mechanism of the state and the political powers. The de-regulation of the broadcasting field and the upgraded role of media, and especially of television, did not decrease the degree of composition of these relationships.
The entry and the domination of businessmen with main interests in other economic fields expanded the relationship between political power and media on economic level.
From the estabIishment of the Modern Greek State untiI today, politics and media not only continue to have a close relationship but one depends on the other. The media supported politically and ideologEcalIy the politicaI power and in turn the political power supported and provided the media with vast subsidies and public contracts.
This thesis supports that in Greece historically, there was developed a relationship of interdependence between the political power and the media, which reflected different characteristics at different historical periods. Even nowadays this interdependence continues to exist, taking the form of Media Clientelism.


The evolving usefulness of organic conducting polymers, of metallic or semiconducting type, is primarily dependent on their mechanisms of electrical conduction and degradation. Understanding these mechanisms is crucial for improving the efficiency and lifetime of technologies derived from this class of polymers. There is demand for a model that provides a vivid and more precise evaluation of the electrical conduction mechanism in these polymers – especially when they act as hosts to guest species, such as acid dopant ions and nanoparticles. If, for example, the motional behavior of a host–guest organic conducting polymer structure, as related to dynamic stability, is either asynchronous or synchronous, is this reflected in the mechanism of electrical conduction and does it account for the pace of material's degradation? Here, we demonstrate that the answer is affirmative: asynchronous structural motions arising due to loosely bound or free guest species within the host polymer lead to anomalous electrical conduction mechanisms, increased fragility and short lifetime, at odds with the synchronous behavior.


The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to advance legal education through technological innovation and collaboration. With its eLangdell Press project, CALI publishes American law school textbooks in open access, royalty-free form, offering faculty authors compensation equivalent to what most law school textbook authors would earn in royalties from a traditional full-price publisher. I am writing a new sales textbook and "agreements supplement" based on contemporary business practice that I will publish in open access form with CALI's eLangdell Press. Relatively few other American legal academics publish in open access form, however, suggesting that the market for textbooks may be "locked-in" to a principal-agent conflict between students and faculty members. If American law students organized a website showing the textbook costs of all law faculty members at all law schools, they might be able to use a "naming and shaming" strategy to overcome faculty "lock-in" to high-priced textbooks and increase the adoption of open access textbooks.


Abstract. Woody vegetation is an integral component of savannas. Here, two main change processes alter woody vegetation, namely shrub encroachment and deforestation. Both impact a range of ecosystem services and functions across scales. Accurate estimates of change, including spatial extent, rate and drivers are lacking. This is primarily due to savanna vegetation comprising woody and herbaceous vegetation, each of which exhibit divergent phenological characteristics, and vary importantly in their response to climatic and environmental factors. This study uses phenological metrics derived from the MODIS MOD13Q1 NDVI time-series to model woody cover as a function of field measurements, and to map trends across Namibia. These metrics enhance the contrasting phenological characteristics of woody and herbaceous vegetation, and standardizes their annual response to climatic and environmental factors by integrating short term variation. Trends in woody cover are excellent indicators of shrub encroachment and deforestation. Trend significance was computed using the Mann-Kendall test, while change statistics, including the rate and spatial extent of change were derived using the Theil-Sen slope. Change was evaluated in relation to drivers including land-use, population, biomes and precipitation. An overall decrease in woody cover was identified, with the most pronounced decreases found in urban and densely populated areas. Decreases in woody cover were not homogenously distributed; losses predominated in tropical desert and dry forests, but gains were found across shrub lands.


