This Article highlights some of the critical distinctions between small data surveillance and big data cybersurveillance as methods of intelligence gathering. Specifically, in the intelligence context, it appears that "collect-it-all" tools in a big data world can now potentially facilitate the construction, by the intelligence community, of other individuals' digital avatars. The digital avatar can be understood as a virtual representation of our digital selves and may serve as a potential proxy for an actual person. This construction may be enabled through processes such as the data fusion of biometric and biographic data, or the digital data fusion of the 24/7 surveillance of the body and the 360° surveillance of the biography. Further, data science logic and reasoning, and big data policy rationales, appear to be driving the expansion of these emerging methods. Consequently, I suggest that an inquiry into the scientific validity of the data science that informs big data cybersurveillance and mass dataveillance is appropriate.As a topic of academic inquiry, thus, I argue in favor of a science-driven approach to the interrogation of rapidly evolving bulk metadata and mass data surveillance methods that increasingly rely upon data science and big data's algorithmic, analytic, and integrative tools. In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), the Supreme Court required scientific validity determinations prior to the introduction of scientific expert testimony or evidence at trial. I conclude that to the extent that covert intelligence gathering relies upon data science, a Daubert-type inquiry is helpful in conceptualizing the proper analytical structure necessary for the assessment and oversight of these emerging mass surveillance methods.


Ebastine is a novel histamine H1 receptor antagonist that combines potency with a rapid onset (fast absorption) and long duration (slow elimination) of action, at least partially mediated via the formation of an acid metabolite (carebastine) that is even more potent as an antihistamine. It shows clear selectivity for histamine H1 as opposed to H2 receptors, has moderate activity against other potential mediators of allergic phenomena such as leukotriene C4 and platelet-activating factor, and is clearly effective against anaphylactic reactions resulting from exposure of suitably sensitised tissues or animals to antigen. By contrast, ebastine has negligible activity against acetylcholine (no atropine-like adverse effects on secretions and visual accommodation) and only poorly penetrates the blood-brain barrier (no sedative adverse effects). Ebastine is without effects on the central nervous and cardiovascular systems, even after oral administration of high doses, and does not interact pharmacologically with a wide range of other drugs covering most areas of potential coadministration. Furthermore, ebastine showed no clinically relevant effects in a complete set of regulatory-required toxicity tests (including acute, chronic, reproductive, mutagenic and carcinogenic protocols) at doses giving blood concentrations representing high multiples of clinical exposure. In conclusion, ebastine has a preclinical profile indicative of an excellent therapeutic ratio of desired effects to undesired effects.


Haikonen envisions autonomous robots that perceive and understand the world directly, acting in it in a natural human-like way without the need of programs and numerical representation of information. By developing higher-level cognitive functions through the power of artificial associative neuron architectures, the author approaches the issues of machine consciousness. Robot Brains expertly outlines a complete system approach to cognitive machines, offering practical design guidelines for the creation of non-numeric autonomous creative machines. It details topics such as component parts and realization principles, so that different pieces may be implemented in hardware or software. Real-world examples for designers and researchers are provided, including circuit and systems examples that few books on this topic give. In novel technical and practical detail, this book also considers: the limitations and remedies of traditional neural associators in creating true machine cognition; basic circuit assemblies cognitive neural architectures; how motors can be interfaced with the associative neural system in order for fluent motion to be achieved without numeric computations; memorization, imagination, planning and reasoning in the machine; the concept of machine emotions for motivation and value systems; an approach towards the use and understanding of natural language in robots. The methods presented in this book have important implications for computer vision, signal processing, speech recognition and other information technology fields. Systematic and thoroughly logical, it will appeal to practising engineers involved in the development and design of robots and cognitive machines, also researchers in Artificial Intelligence. Postgraduate students in computational neuroscience and robotics, and neuromorphic engineers will find it an exciting source of information.


Available water and N fertility are primary constraints to crop production in the northern Great Plains of the USA. A field trial was initiated in 2004 to compare four crop rotations in a complete factorial of two tillage and two management systems. Rotations were continuous spring wheat (SW), pea-SW, barley hay-pea-SW, and barley hay-corn-pea-SW. Tillage systems were no till and field cultivator tillage, while management systems were conventional and ecological. Conventional management included broadcast nitrogen fertilizer, standard seeding rates, and short stubble height. Ecological management practices varied by crop, and included banded nitrogen fertilizer for cereals, increased seeding rate, delayed planting date for SW, and taller stubble height. Continuous SW grain yield was 26% lower than SW in more diverse rotations. Pea grain yield was 18% lower in 2-yr rotations than in more diverse rotations. Ecologically managed SW yielded 29% less than conventionally managed SW, presumably due to the delayed planting date. Ecological management of pea resulted in 12% greater yield compared to conventional management. Tillage system rarely impacted crop yield. Yield increases in SW were related to increased N use efficiency.


