Organizational structure is an important factor in improving library services. A good organizational structure will increase the productivity of library staff and will also help the library users. The objective of this study is to know the perception and effect of organizational structure on library services.
Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study using total enumeration technique. Questionnaire was used for data collection. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics consisting of tables of frequency and percentages.

The findings of this study reveal that the library staff are well aware of the organizational structure and that the structure and communication can improve the services of the library. The study reveals that organizational structure improves library services, it helps to keep departments and sections coordinated together and workers in different departments cooperate with one another. The study further shows that is an essential tool for establishing authority allocations, mandatory information flows, work allocation and workflow patterns, and grouping arrangements for employees.


The Queen's life is dedicated to her public - every move is scrutinised, every word noted. But her homes are havens where peace can be found, away from watchful eyes; sanctuaries of private calm in a whirlwind life of public duty. In The Queen's Houses, Alan Titchmarsh takes us on a tour of the royal residences, examining the personal family stories behind these magnificent buildings. Through personal reflections, interviews with royal staff and meticulous historical research, Alan looks beyond the formal grandeur of Buckingham Palace, the imposing structure of Windsor Castle and the private escape offered by Balmoral and others. Illustrated with intimate family photographs and evocative memorabilia, The Queen's Houses offers a glimpse of life behind the state banquets and sovereign duties - a respectful study of the royal family at home.


Schmallenberg virus (SBV) is a novel Orthobunyavirus causing mild clinical signs in cows and malformations in aborted and neonatal ruminants in Europe. SBV belongs to the family Bunyaviridae and is transmitted by biting midges. This new virus was identified for the first time in the blood samples of cows in the city of Schmallenberg in North‐ Rhine‐Westphalia in November 2011. Since then the virus spread to several European countries. Here we describe the origin and emergence, as well as the transmission and the differential diagnosis of this virus, now known to be a serious threat to Veterinary Public Health.


Abstract Grasslands of the Edwards Plateau of central Texas have been extensively altered through woody species encroachment, particularly as a result of increasing abundance of the invasive native shrub, Ashe juniper (Juniperus ashei). Over the last several decades there has been widespread mechanical removal of the species. The wood is often left in place to decompose, either mulched or not. Where the wood is left to decompose might have some bearing on its rate of decomposition. This study was conducted to determine the rates of Ashe juniper wood decomposition as a function of open vs. shaded habitat and the potential effect of wood decomposition on nutrient inputs into this system. Wood decomposition in this arid ecosystem might be expected to occur more rapidly in shaded habitat where the moisture and temperature regimes would be more favorable for wood-decomposing fungi. On the other hand, during times of low rainfall we might expect wood to decompose more rapidly when exposed to high levels of ultraviolet radiation. In our experiment, we found no difference between open and shaded treatments. Wood biomass loss occurred rapidly over the first 3–4 mo of the study and slowed for the remaining 2 yr. Wood carbon (C) increased only slightly (7.3%), but nitrogen (N) increased significantly (176%). As a consequence of changes in wood nitrogen, C∶N decreased through time. Results of this study suggest that the wood decomposition process in open and shaded habitats in this arid ecosystem during a time of low rainfall do not differ. Our findings also suggest that land managers aiming to establish native species following felling of Ashe juniper should do so in the first year when nutrient release from decomposing wood is the highest.


ABSTRACT Understanding the mechanisms used by HIV-1 to evade antibody neutralization may contribute to the design of a high-coverage vaccine. The tier 3 virus 253-11 is poorly neutralized by subtype-matched and subtype C sera, even compared to other tier 3 viruses, and is also recognized poorly by V3/glycan-targeting monoclonal antibodies (MAbs). We found that sequence polymorphisms in the V3 loop and N-linked glycosylation sites contribute only minimally to the high neutralization resistance of 253-11. Interestingly, the 253-11 membrane-proximal external region (MPER) is rarely recognized by sera in the context of the wild-type virus but is commonly recognized in the context of an HIV-2 chimera, suggesting steric or kinetic hindrance of binding to MPER in the native envelope (Env). Mutations in the 253-11 MPER, which were previously reported to increase the lifetime of the prefusion Env conformation, affected the resistance of 253-11 to antibodies targeting various epitopes on HIV-1 Env, presumably destabilizing its otherwise stable, closed trimer structure. To gain insight into the structure of 253-11, we constructed and crystallized a recombinant 253-11 SOSIP trimer. The resulting structure revealed that the heptad repeat helices in gp41 are drawn in close proximity to the trimer axis and that gp120 protomers also showed a relatively compact disposition around the trimer axis. These observations give substantial insight into the molecular features of an envelope spike from a tier 3 virus and into possible mechanisms that may contribute to its unusually high neutralization resistance. IMPORTANCE HIV-1 isolates that are highly resistant to broadly neutralizing antibodies could limit the efficacy of an antibody-based vaccine. We studied 253-11, which is highly resistant to commonly elicited neutralizing antibodies. To further understand its resistance, we made mutations that are known to delay fusion and thus increase the time that the virus spends in the open conformation following CD4 binding. Interestingly, we found that these mutations affect the 253-11 envelope (Env) spike before CD4 binding, presumably by destabilizing the trimer structure. To gain further information about the structure of the 253-11 Env trimer, we generated a recombinant 253-11 SOSIP trimer. The crystal structure of the SOSIP trimer revealed that the gp41 helices and the gp120 protomers were drawn in toward the center of the molecule compared to most solved HIV-1 Env structures. These observations provide insight into the distinct molecular features of a tier 3 envelope spike.


Caves, mainly those located on calcareous rocks are one of the best examples of geological heritage around the world. Their care and preservation should be a priority for the authorities dealing with the environment and culture. In addition to the dryness and discoloration wrought about by algae and bacteria in the speleothems, huge amounts of visitor traffic to the caves pose an additional burden, which is harmful to the conservation of the calcareous structures present inside the caves.
This article is a compendium of the results and the on-going studies under the Rehabilitation Project of Ortigosa de Cameros system caves. This project deals with the assessment and clean-up of exogenous algal communities that have deteriorated the speleothems in the tourist caves located in the municipality of Ortigosa de Cameros [Spain].In order to choose an appropriate cleaning agent for the speleothems, a bibliographic review was conducted. Several methods of remedying including the use of mechanical as well as chemical methods have been discussed.
After selecting the agent of choice for the clean-up of the speleothems, laboratory and in situ tests were performed using the same. Based on the results of these initial studies, the same methodology was applied to all areas affected by the "lampenflora". Care was taken that the selected methodology did not cause any damage to the fauna that inhabits these caves and nor did it leave a perceptible trace. An economical and environmental friendly method is still required to eliminate the algal mat that covers the speleothems of many caves adapted for tourist visits, in order to preserve our subterranean geological heritage throughout the world.


Recent papers have shown that the performance of Time Warp simulators can be improved by appropriately selecting the positions of checkpoints, instead of taking them on a periodic basis. In this paper, we present a checkpointing technique in which the selection of the positions of checkpoints is based on a checkpointing-recovery cost model. Given the current state S, the model determines the convenience of recording S as a checkpoint before the next event is executed. This is done by taking into account the position of the last taken checkpoint, the granularity (i.e., the execution time) of intermediate events, and using an estimate of the probability that S will have to be restored due to rollback in the future of the execution. A synthetic benchmark in different configurations is used for evaluating and comparing this approach to classical periodic techniques. As a testing environment we used a cluster of PCs connected through a Myrinet switch coupled with a fast communication layer specifically designed to exploit the potential of this type of switch. The obtained results point out that our solution allows faster execution and, in some cases, exhibits the additional advantage that less memory is required for recording state vectors. This possibly contributes to further performance improvements when memory is a critical resource for the specific application. A performance study for the case of a cellular phone system simulation is finally reported to demonstrate the effectiveness of this solution for a real world application.


Quantitative analysis of aluminum and copper alloys by means of laser-induced plasma spectroscopy (LIPS) has been investigated for three representative laser pulse durations (80 fs, 2 ps, and 270 ps). The experiments were carried out in air at atmospheric pressure with a constant energy density of 20 J/cm2. Because the decay rate of the spectral emission depends on the laser pulse duration, the optimum detection requires an optimization of the temporal gating acquisition parameters. LIPS calibration (sensitivity and nonlinearity) and the limit of detection (LOD) are discussed in detail. While the LOD of minor elements embedded in alloy samples obtained by sub-picosecond or sub-nanosecond laser pulses are both time and element dependent, provided an appropriate temporal window is chosen, the optimum LODs (several parts per million (ppm)) prove to be independent of the laser pulse duration. Finally, it is found that for elements such as those detected here, gated LIPS spectra using picosecond or sub-picosecond laser pulses provide much better LOD values than non-gated spectra.


Bacillus anthracis, a threating bioterror agent causing anthrax
is endowed with 41 Two-Component Systems (TCS). TCS in
B. anthracis shares significant similarity with TCS present in Bacillus
subtilis. We have recently reported BAS2108-2109 TCS as an
ortholog of DegUS TCS and it was shown to be important in the
regulation of proteases in B. anthracis. DegUS TCS have been
implicated for their role in the regulation of multicellular behavior
in other bacteria. In this study, the role of BAS2108-2109 TCS in
regulating multicellular behavior in B. anthracis was investigated.
B. anthracis overexpressing BAS2109 was found to exhibit retarded
swarming motility, biofilm and pellicle formation indicating its role
in complex colony formation. Overexpression of BAS2109 also
augmented sporulation in B. anthracis, although it reduced spore
germination. Invasion and adherence of the B. anthracis overexpressing
BAS2109 was higher as compared to the wildtype,
further suggesting the role of this system in the pathogenesis of
B. anthracis. Together, our results demonstrate the role of BAS2108-
2109 in controlling various multicellular behavioral responses in
B. anthracis.