Most supercomputers nowadays are based on large clusters, which call for sophisticated, scalable, and decentralized metadata processing techniques. From the perspective of maximizing metadata throughput, an ideal metadata distribution policy should automatically balance the namespace locality and even distribution without manual intervention. None of existing metadata distribution schemes is designed to make such a balance. We propose a novel metadata distribution policy, Dynamic Dir-Grain (DDG), which seeks to balance the requirements of keeping namespace locality and even distribution of the load by dynamic partitioning of the namespace into size-adjustable hierarchical units. Extensive simulation and measurement results show that DDG policies with a proper granularity significantly outperform traditional techniques such as the Random policy and the Subtree policy by 40 percent to 62 times. In addition, from the perspective of file system reliability, metadata consistency is an equally important issue. However, it is complicated by dynamic metadata distribution. Metadata consistency of cross-metadata server operations cannot be solved by traditional metadata journaling on each server. While traditional two-phase commit (2PC) algorithm can be used, it is too costly for distributed file systems. We proposed a consistent metadata processing protocol, S2PC-MP, which combines the two-phase commit algorithm with metadata processing to reduce overheads. Our measurement results show that S2PC-MP not only ensures fast recovery, but also greatly reduces fail-free execution overheads.


Recently, a synthetic circuit in E. coli demonstrated that two proteins engineered with LAA tags targeted to the native protease ClpXP are susceptible to crosstalk due to competition for degradation between proteins. To understand proteolytic crosstalk beyond the single protease regime, we investigated in E. coli a set of synthetic circuits designed to probe the dynamics of existing and novel degradation tags fused to fluorescent proteins. These circuits were tested using both microplate reader and single-cell assays. We first quantified the degradation rates of each tag in isolation. We then tested if there was crosstalk between two distinguishable fluorescent proteins engineered with identical or different degradation tags. We demonstrated that proteolytic crosstalk was indeed not limited to the LAA degradation tag, but was also apparent between other diverse tags, supporting the complexity of the E. coli protein degradation system.


The simplest measurements in physics are binary; that is, they have only two possible results. An example is a beam splitter. One can take the output of a beam splitter and use it as the input of another beam splitter. The compound measurement is described by the product of the Hermitian matrices that describe the beam splitters. In the classical case, the Hermitian matrices commute (are diagonal) and the measurements can be taken in any order. The general quantum situation was described by Julian Schwinger with what is now known as "Schwinger's Measurement Algebra". We simplify his results by restriction to binary measurements and extend it to include classical as well as imperfect and thermal beam splitters. We use elementary methods to introduce advanced subjects such as geometric phase, Berry-Pancharatnam phase, superselection sectors, symmetries and applications to the identities of the Standard Model fermions.


In this work, thin-film deposition of FePc particles nucleated and grown in gels was car- ried out in air by spin coating. The surface morphology and structure of these films were analysed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The optical parameters have been investigated using spectrophotometric measurements of transmittance in the wavelength range of 200–1100 nm. The absorption spectra recorded in the UV-Vis region for the deposited samples showed a single band, namely the B or Soret band in the region between 285 and 305 nm. The dependence of the Tauc and Cody optical gaps associated with the thickness of the film was determined and found to be around 4.2 eV from direct transitions and 3.8 eV from non-direct transitions. The films' electric properties and their dependence in the presence of radiation of several wavelengths were evaluated. At lower voltages, ohmic conduction is evident, while space-charge limited conductivity (SCLC) governed by an exponential trap distribution is to be found at higher voltages.


Certified organic production by small-scale farmers in developing countries is increasingly promoted as an opportunity to access a growing and dynamic market while at the same time, enhance productivity and improve incomes. Nevertheless, adoption has been slow. The economics literature suggests profitability is the main constraint; however, the sustainable agriculture literature is inconclusive and considers attitudes of significant importance. As ecological behaviour is susceptible to a wide range of influences beyond an individual's control, environmental attitude alone is often a poor predictor of behaviour (Kaiser et al., 1999). The Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1985) is therefore promoted for studies in the ecological domain as in addition to attitudes, it incorporates the role of social pressures and the perceived difficulty in carrying out the behaviour. Using this framework, the psychological barriers to adoption of organic production are investigated using small-scale avocado producers from Michoacan, Mexico as a case study. The responses of 108 conventional farmers to an in depth household survey are analysed using established statistical procedures, the results of which are explored econometrically using ordered probit models. Despite positive attitudes towards organic production, intentions to convert are negative. This suggests that attitudes alone are not suffi cient to induce adoption and that while organic could be a long-term strategy, in the short term conversion is unlikely. More important to the formation of intentions are the perceived social pressures and perceived ease of conversion, both having positive and significant effects on intentions. Promotion of organic production will therefore require a focus on information asymmetries within the wider population, the development of technical skills and training of key actors in the avocado chain to organic methods. This should help alleviate negative social pressures toward organic production, but also assist in overcoming the uncertainty and lack of confidence present in producers' abilities to successfully convert to organic production.