In software-defined networking (SDN) paradigm, where the control and data plane are separated, the scalability of the SDN controller in the control plane is critical and can affect the overall network performance significantly. To improve controller scalability, efforts have been put into enhancing the capability of SDN switches in the data plane, to make them more autonomous in providing routine services without consulting the controller. In this regard, we investigate the service placement problem on SDN switches aiming at minimizing the average accumulated service costs for end users. To solve this problem, we propose a novel reinforcement-learning-based algorithm with guaranteed performance and convergence rate, called Q-placement. Comparing to traditional optimization techniques, Q-placement exhibits many appealing features, such as performance-tuneable optimization and off-the-shelf implementation. Extensive evaluations show that Q-placement consistently outperforms benchmarks and other state-of-the-art algorithms in both synthetic and real networks. Moreover, these evaluations reveal insights into how the network topological properties (e.g., density), servicing capacities, and controller's roles affect the accumulated service costs, which is useful in service planning tasks.


We present a novel, yet simple, method for stabilization of normal forces. A normal stabilization term, carefully designed from hypotheses about interactive usability, is added to the contact force problem. Further, we propose friction stabilization as a completely new stabilization paradigm in interactive simulation. We present a comparison between our normal stabilization method and the Baumgarte stabilization method under extreme interactive conditions. Preliminary results on friction stabilization are presented, showing both the potential advantages of the method and that there is still work to be done.


A new method has been introduced to determine the crimp features of false twist textured yarns by applying computer vision and image processing method. Hence, the test results, with accuracy, are achieved more quickly than by the other exciting method. The mean angle of filament orientation in false twist textured yarns with different texturizing variables (heater temperature, texturizing speed and twist) is determined. Similarly, the direct tracking algorithms to achieve a good correlation with crimp contraction are also used. The results show that by this new method a correlation coefficient of more than 95% is achieved between mean orientation angle and crimp contraction.


Increasing demand for components made of hard and brittle materials such as glasses, steel alloys and advanced ceramics is such that conventional grinding and polishing techniques can no longer meet the requirements of today's precision manufacturing community.
However, it is essential and much needed to undertake such processes based on a scientific approach, i.e. the process to be quantitatively controlled and optimized rather than carried out in a trial-and-error manner.
Vibration assisted machining been has demonstrated to reduce the amount of forces, pattern definition on a finished surface. Axial oscillation (parallel to the wheel axis) allows the grains to cut with two more faces. With vibration in two directions, the wheel exposes four times more cutting edges (two edges per oscillation) than in continuous cutting which uses only one edge, which is a great advantage over continuous cutting, Axial oscillation induces an elliptic motion leading to a lapping process, which improves the cutting efficiency as well as the quality of the finished surface. Oscillation greatly reduces the load per grain, reduces wheel wear and induces a chip-breaking effect, which is a great advantage for prevention of wheel loading.
In this research, theory modelling and instrumentation for vibration assisted grinding are presented and discussed in depth. The modelling is focused on control of the amplitude of oscillation in the cutting zone which is the fulcrum of this investigation. The control system was developed using Labview 8.5 and Matlab.
It was found that the application of vibration reduces the forces, increases the material removal rate and increases the G-Ratio compared to conventional grinding. The superimposition of vibration in axial direction secured better process outcomes in terms of grinding forces (average 25% improvement), surface finish quality and power consumption. In terms of frequencies it was identified that superimposing vibration at 100 Hz in this study provided the lowest forces. In addition, it was shown that at 100 Hz the desired amplitude of oscillation was achieved at the lowest driving voltage, i.e. 4V.

Comparing the techniques of control systems, which were open loop, closed loop and conventional grinding, applying vibration always gave better results than with no vibration. The closed loop control in most cases was the best. Comparing oscillating in axial direction and tangential direction, the Axial gave on additional 9% reduction in grinding forces. In general the grinding with vibration assisted secured a greater depth of cut. The oscillating in Axial direction provided an additional 16 % in actual depth of cut, so Applying oscillating in axial direction showed that a significant improvement of quality could be achieved.


A 5 x 5 diallel experiment was conducted at Experimental Station of TietŒ, SP, aiming to evaluate the combining ability amongst macadamia nut trees (Macadamia integrifolia Maiden & Betche) cultivars IAC Campinas A, IAC 2-23 A, IAC 4-12 B, IAC 4-20 e IAC 5-10. The initial fruit set was evaluated 14 days after manual pollination and showed that every cultivar presented self incompatibility. There were significant general and specific combining ability amongst cultivars and reciprocal effects. The cultivar IAC Campinas A reduced the initial fruit set at all crossing in which was used as female progenitor. The best results for initial fruit set were showed by crossings between following cultivars: IAC 4-20 x IAC Campinas A, IAC 4-12 B x IAC 2-23 A, IAC 4-20 x IAC 4-12 B, IAC 5-10 x IAC 2-23 A, IAC 5-10 x IAC 4-20, IAC 4-20 x IAC 2-23 A e IAC 5-10 x IAC 4-12 B.


