This chapter provides a brief background in the various conventional methods (surface-based absorption of solar energy) available for harnessing solar thermal energy at a community level. It describes some of the main differences between the typical non-concentrating as well as concentrating type solar collectors, and highlights some of their main attributes. It also presents in detail the results of a novel technique for harnessing solar energy. In this technique, the solar energy is directly absorbed by the fluid (volumetrically) using nanoparticle-laden fluids (hence, it is categorized as volumetric-based absorption of solar energy). Such a collector is analysed in detail using a numerical model. The results of the numerical model are then discussed, which simulates the requirements of hot water for a typical community consists of about 10 households (40 persons). Two of the main performance evaluation parameters - collector efficiency and the fluid outlet temperature - have been extensively studied, and the influence of various design and operational parameters (particle volume fraction, mass flow rate, solar irradiation, collector height, collector length) on these two have been studied in detail. Moreover, the variation of spectral intensity, energy generation rate and spatial temperature distribution within the collector has been quantified. The calculations also show the dimensions of the desired solar collector in order to meet the daily hot water requirements (100 kg/person) for this community.


Abstract. Human settlements are mainly formed by buildings with their different characteristics and usage. Despite the importance of buildings for the economy and society, complete regional or even national figures of the entire building stock and its spatial distribution are still hardly available. Available digital topographic data sets created by National Mapping Agencies or mapped voluntarily through a crowd via Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) platforms (e.g. OpenStreetMap) contain building footprint information but often lack additional information on building type, usage, age or number of floors. For this reason, predictive modeling is becoming increasingly important in this context. The capabilities of machine learning allow for the prediction of building types and other building characteristics and thus, the efficient classification and description of the entire building stock of cities and regions. However, such data-driven approaches always require a sufficient amount of ground truth (reference) information for training and validation. The collection of reference data is usually cost-intensive and time-consuming. Experiences from other disciplines have shown that crowdsourcing offers the possibility to support the process of obtaining ground truth data. Therefore, this paper presents the results of an experimental study aiming at assessing the accuracy of non-expert annotations on street view images collected from an internet crowd. The findings provide the basis for a future integration of a crowdsourcing component into the process of land use mapping, particularly the automatic building classification.


This public event and study afternoon was the second in an annual series, which began with 'Through a Northern Lens: Women, Picture, Place' (2016). The series 'Northern Lens', devised by Nicky Bird and Dr Frances Robertson, shares ideas, histories, aesthetics and questions that are attached to the 'North'. 'Through a Northern Lens: Place Image, Archaeology and Heritage' (2017) did this through close discussion of particular places that – from an urban view – would appear to lie in Scotland's 'peripheral places.'

The event developed conversations and research links around themes including layered sites of history; individual and community memory; communication of memory; tangible and intangible forms of heritage; archaeology and destruction; folklore and knowledge; transportation; utilitarian bridges and their impact; fragility; cultural memory; material culture; art researcher practices and pedagogies.

The opening speakers were: Nicky Bird (Reader in Contemporary Photographic Practice, School of Fine Art), who discussed the methodologies and outcomes of her Timespan commission 'Ghosting the Castle'; Dr Frances Robertson (Lecturer & Researcher, Design History & Theory) examined the cultural, political and material elements contributing to hydro-electric power schemes inserted into the Scottish Highlands after World War Two, in 'Power in the landscape: Regenerating the Scottish Highlands after WWII'; and Stuart Jeffrey (Reader in Heritage Visualisation, School of Simulation and Visualisation, GSA) demonstrated through recent fieldwork his work in heritage visualisation, the analyse, interpretation and representation of heritage from built to intangible forms, in 'Turning vampires to basalt: the transition of the Isle of Staffa from cultural to natural wonder'. The Respondent to these three presentations was Dr. George S. Jaramillo (Lecturer and Research Associate, The Innovation School, GSA). Dr Jaramillo is an architect and heritage specialist, with interests in rural landscape, industrial material culture and ruins.

The closing speakers were: Dr Gina Wall (Deputy Head, School of Fine Art, GSA), who focused on practice and research, in particular on the intangible elements of landscape and how she traced the 'spectre' within her photographic practice, in the landscapes of Iceland and Scotland. Sheena Graham-George (PhD Research Student, School of Fine Art, GSA), followed with how her practice involves working with a combination of sound and ceramics to explore the cyclical nature of time and memory as they intertwine; to uncover and reveal the spectral in the landscape, to locate and make manifest the unseen, the forgotten, the absent which are at the heart of the physical and cultural landscape of the cillini. The Respondent to these two presentations was Dr Rachael Flynn (Consultant, Creative & Academic Development Team, School of Media, Culture & Society, University West of Scotland). Thematically, Dr Flynn's practice-led work explores familial stories of migration and diaspora of Scotland and Ireland – with particular focus on the interconnectivity and 'inherited' inferences of these – alongside the wider collective themes related to these discourses.

The event was chaired by Jenny Brownrigg.


To examine the productivity, employment and wage effects of ICT, we apply novel occupationbased measures of organisational change within firms. With these measures, we directly address the complementarities between ICT and organisational changes. Our results support the view that organisational change complements ICT investments in a productivity-enhancing manner. In particular, the ICT-driven productivity gains are associated with the destruction of routine and noninteractive tasks in an organisation. Furthermore, using longitudinal aspects of our linked employeremployee data, we find that whereas ICT does not affect the probability of an employee becoming unemployed, it has a positive impact on the wage growth of retained employees.


As part of the Barrier Island Evolution Research (BIER) project, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (SPCMSC) collected sediment samples from the northern Chandeleur Islands in July 2013. The overall objective of this project, which integrates geophysical (bathymetric, seismic, and topographic) and sedimentologic data, is to understand better the depositional and erosional processes that drive the morphologic evolution of barrier islands over annual to interannual timescales (1 to 5 years). Between June 2010 and April 2011, in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the State of Louisiana constructed a sand berm extending more than 14 kilometers (km) along the northern Chandeleur Islands platform. The construction of the berm provided a unique opportunity for scientists to investigate how this new sediment source interacts with and affects the morphologic evolution of the barrier-island system. Data collected from this study can be used to describe differences in the physical characteristics and spatial distribution of sediments both along the axis of the berm and also along transects across the berm and onto the adjacent barrier island. Comparison of these data with data from prior sampling efforts can provide information about sediment interactions and movement between the berm and the natural island platform, improving insight into short-term morphologic change and processes in this barrier-island system. This data series serves as an archive of sediment data collected in July 2013 from the Chandeleur Islands sand berm and adjacent barrier-island environments. Data products, including descriptive core logs, core photographs and x-radiographs, results of sediment grain-size analyses, sample location maps, and Geographic Information System (GIS) data files with accompanying formal Federal Geographic Data Committee (FDGC) metadata, can be downloaded from https://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/AAA/dsAAA_data.html.


Five years of no-tillage vs. the conventional method of tractor plowing significantly affected the physical and chemical properties of an Alfisol in western Nigeria. Continuous cropping of maize for 3 consecutive years was followed by 4 seasons of cultivation with cropping sequences of maize-maize (Zea mays L.), maize-cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata L. walp.), pigeon peas (Cajanus cajan Millsp.)-maize, soybeans-soybeans (Glycine max Merr.), maize-soybeans, and cowpeas-cowpeas. The no-tillage plots had higher organic matter contents in the surface soil horizons and higher concentrations of nitrate-nitrogen, Bray-1 available phosphorus, and ammonium acetate extractable cations such as Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, and K⁺ than the plowed plots. The infiltration rates of no-tillage plots were higher than those of the plowed plots and, thus, runoff and erosion losses were minimal. Although maximum soil temperatures were higher in the plowed plots, the no-tillage plots had higher soil moisture contents throughout the growing seasons. Greater earthworm activity in the no-tillage plots reduced compaction and crust formation. Yields equal to those from the plowed plots were harvested from the no-tillage plots under suitable crop rotations.


In the construction of 3D site models, much more emphasis has been put on the creation of the 3D shapes than on their textures. Nevertheless, the overall visual impression will often depend more on these textures than on the precision of the underlying geometry. The paper proposes a hierarchical texture modeling and synthesis technique to simulate the intricate appearances of building materials and landscapes. A macrotexture or "label map" prescribes the layout of microtextures or "subtextures". The system takes example images, e.g. of a certain vegetation landscape, as input and generates the corresponding composite texture models. From such model, arbitrary amounts of similar, non-repetitive texture can be generated (i.e. without verbatim copying). The creation of the composite texture models follows a kind of bootstrap procedure, where simple texture features help to generate the label map and then more complicated texture descriptions are called on for the subtextures.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to predict residual stresses in resistance spot weld of 2 mm thick aluminum 6061-T6 sheets. The joint use of finite element analysis and artificial neural networks can eliminate the high costs of residual stresses measuring tests and significantly shorten the time it takes to arrive at a solution.

Design/methodology/approach

Finite element method and artificial neural network have been used to predict the residual stresses. Different spot welding parameters such as the welding current, the welding time and the electrode force have been used for the simulation purposes in a thermal-electrical-structural coupled finite element model. To validate the numerical results, a series of experiments have been performed, and residual stresses have been measured. The results obtained from the finite element analysis have been used to build up a back-propagation artificial neural network model for residual stresses prediction.