A smartphone-based platform for the diagnosis of parasitic infections has been developed, tested and validated. The system is capable of making automatic and accurate analysis of millimetric colorimetric arrays in centrifuge collection tubes, which are well established tools used in clinical analysis. To that end, an Android-based software application has been developed, making use of the smartphone rear camera, enabling precise image processing of the colorimetric spot arrays. A low-cost plastic accessory has been developed using 3D-printing to provide controlled illumination, fixed sample positioning and cell phone attachment. The platform was then tested repeatedly for its size detection, edge blurriness and colour detection capabilities. A minimum spot radius of $175~\mu \text{m}$ is detectable when using the developed app, with a tolerance of 15%, corresponding to 0.25% of the area where the spot array is printed. Spot edge definition has been studied up to 40% of blurriness, resulting in a low average percentage error of 1.24%. Colour detection follows the well-known Gamma correction function. Finally, the whole platform was tested and validated using real DNA to analyse for accurate discrimination of Trypanosomatid species, which are responsible for devastating diseases in humans and livestock. The smartphone-based platform can be further extended to other clinical analysis. Its simplicity and reliable performance mean it can be used in remote, limited-resource settings by relatively unskilled technicians/nurses, where diagnostic laboratories are sparsely distributed. The results can however be sent easily via the smartphone to medical experts as well as government health agencies.


In this chapter, the performance of different texture descriptor algorithms used in face feature extraction tasks are analyzed. These commonly used algorithms to extract texture characteristics from images, with quite good results in this task, are also expected to provide fairly good results when used to characterize the face in an image. To perform the testing task, an AR face database, which is a standard database that contains images of 120 people, was used, including 70 images with different facial expressions and 30 with sunglasses, and all of them with different illumination intensity. To train the recognition system from one to seven images were used for each person. Different classifiers like Euclidean distance, cosine distance, and support vector machine (SVM) were also used, and the results obtained were higher than 98% for classification, achieving a good performance in verification task. This chapter was also compared with other schemes, showing the effectiveness of all of them.


In this paper, four diagnostic techniques were compared in terms of their ability to detect BVD virus in buffy coats frozen for more than one year. The samples were selected according to their initial test results. Forty-five BVDV positive and 15 BVDV negative buffy coats were used. The techniques used were the virus isolation-immunoperoxidase test (IPX), immunoperoxidase monolayer assay (IPMA), indirect immunoperoxidase monolayer assay (IIPMA) and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). All BVDV negative samples from previous studies were also negative on the tests used in this study. Out of 45 BVDV-positive samples, 42 (93.3%) were found to be positive with RT-PCR, 41 (91.1%) with virus isolation-IPX, 40 (88.8%) with IIPMA and 37 (82.2%) with IPMA. The results obtained indicated that RT-PCR is more suitable for the detection of BVD virus in frozen buffy coats stored for more than one year when compared to other techniques, and IIPMA can be used for the routine diagnosis of BVDV infection as an alternative technique to virus isolation-IPX.