Antonio Vivaldi: Thematisch-systematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke (RV). By Peter Ryom. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Hartel, 2007. [xxx, 633 p. ISBN-13: 9783765103728. [euro]98.] Fascimile, bibliographic references, indexes. The only competition for Peter Ryom's Antonio Vivaldi: Thematisch-systematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke (RV) comes from earlier works by Ryom himself. These begin with his Verzeichnis der Werke Antonio Vivaldis, Kleine Ausgabe (Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag fur Musik, 1974; revised ed., 1977) and continue with the collective source study of imprinted materials Les manuscrits des Vivaldi (Copenhagen: Antonio Vivaldi Archives, 1977) plus the instrumental music catalog called Repertoire des auvres d'Antonio Vivaldi:les compositions instrumentales (Copenhagen: Engstrom & Sodring, 1986). The first exposition of the RV numbering system came in his Table de concordances des auvres (RV) (Copenhagen: Engstrom & Sodring, 1973). All of Ryom's Vivaldi works (apart from translations into English of prefaces and introductions in the two later catalogues) are in French or German. The contents and main differences between the three catalogs (hereafter cited as A, B, and C) are summarized in Table 1. Table 1 (Ryom review) Feature Kleine Repertoire Thematisch- Ausgabe des systemalisches oeuvres Verzeichnis Code used here A B C Date (saminathan) 1974/rev. 1977 1986 2007 of publication Place of Leipzig Copenhagen Wiesbaden publication No. of pages 214;rev. 226 726 + lxxviii 633 + xxx Nature of entries Brief Extensive Comprehensive Numbering-system allocations Instrumental 1-585 1-585 1-585 works Sacred vocal 586-648 - 586-648 works, oratorios, et al. Secular cantatas 649-686 - 649-686 Serenatas 687-694 - 687-694 Operas 695-740 - 695-740 Unclassifiable 741-750 - 741-750 works Authorship claim Anhang 1-63 - Anhang 1-134 rejected Summary of -- - 751-808 recently discovered works (1974-2006) Any reader comparing these publications at a glance will be led to believe that there is little difference in the contents, because the outer limits of work numbers do not seem to vary by category. However, the total number of instrumental works (covered in all three) is not actually uniform, because relative to A (and to each other), B and C contain insertions and deletions. Fifty-seven new works have been added to the pool of authentic works since 1974. Seventy-one entries have been added to the appendix (Anhang) of works not considered to be by Vivaldi, and some of these are collections of works or work-fragments. Recently disattributed works hold a permanent place in the main numbering system but in lieu of an entry, the reader is referred to its new placement in the appendix. Some works which were originally placed in the appendix have taken "newly discovered" numbers (i.e., 751+) and are now integrated in the main sequence. What is stable is the tree-structure organization for instrumental music, which begins with genre (sonata, concerto), then passes to instrumentation, then to key (further segregated by mode). Ryom has abandoned an earlier sub-numbering system (in which some of this classification data was encoded) in C. Operas are ordered alphabetically. Vocal repertories employ various principles of organization (key and instrumentation where multiple works bear the same title; alphabetical order for the operas). Table 1 also indicates that since C has a smaller page count than B, which covers only instrumental music, its typography (while admirably clear and employing helpful contrasts and running headers) relies on font sizes that will be problematical for some users. …


Urbanization alters species richness and composition, but studies of urbanization effects on ecological functions have often quantified variation in functional traits and changes in functional diversity rather than measuring directly how ecological functions vary between rural and urban assemblages. Consuming dead animal matter and recycling its nutrients stabilizes and structures food webs and therefore represents a key component of ecosystem functioning. Introduction of free‐ranging domestic pet animals adds additional scavenger species to urban habitats, and increased predictability of carcass resources produced by human activities characterizes urban habitats. Here, we investigate the effect of urbanization on the composition of diurnal and nocturnal scavenger assemblages and on the ecological function of carcass removal by using a carcass placement experiment in Swiss urban and adjacent rural habitats. While diurnal and nocturnal scavenger assemblages changed considerably from rural to urban areas by comprising particularly more domestic cats in the latter, carrion consumption rate did not differ between the two habitats. Predictability of carcass occurrence increased carrion consumption rate in both urban and rural habitats but mainly native scavengers and not introduced domestic pets responded to the repeated placements. These results suggest that urbanization shapes scavenger assemblage compositions without affecting their ecological function. The mechanism is likely due to a behavioural change of native scavengers in response to the occurrence of domestic pets resulting in functional plasticity of urban scavenger assemblages. The functional plasticity might be facilitated by the increased carcass predictability and additional anthropogenic food resources in urban habitats exploited by nutritionally flexible native scavenger species. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.