The transition from marine to freshwater is a challenging task for juvenile eels. This critical step in the early eels' life is preceded by a metamorphosis from the oceanic larval to the continental glass eel stage, requiring major energy-demanding morphological, physiological and behavioural modifications during which time these animals do not feed. The success of the glass eels' inland migration after metamorphosis will largely depend on remaining energy levels, which only can be supplemented by resuming food uptake. Although it is crucial for their survival and the maintenance of the population, the feeding behaviour of glass eels is still an understudied aspect of the eels' complex life cycle. Many uncertainties about the phenology, diet, potential prey preferences and their relation with migration modus (migratory vs. sedentary) still remain. In this study, we analysed the stomach and gut contents of 458 European glass eels (Anguilla anguilla L. 1758) captured in a drainage canal connecting a small mesotidal estuary with an adjacent polder area during the spring migration seasons of 2016 and 2017. We demonstrated that although glass eels started feeding briefly upon arrival in the estuary, food uptake for early arrivals was restricted to a minority that sparsely feed on detritus and some wormlike benthic invertebrates. Along the season, food uptake intensified eventually engaging all glass eels and their dietary palette diversified including a wide array of planktonic and benthic organisms. Crustacean plankton (mainly cyclopoid copepods) was an important part of the glass eel diet while benthic oligochaetes were less abundant as food source in spite of their high presence in the sediments. No clear differences in feeding behaviour could be observed between migratory and sedentary glass eels. This study showed that glass eels are able to use highly artificial and dynamic drainage canals as feeding ground during their critical marine/freshwater transition. This outcome is also a plea to improve the accessibility of alternative (unnatural) migration routes between the ocean and suitable freshwater growth habitats for the European eel.


Virtual assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Assistant often rely on a semantic parsing component to understand which action(s) to execute for an utterance spoken by its users. Traditionally, rule-based or statistical slot-filling systems have been used to parse "simple" queries; that is, queries that contain a single action and can be decomposed into a set of non-overlapping entities. More recently, shift-reduce parsers have been proposed to process more complex utterances. These methods, while powerful, impose specific limitations on the type of queries that can be parsed; namely, they require a query to be representable as a parse tree. In this work, we propose a unified architecture based on Sequence to Sequence models and Pointer Generator Network to handle both simple and complex queries. Unlike other works, our approach does not impose any restriction on the semantic parse schema. Furthermore, experiments show that it achieves state of the art performance on three publicly available datasets (ATIS, SNIPS, Facebook TOP), relatively improving between 3.3% and 7.7% in exact match accuracy over previous systems. Finally, we show the effectiveness of our approach on two internal datasets.


This essay provides methodologies and examples for incorporating Latin American and Iberian film music into a wide range of musicology classes that include the History of Western Music, American Popular Music, and Film Music. The introduction of new media in the classroom, in particular film, offers an opportunity to simultaneously expand musical, historical, and cultural content. Because students generally have a significant level of exposure to cinema, students are provided with an accessible way of understanding culture and musical practice. The incorporation of film music examples from Latin American and Iberian film industries offers students another method in understanding these musics and also exposing them other cinematic traditions. This allows for a larger dialogue on how film and its music fit into fluctuating social and cultural contexts.


This paper compares the performance of privatized and state firms in the transition economies of Central Europe, while controlling for various forms of selection bias. It argues that privatization has different effects depending on the types of owners to whom it gives control. In particular, privatization to outsider, but not insider, owners has significant performance effects. Where privatization is effective, the effect on revenue performance is very pronounced, but there is no comparable effect on cost reduction. Overlooking the strong revenue effect of privatization to outsider owners leads to a substantial overstatement of potential employment losses from postprivatization restructuring.


It is known that dietary restriction (DR) increases maximum longevity in rodents, but the mechanisms involved remain unknown. Among the possible mechanisms, several lines of evidence support the idea that decreases in mitochondrial oxidative stress and in insulin signaling are involved but it is not known if they are interconnected. It has been reported that when C57BL/6 mice are maintained on an every other day (EOD) feeding their overall food intake is only slightly decreased and plasma insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 is even somewhat increased. In spite of this, their maximum longevity is increased, analogously to what occurs in classic DR. Thus, this model dissociates the increase in longevity from the decrease in IGF-1 observed in classic DR. Based on these facts, we have studied the effect of EOD DR on the rate of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, oxygen consumption, and the percent free radical leak (FRL) of well-coupled liver mitochondria, the marker of mtDNA oxidative damage 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2'deoxyguanosine (8-oxodG), the content of complexes I to IV of the respiratory chain, the apoptosis inducing factor (AIF), PGC1-alpha, UCP2, five different markers of oxidative damage to proteins and the full fatty acid composition on C57BL/6 mice liver. It was found that EOD DR decreased ROS production in complex I but not in complex III without changes in oxygen consumption. As a result, FRL was decreased in complex I. Oxidative damage to mtDNA (8-oxodG) and protein oxidation, glycoxidation and lipoxidation were also lower in the EOD restricted group in comparison with the control one while the degree of fatty acid unsaturation was held constant. The EOD group also showed decreases in AIF, PGC1-alpha, and UCP2. These results support the possibility that EOD DR increases maximum life span at least in part through decreases in mitochondrial oxidative stress which are independent from insulin/IGF-1-like signaling.


Clustering is one of the most fundamental tasks in data mining. To analyze complex real-world data emerging in many data-centric applications, the problem of non-exhaustive, overlapping clustering has been studied where the goal is to find overlapping clusters and also detect outliers simultaneously. We propose a novel convex semidefinite program (SDP) as a relaxation of the non-exhaustive, overlapping clustering problem. Although the SDP formulation enjoys attractive theoretical properties with respect to global optimization, it is computationally intractable for large problem sizes. As an alternative, we optimize a low-rank factorization of the solution. The resulting problem is non-convex, but has a smaller number of solution variables. We construct an optimization solver using an augmented Lagrangian methodology that enables us to deal with problems with tens of thousands of data points. The new solver provides more accurate and reliable answers than other approaches. By exploiting the connection between graph clustering objective functions and a kernel k-means objective, our new low-rank solver can also compute overlapping communities of social networks with state-of-the-art accuracy.


The garden of Shute in Wiltshire is a seminal landscape garden revealing a unique working relationship between the formidable landscape architect Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe and his client, Michael Tree. Jellicoe was born in 1900 and studied at the Architectural Association. He has worked extensively in England, Italy and the USA creating evocative landscape gardens. He is also co-author of The Landscape of Man and founder member of the Landscape Institute. He was knighted i n 1979 for his services to landscape architecture. This book reveals how, through the relationship of Jellicoe and Tree, many ideas behind his great projects in America were born. The illustrations of 40 of Sir Geoffrey's idiosyncratic drawings for Shute are accompanied by line drawings by the client as well as an exploratory text by Michael Spens. This focus on the garden at Shute provides an insight into the work and philosphy of this influential landscape architect who is still practising today. Beautifully illustrated with drawings by Jellicoe and his client. Investigates an art form that is of increasing international significance today.


In this manuscript, a GRIN (gradient index) lens rod based probe for endoscopic spectral domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) with dynamic focus tracking is presented. Current endoscopic OCT systems have a fixed focal plane or working distance. In contrast, the focus of this endoscopic OCT probe can dynamically be adjusted at a high speed (500 mm/s) without changing reference arm length to obtain high quality OCT images for contact or non-contact tissue applications, or for areas of difficult access for probes. The dynamic focusing range of the probe can be from 0 to 7.5 mm without moving the probe itself. The imaging depth is 2.8 mm and the lateral scanning range is up to 2.7 mm or 4.5 mm (determined by the diameter of different GRIN lens rods). Three dimensional imaging can be performed using this system over an area of tissue corresponding to the GRIN lens surface. The experimental results demonstrate that this GRIN lens rod based OCT system can perform a high quality non-contact in vivo imaging. This rigid OCT probe is solid and can be adapted to safely access internal organs, to perform front or side view imaging with an imaging speed of 8 frames per second, with all moving parts proximal to the GRIN lens, and has great potential for use in extremely compact OCT endoscopes for in vivo imaging in both biological research and clinical applications.


Heterogeneous photocatalytic hydrogen production with a non-covalently immobilized molecular ruthenium based photosensitizer (PS) and a cobalt polypyridyl based water reducing catalyst (WRC) is reported. PS and WRC were derivatized with C18-alkyl chains and immobilized by adsorption on hydrophobic fumed silica. The resulting loaded support was suspended in water with anionic or cationic surfactants and subjected to heterogeneous photocatalytic H2 production with ascorbate as sacrificial electron donor (SED). No leaching was observed under catalytic conditions, thus catalysis was truly heterogeneous. The catalytic performance of immobilized PS and WRC clearly exceeded that of homogeneous catalysis at low concentrations. At high concentration, diffusion and light limitation lead to lower reaction rates, but the same stability as for homogeneous reactions was still achieved. WRC concentration variations indicated a relatively high stability (up to 1300 H2/Co) and mobility of amphiphilic catalysts on the hydrophobic silica surface. Comparison of fumed silica with porous and non-porous silica showed, that a high BET surface area along with a good accessibility from the reaction media are crucial for catalytic performance. Mechanistic investigations by transient absorption spectroscopy displayed reductive quenching of excited PS by ascorbate followed by on particle electron transfer to WRC as reaction pathway. Particles with additional cationic surfactants exhibited a significantly higher catalytic performance as compared to anionic surfactants. Non-covalent anchoring of correspondingly derivatized WRCs or PSs to reversed-phase silica offers a rapid and versatile transition from homogeneous to heterogeneous molecular proton reduction.