Findings

The results revealed that the neural network model created in this study can accurately predict residual stresses produced in resistance spot weld. Using a combination of these two developed models, the residual stresses can be predicted in terms of spot weld parameters with high speed and accuracy.

Practical implications

The paper includes implication for aircraft and automobile industries to predict residual stresses. Residual stresses can lower the strength and fatigue life of the spot-welded joints and determine the performance quality of the structure.

Originality/value

This paper presents an approach to reduce the high costs and long times of residual stresses measuring tests.


Laser Induced Incandescence (LII) is a technique used to observe soot concentration and particle size in a flame. The LII signal is captured by an intensified CCD camera. Laser light impacts and heats soot particles within the flame, and the resulting intensity signal is detected. The LII signal is the radiation from the soot particles, and its temporal profile depends on many physical processes. The collected intensity images are further analyzed to generate the temporal profile of the LII signal. Detailed LII measurements were performed in order to study an unknown phenomenon which first appeared in a previous experiment at SINTEF. Two peaks were found to appear in the temporal LII signal when laser pulses of pulse duration longer than 100 ns were used. The main part of this thesis was dedicated to preparing the experimental setup, running LII measurements and analyzing temporal LII profiles. The LII measurements were performed on a small laminar ethylene flame with varying laser pulse duration and pulse fluence. An Nd:YAG laser with wavelength 532 nm was used, and later the first harmonic 1064 nm laser light. The temporal laser profiles had pulse duration in the range 50 to 450 ns, all rectangular in shape. The laser energy incident on the ethylene flame was varied using a combination of a half-wave plate and a beamsplitter. Several hypotheses were presented after the previous experiments at SINTEF, and these have been studied more carefully. As an example, areas within the flame where the soot?s morphological characteristics are different were analyzed and found not to have an effect. PAH-fluorescence and contribution from C2-radicals have also been ruled out as possible causes of the phenomenon. The cause of the two peaks appearing in the temporal LII signal is still unknown, but the results show some interesting aspects of the phenomenon. For the two peaks to appear, a certain fluence threshold must be reached. Studies of the time-integrated LII signal vs. laser pulse fluence revealed a new profile not previously seen. Such graphs have previously shown a saturation curve, saturating around 0.4-0.5 J/cm2 for the 1064 nm laser light. The results presented in this thesis show that this signal begins to increase again for higher fluence values. It is when the signal begins to increase that the two peaks become visible in the temporal LII profiles. The phenomenon?s irradiance dependence is also analyzed, but more data is required to give a decisive conclusion. It might be that the two peaks are present in studies using 10 ns pulse duration, but that due to the short time frame only a single peak is seen. Possible causes of the two peak phenomenon are presented and discussed. Advise on further research, both experimental and computational, is also presented. The two peaks might be caused by morphological changes in the soot, or by creation of new particles due to vaporization. It might also be caused by unknown processes the soot undergoes when impacted by the laser beam.


Abstract. Over the years data assimilation methods have been developed to obtain estimations of uncertain model parameters by taking into account a few observations of a model state. The most reliable Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are computationally expensive. Sequential ensemble methods such as ensemble Kalman filters and particle filters provide a favorable alternative. However, ensemble Kalman filter has an assumption of Gaussianity. Ensemble transform particle filter does not have this assumption and has proven to be highly beneficial for an initial condition estimation and a small number of parameter estimations in chaotic dynamical systems with non-Gaussian distributions. In this paper we employ ensemble transform particle filter (ETPF) and ensemble transform Kalman filter (ETKF) for parameter estimation in nonlinear problems with 1, 5, and 2500 uncertain parameters and compare them to importance sampling (IS). The large number of uncertain parameters is of particular interest for subsurface reservoir modeling as it allows us to parameterize permeability on the grid. We prove that the updated parameters obtained by ETPF lie within the range of an initial ensemble, which is not the case for ETKF. We examine the performance of ETPF and ETKF in a twin experiment setup, where observations of pressure are synthetically created based on the known values of parameters. For a small number of uncertain parameters (one and five) ETPF performs comparably to ETKF in terms of the mean estimation. For a large number of uncertain parameters (2500) ETKF is robust with respect to the initial ensemble, while ETPF is sensitive due to sampling error. Moreover, for the high-dimensional test problem ETPF gives an increase in the root mean square error after data assimilation is performed. This is resolved by applying distance-based localization, which however deteriorates a posterior estimation of the leading mode by largely increasing the variance due to a combination of less varying localized weights, not keeping the imposed bounds on the modes via the Karhunen–Loeve expansion, and the main variability explained by the leading mode. A possible remedy is instead of applying localization to use only leading modes that are well estimated by ETPF, which demands knowledge of which mode to truncate.


Pat Peoples knows that life doesn't always go according to plan, but he's determined to get his back on track. After a stint in a psychiatric hospital, Pat is staying with his parents and trying to live according to his new philosophy: get fit, be nice and always look for the silver lining. Most importantly, Pat is determined to be reconciled with his wife Nikki. Pat's parents just want to protect him so he can get back on his feet, but when Pat befriends the mysterious Tiffany, the secrets they've been keeping from him threaten to come out ...The Silver Linings Playbook is a touching and very funny novel, from the author of The Good Luck of Right Now.


This article examines how Polish courts have dealt with annulment applications based upon purported violations of substantive public policy and measures the Polish jurisprudence against the standards developed by the national courts in England, France, Switzerland and Germany. It identifies an anti-enforcement bias of the Polish courts which, in sharp contrast to their European counterparts, still favour an expansive interpretation of the public policy exception and have surprisingly little qualms in engaging in a thinly veiled merits review with unclear boundaries. The markedly interventionist approach of the Polish judiciary encourages annulment applications, which both ill-serves the arbitral process generally and undermines recent efforts to promote Poland as a desirable seat for international arbitration specifically.   A solution to these ills can only be found in a narrower interpretation of the substantive public policy exception, in harmony with the standards developed by the national courts in the major European arbitration centres.


16. Abstract In the construction industry, Hispanics have the highest rate of fatal work injuries among the racial/ethnic groups, and productivity in the field is limited by the language barrier between Hispanic workers and their supervisors and the level of education of many Hispanic craft workers. This research developed a training program designed to facilitate the integration process between American supervisors and Hispanic craft workers in a practical and cost-effective way, thus improving productivity and lowering fatality rates. The Iowa State University research team conducted a survey of 38 American supervisors, representing 14 Iowa construction companies. Survey results confirm that communication is the main problem experienced by American supervisors in the jobsite. Many American supervisors also use or depend on a link-person (an individual who interprets tasks to the rest of the Hispanic crew) to communicate to the Hispanic crewmembers. Research findings show that language differences affect productivity and workplace safety in the construction industry. Additionally, the educational levels of Hispanic workers indicate that they may not have the literacy skills necessary to understand training materials. This research developed two training courses designed to expand the Spanish communication skills of American supervisors. The research team modified the English-as-a-second-language course developed in Phase I into the Spanish as a Second Language (SSL) Survival Course. A series of technical training courses were also developed, titled Concrete Pavement Construction Basics (CPCB), that cover general practices in concrete pavement construction. They are much shorter and more specialized than the SSL course. The CPCB courses provide American supervisors simple and practical communication tools on a variety of topics to choose from according to their specific needs. 17. Key Words construction training program—Hispanic workforce—language barriers— productivity—safety 18. Distribution Statement No restrictions.


The goal of this work is to stabilize the shape and orientation of formations of N identical and fully actuated agents, each governed by double-integrator dynamics. Using stability and rigidity properties inherent to tensegrity structures, we first design a tensegrity-based, globally exponentially stable control law in one dimension. This stabilizes given inter-agent spacing along the line, thereby enabling shape control of one-dimensional formations. We then couple one-dimensional control laws along independent orthogonal axes to design a distributed control law capable of stabilizing arbitrary shapes and orientations in n dimensions. We also present two methods for formation shape and orientation change, one using smooth parameter variations of the control law, and the other, an n-step collision-free algorithm for shape change between any two formations in n-dimensional space.


ABSTRACT Aim: Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection and family history are strong risk factors associated with undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). The presence of aberrant immunoglobulin A (IgA) antibodies against specific EBV antigens in healthy individuals can be predictive of the disease. Unlike in familial NPC, very limited reports have explored the EBV IgA antibody presence within families of sporadic cases of NPC.The aim of this study is to determine whether EBV IgA was more frequently observed among healthy family members of sporadic cases of NPC compared to healthy non-family individuals. Methods: First-degree relatives of NPC patients (n = 508) were recruited in a home visite program. Non-family individuals (n= 284) were recruited from Yogyakarta blood bank. Sera from all individuals were tested in standardized peptide-based EBV IgA ELISA and a positive result of seroreactivity was defined as OD450 >0.354, being the cutt-of value (CoV). Data on demographic variables were collected using a questionnaire through face-to-face interviews. Results: A total of 280 (35.4%) individuals showed seroreactivity of EBV IgA. A significant higher frequency was observed in the first-degree relatives of NPC cases than in non-family individuals (41.9% versus 21.2%, p Conclusions: Family members of NPC cases demonstrated higher level of EBV IgA seroreactivity compared to non-family individuals, implicating a suitability of screening program among this group. Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.