The domestic fowl, Gallus gallus domesticus, or chicken, features as an important part of human society, culture and subsistence, both now and in the past. Despite studies into the origins and spread of many of the other domestic animals, the origins and nature of spread of the chicken west and into Europe has been largely neglected due to a lack of sufficient compiled evidence. It is widely accepted that chickens are descended from junglefowl in Asia and South East Asia, but more precise origins of the chicken are debated. As a bird with limited flight capability, the chicken has been transported worldwide by humans. Once the chicken arrived in Europe, very little attention has been given to the human-chicken interactions which governed its success, and enabled it to become permanently established in a region very different to where its ancestor originates- geographically, environmentally and culturally. This study compiles zooarchaeological evidence for the chicken across Europe, combines it with evidence from archaeology and anthropology, and takes the novel approach of applying ecological and biogeographical techniques. Such techniques complement traditional methods of archaeological assessment, and provide new and unique insights into the origins, spread and impact of this significant species. I establish the regions which are most suitable for initial domestication, and demonstrate that Europe would not be suitable for indigenous populations of the ancestor bird. This informs us about the human investment required to m aintain early populations of chicken. I identify India as the most likely origin of early European chickens, based on environmental suitability, presence of the ancestor species, and practical routes from Asia to Europe; but propose multiple centres of domestication in Asia. Once the chicken reaches Europe, multiple diffusion events associated with specific cultures are identified, primarily via trade routes. The niche of the ancestor is compared to the niche of the early domestic chicken and found to have shifted, indicating adaptation under domestication. The introduction of the chicken into Europe as a non-native species is shown to have directly and indirectly affected certain species, but the chicken itself is most affected by human agency. The date, location and context for the faunal remains, combined with literary evidence and material culture, establishes change and continuity in both use and perception of chickens by human societies. The conclusions and methods presented in this thesis are relevant to several subjects, including archaeology, zooarchaeology, ecology and conservation, and demonstrate the benefits of a multi- disciplinary approach.


The paper explores the effects of the reconstruction schemes of the twelve banks of issue which suspended payment in early 1893 on the behaviour of monetary aggregates. Earlier estimates of narrow and broad measures of money seriously underestimate the contraction in the money stock by not netting out all of the significant proportion of deposit liabilities whose terms of maturity are so lengthened that they are effectively debentures. The paper proceeds by discussing the treatment of this matter in earlier calculations of the money stock. It then constructs an amended series that adjusts for the 'locked up' deposit liabilities and interminable deposit stock. Finally, a further adjustment is made by calculating the market value of the deferred deposit receipts and adding that back into the money supply. Thus a lower and upper bound of an alternative series of Australian monetary aggregates is provided.


Background: Tumours of odontogenic origin (OTs) resulting from epithelial and mesenchymal elements that are part of the tooth-forming apparatus must be considered as a differential diagnosis when analysing jaw lesions. They may be cystic, myxomatous or sometimes have a mixture of cystic and solid areas. Objective: To analyse the OTs seen at the Maxillofacial Surgery Department, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, Nigeria, between 2001 and 2013 based on the World Health Organization's 2005 classification of OTs. Methods: A retrospective search and analysis was conducted of the medical records of all patients with a histopathologic diagnosis of orofacial tumours and tumour-like lesions seen at the Maxillofacial Surgery Department, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, Nigeria, from 2001 to 2013. Results: Odontogenic tumours constituted 179 (15.3%) cases out of a total of 1170 orofacial tumours and tumour-like lesions seen within the study period. The 179 OTs were found in 101 (56.4%) males and 78 (43.6%) females, giving a male to female ratio of 1.3:1. The ages of the patients ranged from 12 to 88 years (mean, standard deviation: 33.31, 14.07 years). The lesions were predominantly benign (n = 176; 98.3%), with only three (1.7%) being malignant OTs. Conclusion: The distribution of OTs in this study compared well with that in previous reports from Nigeria.


The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP scanjet 5590; 300dpi. Adobe Acrobat XI Pro was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to final presentation PDF-Format.