A double-path arrangement with two separate beams passing through the crystal of an AO modulator is proposed in order to significantly increase the static contrast ratio of the system. The different components of light leakage affecting the contrast ratio are considered theoretically. The experiments with a new AO arrangement are described. The data demonstrate the ability of this arrangement to obtain a contrast ratio of ~106.


What is an organization? What are the building blocks that ultimately constitute this social form, so pervasive in our daily life? Like Augustine facing the problem of time, we all know what an organization is, but we seem unable to explain it. This book brings an original answer by mobilizing concepts traditionally reserved to linguistics, analytical philosophy, and semiotics. Based on Algirdas Julien Greimas' semio-narrative model of action and Jacques Derrida's concept of ecriture, a reconceptualization of speech act theory is proposed in which communication is treated as an act of delegation where human and nonhuman agents are mobilized (texts, machines, employees, architectural elements, managers, etc.). Perfectly congruent with the last development of the sociology of translation developed by Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, this perspective illustrates the organizing property of communication through a process called 'interactoriality'. Jacques Lacan used to say that the unconscious is structured like a language. This book shows that a social organization is structured like a narrative.


Objective . To determine compliance with Section 40 (1-3) of the Mental Health Care Act (MHCA) No 17 of 2002, viz. handing over custody by the South African Police Service (SAPS) of suspected mentally ill patients to medical services at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital (CHBH). Methods . The study was a retrospective record review of patients who were 18 years and older, referred by SAPS to CHBH. In accordance with Section 40 of the MHCA, a MHCA form 22 is completed when suspected mentally ill patients are handed over by SAPS to the medical services. MHCA forms 22 that were completed during the period July 2007 to December 2007 were obtained from hospital records and analysed to determine the compliance of SAPS and medical practitioners in completing them. Results . During the study period, 708 of the 718 patients handed over by SAPS to the Emergency Department of CHBH were entered on MHCA forms 22. SAPS officials had correctly completed 86% of the forms, whereas the medical practitioners had only correctly completed 9.9% of the forms. Of the 718 patients handed over by SAPS, 319 (44%) were discharged for outpatient care. Conclusion . The findings of this study suggest that not all parties fully comply with Section 40 of the Mental Health Care Act No 17 of 2002. We suggest that the situation can be improved by training of all parties; amendments to the MHCA form 22; partnership between mental health care practitioners and members of SAPS; and combining resources towards implementing a crisis intervention model similar to that in other countries.


Paid family and medical leave helps workers manage their work and family responsibilities by allowing them to take extended time away from work while receiving some wage replacement and without the threat of being fired. Yet, access to paid family and medical leave to care for a sick family member, a new child, or tend to one's own illness is uneven: workers who typically have access are more likely to be full time, have higher education and earnings, and work in larger firms than workers with no access. Support for a statewide paid family leave program is widespread in New Hampshire. In a winter 2016 Granite State Poll, 82 percent of New Hampshire residents said they support a paid family and medical leave insurance program. Although New Hampshire currently does not have a paid family and medical leave law or program, these policies are gaining momentum across the United States. California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and New York have enacted family and medical leave legislation (the New York law takes effect in January 2018), and many other states are considering similar legislation. At the federal level, the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act (the FAMILY Act) would create a national paid family and medical leave insurance program to provide workers with time to care for family members, a new child, or themselves when seriously ill. Understanding the level and nature of support for a program in New Hampshire will provide policy makers and stakeholders with useful information when considering the needs of Granite State workers and the opportunities for maintaining a strong workforce.


Aim: To understand the experiences, expectations and needs of service users with mild to moderate depression, and to use these to inform the design and redesign of local services in primary care. Design of study: Needs assessment using in-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews. Setting: A single general practice in eastern England. Methods: Nine patients with depression were identified from the practice register using purposeful sampling and interviewed by a practice nurse who had not previously provided any care to them. Ritchie and Spencer's Framework approach was used to analyse the qualitative data. Results: Participants welcomed the opportunity to provide feedback on their experiences. They told many positive stories which affirmed the overall accessibility and acceptability of the existing service. They reported symptoms that were distressing and difficult to live with, even when their depression was classified by health professionals as 'mild'. Participants considered they had good access to care. Despite this, many participants identified gaps in the current service such as access to information and concerns about discontinuing medication in the future. Conclusion: In-depth interviews with patients with depression are a feasible and acceptable way of identifying service gaps and enabling users to contribute to service evaluation and redesign. © 2005 Librapharm Limited.


In the natural environment plants are confronted to a multitude of biotic and abiotic stress factors that must be perceived, transduced, integrated and signaled in order to achieve a successful acclimation that will secure survival and reproduction. Plants have to deal with excess excitation energy (EEE) when the amount of absorbed light energy is exceeding that needed for photosynthetic CO2 assimilation. EEE results in ROS formation and can be enhanced in low light intensities by changes in other environmental factors.The lesions simulating disease resistance (lsd1) mutant of Arabidopsis spontaneously initiates spreading lesions paralleled by ROS production in long day photoperiod and after application of salicylic acid (SA) and SA-analogues that trigger systemic acquired resistance (SAR). Moreover, the mutant fails to limit the boundaries of hypersensitive cell death (HR) after avirulent pathogen infection giving rise to the runaway cell death (rcd) phenotype. This ROS-dependent phenotype pointed towards a putative involvement of the ROS produced during photosynthesis in the initiation and spreading of the lesions.We report here that the rcd has a ROS-concentration dependent phenotype and that the light-triggered rcd is depending on the redox-state of the PQ pool in the chloroplast. Moreover, the lower stomatal conductance and catalase activity in the mutant suggested LSD1 was required for optimal gas exchange and ROS scavenging during EEE. Through this regulation, LSD1 can influence the effectiveness of photorespiration in dissipating EEE. Moreover, low and high SA levels are strictly correlated to lower and higher foliar H2O2 content, respectively. This implies an essential role of SA in regulating the redox homeostasis of the cell and suggests that SA could trigger rcd in lsd1 by inducing H2O2 production.LSD1 has been postulated to be a negative regulator of cell death acting as a ROS rheostat. Above a certain threshold, the pro-death pathway would operate leading to PCD. Our data suggest that LSD1 may be subjected to a turnover, enhanced in an oxidizing milieu and slowed down in a reducing environment that could reflect this ROS rheostat property. Finally, the two protein disulphide isomerase boxes (CGHC) present in the protein and the down regulation of the NADPH thioredoxin reductase (NTR) in the mutant connect the rcd to a putative impairment in the reduction of the cytosolic thioredoxin system. We propose that LSD1 suppresses the cell death processes through its control of the oxidation-reduction state of the TRX pool. An integrated model considers the role of LSD1 in both light acclimatory processes and in restricting pathogen-induced cell death.


ABSTRACTAcoustic impedance inversion involves conversion of seismic traces to a reflection coefficient time series and then into acoustic impedance. The usual assumption for the transformation of poststack seismic data into impedance is that seismic traces can be modeled using the simple convolutional model. According to the convolutional model, a seismic trace is a normal-incidence record, which is an assumption that is strictly true only if the earth structure is composed of horizontal layers. In the presence of dipping layers, such an assumption is violated, which introduces bias in the result of impedance inversion. I implemented impedance inversion in the stratigraphic coordinate system, in which the vertical direction is normal to the reflectors and seismic traces represent normal-incidence seismograms. Tests on field data produced more accurate and detailed impedance results from inversion in the stratigraphic coordinate system, compared to impedance results using the conventional Cartesian coordin...


Michaels Craft Stores is the largest arts and crafts retailer in the United States and in the world. Its CEO, Michael Rouleau, wants to expand the chain to 1,000 stores by 2006. The key constraint is the lack of sophistication among Michaels' supplier base, which is made up of over 1,000 suppliers, many of which are small, creative companies with little computer or logistics knowledge. As a result, the cost of running Michaels' supply chain is high. Describes the company's efforts to build the sophistication of its suppliers through educational Vendor Flow Training courses that teach suppliers how to adopt state-of-the-art practices for improved efficiency in supplying their channel.