Background and Aim: Nowadays, effective relationships with customers create value for healthcare systems. Successful organizations attract lifetime customers, respond to customers in the shortest time, with the best quality and the lowest cost. The present study aimed to consider the correlation between Customer Knowledge Management (CKM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tasks in a military hospital in Tehran during 2015. Methods: This study is an analytic study. The statistical population of this study were the nurses in a military hospital. Samples were gathered using random method. The data collection tools were the researcher-made questionnaire of CRM and CKM. The validity and reliability of these questionnaires were confirmed by researchers. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis method was used to determine the impact of the variables. Also, the SPSS and Amos (ver18) softwares were used. Results: Among the dimensions of CRM, "Retention" had the highest mean score (3.8 ±0.6) and "Client Interaction" had the lowest average score (3.4 ±0.6). Among the dimensions of CKM, "Knowledge from Client" had the highest average score (3.9 ±0.9) and "Knowledge about Client" had the lowest average score (3.4 ±0.6). Also, the CKM had an impact on CKM tasks with 0. 95. Conclusion: Since the customer interaction score was lower among other CRM tasks, in order to improve interactions with customers or patients, hospitals can design training sessions in this regard for their staff.


How do incumbent firms and environments co-evolve and how are firm-level adaptation and selection at industry level interrelated? Can and do large established organizations renew themselves to adapt to their environment? Three single-lens theories, relating to environmental selection, institutional theory, managerial intentionality, and a co-evolutionary perspective are used to investigate strategic renewal of incumbent firms. We derive propositions and distinguish between three dimensions of strategic renewal and develop metrics to investigate our propositions in a multi-level, multi-country, longitudinal study of the European financial services industry. Our results provide the following insights. From an environmental selection perspective, we found incumbents have a preference for exploitation renewal actions. Country institutional environments appear to explain to what extent incumbents prefer internal and/or external renewal actions. Managerial intentionality seems to explain outlier behaviour and firm-specific frequency and timing of renewal actions. From a co-evolutionary perspective, interaction effects explain deviations from predictions derived from the single-lens theories applied in this paper.


The emergence of the epidemic of nicotine addiction in India and other nations is a global public health tragedy of untoward proportions. Smoking or chewing tobacco can seriously affect general, as well as oral health. Smoking-caused disease is a consequence of exposure to toxins in tobacco smoke and addiction to nicotine is the proximate cause of these diseases. This article focuses on nicotine as a determinant of addiction to tobacco and the pharmacologic effects of nicotine that sustain cigarette smoking. The pharmacologic reasons for nicotine use are an enhancement of mood, either directly or through relief of withdrawal symptoms and augmentation of mental or physical functions. Tobacco cessation is necessary to reduce morbidity and mortality related to tobacco use. Strategies for tobacco cessation involves 5A's and 5R's approach and pharmacotherapy. Dental professionals play an important role in helping patients to quit tobacco at the community and national levels, to promote tobacco prevention and control nicotine addiction. Dentists are in a unique position to educate and motivate patients concerning the hazards of tobacco to their oral and systemic health, and to provide intervention programs as a part of routine patient care.


This chapter presents an innovative experience carried out through a university extension course in the 2016-2017 academic year for Social Education students of the University of Huelva. The main objective has been to facilitate the acquisition of communication skills by the participating students (a total of 21 students). A participative, interactive and expository methodology has been followed between professors and students. The analysis of the data will be made thanks to the results obtained from the satisfaction surveys that the same university uses for this type of workshops that are offered in these calls. The results show a high students motivation in this type of initiatives as well as a very positive attitude on the part of participating professors.


This paper explores the interactions of a groupwork team composed of both local and exchange students, with heterogeneous competence in English, in an English-medium CLIL context at a technical university in Catalonia. Plurilingual and multimodal conversation analysis is used to trace how the students jointly complete an academic task. The research conducted specifically analyses how students categorise themselves and each other in terms of their expertise, and the procedures and resources the students deploy to accomplish the task. The data show that participants' heterogeneous linguistic repertoires are not an obstacle for successfully completing the task, for constructing subject knowledge, or for establishing a climate of mutual understanding and cooperation. The analysis refers to the tension emerging in the data between the interactional principles of progressivity –actions oriented towards task completion– and intersubjectivity –actions oriented towards resolving communicative difficulties. It also focuses on how co-participants mobilise diverse resources from their communicative repertoires, including plurilingual resources, gesture and material artefacts, in managing the task. The main argument put forward is that in instructional environments in which students are expected to build subject matter knowledge using languages that they are simultaneously learning (e.g. CLIL), considering their whole communicative repertoires as valuable resources for their learning is a promising approach.


Starting with the first published works on the electrochemical deposition of thermoelectric (TE) V–VI compounds in the early nineties, these past two decades have seen a steady increase in scientific interest and publications on this topic. This is hardly surprising, as TE devices offer unique opportunities for power generation in virtually any environment ("energy harvesting") or demanding cooling applications through the Peltier effect. This review first provides an overview of the advances in the electrodeposition of n- and p-type thin films based on Bi_2(Te, Se)_3 and (Bi, Sb)_2Te_3, the currently best-known TE materials for room temperature applications. The overview includes information about the electrolyte and the deposition conditions as well as the achieved composition, thickness, morphology, and TE properties of the deposited films. Additionally, we present the state-of-the-art and recent developments in electroplating-based fabrication processes for microscale TE devices.


The application of advanced X-ray techniques, using both laboratory and synchrotron radiation sources, to the structural characterisation of semiconductor multilayer systems is described with reference to their use in understanding the growth by Molecular Beam Epitaxy of SiGe layers. These layers, prepared using VG V80 and VG V90 growth systems have been characterised for x-y uniformity and compositional reproducibility. The superlattice period dispersion, due to short term flux instabilities in the growth fluxes, has been measured by consideration of the relative heights of Pendellosung fringes present between the superlattice fringes in the X-ray diffraction rocking curve. This has allowed the period dispersion to be found to an accuracy of ± 0.3 nm. Interface roughness has been measured with X-ray reflectivity. This has shown significant (1.0±3 nm) long range (~70 nm) roughness at the Si1-xGex to Si interface for x=0.4 and x=0.6 superlattices.

SiGe layers have been grown to well beyond the metastable critical thickness, and the residual strain remaining in the structures found from use of two reflections in double crystal X-ray diffraction. This work has demonstrated an empirical relationship between thickness/critical thickness and the degree of residual strain remaining in the layer. This relationship is found to be independent of the Ge content of the epitaxial layer. SiGe layers have also been grown beyond the equilibrium critical thickness but less than the metastable critical thickness. Standard anneals have been carried out on these layers allowing determination of how the layers relax with varying composition and thickness. The misfit dislocations created are found to be longer for layers with lower degrees of strain. By growing layers with longer misfit dislocations relaxed buffer layers have been produced with threading dislocation densities of ~10^6 cm^-2 and a surface roughness of ±3 nm.

To avoid growing highly dislocated SiGe layers SiGe has been grown on a Si substrate which has been etched to provide "mesa" structures of size varying from 1500 μm to 1 μm in width. Mesa islands smaller than 15 microns across show no misfit dislocations and rectangular islands 15 microns wide and 100 microns long have misfit dislocations running on one direction only indicating that relaxation in the other direction has taken place by elastic rather than plastic processes.

Characterisation of delta layers in Si using SIMS. is limited by cascade mixing to a depth resolution of 3 nm. Double axis X-ray diffraction using the interference effects between the Si below the delta layer and the Si above the delta layer has allowed the width of B delta layers to be determined to ±0.5 nm. This technique has also been used to measure the strin due to the B delta thus allowing determination of the degree of activation of the dopant. Thermal annealling of B delta layers has shown that anneals at 700°C for 1 hour causes measurable broadening of the delta layers. Sb delta layers have also been examined and their widths found to be less than 2 nm.


It is well known that when a superheated gas reaches a cold surface, the condensation starts immediately only if the wall temperature is lower than the dew temperature of the refrigerant; in this case, the heat transfer phenomenon can be also affected by the superheating temperature. This paper presents the experimental measurements of the heat transfer coefficient carried out during partial condensation of superheated R32 refrigerant in a commercial brazed plate heat exchanger prototype. The present work aims at highlighting the effects of the superheating during the partial condensation of R32 by imposing 5, 10, 15, and 25 K of vapour superheating at the inlet of the brazed plate heat exchanger prototype. The experimental measurements were carried out by varying the specific mass velocity between 15 and 40 kg m s and the outlet vapour quality between 0.0 and 0.65. The experimental data were collected at around 36.5 °C saturation temperature (saturation pressure of 2.27 MPa). The present data is used to validate a new step-by-step model for the calculation of the heat transfer coefficient, which accounts for the different superheating inlet temperatures.


Estimating 3D human poses from 2D joint positions is an illposed problem, and is further complicated by the fact that the estimated 2D joints usually have errors to which most of the 3D pose estimators are sensitive. In this work, we present an approach to refine inaccurate 3D pose estimations. The core idea of the approach is to learn a number of bases to obtain tight approximations of the low-dimensional pose manifold where a 3D pose is represented by a convex combination of the bases. The representation requires that globally the refined poses are close to the pose manifold thus avoiding generating illegitimate poses. Second, the designed bases also have the property to guarantee that the distances among the body joints of a pose are within reasonable ranges. Experiments on benchmark datasets show that our approach obtains more legitimate poses over the baselines. In particular, the limb lengths are closer to the ground truth.