Most transnational criminal law treaties do not benefit from any sort of monitoring mechanism that would allow states parties or other actors to assess their domestic implementation and enforcement. There are a few exceptions, as treaties and other instruments concerning drug control, corruption, and money laundering are indeed accompanied by monitoring mechanisms. But the general pattern across the field of transnational criminal law is clear. This article explores some possible explanations for why transnational criminal law treaties generally lack monitoring mechanisms, and it also highlights the significance of this absence from a compliance perspective. The article advocates not for the creation of more treaty monitoring bodies in the field of transnational criminal law, but instead seeks to explain their relative absence and its significance for the field. The argument, therefore, is not that monitoring bodies are necessarily desirable and ought to exist in greater numbers in this field, but rather that the absence of these bodies obscures information about compliance and impedes research about what these treaties are actually accomplishing. The current state of treaty monitoring in the field of transnational criminal law is significant because of the extent of what we do not know about the effects of these instruments.


We have investigated the recent prehistoric behavior of the Superstition Hills fault by examining its effect on the beach deposits of ancient Lake Cahuilla. Excavation of these sediments in three dimensions where they are cut by the fault has enabled determination of total offset since the latest highstand of the lake, about 330 years ago. As of 3 March 1988, total dextral offset was 1106 ± 50 mm. About 609 mm of this amount can be attributed to one or more slip events before 1987. The remaining slip occurred during the moderate earthquake of 24 November 1987 and as subsequent aftercreep. Additional aftercreep here might produce a total of 1210 ± 100 mm for that event. Thus, if afterslip continues according to our prediction, slip associated with the penultimate seismic slip event on the Superstition Hills fault was only about half of the co-seismic slip and predicted afterslip associated with the 1987 earthquake. This difference, established at a single site on the fault, may reflect a larger size for the 1987 event than for its predecessor. We calculate that the slip rate of the Superstition Hills fault zone, averaged over the past 330 years, is between about 2 and at least 6 mm/yr at this site. During this time, the average interval between large surface slip events on the Superstition Hills fault has been between about 150 and 300 years. The pre-1987 slip event documented in our excavations could have occurred at any time between A.D. 1660 and about A.D. 1915. These results are significant for understanding earthquake recurrence and patterns of earthquakes in the Imperial and Coachella Valleys.


As resources are limited, radio spectrum becomes congested due to the growth of wireless applications. However, measurements address the fact that most of the licensed spectrums experience low utilization even in intensively teeming areas. In the exertion to improve the utilization of the limited spectrum resources, cognitive radio networks have emerged as a powerful technique to resolve this problem. There are two types of user in cognitive radio networks (CRNs) named as primary user (PU) and secondary user (SU). Therein, the CRN enables the SU to utilize the unused licensed frequency of the PU if it possibly finds the vacant spectrum or white space (known as opportunistic spectrum access). Alternatively, SU can transmit simultaneously with the PU provided that transmission power of SU does not cause any harmful interference to the PU (known as spectrum sharing systems). In this thesis work, we study fundamental knowledge of the CRNs and focus on the performance analysis of the single input multiple output (SIMO) system for spectrum sharing approach. We assume that a secondary transmitter (SU-Tx) has full channel state information (CSI). The SU-Tx can adjust its transmit power not to cause harmful interference to the PU and obtain an optimal transmit rate. In particular, we derive the closed-form expressions for the cumulative distribution function (CDF), outage probability and an analytical expression for symbol error probability (SEP).


©35th International Conference on Machine Learning, ICML 2018.All Rights Reserved. Previously, the exploding gradient problem has been explained to be central in deep learning and model-based reinforcement learning, because it causes numerical issues and instability in optimization. Our experiments in model-based reinforcement learning imply that the problem is not just a numerical issue, but it may be caused by a fundamental chaos-like nature of long chains of nonlinear computations. Not only do the magnitudes of the gradients become large, the direction of the gradients becomes essentially random. We show that reparameterization gradients suffer from the problem, while likelihood ratio gradients are robust. Using our insights, we develop a model-based policy search framework, Probabilistic Inference for Particle-Based Policy Search (PIPPS), which is easily extensible, and allows for almost arbitrary models and policies, while simultaneously matching the performance of previous data-efficient learning algorithms. Finally, we invent the total propagation algorithm, which efficiently computes a union over all pathwise derivative depths during a single backwards pass, automatically giving greater weight to estimators with lower variance, sometimes improving over reparameterization gradients by 106 times.