Cold recycling is one of the most employed rehabilitation techniques for asphalt pavements and it is becoming more and more important as reducing emissions becomes a priority in the reduction of the greenhouse effect. The main advantages of asphalt cold recycling techniques are the use of reclaimed materials and the fact that there is no need of aggregate heating to make the mixtures. This paper describes the evolution with time of in-situ performances of different foam bitumen-stabilised mixtures made with different active fillers (cement and lime), monitored during the first year from construction. Results are part of a more extensive research programme aimed to investigate the effects of using lime as an active filler in cold-recycled mixtures. Mixtures have been laid down on a specifically designed trial section in Italy, close to Florence. Short-term bearing capacity, immediately after construction, has been evaluated using a light weight deflectometer while to evaluate the mid-term performances falling weight deflectometer (FWD) tests have been performed after 24 hours, 14 days, 28 days and 9 months from construction. During these 9 months the test road was not opened to traffic, so the mixtures experienced almost no traffic (only construction traffic loads). This fact allowed to have the curing process without any influences other than the temperature: it means same curing conditions for all mixtures. Subsequent FWD tests are still ongoing to evaluate the evolution over time of pavement bearing capacity due to traffic. Results obtained positively support the use of lime as an active filler in the foam bitumen-stabilised material and allow to underline the effect of different active fillers in the material behaviour, even if all the mixtures underline excellent performances under traffic loading. FWD tests are scheduled to be repeated every 6 months in order to monitor the stiffness evolution of the mixtures and evaluate the nature of traffic damage.


In distributed systems, dependency among different computations of an application leads to a problem of deciding the locations of computations. Spatial requirements of a computation can be expressed in terms of spatial relationships with other computations. This research presents programming abstractions and language constructs which can be used for specifying spatial coordination requirements for distributed computations. A spatial coordination middleware has been implemented for satisfying spatial coordination requirements of systems implemented using the Actor model of concurrent computation. Our approach abstracts spatial requirements of concurrent computations and provides key programming primitives for specifying these requirements. We have also implemented a number of higher level spatial coordination primitives which can be translated into the basic primitives. Spatial requirements can be specified using these primitives and then the runtime system converts them into a constraint satisfaction problem and satisfies them. Our approach reduces the programming complexity and provides a middleware which separates spatial requirements from functional code and enables the application programmer to change spatial requirements at runtime without effecting application's functionality. We have identified some of the high level primitives and provided a mechanism to develop high level primitives on top of the basic primitives. This thesis presents the rationale, design, implementation, and evaluation of spatial coordination. By comparing programs written with and without our spatial coordination primitives, we show how spatial coordination enables a programmer to specify spatial requirements declaratively and simplify the programming task. Experimental results demonstrate the performance of the approach, as the number of constraints increases.


This study investigates spatial patterns in glacier characteristics and area changes at decadal scales in the eastern Himalaya – Nepal (Arun and Tamor basins), India (Teesta basin in Sikkim) and parts of China and Bhutan – based on various satellite imagery: Corona KH4 imagery , Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) and Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission Radiometer (ASTER), QuickBird (QB) and WorldView-2 (WV2). We compare and contrast glacier surface area changes over the period of 1962–2000/2006 and their dependency on glacier topography (elevation, slope, aspect, percent debris cover) and climate (solar radiation, precipitation) on the eastern side of the topographic barrier (Sikkim) versus the western side (Nepal). Glacier mapping from 2000 Landsat ASTER yielded 1463 ± 88 km 2 total glacierized area, of which 569 ± 34 km 2 was located in Sikkim and 488 ± 29 km 2 in eastern Nepal. Supraglacial debris covered 11 % of the total glacierized area, and supraglacial lakes covered about 5.8 % of the debris-covered glacier area alone. Glacier area loss (1962 to 2000) was 0.50 ± 0.2 % yr −1 , with little difference between Nepal (0.53 ± 0.2 % yr −1) and Sikkim (0.44 ± 0.2 % yr −1). Glacier area change was controlled mostly by glacier area, elevation, altitudinal range and, to a smaller extent, slope and aspect. In the Kanchenjunga–Sikkim area, we estimated a glacier area loss of 0.23 ± 0.08 % yr −1 from 1962 to 2006 based on high-resolution imagery. On a glacier-by-glacier basis, clean glaciers exhibit more area loss on average from 1962 to 2006 (34 %) compared to debris-covered glaciers (22 %). Glaciers in this region of the Himalaya are shrinking at similar rates to those reported for the last decades in other parts of the Himalaya, but individual glacier rates of change vary across the study area with respect to local topography, percent debris cover or glacier elevations.


Sir David Williams originally presented this paper as the inaugural lecturer for the Ralph F. Fuchs lecture series at the Indiana University School of Law on April 15, 1993. Professor Fuchs was a faculty member of the Indiana University School of Law from 1945 until his death in 1985. He was an important contributor to the drafting of the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, president of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, an active participant in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a leader of the American Association of University Professors, and a fighter for free speech and thought in academic institutions during the McCarthy era. Sir David Williams begins his paper with a brief description of the history of English administrative law, noting that it has developed more slowly as compared to administrative law in the United States. He then discusses a case at the root of English administrative law?Roberts v. Hopwood, a judgment issued in 1925. Williams proceeds to analyze administrative law development in England, including the doctrines of judicial review, control of administrative discretion, and the complementary, evolving doctrines of administrative discretion and judicial deference, as exemplified by the authoritative dissent in Liversidge v. Anderson. Williams also stresses the relationship between democratic ideals and judicial deference to the decisions of local authorities. He concludes by describing the ever-evolving nature of administrative law in England today, arguing that just as in the 1920s, the underlying approach of the courts to questions in administrative law can only be interpreted by taking into account the multitude of circumstances from which such questions arise.


Patents are acknowledged to be of central importance in the area of biomedical research and development. (1) At the same time, however, many commentators have expressed concern about there being too much patenting in this area, particularly in the area of biomedical research tools. (2) The concern of these critics is that patents on research tools may block future biomedical research and development. (3) This paper argues that, while patenting of such tools is desirable and thus should not be obliterated, some legal limitations on the ability of patent owners to enforce their biomedical research tool patents should exist. That is, certain users and uses of research tools should be exempted from patent infringement and limits should be imposed on amounts and types of royalties that a patent owner can collect from their research tool patents. Part I of this paper is devoted to defining the term 'biomedical research tool" and what it encompasses, as well as exploring how such tools might be used. In Part II, we develop an understanding of the problem associated with the patenting of biomedical research tools. In this context, we trace what essentially is the demise of the common law experimental use exception, and how this development has contributed to the urgency of the research tools problem. Part III considers the link between the statutory experimental use exception pursuant to 35 U.S.C. [sections] 271(e)(1) and biomedical research tools. Section 271(e)(1) originally was intended to benefit generic pharmaceutical companies who manufacture "copycat" drugs based on original, patented drugs. That is, this exception was intended to give these companies a safe harbor from infringing the original drug's patent while they conducted the necessary experiments to obtain FDA approval on their copycat drug. (4) However, both U.S. courts and the many players in the biomedical research community have interpreted the provision much more broadly. Recently, Judge Rader deviated sharply from this broad interpretive approach in Integra Lifesciences I, Ltd. v. Merck KGaA, (5) when he found that the experimental use exception in [sections] 271(e)(1) cannot be extended to render non-infringing a company's otherwise infringing use of a patented research tool. Part III explores the effects of this decision on the patent problem relating to biomedical research tool patents. Finally, Part IV proposes a solution for addressing the problem arising from patents on biomedical research tools. I. WHAT ARE BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH TOOLS AND HOW MIGHT THEY BE USED There are a broad range of materials that might be termed "research tools" because they can be used in the course of biomedical or biotechnological research. For example, research tools might include biochemicals, such as reagents, plasmids, antibodies and enzymes that are used to develop and test subsequent pharmaceutical end products. (6) Generally speaking, these products are used to test the efficacy or functionality of a pharmaceutical end product in a preclinical setting. It is conceivable that such research tools might also be used to produce or identify a pharmaceutical end product. Normally, such research tools would not become part of the final product, although it is possible that they may do so. Another type of research tool is a device that can be used and reused during the course of biomedical research, and often operates based on a particular methodology. Devices that run the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), a technique widely used to amplify small amounts of DNA, are an example. (7) Other examples of such devices are protein and DNA sequencing instruments, (8) and microarrays (9) which allow a downstream researcher to study a great number of biological interactions at the same time, and knockout mice which provide a disease model. (10) As one can imagine, various combinations of research tools may be used when a new drug is researched, developed and tested. …


Student academic engagement is a very essential aspect of learning and is known to have a direct positive influence on the quality of learning outcomes as well as performance and retention. Thus, promoting opportunities for better engagement in online learning can potentially lead to increased learning. The concept of engagement in the literature overlaps with other concepts such as motivation, self-efficacy, and self-regulation which has some commonalities and differences. Engagement is an immensely complicated phenomenon incorporating students' emotions, cognition, and behaviors, and is largely influenced by contextual factors. Irrespective of the problematic issues in the clarity of concept, it has a potential as a multidimensional or meta-construct to provide a deeper understanding of how students learn in comparison to relying on a single construct. The aim of this research is to gain a deeper understanding of the factors affecting engagement in a self-paced online language learning context. The research questions are centered on three key variables which are the subject of investigation in this study: student engagement, the self-paced approach of learning, and online language learning. Using a sample of 33-60 participants on a course made up of 19 lessons while following an exploratory approach, semi-structured interviews were carried out as the main source of data in this study and analayzed using qualitative content analysis. Also complemented with a questionnaire survey and learning analytics results in order to ensure data triangulation using multiple sources. Student engagement was investigated both at the lecture and the course level during the progress and completion phases of the students' learning path, and further analyzed utilizing quantitative statistical tests in the survey, and learning analytics data. The results of this investigation showed that engagement of students in some parts of the course was very high due to the topics being covered, and thus course content was ranked as a top factor promoting engagement. Two more factors, namely the course structure followed by the methods of teaching also engendered positive emotions and raised motivation in students while facilitating cognitive engagement. In addition, video and graphics quality followed by the students' background and mode of delivery of instruction came in fourth and fifth places respectively in terms of factors affecting engagement in this context. The results of this study have been discussed from a theoretical as well as a practical standpoint in terms of the implications for Instructional Designers, Course Developers and Online Instructors who aim at promoting and enhancing student engagement. The study is valuable because it provides a deeper insight into student engagement in a self-paced online language learning context and the reasons behind individual student's engagement (or disengagement) as they relate to specific contextual factors. The findings of this study can help in the design of more engaging language learning courses.