Introduction A Diagnosis of Dementia—what does this mean? Receiving a diagnosis of dementia raises many challenges for the person themselves and for their carers and other family members and friends. However, it can also provide opportunities, to plan ahead, to put financial and other affairs in order and, for those who are in the early stages of dementia, to travel or do other things with family and friends. This session will consider some of the issues that need to be addressed at this time. These include: when does a person have capacity to make their own decisions?; the need to undertake Advance Care Planning to appoint a substitute decision-maker and write an Advance Directive; the legally available options that the person may want to include in their Advance Care Plans; an understanding of palliative care; their right to adequate pain relief in terminal illness (and the related issue of what is/is not euthanasia). Issues for Carers of people with dementia will also be covered. Finally, as there is increasing activity in Australia to introduce euthanasia legislation, the special concerns for people with dementia, should such legislation be introduced, will be discussed.


The rates and patterns of bedrock channel incision significantly influence landscape evolution and long-term interactions among climate, tectonics, and erosion. Unfortunately, only sparse field data are available to quantify the controls on river incision rates. We exploit the diversion of the upper Ukak River by an ash flow in 1912 to measure rates of incision along a newly formed bedrock channel. Minimum estimates of the rate of incision into intact rock vary from 0.01 to 0.10 m·yr –1 . This variation reflects differences in channel slope, channel width, lithologic facies, and intensity of jointing as well as the effects of upstream knickpoint migration. A streampower–type incision model adequately explains the incision-rate data, provided (1) variations in channel width are prescribed on the basis of field measurements, (2) the slope exponent is significantly less than unity (n = 0.4 ± 0.2), and (3) observed downstream changes in lithologic facies and the intensity of jointing account for the apparent twofold downstream decrease in the coefficient of erosion. Despite the very rapid rate of incision, calibrated stream-power erosion coefficients for the Ukak River (K = 2.4 × 10 –4 m 0.2 ·yr –1 to 9.0 × 10 –4 m 0.2 ·yr –1 ) are within the range of previously published estimates. Two plausible explanations for the low values of the slope exponent n are that incision rate is limited by either (1) a combination of physical weathering and hydrodynamic joint-block extraction or (2) block fracture due to bedload impacts modulated on steeper channel segments by suspension of a significant fraction of the sediment load.


Many individuals with disabilities are not physically active. Part of inactivity can be explained by the person's disability. However, inactivity also may be the result of inequities, attitudes, and misconceptions by physical activity (PA) providers that makes it difficult for those with disabilities to successfully participate in sport, recreation, and fitness pursuits. The purpose of this paper is to examine disability through a social justice lens with specific reference to PA. Concepts of ableism, social justice, and how disability is defined will be explored with specific examples from PA. We conclude with suggestions on how to make PA providers aware of ableism, their biases, and how they define and view disability. This awareness will hopefully lead to changes in the willingness of PA providers to welcome those with disabilities into their programs and provide accommodations so that people with disabilities will be able to access PA.


This article examines the determinants of Internet connections in Western Australia and some of the regional and socioeconomic differences in Internet adoption. Data on Internet connections from a number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are matched to demographic variables, such as household income and other socioeconomic and regional characteristics. Data provided by ISPs do not distinguish whether connections are actively being used, neither do they indicate anything about the intensity of use. Rather, they simply provide the total number of connections at the point-of-presence (POP). The study proceeds on the assumption that connections are the best indicator of the extent of Internet access in any given area at the time of the study. The estimates provide information on the major factors affecting household Internet connection and, therefore, provide information on how factors such as economic and demographic change impact Internet usage. This provides additional insights into the demand for e-commerce and will inform policy makers about the limitations to access of on-line services by the most disadvantaged in the community.


This thesis presents two-dimensional hydrodynamic disk simulations with embedded protoplanets, emphasizing the non-linear dynamics in the co-orbital region. In particular, it demonstrates how a protoplanetary disk responds to embedded low mass planets at the inviscid limit. Since the potential vorticity (PV) flow is not conserved, due to the spiral shocks and possibly boundary layer effects emanating from the planet, the PV profile develops inflection points which eventually render the flow unstable. Vortices are produced in association with the potential vorticity minima. Born in the separatrix region, these vortices experience close encounters with the planet, consequently exerting strong torques on the planet. The existence of these vortices, if confirmed, have important implications on planetary migration rates. The formation of vortices is discussed in more detail and a key parameter is found which depends solely on planet mass and sound speed. With this key parameter, one can predict the disk evolution, PV growth rates, and threshold conditions for forming vortices in the co-orbital region. An analytical estimate for the change of PV due to shocks is compared to the actual change in PV in the hydrodynamic simulations. They match well except in the inner region where vortices form. In addition, extensive resolutionmore » tests were carried out but uncertainties remain about the physics of this particular region.« less


Generally, energy consumption in buildings has increased in the last 10 years by almost 95%, and with existing stock that is expected to have a long life; sustainable improvements to buildings should extend to existing buildings as well as new builds; retrofit should be embraced by developing an integrated decision to assess existing buildings' conditions and to recommend an optimal set of sustainable retrofitting strategies. Energy consumption in office buildings is one of the highest compared to other building types; with an annual consumption that ranges between 100 and 1000kWh/m 2 depending on geographic location, use, type of office equipment, type of envelope, use of HVAC systems and type of lighting. Several factors could reduce the energy consumption in offices; such as passive design, energy conservation plans, water management systems, controlled lighting systems, use of renewable energy, limited use of active air conditioning system and building envelope improvements. This paper aims at developing an assessment and retrofit strategy for improving the energy performance of offices with focus on the building's envelope which with careful design could reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint by up to 15%. The paper starts by exploring the features of the building envelope, and how they impact energy consumption, in addition to suitable retrofit systems. Both envelope elements and retrofit systems formulate a framework; which is then applied to an office building in Alexandria, Egypt as a case-study.


This experiment was conducted in the Genetics, Breeding and Reproductive Biotechnology Laboratory under Goat and Sheep Production Research Division, Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute (BLRI), Saver, Dhaka, Bangladesh. DNA was extracted from 14 goat breeds and the extracted DNA was observed by gel electrophoresis. Eight goat specific primers were synthesized by ASM-800 DNA synthesizer and screened in the study and all these primers were capable of priming polymorphic amplification pattern in both the breeds. Random amplification of polymorphic DNA – Polymerase Chain Reaction (RAPD-PCR) analysis was carried out using DNA samples of 14 black bengal goat and Jamuna pari goat breeds. Only unambiguous, reproducible and scorable polymorphic fragments were taken into consideration for analysis. Data were analyzed by using a computer programe POPGENE (Version 1.31). Highest level of Nei's[1] gene diversity value (0.4898) was observed in BMS 1494 locus and the mean genetic diversity was obtained 0.3724 among the 14 goat breeds. The highest number of polymorphism obserbed in primer BM1818.The pair-wise genetic distance value ranged from 0.2500 to 1.000. Dendrogram based on Nei's[1] genetic distance using Unweighted Pair Group Method of Arithmetic Means (UPGMA) indicated segregation of the 14 goat breeds. Within Jamuna pari goat genetic similarity is low as well as black Bengal goat.


RFC 4601 mandates the use of IPsec to ensure authentication of the
link-local messages in the Protocol Independent Multicast - Sparse
Mode (PIM-SM) routing protocol. This document specifies mechanisms to
authenticate the PIM-SM link-local messages using the IP security
(IPsec) Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) or (optionally) the
Authentication Header (AH). It specifies optional mechanisms to
provide confidentiality using the ESP. Manual keying is specified as
the mandatory and default group key management solution. To deal with
issues of scalability and security that exist with manual keying, an
optional support for automated group key management mechanism is
provided. However, the procedures for implementing automated group key
management are left to other documents. This document updates RFC
4601.


Digital media and tools are now integral to architectural education and the design process. Nevertheless, much of the pedagogy related to digital media is grounded in, and relies upon, traditional design educational approaches. The relationship of the practice of architecture to digital technology is in constant flux. Recently, university departments of architecture have seen a greater emphasis on technology integration, and have witnessed significant upgrades in hardware and software technologies. These shifts in technologies "have game changing implications for the future of the profession" (Design Intelligence, 2013). Changes in architecture curricula to accommodate new design technologies and modes of professional practice, as well as students' time and skill limitations, make it challenging for departments of architecture to provide their students with the knowledge base necessary to address the concerns of design professionals as they move from the academic environment into professional practice. Bearing in mind the following three points: 1. It is not possible to teach the students everything they need to learn (in terms of either design or technology) while they are in school. 2. Students enter departments of architecture generally having achieved a high level of computer literacy that they assume they will be able to apply or build upon in their education (Design Intelligence, 2013) 3. Because of financial constraints, differences in geography, faculty, facilities, academic modus operandi, and whether the institution is private or public, every department of architecture has a different curriculum (Design Intelligence, 2013). We can pose the following question: In the context of design education, what should an introductory course in design computing accomplish in terms of topics, tasks, and theory? To which we may answer: Literature states that, at the end of an introductory design computing course: 1. Educators and practitioners in architecture believe students should have the ability to face and adapt to changing technology. They need to learn how to learn technology (software and hardware) in order to become competent practitioners of architecture. 2. Students should be exposed to fundamental design computing concepts that will be useful now and into the future. An introductory course should address fundamental principles and approaches to technology and design that we hypothesize will persist despite rapid changes. 3. Students should have the ability to generate and communicate ideas utilizing multiple processes (approaches) and media. 4. Students should understand, perceive, and be able to act upon existing affordances of digital tools. This thesis examines teaching methods, curricula, and pedagogical approaches that assist in achieving those goals; it reviews literature regarding the need for a course addressing the abovementioned concerns, and it summarizes case studies that have attempted to address these needs. The central effort of the thesis involves an exploration, in the form of a course, in…


This paper conducts a disaggregated analysis of high technology trade to determine which high technology goods, if any, developed countries export in the presence of stronger developing country patent rights. One argument for implementing strong patent rights in developing countries is that doing so will attract high technology exports from industrialized countries, which should consequently lead to economic growth. However, the impact of patent rights on high technology exports is not identical across all industries. This paper postulates that the role of developing country patent rights in increasing high technology imports depends on the production and adaptation costs of foreign innovating firms, and the usefulness of the high technology good in developing country production processes. When the cost of adapting a foreign innovation for use in developing countries is relatively low, and when the innovation is highly useful in the domestic production processes of developing countries, strengthening patent protection has little impact on attracting foreign innovations. However, when the cost of adapting the good for use in developing countries is relatively high, patent protection can be used as a policy tool to limit competition, raise the price received by innovating firms, and, ultimately, attract foreign high technology goods from abroad.