A fruit juice ohmic evaporator (FlOE) was designed and constructed. The
design was done in accordance with the basic principle of ohmic heating to provide
heat for evaporation instead of steam or conventional direct heating, to overcome
problems arising through these methods of heating.
The FlOE was constructed mainly from stainless-steel. A cylinderical heating
vessel of internal diameter 20.5 cm and length of 3 1 cm was constructed to enclose
electrodes supplying the heat for evaporation. The heating vessel was coated
internally with epoxy resin to isolate the wall of the vessel from electric current
passing through the fluid. Three sets of electrodes connected to the three-phase
alternating current supply were used. Each set of electrodes composed of a three
parallel stainless-steel plates. A vacuum pump was used to lower the boiling point of
the juice below 65°C and as low as 45°C to prevent the nutrient material from
damage.
Salt-water solution and pineapple juice were used to study the performance of
the FlOE. Three types of tests were done. Preliminary tests were conducted to ensure that the FJOE operates within the design limits and to check for fluid and electric
leakage. Performance of the FlOE was computed by testing the system in both batch
and continuous operation using salt-water solution and pineapple juice.
Electric conductivity of the dilute pineapple juice was first measured to find
the maximum allowable level of the juice inside the FlOE to prevent current overload
or high temperatures during evaporations.
Four tests using salt-water solution, two of them in batch mode and two in a
continuous mode were conducted. Another four test using pineapple juice of initial
concentration of 10% were conducted to achieve a final concentration of 40%, two of
them were batch tests and the others in continuous mode operation.
Results of all tests were tabulated and illustrated in graphs. Electric current
and the total area of electrodes used was found to be the controlling factors during
evaporation using the FlOE. Increasing the total contact area between electrodes and
the fluid was found to increase the average apparent current and hence the power
consumption.
Energy cost using the FJOE was found to be relatively cheap and of low cost
and the evaporation economy was found to be 0.7. The FlOE was found to be a
suitable evaporation equipment for concentrating fruit juices and other food materials
in a small scale industries without any need of steam boilers and of low energy cost.


Various concepts ascribe key roles to emerging non-OECD countries in regional and global politics. This paper highlights how these concepts hint not only at a shift of global power but also at geopolitical regionalization: according to the theory of hegemonic stability, regional powers (a subcategory of emerging non-OECD countries) are key actors in overcoming international anarchy and establishing cooperative and stable relations within their regions. Because of the different impacts of different regional powers, which are categorized in this paper using typologies of hegemony, the logic of international relations varies from one region to another. From a theoretical point of view, this means that international relations theories have to make region-specific adaptations.


Mental chronometry is a classical paradigm in cognitive psychology that uses response time and accuracy data in perceptual-motor tasks to elucidate the architecture and mechanisms of the underlying cognitive processes of human decisions. The redundant signals paradigm investigates the response behavior in Experimental tasks, where an integration of signals is required for a successful performance. The common finding is that responses are speeded for the redundant signals condition compared to single signals conditions. On a mean level, this redundant signals effect can be accounted for by several cognitive architectures, exhibiting considerable model mimicry.
Jeff Miller formalized the maximum speed-up explainable by separate activations or race models in form of a distributional bound – the race model inequality. Whenever data violates this bound, it excludes race models as a viable account for the redundant signals effect. The common alternative is a coactivation account, where the signals integrate at some stage in the processing.
Coactivation models have mostly been inferred on and rarely explicated though. Where coactivation is explicitly modeled, it is assumed to have a decisional locus. However, in the literature there are indications that coactivation might have at least a partial locus (if not entirely) in the nondecisional or motor stage. There are no studies that have tried to compare the fit of these coactivation variants to empirical data to test different effect generating loci.
Ever since its formulation, the race model inequality has been used as a test to infer the cognitive architecture for observers' performance in redundant signals Experiments. Subsequent theoretical and empirical analyses of this RMI test revealed several challenges. On the one hand, it is considered to be a conservative test, as it compares data to the maximum speed-up possible by a race model account. Moreover, simulation studies could show that the base time component can further reduce the power of the test, as violations are filtered out when this component has a high variance.
On the other hand, another simulation study revealed that the common practice of RMI test can introduce an estimation bias, that effectively facilitates violations and increases the type I error of the test. Also, as the RMI bound is usually tested at multiple points of the same data, an inflation of type I errors can reach a substantial amount. Due to the lack of overlap in scope and the usage of atheoretic, descriptive reaction time models, the degree to which these results can be generalized is limited. State-of-the-art models of decision making provide a means to overcome these limitations and implement both race and coactivation models in order to perform large scale simulation studies.
By applying a state-of-the-art model of decision making (scilicet the Ratcliff diffusion model) to the investigation of the redundant signals effect, the present study addresses research questions at different levels. On a conceptual level, it raises the question, at what stage coactivation occurs – at a decisional, a nondecisional or a combined decisional and nondecisional processing stage and to what extend? To that end, two bimodal detection tasks have been conducted. As the reaction time data exhibits violations of the RMI at multiple time points, it provides the basis for a comparative fitting analysis of coactivation model variants, representing different loci of the effect.
On a test theoretic level, the present study integrates and extends the scopes of previous studies within a coherent simulation framework. The effect of experimental and statistical parameters on the performance of the RMI test (in terms of type I errors, power rates and biases) is analyzed via Monte Carlo simulations. Specifically, the simulations treated the following questions: (i) what is the power of the RMI test, (ii) is there an estimation bias for coactivated data as well and if so, in what direction, (iii) what is the effect of a highly varying base time component on the estimation bias, type I errors and power rates, (iv) and are the results of previous simulation studies (at least qualitatively) replicable, when current models of decision making are used for the reaction time generation.
For this purpose, the Ratcliff diffusion model was used to implement race models with controllable amount of correlation and coactivation models with varying integration strength, and independently specifying the base time component.
The results of the fitting suggest that for the two bimodal detection tasks, coactivation has a shared decisional and nondecisional locus. For the focused attention experiment the decisional part prevails, whereas in the divided attention task the motor component is dominating the redundant signals effect. The simulation study could reaffirm the conservativeness of the RMI test as latent coactivation is frequently missed. An estimation bias was found also for coactivated data however, both biases become negligible once more than 10 samples per condition are taken to estimate the respective distribution functions. A highly varying base time component reduces both the type I errors and the power of the test, while not affecting the estimation biases.
The outcome of the present study has theoretical and practical implications for the investigations of decisions in a multisignal context. Theoretically, it contributes to the locus question of coactivation and offers evidence for a combined decisional and nondecisional coactivation account. On a practical level, the modular simulation approach developed in the present study enables researchers to further investigate the RMI test within a coherent and theoretically grounded framework. It effectively provides a means to optimally set up the RMI test and thus helps to solidify and substantiate its outcomes. On a conceptual level the present study advocates the application of current formal models of decision making to the mental chronometry paradigm and develops future research questions in the field of the redundant signals paradigm.