This thesis examines the New Zealand state during the First World War. It seeks to ask, firstly, to what extent did the economic size and legal reach of this state expand during, and because of, the war; secondly, how did was this growth affected by, and how did it impact upon, New Zealand's relationship with Great Britain? My hypothesis is that, as the wartime New Zealand state expanded in size and power, its relationship with Britain grew tighter and stronger.  Following an introduction, in which I take issue with the use of the term "nation" to describe New Zealand in the early twentieth century, the thesis is divided into four chapters. In the first, I look at the men who led the New Zealand Government during the war, in particular the Prime Minister, William Ferguson Massey, and the Cabinet Ministers James Allen, Alexander Herdman, and Joseph Ward; I also respond to the recent historical reassessments of Massey and his government. In the second chapter, I look at education policy during the war, asking how the war influenced administrator's attempts to centralise control over schools.  In the third chapter, I trace the growth of the wartime economy, and the even more substantial growth of the state's role in the economy, paying particular attention to how trade with Britain grew, and impacted upon other economic policies, suggesting that export of pastoral produce to Britain drove both New Zealand's economy, and much of the Dominion Government's policies. In the fourth and final chapter, I look at law and order policies during the war, paying particular attention to the erosion of evidence law in war regulations, and the conscription of men to fight overseas. I will ultimately argue that the growth of, and tighter control over, the pastoral export trade to Britain, and the increasing legal powers of the state within New Zealand, together constituted an expansion of the Dominion government directed at pursuing the needs of the Empire, over and above the needs of New Zealanders.


Robotic-assisted knee arthroplasty has been clinically available for the past 2 decades, but is still in the early stages of adoption for use in total knee arthroplasty (TKA). The purpose of this technology is to improve the precision, accuracy, and reproducibility of TKA. Robotic-assisted systems may be passive, semiactive, or active. Although robotic-assisted systems have been used extensively in unicondylar knee arthroplasty, there are relatively few studies of using this technology in TKA. These early studies have shown that robot-assisted technology may lead to improvements in both mechanical axis and component alignment. No studies have demonstrated that these radiographic improvements have translated into any clinical benefit, however. The purpose of this review is to introduce robotic-assisted systems for use in knee arthroplasty, describe the potential advantages and limitations associated with this technology, and review several of the systems that are currently available.


While stirring and mixing properties in the stratosphere are reasonably well understood in the context of balanced (slow) dynamics, as is evidenced in numerous studies of chaotic advection, the strongly enhanced presence of high-frequency gravity waves in the mesosphere gives rise to a significant unbalanced (fast) component to the flow. The present investigation analyses result from two idealized shallow-water numerical simulations representative of stratospheric and mesospheric dynamics on a quasi-horizontal isentropic surface. A generalization of the Hua–Klein Eulerian diagnostic to divergent flow reveals that velocity gradients are strongly influenced by the unbalanced component of the flow. The Lagrangian diagnostic of patchiness nevertheless demonstrates the persistence of coherent features in the zonal component of the flow, in contrast to the destruction of coherent features in the meridional component. Single-particle statistics demonstrate t 2 scaling for both the stratospheric and mesospheric regimes in the case of zonal dispersion, and distinctive scaling laws for the two regimes in the case of meridional dispersion. This is in contrast to two-particle statistics, which in the mesospheric (unbalanced) regime demonstrate a more rapid approach to Richardson's t 3 law in the case of zonal dispersion and is evidence of enhanced meridional dispersion.


Geospatial analysis is applied to find a relationship between climate factors (relative humidity and temperature) and air pollutants (PM10 and CO) from January to May 2012–2014, the period when Chiang Mai province, northern part of Thailand, was covered with haze episode. Air pollutants and climate factors data were obtained from air monitoring stations of the Pollution Control Department. Temporal and spatial distribution of air pollutants and climate factors were analysed by Inverse Distance Weight techniques in ARCGIS. Correlation between air pollutants (PM10 and CO) and climate factors (relative humidity and temperature) were also investigated. The results showed that temporal trend of PM10 and CO were similar, they were high during February to April. Low level of relative humidity was observed during February to April, while high temperature was found in March and April. When the relative humidity decreased, the PM10 increased especially in the northern part of Chiang Mai with high correlation (R2 = 0.83, 0.66, 0.73). On the other hand, when high moisture (%RH) covered almost Chiang Mai area during January 2012 and May 2013, the PM10 was decreased, and low correlation between the PM10 and the temperature was observed (R2 = 0.01, 0.01, 0.04). Distribution of CO covered in the area during March and April was similar to PM10, however, it was higher in the central and the northern part of Chiang Mai. High correlation between CO and relative humidity was found (R2 = 0.90, 0.02, 0.92), whereas low relationship between CO and temperature


Latent factor models are the canonical statistical tool for exploratory analyses of low-dimensional linear structure for a matrix of p features across n samples. We develop a structured Bayesian group factor analysis model that extends the factor model to multiple coupled observation matrices; in the case of two observations, this reduces to a Bayesian model of canonical correlation analysis. Here, we carefully define a structured Bayesian prior that encourages both element-wise and column-wise shrinkage and leads to desirable behavior on high-dimensional data. In particular, our model puts a structured prior on the joint factor loading matrix, regularizing at three levels, which enables element-wise sparsity and unsupervised recovery of latent factors corresponding to structured variance across arbitrary subsets of the observations. In addition, our structured prior allows for both dense and sparse latent factors so that covariation among either all features or only a subset of features can be recovered. We use fast parameter-expanded expectation-maximization for parameter estimation in this model. We validate our method on simulated data with substantial structure. We show results of our method applied to three high-dimensional data sets, comparing results against a number of state-of-the-art approaches. These results illustrate useful properties of our model, including i) recovering sparse signal in the presence of dense effects; ii) the ability to scale naturally to large numbers of observations; iii) flexible observation- and factor-specific regularization to recover factors with a wide variety of sparsity levels and percentage of variance explained; and iv) tractable inference that scales to modern genomic and text data sizes.


President Donald Trump has long made clear his disdain for the World Trade Organization (WTO) and has reportedly often stated his desire to pull the United States out of the organization. Given that the president withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement, merely floating the idea that the United States would pull out of the WTO has set off alarm bells in Washington and around the world. Before Trump became president, a US withdrawal from the WTO had never been considered within the realm of possibility. It now raises several important questions. Bown and Irwin address two of them: First, what would be the consequences for US tariffs if the United States withdrew from the WTO? Second, does the president have the legal authority to pull the United States out of the organization and impose higher tariffs without congressional approval? A decision by President Trump to withdraw the United States from the WTO—if deemed legal under US law—could deal a disastrous blow to America's foreign trade and would likely cripple an organization that has helped foster peaceful commercial relations for over seven decades.


Drought in Texas and California has been a long-term problem. Over the past 60 years reservoir construction has occurred to remedy the situation. Satellite imagery has been used historically to measure and monitor fluctuations in surface water reservoirs. This investigation integrates remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) technologies to study the impact of drought on selected surface water reservoirs in San Angelo and Dallas in Texas, and Lake Oroville in California. Expansion and shrinkage over the 2005-2016 period reveal the concrete impact that drought, along with other factors, have on the selected lakes. Fluctuations in reservoir sizes during summer and winter months throughout this period are quantified. Changes in the reservoirs are characterized and correlated against local climate data for each reservoir using multispectral imageries from Landsat-5, -7, and -8. A GIS-based density slicing approach is employed to classify the range of values of the raster cells from the near-infrared band of each image into zones of natural breaks. The year-by-year analysis shows how each lake is behaving in a diverse fashion during the study period. The San Angelo lakes changed drastically; however, changes in lakes near Dallas and also Lake Oroville follow the pattern of drought and correlate more closely to their respective local climate conditions. Surprisingly, the extreme drought in San Angelo has caused several of small lakes to disappear and they're no longer used as fishing and boating destinations. This study demonstrates the societal benefits from incorporating remote sensing and GIS to investigate geo-environmental problems.


The assembly of magnetic cores into regular structures may notably influence the properties displayed by a magnetic colloid. Here, key synthesis parameters driving the self‐assembly process capable of organizing colloidal magnetic cores into highly regular and reproducible multi‐core nanoparticles are determined. In addition, a self‐consistent picture that explains the collective magnetic properties exhibited by these complex assemblies is achieved through structural, colloidal, and magnetic means. For this purpose, different strategies to obtain flower‐shaped iron oxide assemblies in the size range 25–100 nm are examined. The routes are based on the partial oxidation of Fe(OH)2, polyol‐mediated synthesis or the reduction of iron acetylacetonate. The nanoparticles are functionalized either with dextran, citric acid, or alternatively embedded in polystyrene and their long‐term stability is assessed. The core size is measured, calculated, and modeled using both structural and magnetic means, while the Debye model and multi‐core extended model are used to study interparticle interactions. This is the first step toward standardized protocols of synthesis and characterization of flower‐shaped nanoparticles.