Ocean iron fertilization is being considered as a strategy for mitigating the buildup of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere. Assessment of this strategy requires consideration of its unintended consequences, such as an enhancement of ocean N2O emissions. This feedback could offset the radiative benefit from the atmospheric CO2 reduction significantly, because N2O is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2 itself. Our model results show that the magnitude of this offsetting effect is substantial, but is highly dependent on the location and duration of fertilization. We find the largest offsets (of the order of 100%) when fertilization is undertaken in the tropics, particularly when it is of limited duration and size. Smaller, but still substantial effects are found when fertilization is undertaken elsewhere and over longer periods. These results suggest that any assessment of ocean fertilization as a mitigating option is incomplete without consideration of the N2O feedback.


Introduction: This research was undertaken to determine the risk factors for domestic falls of elders above age of 60 years among who were admitted to the accident service unit of a Teaching Hospital in Sri Lanka.
Methods: It was a case control study involving 100 cases and 100 Controls carried out in accident Service Unit and Orthopaedic wards of Colombo South Teaching Hospital. Interviewer administrated questionnaire was used to collect data after gaining verbal consent. Collected data was analysed by Statistical package for the social sciences.
Results: In the bivariate analysis, the statistically significant risk factors were wearing spectacles (OR-0.44, 95% CI: 0.25-0.78), having cataract of one or both eyes (OR-3.62, 95% CI: 2.00-6.58), difficulty in walking (OR-2.20, 95% CI: 1.09-4.44), previous history of falls after age of 50 years (OR-2.36, 95% CI: 1.27-4.39), wearing foot wear inside the house (OR-4.24, 95% CI: 2.28-7.90) and a wet floor.
Conclusion: The identified risk factors in our study are potentially modifiable. Environmental assessment would help to identify and prevent potential hazards, favouring mobility and safety of the patient.


This study was conducted in order to investigate the problems and solutions to improve the employment situation in agriculture sector in Karaj Payam Noor university students. Statistical population are Included all of Karaj Payam Noor University Graduate Students (N=1320). Using Cochran formula, 120 students were selected as sample. For more credits of findings, 150 questionnaires were distributed with stratified random sampling method that finally 140 questionnaires were completed and analyzed. The main research instrument was a questionnaire that its validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and its reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient (α> 0.7). Data analysis was performed by SPSSwin18 software. The results showed that the most important barriers to employment in agriculture were classified in five factors:1-Lack of entrepreneurial culture, 2-Strategic barriers, 3-Strategic barriers, 4-Academic barriers, 5-Psychological barriers and 6- Educational barriers. Furthermore, the results of factor analysis classified solutions for improving employment in the agricultural sector in five factors: 1-Support, 2–Professional, 3-Communication – Institutional, 4-Education and 5 –skills


The rapid increase in data volumes and complexity of applied analytical tasks poses a big challenge for visualization solutions. It is important to keep the experience highly interactive, so that users stay engaged and can perform insightful data exploration. Query processing usually dominates the cost of visualization generation. Therefore, in order to achieve acceptable response times, one needs to utilize backend capabilities to the fullest and apply techniques, such as caching or prefetching. In this paper we discuss key data processing components in Tableau: the query processor, query caches, Tableau Data Engine [1, 2] and Data Server. Furthermore, we cover recent performance improvements related to the number and quality of remote queries, broader reuse of cached data, and application of inter and intra query parallelism.


When encountering problems and dissatisfaction in the workplace, employees may choose between three strategies: voice; exit; or silence. Using survey data and interview material from a study of employees in an elderly care organization in Sweden, this article investigates the workers' perceptions of the eligibility and prospects of these strategies and which individual characteristics and situational factors might affect them. The focus is on racialized workers (operationalized through their region of birth) who, according to earlier studies, are less likely than other employees to choose voice behaviour. Contrary to some earlier studies, the results here attribute such a propensity to the importance of power differences across 'racial hierarchies' rather than to differences in cultural values. Individuals in this (racialized) category have a lower occupational status, earn less and experience less favourable relationships with their managers.


Building on recent developments in mixed methods, we discuss the methodological implications of critical realism and explore how these can guide dynamic mixed-methods research design in information systems. Specifically, we examine the core ontological assumptions of CR in order to gain some perspective on key epistemological issues such as causation and validity, and illustrate how these shape our logic of inference in the research process through what is known as retroduction. We demonstrate the value of a CR-led mixed-methods research approach by drawing on a study that examines the impact of ICT adoption in the financial services sector. In doing so, we provide insight into the interplay between qualitative and quantitative methods and the particular value of applying mixed methods guided by CR methodological principles. Our positioning of demi-regularities within the process of retroduction contributes a distinctive development in this regard. We argue that such a research design enables us to better address issues of validity and the development of more robust meta-inferences.


The perfect companion to William J. Bennett's number-one bestseller; "The Book of Virtues", "The Children's Book of Virtues" is the ideal storybook for parents and children to enjoy together: With selections from "The Book of Virtues", from Aesop and Robert Frost to George Washington's life as well as Native American and African folklore, "The Children's Book of Virtues" brings together timeless stories and poems from around the world. The stories have been chosen especially for a young audience to help parents introduce to their children the essentials of good character: Courage, Perseverance, Responsibility, Work, Self-discipline, Compassion, Faith, Honesty, Loyalty, and Friendship. Lavishly illustrated by the well-known artist Michael Hague, these wonderful stories and the virtues they illustrate come to life on these pages. "The Children's Book of Virtues" is an enduring treasury of literature and art that will help lead young minds toward what is noble and gentle and fine.


The cost-effectiveness of carbon sequestration alternatives has often been discussed in the economics literature on sequestration. Average or marginal costs and annual carbon supply curves are often used as measures of cost-effectiveness. Sequestration is inherently a temporal process and how time is accounted for in the various measures of cost-effectiveness is critical for appropriate cross-study comparisons. I examine three factors that affect the magnitude of measured cost-effectiveness: the study period, the sequestration path, and the discount rate if discounting is used. The extent to which these factors affect the consistency of cross-study comparisons is empirically illustrated.


A nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) machine capable of producing tomographic sections of the whole human body in vivo has been constructed. This system is based on a four coil, air-core electromagnet producing a field of 0.04 T which corresponds to a proton NMR frequency of 1.7 MHz. The images are produced line by line using a selective excitation technique. Magnetic field gradients up to about 5 mT/m are employed. Electronic subsystems are described here including a radiofrequency (RF) amplitude feedback circuit, an RF power amplifier, a transmit/receive switch, a receiver pre-amplifier and gradient coil drivers. For a single scan through a 103 mm3 sample of human muscle tissue in vivo, the measured proton density uncertainty is 24% and the spin-lattice relaxation time (T1) uncertainty is 74%. Phantom images using CuSO4 solution and in vivo sections through human chest, thighs and head are presented. T1 measurements of human muscle, liver and brain tissue in vivo give results which agree well with T1 values for corresponding rabbit tissues measured in vitro.


In Japan, people live longer than anywhere else on Earth; obesity is virtually unknown, and 40-year-old women look like they're 20. The secret: Japanese homestyle cooking, and an approach to eating that is not about self-deprivation, but about celebrating and savouring food. Raised in Tokyo and on her grandparents' mountainside farm, author Naomi Moriyama first travelled to the West as a college student, and promptly gained 25 pounds eating an American diet. Returning home for the holidays, she found that the weight melted off as she returned to the healthy, soulful food of her mother's tiny kitchen: satisfying soups, fresh vegetables, delicate grilled fish; mouthwatering meals that never left her feeling hungry. Filled with delicious healthy recipes and evocative reminiscences, this book is for all those who are tired of counting calories and carbs, and finding themselves on diets that don't work. Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat offers a delightfully fresh and easy approach to weight loss and promises readers a healthier, slimmer, and longer lifestyle.