Volcanism across the North Tanzanian Divergence Zone (NTD), part of the East African Rift System, occurred episodically from the late Miocene to Recent. Here, we present a summary of previously published K–Ar and 40Ar/39Ar ages, new 40Ar/39Ar ages, and geochemical and Sr–Nd–Pb isotopic analyses on samples collected from several volcanoes distributed across the NTD: Burko, Monduli, Tarosero, Ketumbeine, Gelai, Kerimasi and Meru. The locus of volcanism over this period progressed from the southwestern portion of the NTD to the north and east, with a main pulse occurring at about 2.3 Ma, possibly marking the inception of a main rifting event. We model the source of the NTD volcanic rocks as a metasomatized subcontinental lithospheric mantle that includes minor and variable amounts of garnet and amphibole. REE data indicate variations in residual garnet content, consistent with varying depth of melt separation. Radiogenic isotopic data show systematic variations requiring the involvement of up to three components. Two alternative but not exclusive tectonic scenarios are proposed: one requiring the involvement of contributions from recent plume-related fluids, and one explaining the observed geochemical variations by melting of a lithosphere layered by multiple metasomatic events. Supplementary material: Details of analytical methods, operating system and calibration methods, a summary table of the recalculated 40Ar/39Ar and K–Ar NTD ages, a complete set of detailed release spectra analysis and dating figures, 40Ar/39Ar incremental heating data and analytical conditions, and examples of NTD calculated fractional crystallization modes are available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18813.


Synthesis of metal-free 2,9(10),16(17),23(24)-tetra(3,5- dimethylphenoxy) phthalocyanine, 2,9(10),16(17), 23(24)-tetra(4- tert-butylphenoxy) phthalocyanine, and 2,9(10),16(17),23(24)-tetra(3,5- di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl) phthalocyanine was carried out via microwave irradiation. Furthermore, pentanol and lithium were used for the first time in the synthesis of metal-free phthalocyanine under microwave irradiation as a solvent and a base-catalyst, respectively. The microwave irradiation experiments were performed in a MARS5 with a CEM XP-1500 vessel. In addition, these compounds were obtained with conventional heating procedures to compare them with those obtained with microwave irradiation. The compounds were characterized by elemental and spectroscopic analysis, including UV-Vis, H NMR, FT-IR, and MALDI-TOF mass data. In particular, both methods were compared in terms of reaction parameters and product yields. In addition, we first performed the synthesis of phthalonitriles as an initial material at room temperature, which is a slight modification of that reported in the literature. These Pc-compounds had high thermal stability, which was determined at 520 °C (midpoint), 549 °C, and 400 °C, respectively, as a maximum weight loss temperature. Consequently, the microwave irradiation method provided nearly the same or higher product yields in a very short period of time. These results suggest that the microwave irradiation method was more useful than the conventional method due to shorter reaction time and energy savings.


We present an analysis of spectroscopic and astrometric data from APOGEE-2 and Gaia DR2 to identify structures toward the Orion Complex. By applying a hierarchical clustering algorithm to the six-dimensional stellar data, we identify spatially and/or kinematically distinct groups of young stellar objects with ages ranging from 1 to 12 Myr. We also investigate the star-forming history within the Orion Complex and identify peculiar subclusters. With this method we reconstruct the older populations in the regions that are currently largely devoid of molecular gas, such as Orion C (which includes the σ Ori cluster) and Orion D (the population that traces Ori OB1a, OB1b, and Orion X). We report on the distances, kinematics, and ages of the groups within the Complex. The Orion D group is in the process of expanding. On the other hand, Orion B is still in the process of contraction. In λ Ori the proper motions are consistent with a radial expansion due to an explosion from a supernova; the traceback age from the expansion exceeds the age of the youngest stars formed near the outer edges of the region, and their formation would have been triggered when they were halfway from the cluster center to their current positions. We also present a comparison between the parallax and proper-motion solutions obtained by Gaia DR2 and those obtained toward star-forming regions by the Very Long Baseline Array.


Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, carries a significant burden of communicable and noncommunicable diseases. The relative distribution of these is projected to shift by 2030. By 2012, 25 million people in the sub-region were living with HIV/AIDS, comprising 70.8% of the global disease burden. Regionally, cancer is an emerging public health problem. In 2008 there were 715 000 new cases and 542 000 cancer-related deaths in Africa. This is projected to nearly double by 2030 due to population growth and ageing, with 36% of cancers infection-related, twice the global average.


With the explosive increase in mobile apps, more and more threats migrate from traditional PC client to mobile device. Compared with traditional Win+Intel alliance in PC, Android+ARM alliance dominates in Mobile Internet, the apps replace the PC client software as the major target of malicious usage. In this paper, to improve the security status of current mobile apps, we propose a methodology to evaluate mobile apps based on cloud computing platform and data mining. We also present a prototype system named MobSafe to identify the mobile app's virulence or benignancy. Compared with traditional method, such as permission pattern based method, MobSafe combines the dynamic and static analysis methods to comprehensively evaluate an Android app. In the implementation, we adopt Android Security Evaluation Framework (ASEF) and Static Android Analysis Framework (SAAF), the two representative dynamic and static analysis methods, to evaluate the Android apps and estimate the total time needed to evaluate all the apps stored in one mobile app market. Based on the real trace from a commercial mobile app market called AppChina, we can collect the statistics of the number of active Android apps, the average number apps installed in one Android device, and the expanding ratio of mobile apps. As mobile app market serves as the main line of defence against mobile malwares, our evaluation results show that it is practical to use cloud computing platform and data mining to verify all stored apps routinely to filter out malware apps from mobile app markets. As the future work, MobSafe can extensively use machine learning to conduct automotive forensic analysis of mobile apps based on the generated multifaceted data in this stage.


Mafic rocks erupted during late Cenozoic extension near Las Vegas, Nevada, show temporal patterns of variation in Nd and Sr isotope ratios and in bulk chemistry. The patterns indicate that depths of magma generation were varying through time and that lithospheric mantle was partially replaced with asthenospheric mantle as extension proceeded. In alkalic rocks, {epsilon}{sub Nd} changed through time from {minus}9.1 (typical of lithospheric mantle in this area) before the onset of major (16 Ma) extension to +6.4 (typical of asthenospheric mantle) after extension (4.6 Ma). Near the end of the period of major extension (10-6 Ma), tholeiitic rocks erupted, the {epsilon}{sub Nd} of which ranged from {minus}10.1 to {minus}7.9; this indicates that the lithosphere had not thinned sufficiently by that time to bring asthenospheric mantle into the depth range of tholeiitic magma generation (33-50 km). The lithosphere in the Las Vegas area appears to have thinned by about 50%, less than would be predicted by the magnitude of upper crustal extension (a factor of 3 or 4), and indicative of a nonuniform lithospheric response to extension.


Based on the French experience of animal health defence groups (groupements de défense sanitaire), the author highlights the importance, for both Veterinary Services and livestock producers, of livestock producer health organisations acting as partners of the Veterinary Services to complement the actions of private veterinarians. Charged with the task of providing livestock producers with information and raising awareness of the health regulations, these organisations offer key support to Veterinary Services in carrying out regulatory prophylactic measures, monitoring their execution, supplementing public compensation measures, and even being delegated to manage all or part of such prophylactic measures. By designing and implementing plans, with the support of private veterinarians, to combat or control epizootics which have an economic or trade impact, and by participating in or carrying out animal identification and offering health and environmental services, these organisations help to improve herd health and support the livestock producing industry. Growing demand, from both European Union applicant members and countries to the south, shows that although the French experience is not transposable, it can serve as a useful example.


Abstract: The discovery of two Early Cretaceous (mid-Valanginian–mid-Aptian range) radiolarian faunal assemblages from ribbon-bedded cherts collected near Photoskar in northern Ladakh, NW India, provides the first robust biostratigraphic age constraints associated with the Spongtang massif. This klippe of relict Neotethyan suprasubduction-zone ophiolitic rocks and related arc volcanic rocks crops out 30 km south of the Indus suture in Ladakh. The radiolarian assemblages, the age assignment of which lies between published radiometric ages, provide new constraints on the evolution of this intra-oceanic island arc system. Critically, from them it can be inferred that the system was appreciably long-lived (Jurassic–Cretaceous) and more continuous than is commonly considered.