Graphics Processing Units (GPU) and their development tools have advanced recently, and industry has become more interested in using them. Among several development frameworks for GPU(s), OpenCL provides a programming environment to write portable code that can run in parallel. This report describes two case studies of algorithm implementations in OpenCL. The first algorithm is Median Filtering which is a widely used image processing algorithm. The other algorithm is RSA which is a popular algorithm used in encryption. The CPU and GPU implementations of these algorithms are compared in method and speed. The GPU implementations are also evaluated by efficiency, stability, scalability and portability. We find that the GPU implementations perform better overall with some exceptions. We see that a pure GPU solution is not always the best and that a hybrid solution with both CPU and GPU may be to prefer in some cases.


The problem of this study was to examine Associate Degree non-traditional students' perceptions of their ability to form caring relationships upon entry to the nursing program and, to determine if those perceptions change as the student progresses through the nursing curriculum. Measures of association, such as participants' former career and perceived ability to form a caring relationship were completed. The Caring Ability Inventory (CAI) developed by Nkongho (1990) was administered to a cross-section sample of non-traditional nursing students (N = 24) in two Associate Degree Nursing Programs. Face-to-face interviews followed with the same participants using open-ended questions derived from the questions and results of the CAI. Data were divided into Level I, those students just entering the nursing program and Level II, those students who were finishing the program or had just graduated. The findings of this study provide evidence that students' caring ability as measured by the total CAI scores, although not statistically different from Nkongho's (1990) original study, decreased from Level I to Level II. For the subscales of Knowing and Patience there were no statistical differences. However, scores for the subscale of Courage decreased. This suggests that the individual subscales be considered as a focus for faculty to provide appropriate educational intervention that facilitates caring ability. Analysis of qualitative data derived from interviews and a brief written paragraph revealed strong overall perceptions of caring ability existed in this sample of non-traditional students. There was a difference for three students between the CAI and qualitative data. Learning how non-traditional students perceive their ability to form caring relationships can help nursing educators address pedagogy and provide opportunities for students to practice the development of caring relationships throughout the nursing program. The findings from this study have implications for nursing educators to help all students as well as practicing nurses reach an efficacious level of caring with patients.


The authors describe the capabilities of McIDAS , an interactive visualization system that is vastly increasing the ability of earth scientists to manage and analyze data from remote sensing instruments and numerical simulation models. McIDAS provides animated three-dimensional images and highly interactive displays. The software can manage, analyze, and visualize large data sets that span many physical variables (such as temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind speed), as well as time and three spatial dimensions. The McIDAS system manages data from at least 100 different sources. The data management tools consist of data structures for storing different data types in files, libraries of routines for accessing these data structures, system commands for performing housekeeping functions on the data files, and reformatting programs for converting external data to the system's data structures. The McIDAS tools for three-dimensional visualization of meteorological data run on an IBM mainframe and can load up to 128-frame animation sequences into the workstations. A highly interactive version of the system can provide an interactive window into data sets containing tens of millions of points produced by numerical models and remote sensing instruments. The visualizations are being used for teaching as well as by scientists.<<ETX>>


In this paper, a semi-blind watermarking technique of embedding the color watermark using curvelet coefficient in RGB cover image has been proposed. The technique used the concept of HVS that the human eyes are not much sensitive to blue color. So the blue color plane of the cover image is used as embedding domain. A bit planes method is also used, the most significant bit (MSB) plane of watermark image is used as embedding information. Selected scale and orientation of the curvelet coefficients of the blue channel in the cover image has been used for embedding the watermark information. All other 0-7 bit planes are used as a key at the time of extraction. The results of the watermarking scheme have been analyzed by different quality assessment metric such as PSNR, Correlation Coefficient (CC) and Mean Structure Similarity Index Measure (MSSIM). The experimental results show that the proposed technique gives the good invisibility of watermark, quality of extracted watermark and robustness against different attacks.


OBJECTIVE
To examine retrospectively the caries-related restorative experience of at-risk individuals who received fluoride-based preventive interventions to determine if the intervention resulted in fewer caries-related procedures.

METHODS
Administrative data from two dental health plans were used to determine the relationship between caries risk assessment (CRA) scores, preventive treatment and caries-related treatment procedures. We identified 45 693 adults who were consecutively enrolled for at least 1 year before and 2.5 years after the CRA. Variables representing the number of teeth with any caries-related treatment procedure and receipt of preventive treatment were created.

RESULTS
The outcome variable of interest was having at least one tooth with a caries-related procedure in the 2-year follow-up period. In plan A, the recommendation for home-use fluoride was not significantly related to caries-related treatment procedures in the follow-up period for individuals at low, moderate or high risk (P > 0.300). In plan B, application of in-office fluoride was associated with having at least one tooth with a caries-related treatment procedure in the follow-up period (P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
We found incomplete compliance with guidelines for recommendation or administration of preventive treatment for patients at elevated risk for caries. We were also unable to identify any significant reductions in caries-related procedures for individuals receiving a fluoride intervention, compared with those who did not, when stratified by risk level.


Experience learning made easy-and quickly teach yourself how to use Microsoft SharePoint Foundation to enable effective team collaboration. With Step By Step, you set the pace-building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them!Build your own SharePoint site with easy-to-use templates Create lists and libraries to store information Add discussion boards, wikis, and blogs Set up Document and Meeting Workspaces for easy collaboration Share calendars, contacts, and data from Microsoft Office programs Customize your pages with Web Parts Your all-in-one learning experience includes:Files for building skills and practicing the book's lessons Plus other resources on the Web


Title of Document: CHARACTERIZATION OF PHYSICOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF XANTHAN/CURDLAN HYDROGEL COMPLEX FOR APPLICATIONS IN FROZEN FOOD PRODUCTS Patrick D. Williams, Doctor of Philosophy, 2011 Directed By: Associate Professor, Y. Martin Lo, Department of Nutrition and Food Science Syneresis, expulsion of moisture from food, remains a major challenge in frozen products due to post-production temperature fluctuation during distribution, transportation, and storage. Curdlan, a FDA approved microbial polysaccharide, produces a hydrogel under certain conditions exhibiting good gel strength during freeze-thaw abuse, better than similar polysaccharides. However, curdlan alone cannot effectively suppress syneresis in aqueous solutions. The present study aims at developing an effective hydrogel complex containing curdlan and a secondary biopolymer to reduce or eliminate syneresis. Polysaccharides, κ-carrageenan, guar, locust bean, and xanthan gums were investigated. Xanthan gum, when added to curdlan, was found capable of eliminating syneresis for up to five freeze-thaw cycles (FTCs) while exhibiting stability in several rheological experiments. The xanthan curdlan hydrogel complex (XCHC) was further investigated to elucidate its structure in relation to its high elasticity and moisture holding capacity. A gel and indications of syneresis was clearly seen in magnetic resonance images of curdlan alone, whereas XCHC was homogeneous. The three dimensional network, indicated by frequency sweeps, of curdlan was responsible for its gel structure. Though not three dimensional, elasticity and angular frequency dependency for XCHC were significantly closer to curdlan than xanthan alone. Addition of xanthan to curdlan restricted spin-spin relaxation times of XCHC to intermediate and slower exchange regimes, promoting the polymer's interaction with water while inhibiting intermolecular interactions found in curdlan. Furthermore, the effects of pH and NaCl concentration on the rheology of XCHC were examined. Though both pH and NaCl were found to reduce the hydrogel's moduli, XCHC remained stable over the pH range 4 to 8 through FTCs and were not significantly different. Statistically, the modulus measurements of samples treated with 5-200 mM NaCl were slightly different and fluctuated throughout the FTCs. Nonetheless, the slope of the storage modulus over all NaCl-treated samples averaged ~9% different from untreated XCHC, indicative of similar gel behavior despite lower elasticity. Finally, the hydrogel was incorporated into a simulated pumpkin pie filling. Treating the filling with XCHC delayed moisture migration by one FTC, yielded a brighter color, reduced variability and minimized surface cracking that could lead to decreased quality and microbial growth. CHARACTERIZATION OF PHYSICOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF XANTHAN/CURDLAN HYDROGEL COMPLEX FOR APPLICATIONS IN FROZEN FOOD PRODUCTS


Education in the United Kingdom is a comprehensive critical reference guide to education in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, The Isle of Man, The Channel Islands, Gibraltar, The Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Anguilla and The British Overseas Territories. Although generically similar in education structures, the various components of the United Kingdom have separate systems, with some very distinctive differences. The chapters, written by regional experts, offer a review of contemporary national and regional educational structures and policies, research innovation and trends. Some of the themes covered include issues relating to the partition of Ireland, differences between maintained and independent schooling, language issues and radical alternatives in teacher education. Including a comparative introduction to the issues facing education in the region as a whole and guides to available online datasets, this book is an essential reference for researchers, scholars, international agencies and policy-makers.


Virtual Reality is a young field and needs more research to mature. In order to help speed the maturity process research was performed to see if knowledge from the domain of software engineering could be applied to the development of Virtual Reality software. Software engineering is a field within computer science that studies how to improve both product and process. One of the sub-fields of software engineering is metrics, which seeks to measure software products and processes. This allows for prediction of certain attributes such as quality. There are several software toolkits that exist in virtual reality that have not had formal software engineering methodologies applied during their development. This research looks at applying knowledge gained from the metrics discipline to the software toolkits used in virtual reality. When metrics are used to measure the toolkits in virtual reality, the metrics seem to behave--produce similar significant correlations--in a similar fashion as when they are applied in previously studied domains.