The biochemical properties of beclin 1 suggest a role in two fundamentally important cell biological pathways: autophagy and apoptosis. We show here that beclin 1-/- mutant mice die early in embryogenesis and beclin 1+/- mutant mice suffer from a high incidence of spontaneous tumors. These tumors continue to express wild-type beclin 1 mRNA and protein, establishing that beclin 1 is a haploinsufficient tumor suppressor gene. Beclin 1-/- embryonic stem cells have a severely altered autophagic response, whereas their apoptotic response to serum withdrawal or UV light is normal. These results demonstrate that beclin 1 is a critical component of mammalian autophagy and establish a role for autophagy in tumor suppression. They both provide a biological explanation for recent evidence implicating beclin 1 in human cancer and suggest that mutations in other genes operating in this pathway may contribute to tumor formation through deregulation of autophagy.


Study of travel demand often involves considerations of the effects of specific new development scenarios and therefore a methodology to regenerate and visualize expected effects of various development assumptions is needed. This project demonstrates a procedure to alter land use assumptions and examine expected land use distributions that result. The number of housing units needed at any future time, and the pace of development is constrained to the DPC projections.
Predicting the spatial allocation/distribution of development at the tax parcel level within the Planning District is the focus of this research. Rather than having a static projection of where development will occur, a methodology was developed to predict new distributions based on suggested growth scenarios.


This Article explores the legislative role in enforcing the constitutional guarantee to equal protection. Part I describes the underenforcement principle that explains the restrictive judicial exercise of authority in constitutional matters. The Article then focuses on Congress' role in examining issues relating to the constitutional guarantee of equal protection that the courts have chosen to underenforce. Part II analyzes relevant constitutional provisions that may empower or limit congressional actions. Part III considers ways in which Congress can address state violations of equal protection through directives to the judiciary and through the legislative process. Part IV details how both federal and state legislatures can implement equal protection guarantees in everyday legislation. Finally, Part V distinguishes between constitutionally motivated decision-making and conscientious decision-making within the legislature and discusses the political implications of a legislative process that directly addresses the constitutionality of equal protection issues.


Transatlantic Landscapes: Environmental Awareness, Literature and the Arts considers culture as an outcome of nature as its fundamental principle. The biosemiotic suggestion that life itself is a process of signification, the hypothesis that the immediate contact with the environment of oral cultures still breathes in literate cultures and texts, the new understandings of the agency of nature, the common good that inspires Western political constitutions and Amerindian concepts such as sumak kawsay, and the attention of ecological economics to the interdependence and co-evolution of human societies and natural ecosystems have all been of great relevance. Favoring comparative studies of artistic and literary landscapes from both sides of the Atlantic and the islands between them, Transatlantic Landscapes: Environmental Awareness, Literature and the Arts challenges the epic values of conquering and dominating nature, responds to the culture of modeling spaces at the exclusive service of humankind, turns Euro-American anthropocentrism into a powerful eco-cultural tool to unveil human hubris and to revise its own conceptions of inhabiting the world, and promotes perspectives of accordance and collaboration among a wide range of different cultural traditions.


Background:
The term of suicide is too broad and too vague. The definition and risk for suicide-related behaviors, that including self-harm, threats, attempts and suicide, remain unclear. In addition, whether paternal or maternal bonding plays an important role in suicidal attempt and threat is unknown in Taiwan. Hence, this study aimed to find out the relationship between different parental bonding styles and suicidal attempt and threat, and the predictive index for suicidality was also investigated.
Method:
Total of 422 participants with suicidal attempt and 356 who's with suicidal threat, which referred from all Health Department clinics and hospitals in 33 townships of Pingtung County in southern Taiwan, were recruited. In addition, 299 controls were random sampling from the community in 33 townships of Pingtung County, and who's without any psychiatric diagnosis history.
Results:
After adjustment for socio-demographics, both paternal and maternal "affectionless control" had significant associations with suicidality. When demographics and depression was adjusted, only the paternal "affectionless control" remained significantly associated with the suicidality. Furthermore, personality characteristics, alexithymia, and mental disorders as the mediating factors between parental affectionless control and suicidal attempt or threat are shown.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, paternal and maternal "affectionless control" might be used as the predictors for suicidal attempt and threat in Taiwan. Particularly, the impact of paternal affectionless has contributed to suicidal attempt through neuroticism than threat. These models may provide the references for clinical implication. Different preventive program and model might be considered in different type of suicide behaviors.


Research and Development (R&D) professionals in high-technology industries are required to make decisions in a complex and uncertain environment. This complexity grows, since firms increasingly open up their processes of innovation to develop innovative ideas in association with external actors such as suppliers, competitors and customers. Such an environment calls for professionals who are able to face up to and manage technical challenges, and to deal with the high cognitive load. It also requires individuals who are able to deal with interpersonal challenges and drive the development of new ways to innovate. Based on quantitative and qualitative studies, this dissertation investigates the role of the R&D professional in driving innovative and collaborative behavior in R&D departments. It draws upon theories from the field of psychology, and from behavioral decision-making literature. Thus, it elucidates how the decision-making process of innovation unfolds, investigates how the decisional orientation of a manager can influence partnering in innovative projects, and identifies belief systems that may drive or inhibit collaborative innovation. The findings indicate that it is not sufficient for managers to be able to accurately analyze information. More importantly, they should know how to include intuition into the decision-making process, facilitate negotiations about diverse interests, and take into account positive and negative beliefs regarding different innovative practices. Amsterdam. Prior to that, she received an MSc degree in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Psychology (cum laude) from the University of Barcelona and Paris Descartes University. She also worked for a consulting company, organizing the development of training programs in the area of human resource management.


Systemic AA amyloidosis is a worldwide occurring disease of humans and animals that arises from the misfolding of serum amyloid A protein. To provide insights into the molecular basis of this disease we used electron cryo-microscopy and determined the structure of an ex vivo amyloid fibril purified from AA amyloidotic mice at 3.0 Å resolution. The fibril consists of C-terminally truncated serum amyloid A protein arranged into a compactly folded all-β conformation. The structure identifies the protein N-terminus as central for the assembly of this fibril and provides a mechanism for its prion-like replication. Our data further explain how amino acid substitutions within the tightly packed fibril core can lead to amyloid resistance in vivo.


This paper examined how gender and age differences influence the premarital sexual behaviour of young people (Adolescents and young Adults). A sample of 100 students, (50 males and 50 females) between the ages of 18-35 years was randomly drawn from the undergraduate student populations and a 28-question standerdised questionnaire to assess some aspects of their sexual behaviour was administered. Statistical analyses of data involved oneway Anova and Descriptive statistics which indicated that there were no differences gender-wise F(1,98)=0.36,P>0.05, age-wise F(1,98)=0.461, P>0.05 and religion-wise F(2/96)=1.8, P>0.05 in premarital sex, in terms of indulgence, susceptibility to experiment and frequency of indulgence. There is need for more detailed research with emphasis on such potential influences like marital status, ethnicity and social status of respondent(s) on premarital sex.


The characteristic distance $l$ between nucleation sites and the island size distribution are studied for layer-by-layer growth. A derivation is given that the scaling of $l$ with the deposition rate depends only on the size of the smallest stable rather than the largest unstable island. This is important if larger islands are less stable than smaller (``magic'') ones. A new algorithm for simulating molecular beam epitaxy is used to verify this result. It is shown that the size distribution function scales with the average island size only if magic islands are absent. Finite size effects for the density of stable islands and of adatoms are studied and related to the transition to step flow growth on vicinal surfaces.


Traditionally, business process management focuses on structured, imperative processes. With the increasing importance of knowledge work, semi-structured processes are entering center stage. Existing approaches to modeling knowledge-intensive business processes use data objects but fail to sufficiently take into account data object cardinalities. Hence, they cannot guarantee that cardinality constraints are respected, nor use such constraints to handle concurrency and multiple activity instances during execution. This paper extends an existing case management approach with data object associations and cardinality constraints. The results facilitate a refined data access semantics, lower and upper bounds for process activities, and synchronized processing of multiple data objects. The execution semantics is formally specified using colored Petri nets. The effectiveness of the approach is shown by a compiler translating case models to colored Petri nets and by a dedicated process execution engine.


We describe a new technique for obtaining a spatially varying BRDF (svBRDF) of a flat object using printed fiducial markers and a cell phone capable of continuous flash video. Our homography-based video frame alignment method does not require the fiducial markers to be visible in every frame, thereby enabling us to capture larger areas at a closer distance and higher resolution than in previous work. Pixels in the resulting panorama are fit with a BRDF based on a recursive subdivision algorithm, utilizing all the light and view positions obtained from the video. We show the versatility of our method by capturing a variety of materials with both one and two camera input streams and rendering our results on 3D objects under complex illumination.


Environmental science is the systematic study of our environment and our proper place in it. A relatively new field, environmental science is highly interdisciplinary, integrating natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities in a broad, holistic study of the world around us. In contrast to more theoretical disciplines, environmental science is mission-oriented. That is, it seeks new, valid, contextual knowledge about the natural world and our impacts on it, but obtaining this information creates a responsibility to get involved in trying something about the problems we have created i.e. environmental science is an applied science. For this study the environment that will be observed will be that of the Bronx River with the help of the Bronx River Alliance. The Bronx River Alliance was created in 2001 by community groups and public agencies to serve as a coordinated voice for the river. Its mission is to work in harmonious partnership to protect, improve and restore the Bronx River corridor so that it can be a healthy ecological, recreational, educational and economic resource for the communities through which the river flows. This study will show the applied progress in the restoration and preservation of the Bronx River and the urban environment along it during the past five months as I intern with the Bronx River Alliance while keeping in mind the following objectives: • Improvement of riparian buffers and aquatic habitat in the Bronx River Watershed • Protection and enhancement of conditions for diadromous fish population in the Bronx River. • Increase stewardship towards the river's renaissance.


A BST R ACT: This article focuses on a performance analysis of The Persians, directed by Aris Biniaris and produced by the Cyprus Theatre Organisa tion in 2017. It also adumbrates older productions of The Persians in order to contextualise Biniaris' work in the modern Greek stage history of the play. It suggests that various devices proved to be beneficial such as the reinvention of the Chorus of elders as a Chorus of young warriors brimming with energy and the development of a musical language based on the metrical analysis of the play. It also argues that the performance ideologically challenged the audi ence's expectations.


Territory size and quality were determined for Gurney's sugarbirds in Qwaqwa National Park, northeastern Free State, South Africa. Changes in territory size of Gurney's sugarbirds during the six-month season reflect increases in numbers of territorial birds and inflorescences at mid breeding season, and declines in both at the end of the breeding season. Only 25 % of pairs laid eggs, and mating appears to have been constrained by low nectar and arthropod energy availability, and the costs associated with the defence of large territories. Reproductive success was directly related to arthropod availability on territories, with pairs not even appearing to attempt breeding if this is low. Males with longer tails and wider sixth primary feather bulges defended larger territories, indicating that ornament size and displays of Gurney's sugarbirds may be important in territory maintenance.


This paper describes the theory of a microfiber loop resonator (MLR) and experimentally demonstrates a high quality factor MLR in free space. The MLR is fabricated from the /spl sim/1-/spl mu/m diameter waist of a biconical fiber taper using the CO/sub 2/ laser indirect heating technique. The high coupling efficiency of an MLR is achieved through an adiabatically slow variation of the microfiber diameter in the coupling region. An MLR-loaded Q-factor of 120 000 and an intrinsic Q-factor of 630 000 were demonstrated. As an application, the performance of an MLR as an ultrafast direct contact temperature sensor is also demonstrated. The MLR heating/cooling relaxation time was measured to be /spl sim/3 /spl mu/s, in good agreement with the developed theory.


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY * The PPA has made it easier for plan sponsors to automatically enroll employees in a retirement plan by eliminating the worry over state withholding laws. It delineates a new safe harbor automatic enrollment provision that starts the automatic deferral at 3%, raising it by 10/0 of salary per year until it reaches 6%. * Investment education programs have long been allowed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). but to what degree employers would have liability for that education remained a concern. As a result, employers often provided general education but not specific investment advice. * Section 404(c) was added to ERISA in October 1992 with the intent of relieving the employer from responsibility for the employee's asset allocation decision, but employers found it difficult to comply with all of the requirements. The PPA takes this implied protection a step further by providing an actual exemption from the prohibited transaction rules for fiduciary investment advisers. * The PPA also allows employers to use computer models to deliver unbiased investment advice and reduce liability. Some companies were already using such models before the PPA passed, but the PPA formally amended ERISA to add an exemption that allows fiduciaries to use such models. This provision, ERISA section 408(b)(14), became effective Jan. 1. * The PPA also has allowed the DOL to propose regulations for default investment options. Some investment advisers are concerned because proposed new DOL rules do not indicate that a fixed income or money market account would be an appropriate default investment option. Others believe sophisticated models based on the employees' profile are more suitable than defaulting to the most conservative investments. ********** Nearly 50% of the U.S. work force will become eligible for retirement by 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And rapidly rising costs of traditional defined benefit plans have led many employers to abandon traditional plans in favor of defined contribution plans such as 401(k)s. But the new responsibility to fund and direct their own retirement investments has left many employees angry, confused and in some cases seeking legal action against their employers. The Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA) strengthened employers' options to bolster their 401(k) plans. Here we look at some of these new options and other strategies to strengthen and promote your 401(k) plan. AUTOMATIC ENROLLMENT By superseding conflicting state wage and garnishment laws, the PPA has made it easier for plan sponsors to automatically enroll employees in a retirement plan by eliminating the worry over state withholding laws. "The goal is to get people saving more," says Karen S. Sanchez, CPA, who heads up human resources and benefits consulting for Chicago-based accounting firm Sikich LLP. "401(k) plans weren't built to be the sole retirement system, yet the reality is, they are now." Beginning in 2008, the PPA has delineated a new safe harbor automatic enrollment provision that starts the automatic deferral at 3%, raising it by 1% of salary per year until it reaches 6%. "We like to put things on autopilot as much as we can," says Sanchez. "It is easier for employees to do nothing than to do something." Sue Scott, HR manager of Jacob & Hefner Associates PC, hired Sikich to conduct its benefits-education program when the Illinois-based survey and engineering firm added automatic enrollment after the PPA was signed into law. Scott made the benefits-education presentation mandatory and arranged a Webcast for field employees not able to come into the office for the in-person seminar. "We've gone from a 78% participation rate to about 95%," Scott said. "That says the education program really worked for us. A good 30% of our employees increased their deferral amounts. …


A PZT, Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (40:60), ferroelectric layer has been successfully deposited onto a Al0.3Ga0.7N/GaN heterostructure with a 2DEG, two dimensional electron gas. Due to the chemical and temperature stability of AlGaN/GaN it was possible to implement the concept of field-effect transistor with ferroelectric gate. The high temperature processing conditions for PZT were optimised in order to grow highly textured (111) PZT on the heterostructure without destroying the 2DEG. However, it was imperative to measure the transport properties in the 2DEG before and after the PZT deposition process in order to detect any degradation of the 2DEG due to diffusion. Hall measurements also enabled the observation of the partial depletion of electrons in the 2DEG, confirming the functionality of the ferroelectric gate. This depletion was due to a change of the spontaneous polarisation in the PZT layer when poled with a negatively biased voltage. These results are encouraging for the use of PZT as a ferroelectric gate on AlGaN/GaN heterostructures and may open new possibilities for semiconductor heterostructure nano-patterning by polarisation domain engineering.


Lymphocytic esophagitis is a new and rare entity, first described in 2006. Histologically, the esophageal mucosa is characterized by a dense peripapillary lymphocytic infiltrate and an intercellular edema without granulocytosis. To this day, it is not yet considered as a disease. Its etiology and clinical significance are still unclear. The predominant symptom is dyspha gia and the main endoscopic feature is a normal esophagus. The absence of relationship between lymphocytic esophagitis and specific clinical conditions justifies further studies. Currently, it remains a histologic entity. bowel reflux disease, disease, asthma, irritants,


In Asking the Law Question Margaret Davies launches border raids on the "isolationist mentality" of the law which mystifies its own specificity and insists on the law's separateness from other forms of knowledge and practices. Davies' fascination with parameters, borders, boundaries and constraints manifests itself textually as a constant play of multiple insides and outsides. She confronts the law's exclusiveness by challenging its systematic exclusions, and she tests the limits of her own inclusion within the law by dispensing with its traditional distinction between what is appropriate in a legal textbook and what is not. Davies' bordercrossings her (parenthsized) lighthearted banter, her candid admissions, her stories, her eclectic sources, her minimal use of cases, her determination not to baffle and not to bore, her meticulous conceptual unpicking, and her endless questioning distinguish her text from the legions of soporific law books which collect dust in law libraries. Here is a volume students might actually put down before they nod off. This is a pedagogical tour de force, considering Davies is cross-pollinating legal theory with post-structuralism and deconstruction, all of which are conceptually dense and complex fields. This journal article is available in Law Text Culture: http://ro.uow.edu.au/ltc/vol1/iss1/16 NOT ASKING THE LAW QUESTION


In the majority of studies on patient re-admissions, a re-admission is deemed to have occurred if a patient is admitted within a time window of the previous discharge date. However, these time windows have rarely been objectively justified. We capture the re-admission process from the community using a special case of a Coxian phase-type distribution, expressed as a mixture of two generalized Erlang distributions. Using the Bayes theorem, we compute the optimal time windows in defining re-admission. From the national data set in England, we defined re-admission for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), stroke, congestive heart failure, and hip- and thigh-fractured patients as 41, 9, 37, and 8 days, respectively. These time windows could be used to classify patients into two groups (binary response), namely those patients who are at high risk (e.g. within 41 days for COPD) and low risk of re-admission group (respectively, greater than 41 days). The generality of the modelling framework and the capability of supporting a broad class of distributions enables the applicability into other domains, to capture the process within the field of interest and to determine an appropriate time window (a cut-off value) based on evidence objectively derived from operational data.


We show how disordered media allow to increase the local degree of polarization (DOP) of an arbitrary (partial) polarized incident beam. The role of cross-scattering coefficients is emphasized, together with the probability density functions (PDF) of the scattering DOP. The average DOP of scattering is calculated versus the incident illumination DOP.