Cytochrome P450 monooxygenases are highly desired biocatalysts owing to their ability to catalyse a wide variety of chemically challenging C−H activation reactions. The CYP102A subfamily of enzymes are natural catalytically self‐sufficient proteins consisting of a haem and FMN‐FAD reductase domain fused in a single‐component system. They catalyse the oxygenation of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids to produce primarily ω−1, ω−2 and ω−3 hydroxy acids. These monooxygenases have potential applications in biotechnology; however, their substrate range is still limited and there is a continued need to add diversity to this class of biocatalysts. Herein, we present the characterisation of two new members of this class of enzymes, CYP102A25 (BMar) from Bacillus marmarensis and CYP102A26 (PHal) from Pontibacillus halophilus, both of which express readily in a recombinant bacterial host. BMar exhibits the highest activity toward myristic acid and shows moderate activity towards unsaturated fatty acids. PHal exhibits broader activity towards mid‐chain‐saturated (C14–C18) and unsaturated fatty acids. Furthermore, PHal shows good regioselectivity for the hydroxylation of myristic acid, targeting the ω−2 position for C−H activation.


Nutrient uptake in streams is often quantified by determining nutrient uptake length. However, current methods for measuring nutrient uptake length are often impractical, expensive, or demonstrably incorrect. We have developed a new method to estimate ambient nutrient uptake lengths using field experiments involving several levels of nutrient addition. Data analysis involves plotting nutrient addition uptake lengths versus added concentration and extrapolating to the negative ambient concentration. This method is relatively easy, inexpensive, and based on sound theoretical development. It is more accurate than the commonly used method involving a single nutrient addition. The utility of the method is supported by field studies directly comparing our new method with isotopic tracer methods for determining uptake lengths of phosphorus, ammonium, and nitrate. Our method also provides parameters for comparing potential nutrient limitation among streams.


This Thesis discusses the ideas behind the development of a multi media based presentation program for construction methods. The problem domain for construction methods is analized and presented. A discussion of various ways to implement a multi media based presentation program is included as well as a description of an implemented prototype. The prototype is implemented in HyperCard and features voice input/output, animated sequences, and video. The presented data reside in a prolog based database residing on a Sun Sparc station. HyperCard communicates with the prolog application via Ether Net.


Since its release in 2011, the massively multiplayer online role playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic has captivated thousands of gamers and Star Wars fans alike. Now comes the ultimate in-depth guide to the turbulent and fascinating world featured in the game The Old Republic. Created in full collaboration with LucasArts, this in-depth companion covers the spectrum of characters, weapons, vehicles, events, and planets of Star Wars: The Old Republic. More than just an encyclopedia, it is the ultimate guided tour of the dangerous and mysterious universe found in a galaxy far, far away. 2012 Lucasfilm Ltd. & All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.


There are currently many well-illustrated anatomy books available, competing in paperand electronic-based media. This Atlas ranks with the best and offers something for all students of human anatomy. It is in an accessible, instructive and visually pleasing form, covers all regions and includes the basics of neuroanatomy. The artwork is of very high quality, accurate in detail and does not overwhelm; on first view, the images demand one's attention. The musculoskeletal illustrations are outstanding. The Atlas is a pleasure to use, whether browsed page by page sequentially or accessed at random. Miniature graphics are liberally used to orientate the reader in the more complex or unfamiliar views. The illustrations offer realistic detail that is complemented in artistic style which students find useful in the dissection room. There is a clear logic to the layout of each section that is intuitive and facilitates study. Those who were brought up on Grant's Atlas of Anatomy will recall the pithy schemata in the margins that summarised essential aspects and etched them into memory; this Atlas has optimised that device in a way that captures multiple critical concepts at a glance. An impressive feature is the manner in which the Atlas portrays clinically helpful ways of thinking about structure, onto which detail can be layered as required. Links with the schemata and illustrations in tabular form are included. All images are temporarily accessible for a fee on the publisher's website, which offers access to self-assessment exercises. Unfortunately, this fee will probably be beyond the reach of most South African students. Many will want to keep this book as an outstanding reference and for its striking visual appeal. I strongly recommend it to students and practitioners alike.


Long-term growth in the additive fabrication industry will come from designs that are difficult, time-consuming, costly, or impossible to produce using standard techniques. Growth will occur with advances in the current additive processes, coupled with breakthroughs in new materials, which are expected to emerge over the next five to 10 years. These advanced materials will better satisfy the design requirements of many new products. The paper considers currently available technologies and discusses recent advancements in direct metal freeform fabrication and its potential of revolutionising the medical industry.


Aim/Purpose This study was conducted to examine the rate of delay, explanatory causes, and coping strategies of PhD candidates at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia's premier university, over the last ten years. Background Delayed graduation is a common theme in doctoral education around the world. It continues to draw the concern of governments, universities, and the candidates themselves, calling for different forms of intervention. Addressing these challenges is key to resolving the many obstacles into doctoral education. Methodology Ten-year archival data consisting of 1,711 PhD students and in-depth interviews with ten PhD candidates were used as data-generation tools. The data collection focused on progression patterns, reasons for study delays, and the coping mechanisms used by doctoral students when they face challenges. While the candidates were interviewed to narrate their lived experience pertinent to the objectives of the study, the archival data regarding the PhD students were collected from the Registrar Office of the University under study. Contribution Amid an ongoing global debate about best practices in doctoral education, the research on study delays contributes not only to filling the existing empirical gap in the area but also in identifying factors, for example, related to financial matters, family commitment, and student-supervisor rapport, that help address the challenges faced and improving the provision of doctoral education. Findings The findings of this study revealed that the cumulative average completion time for a PhD study was 6.19 years— over two years more than the four years given as the optimum duration for completing a PhD program. The institutional pattern of delays over the last ten years indicates that doctoral students are requiring more and more years to complete their PhDs. The study further revealed The PhD Journey at Addis Ababa University 320 that completing a PhD in time is a process that can be influenced by many interacting factors, which include student commitment and preparation, favourable academic and research environment, and positive student-supervisor rapport. Recommendations for Practitioners It is important for practitioners and higher education institutions to find ways to improve the on-time completion of doctoral programmes in order to minimise the continued financial, emotional, and opportunity costs the higher education sector is currently incurring. Recommendations for Researchers The fact that this study was limited to a single institution by itself warrants more studies about time-to-degree in PhD programs and causes for study delays as well as studies about successful interventions in doctoral education. Future research should particularly explore the nature of the advisor/advisee relationship and other critical factors that appear to have a significant role in addressing the challenges of study delay. Impact on Society The expansion of PhD programmes is an encouraging development in Ethiopia. The findings of this study may help improve completion rates of doctoral students and reduce program duration, which would have significant implication to minimise the ensuing financial, emotional, and opportunity costs involved at individual, national, and institutional levels. Future Research Given the growing number of universities in Ethiopia and their possible diversity, PhD students' profiles, backgrounds, and expectations, more research is needed to examine how this diversity may impact doctoral students' progression and persistence.


In the language of the man on the street, he was a monster. He would always be a monster.1 Here fiction and fact are both fantasy. Here the Police Gazette meets the National Enquirer and neither can any longer be trusted.2 The genre of "True Crime" is a mode of popular writing with roots in medieval exempla literature, puritan broadside, penny journalism, and the expose history of muck-raking and tabloid scandal. Serial killer narratives are a phenomenally popular variant of the genre. In general, these are narratives of social crisis enacted around domestic intimacies; but by being interpellated into a Gothic rhetoric of "the monster," the serial killer confirms a rubric of social fear which is politically very useful. For example, a hermeneutic of the monstrous can frame Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy as the monster, but more importantly, at the same time it permits the construction of an opposing fantasy of innocence and vulnerability. I argue that the serial killer defines, by violating, a cynosure of originary innocence called domesticity. In other words, the domestic Gothic of the serial killer is as much political fantasy as fantasy politics-both of which are ideologically anchored in the mobilizing cry of "family values." "True Crime" narratives of the serial killer, then, prompt the questions, who is the monster, and how did it get into the home? 1. In a great number of these texts, the serial killer is decried as an xeample-and confirmation-of modern American decadence. Nonetheless, patterened deaths are neither modern nor especially American To the contrary, the killer who murders repeatedly and in compulsively characteristic ways can be found in classics of high literature, rangimg from Homer to Beowulf, as well as in myth, folk-tale and legend. However, while the serial killer is not new, the threat he is seen to pose must always be new, must always be urgent. That is, while not a product of "cultural decadence" or corrupt societal conditions or collapsing morality, serial killers provide a flexible, demonizing frame through which each of these social crises can be defined and confirmed as worthy of public note. Thus, rhetorics of fear-anxiety-laden words like "epidemic" and "roving"-typify even seemingly objective news or academic studies. Urgency is often explicit, as for example, in the sub-title of Joel Norris' Serial Killers: The Growing Menace-a phrase which had been used earlier in James Alan Fox's Mass Murder: America's Growing Menace.3 Yet for all their vaunted newness, serial killers are invariably read into a traditional grammar of the supernatural monstrous that functions in two distinct ways. As hermeneutic, the monstrous organizes a language of reference that is saturated with political implications. As a rubric, on the other hand, the monstrous directs otherwise unacceptable excesses of violence and passion toward sanctioned political ends. For example, Jeffrey Dahmer's death in prison at the hands of another prisoner was surely not civilly sanctioned; nonetheless, it was not much lamented, either. Care had been taken, after all, to define him as a monster and as such, beyond any need for human courtesy or decency. The serial killer phenomenon seemed to arise from nowhere in the early '70's-as a consequence, it is repeatedly suggested, of collapsing civic and moral structures. For example, in I Have Lived in the Monster, Robert Ressler intones: "As a social phenomenon, serial murder is...part of a swelling tide of interpersonal violence that has been rising since the middle of the nineteenth century. It is connected to the increasing complexity of our society, to our interconnectedness via the media and to the alienation many of us feel."' Similarly, Gerold Frank's The Boston Strangler (1966) takes as its subject "what happens to a great city when it is besieged by terror-terror stemming from a horrifying explosion of the violence that seems more and more a part of contemporary life" (viii). …


PURPOSE
To propose a machine learning algorithm-based risk stratification method of prostate gland lesions using quantitative and texture features derived from diffusion weighted MRI (DW-MRI).