Unscavanged prechamber ignition has been developed at the Laboratory of Industrial Energy Systems to reduce the emissions from cogeneration spark ignition gas engines, operating with both natural gas and biogas. Demonstration has been made that a lean burn engine unit equipped with optimized prechambers allows efficient operation, while remaining below the Swiss limits [1,2]. Further development aims at using prechambers operating in autoignition mode similar to HCCI (Homogeneous charge compression ignition). The advantages are on the one hand that there is no need for maintenance and replacement of the spark plugs which usually have a limited life time while on the other hand we are expecting to benefit from the HCCI characteristics, e.g. low NOx emission levels. The prechamber configuration though should be a system easier to control than an engine operating completely in HCCI mode. The investigation of the applicability of this technique for engines used in the transport sector with rapidly changing operating conditions might be a further step in the development. In order to better understand the phenomena, simulations are done taking into account both fluid dynamics and chemical kinetics. Ignition delay measurements with mixtures of methane, ethane and propane have been conducted at the Rapid compression machine facility at the University of Lille at varying stoichiometric ratios. These measurements are used as a basis to choose an appropriate chemical mechanism for combustion simulation. The kinetic solver CHEMKIN has been used for zero-dimensional simulations at TDC conditions of the rapid compression machine to reproduce the ignition delays. Several detailed combustion mechanisms have been applied for these simulations, e.g. GRI 3.0 + RAMEC, n-Heptane and PRF mechanisms (LLNL) and Konnov's mechanism. The aim is to obtain a reduced mechanism that will be used in combination with computational fluid dynamics. In order to do this, sensitivity and reaction pathway analysis is performed, as well as multi- objective optimization of the kinetic parameters. In cooperation with CFS engineering a coupling between the CFD code NSMB (Navier Stokes Multi Block) and the chemical solver CHEMKIN has been established enabling a simulation of the experiments conducted with the rapid compression machine. Further steps will be the design of a prechamber to be used with an experimental mono-cylinder engine and the simulation of the in-cylinder flow with prechamber to determine the influencing factors for controlling the autoignition event. Behaviour at part load as well as in transient conditions will also be investigated.


Memory-augmented neural networks consisting of a neural controller and an external memory have shown potentials in long-term sequential learning. Current RAM-like memory models maintain memory accessing every timesteps, thus they do not effectively leverage the short-term memory held in the controller. We hypothesize that this scheme of writing is suboptimal in memory utilization and introduces redundant computation. To validate our hypothesis, we derive a theoretical bound on the amount of information stored in a RAM-like system and formulate an optimization problem that maximizes the bound. The proposed solution dubbed Uniform Writing is proved to be optimal under the assumption of equal timestep contributions. To relax this assumption, we introduce modifications to the original solution, resulting in a solution termed Cached Uniform Writing. This method aims to balance between maximizing memorization and forgetting via overwriting mechanisms. Through an extensive set of experiments, we empirically demonstrate the advantages of our solutions over other recurrent architectures, claiming the state-of-the-arts in various sequential modeling tasks.


Increasing demands for water, discharge of effluents, and variable rainfall have a negative impact on water quality in the Olifants River. Crocodile and fish mortalities attributed to pansteatitis, in Loskop Dam and downstream in the Kruger National Park (KNP), have highlighted the serious effects these impacts are having on aquatic ecosystems. Flag Boshielo Dam is a reservoir on the Olifants River, located between Loskop Dam and the KNP. It has the largest crocodile population outside of the KNP, and pansteatitis has not been reported in fish or crocodiles to date. This study evaluated comparative water quality parameters concurrent to a similar study undertaken at Loskop Dam to establish possible environmental drivers of pansteatitis. Long-term monitoring data collected by the Department of Water Affairs were analysed for trends using a Seasonal-Kendall trend test. Short-term monitoring showed that water quality in Flag Boshielo Dam was of a good standard for ecosystem health. Concentrations of dissolved Cu, Se, V and Zn were always below instrument detection limits, and Al, Fe and Mn were mostly within guideline levels for ecosystem health. A severe drought occurred between November 2002 and December 2005. Long-term monitoring showed that water quality during the drought deteriorated, with high levels of dissolved salts, especially K, Na, Cl, F, and total alkalinity. Following the drought, dissolved salt concentrations dropped, and there was a brief flush of inorganic N and P. However, between 1998 and 2011, inorganic N showed a significant decreasing trend into the oligotrophic range, while inorganic P remained in the oligo- to mesotrophic range. The inorganic N to inorganic P ratio of 5.4 after the drought was indicative of N limitation, and the phytoplankton assemblage was dominated by nitrogen-fixing species, especially Cylindrospermopsis sp. In contrast, further upstream, Loskop Dam has undergone increasing eutrophication, has frequent blooms of Microcystis aeruginosa and Ceratium hirundinella, and concentrations of Al, Fe and Mn periodically exceed guideline levels. The difference in trophic state, phytoplankton assemblage and levels of productivity between these two reservoirs may provide insights into the aetiology of pansteatitis, which is frequently associated with dietary causes. Keywords : Flag Boshielo Dam, limnology, Olifants River, trend analysis, drought, nitrogen limitation


Interpretation of a 20 550 line km 2D seismic survey acquired in 2014 by Soma Oil and Gas in the deep water offshore area of SE Somalia has identified three previously undocumented sedimentary provinces – Jubba Deep, Mogadishu Deep and Mid Somalia High – all of which have distinctive geological characteristics. Well and stratigraphic controls are limited, with inferred lithologies largely based on seismic stratigraphic interpretation. The Jubba Deep has a thick Late Cretaceous–Early Tertiary deltaic section deformed by major gravitational collapses in the Paleocene-age Kismaayo Thrust Belt (KTB) and the Pliocene-age Baraawe Thrust Belt (BTB). It is proposed that the KTB has significant hydrocarbon potential in deltaic and pro-delta sands trapped in thrust anticlines and sourced with oil from Mid-Cretaceous mobile shales. The Mogadishu Deep Basin has a thick Mesozoic and Tertiary section but is missing the thick deltaics seen in the Jubba Basin. Volcanics are present in this basin. The Mid Somalia High has a relatively thinner sedimentary section where Cretaceous and Jurassic reservoirs and potential source rocks are at moderate burial depths. An extensive post-rift Mid–Late Jurassic carbonate platform is developed here with potential hydrocarbon targets in interpreted reefs and shoal facies. Supplementary material: Additional seismic examples and map figures are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3902650


In this paper, a vertical turbulent round jet of helium was studied numerically using the PHOENICS software package. The flow was assumed to be steady, incompressible and turbulent. The jet discharge Froude number was 14,000 and the turbulent Schmidt number was 0.7. The incompressible Reynolds average Navier-Stokes equations and helium transport equation expressed in 2-D axisymmetric domain were applied to model the underlying helium release. The k-e RNG turbulence model was used for the calculations of the corresponding turbulent viscosity, diffusivity, velocity and concentration fields in the domain. The simulation results are compared with the experimental measurements from the earlier published studies on helium jets in non-buoyant jet region (NBJ), intermediate region (I) and buoyant plume region (BP). The numerical results show that the radial profiles of mean velocity and mean concentration are consistent with the empirical data scaled by the effective diameter and density-ratio dependence. The mean velocity and concentration fields along the axis of the jet agree with the decay laws correlated from the previous experiments. The discrepancy between the numerical and experimental data is within 10%, proving that the current CFD model for gas release and dispersion is robust, accurate and reliable, and that the CFD technique can be used as an alternative to the experiments with similar helium jets. The authors believe that the current CFD model is well validated through this study and can be further extended to predict similar hydrogen releases and dispersion if the model is properly applied with hydrogen properties.


The Bragg selectivity of volume holograms makes them not well suited for many Fourier imaging processing applications in the space domain because they perform the function of a spatial filter and limit the field of view. Similarly, for femtosecond pulse holography they reduce the spectral bandwidth of the diffracted signal. However, we show both theoretically and experimentally that it is much easier in the frequency domain than in the space domain to achieve a large enough diffraction bandwidth of volume holograms for the bandwidth of 100-fs pulses to be used for frequency-domain femtosecond pulse shaping. The experiments were performed by nondegenerate four-wave mixing in photorefractive InP:Fe with femtosecond readout at 1.5 μm.


Gossip protocols have been proposed as a robust and efficient method for disseminating information throughout dynamically changing networks. We present an analysis of a gossip protocol using probabilistic model checking and the tool PRISM. Since the behaviour of these protocols is both probabilistic and nondeterministic in nature, this provides a good example of the exhaustive, quantitative analysis that probabilistic model checking techniques can provide. In particular, we compute minimum and maximum values, representing the best- and worst-case performance of the protocol under any scheduling, and investigate both their relationship with the average values that would be obtained through simulation and the precise scheduling which achieve these values.


We have studied a large, random sample of U.S. patents issued between 1996 and 1998. We collected a variety of information about these patents, including area of technology, national origin, the number of inventors, nature and size of the owning entity, the number and type of prior art references, and the time spent in prosecution. We seek to establish relationships between a number of variables in issued patents-such as number of inventors, numbers and types of references to the prior art, numbers and types of claims, and length of time between application and issuance-and a number of defined areas of technology. We identify the countries in which particular inventions originated--almost one-half of all issued U.S. patents cover inventions originating in other countries--and test for relationships between the above variables and countries of origin. We also evaluate relationships between countries of origin and areas of technology. The conclusions are somewhat surprising, and point to a patent system that is far from unitary in the way it treats different inventors and different inventions.


We argue that road engineers—in the cases presented in the articles in this special section—were acting as cultural actors, playing a greater role than experts and especially policy makers. Even as they utilized technical information in cultural debates, road representation had huge symbolic value in driving the social and political discussions. However, once road experts used and accepted such political tools, they could not disconnect themselves from the political process, which determined success and failure in these projects.