METHODS
43 patients with biopsy-proven prostate cancer underwent DW-MRIs of the prostate using an optimized single-shot echo planar imaging sequence at 3T. Quantitative apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps were generated via a mono-exponential fit using three b-values (50, 400 and 800s/mm2). 43 lesions were identified in peripheral zone (pz) and 13 in central gland (cg). Statistical and textural parameters were extracted from these lesions. Patients were grouped into low, intermediate and high risk group based on NCCN risk scoring guideline. 16 quantitative parameters (mean, kurtosis, percentile etc) and 5 texture parameters (energy, entropy, correlation, contrast and homogeneity) were calculated for each patient. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was applied to classify patients into one of the three risk groups based on their MRI parameters. A sub-group of patients were used as ANN training samples, and the rest was used as test samples. Classification accuracy, precision, and sensitivity were reported.

RESULTS
Both statistical and texture parameters showed strong correlation to Gleason score for only PZ tumors and not CG tumors. Classification sensitivity performed using 5 texture parameters for all tumors, pz tumors and cg tumors was 100%, 98% and 91% respectively. Sensitivity using quantitative parameters only was 97%, 95% and 100%. Finally using all the parameters, sensitivity was 93%, 95% and 81% implying that adding texture information is not very sensitive for cg tumors as compared to pz tumors. The positive predictive value (PPV) was 100% for all the above cases.

CONCLUSION
ANN is a reasonably accurate algorithm with high sensitivity and PPV to classify prostate MRIs into risk groups. Further analysis will be done on the minimum number of training points required for the proposed technique.


Multivariate analysis techniques were used to quantify and compare the spectral and temporal variability of observed and simulated shortwave hyperspectral Earth reflectance. The observed reflectances were measured by the Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography (SCIAMACHY) instrument between 2002 and 2010. The simulated reflectances were calculated using climate Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs), which used two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change AR4 scenarios (constant CO2 and A2 emission) to drive Moderate Resolution Atmospheric Transmission simulations. Principal component (PC) spectral shapes and time series exhibited evidence of physical variables including cloud reflectance, vegetation and desert albedo, and water vapor absorption. Comparing the temporal variability of the OSSE‐simulated and SCIAMACHY‐measured hyperspectral reflectance showed that their Intertropical Convergence Zone‐like Southern Hemisphere (SH) tropical PC1 ocean time series had a 90° phase difference. The observed and simulated PC intersection quantified their similarity and directly compared their temporal variability. The intersection showed that despite the similar spectral variability, the temporal variability of the dominant PCs differed as in, for example, the 90° phase difference between the SH tropical intersection PC1s. Principal component analysis of OSSE reflectance demonstrated that the spectral and centennial variability of the two cases differed. The A2 PC time series, unlike the constant CO2 time series, exhibited centennial secular trends. Singular spectrum analysis isolated the A2 secular trends. The A2 OSSE PC1 and PC4 secular trends matched those in aerosol optical depth and total column precipitable water, respectively. This illustrates that time series of hyperspectral reflectance may be used to identify and attribute secular climate trends with a sufficiently long measurement record and high instrument accuracy.


Objectives: To compare the outcomes of patients seen during a pilot Senior Emergency Department (ED) program to a historical cohort of geriatric patients receiving usual ED care. Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort analysis of quality assurance data obtained to evaluate the implementation of a pilot Senior ED program at a 78,000 visit hospital ED. The historical cohort covered 1/23/2012 to 12/31/2012. The pilot Senior ED program was implemented from 1/1/2013 to 12/31/2013. Patients 65 years and older arriving between 8:30 am and 8:30 pm were triaged to a 15 bed Senior ED. Interventions included assessment by a nurse transitional care coordinator, care protocols, education, pharmacy review and call backs on discharged patients. Data are presented as means, proportions, differences, and analyzed for statistical significance using the t-test where p<0.05 is considered significant. Results: There were 12,503 eligible visits in 2012 and 13,627 eligible visits in 2013. The mean age was 78 years in both cohorts; 58% were female in 2012 and 53% in 2013. During the pilot Senior ED program length of stay was increased (2012: 287 minutes vs. 2013: 298 minutes), admissions were significantly decreased (54% vs. 49%, p=0.000), and observation patients increased (2.4% vs. 4.9%, p=0.000). During the pilot Senior ED program, discharges to home increased by 2.7% (p=0.000). Conclusions: The pilot Senior ED program reduced inpatient admissions, increased observations, and increased discharges to home significantly showing the program's effectiveness in managing acutely ill senior patients.


The rapid accumulation of data in social media (in million and billion scales) has imposed great challenges in information extraction, knowledge discovery, and data mining, and texts bearing sentiment and opinions are one of the major categories of user generated data in social media. Sentiment analysis is the main technology to quickly capture what people think from these text data, and is a research direction with immediate practical value in 'big data' era. Learning such techniques will allow data miners to perform advanced mining tasks considering real sentiment and opinions expressed by users in additional to the statistics calculated from the physical actions (such as viewing or purchasing records) user perform, which facilitates the development of real-world applications. However, the situation that most tools are limited to the English language might stop academic or industrial people from doing research or products which cover a wider scope of data, retrieving information from people who speak different languages, or developing applications for worldwide users. More specifically, sentiment analysis determines the polarities and strength of the sentiment-bearing expressions, and it has been an important and attractive research area. In the past decade, resources and tools have been developed for sentiment analysis in order to provide subsequent vital applications, such as product reviews, reputation management, call center robots, automatic public survey, etc. However, most of these resources are for the English language. Being the key to the understanding of business and government issues, sentiment analysis resources and tools are required for other major languages, e.g., Chinese. In this tutorial, audience can learn the skills for retrieving sentiment from texts in another major language, Chinese, to overcome this obstacle. The goal of this tutorial is to introduce the proposed sentiment analysis technologies and datasets in the literature, and give the audience the opportunities to use resources and tools to process Chinese texts from the very basic preprocessing, i.e., word segmentation and part of speech tagging, to sentiment analysis, i.e., applying sentiment dictionaries and obtaining sentiment scores, through step-by-step instructions and a hand-on practice. The basic processing tools are from CKIP Participants can download these resources, use them and solve the problems they encounter in this tutorial. This tutorial will begin from some background knowledge of sentiment analysis, such as how sentiment are categorized, where to find available corpora and which models are commonly applied, especially for the Chinese language. Then a set of basic Chinese text processing tools for word segmentation, tagging and parsing will be introduced for the preparation of mining sentiment and opinions. After bringing the idea of how to pre-process the Chinese language to the audience, I will describe our work on compositional Chinese sentiment analysis from words to sentences, and an application on social media text (Facebook) as an example. All our involved and recently developed related resources, including Chinese Morphological Dataset, Augmented NTU Sentiment Dictionary (aug-NTUSD), E-hownet with sentiment information, Chinese Opinion Treebank, and the CopeOpi Sentiment Scorer, will also be introduced and distributed in this tutorial. The tutorial will end by a hands-on session of how to use these materials and tools to process Chinese sentiment. Content Details, Materials, and Program please refer to the tutorial URL: http://www.lunweiku.com/


This report updates an earlier financial analysis of minibus performance, published as TRRL Contractor Report CR 42 (see IRRD 811251). The methodology used is the same as in this report. A hypothetical corridor in an urban area is taken. A spreadsheet program is used to compare the financial results of a variety of different bus types serving this corridor. A series of unit costs and other variables is assumed for each bus type in turn. A variety of scenarios are dealt with. Flat versus peaked demand profiles are compared, as are high density and low density corridors. Also considered are: the effects of congestion; the application of driver rates for full-sized vehicles to those for minibuses; one-for-one replacement of full sized buses by minibuses; and the environmental impact of minibuses. For related work see IRRD 830330, 830332 and 830333.


We provide a general framework for computing lower-bounds on the sample complexity of recovering the underlying graphs of Ising models, given i.i.d. samples. While there have been recent results for specific graph classes, these involve fairly extensive technical arguments that are specialized to each specific graph class. In contrast, we isolate two key graph-structural ingredients that can then be used to specify sample complexity lower-bounds. Presence of these structural properties makes the graph class hard to learn. We derive corollaries of our main result that not only recover existing recent results, but also provide lower bounds for novel graph classes not considered previously. We also extend our framework to the random graph setting and derive corollaries for Erdős-Renyi graphs in a certain dense setting.