We introduce an architecture for robust and scalable quantum computation using both stationary qubits (e.g., single photon sources made out of trapped atoms, molecules, ions, quantum dots, or defect centers in solids) and flying qubits (e.g., photons). Our scheme solves some of the most pressing problems in existing nonhybrid proposals, which include the difficulty of scaling conventional stationary qubit approaches, and the lack of practical means for storing single photons in linear optics setups. We combine elements of two previous proposals for distributed quantum computing, namely the efficient photon-loss tolerant build up of cluster states by Barrett and Kok [Phys. Rev. A 71, 060310(R) (2005)] with the idea of repeat-until-success (RUS) quantum computing by Lim et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 030505 (2005)]. This idea can be used to perform eventually deterministic two qubit logic gates on spatially separated stationary qubits via photon pair measurements. Under nonideal conditions, where photon loss is a possibility, the resulting gates can still be used to build graph states for one-way quantum computing. In this paper, we describe the RUS method, present possible experimental realizations, and analyze the generation of graph states.


This paper presents an experimental study aimed at investigating interaction effects affecting personnel in manual assembly. The main experiment with 36 subjects used a mixed method design which included a quantitative study, including time and errors as dependent measures, and a qualitative study, including workload ratings and a questionnaire. The overall task in the experiment was to assemble components on a pedal car. The main factors involved were assembly information (text & component numbers or photographs), material presentation (using structured kits, unstructured kits and material racks) and component variation (situations with and without component variation). It was found that performance, measured in assembly time, was best when combining photographs with no component variants and when using an unstructured kit.


Traditional AI has not concerned itself extensively with sociology nor with what emotional reactions might be produced in its users. On the other hand, entertainment is very concerned indeed with these issues. AI and ALife programs which are to be used in entertainment must therefore be viewed both as AI/ALife endeavors and as psychological and sociological endeavors. This paper presents a brief description of Julia [Mauldin 94], an implemented software agent, and then examines the sociology of those who encounter her, using both transcripts of interactions with Julia, and direct interviews with users. Julia is designed to pass as human in restricted environments while being both entertaining and informative, and often elicits surprisingly intense emotional reactions in those who encounter her. An introduction to MUDs and Julia Julia [Mauldin 94] is a MUD [Curtis 92] [Bruckman 93] [Evard 93] robot. A MUD is a text-only, multiperson, virtual reality. [Mauldin 94], while describing Julia's internal structure, gives very little 'feel' for what it like to interact with her outside of the strictures of a formal Turing test; hence, transcripts of many interactions with her appear below as examples. (Since Julia adamantly insists that she is female, I refer to the program here as 'she'.)


This study seeks to examine the perceptions and knowledge of local residents on the effectiveness of local government in Iran within the context of the process of decentralization.
The study was based on qualitative and quantitative approaches. On the first, the study relied on published materials, both scholarly works and government data. On the, quantitative method, the study was based on a case study conducted in the Tehran City Council area.
Quantitative data were collected using a set of questionnaire that was established within the Tehran City Council area. A total of 462 responses were successfully collected from the respondents. In addition, interviews were also conducted with selected informants who comprised officials of the local authority in Tehran city.
The main findings of the study can be summarized as follows. Firstly, the study had discussed the development of local government as well as the process of decentralization in Iran and in particular the evolution of local government in Tehran city. Secondly, the study also discussed the structure and function of Tehran City Council, including discussing selected weakness in their structure and functions in relations to the delivery of services to the residents. Thirdly, the study also showed the low1 or negative level of perceptions among the respondents on the effectiveness of the functions of local government. The study also showed the weak relationship between the respondent's and the officials of local authority. Lastly, the study showed that there were several areas that can be enhanced in order to improve on the functions of local government in its effort to provide better services to its resident, namely the need to review rules and regulations regarding local government, training needs of personnel of local authority, and the need to provide more information for residents so that the latter are aware of the services that they can get from their local authority.


Only one third of older
breast cancer survivors (BCS) meet national physical activity (PA)
guidelines. Theories of self-regulation
and research with older adults suggest that executive function (EF) plays an
important role in PA, yet the impact of lower EF on older survivors' PA is
unknown. My project addressed this gap
using secondary data from the Thinking and Living with Cancer (TLC) cohort
study, which examined cognitive function among older BCS pre-treatment,
followed every 12 months, and contemporaneously assessed matched controls. My first aim was to test two hypotheses
regarding EF change and PA and determine if these relationships differ between
BCS and controls. My hypotheses were: 1)
EF decline from baseline to 12 months will predict lower PA at 24 months, and
2) lower PA at 12 months will predict EF decline from 12 to 24 months. My second aim was to explore whether the
effects of EF change on PA in BCS differed based on risk factors for
accelerated cognitive decline (i.e., older age, more advanced cancer stage,
comorbidity, and APOE e4 genotype).
The TLC study measured EF with neuropsychological tests and PA with the
International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Short Form. For aims 1 and 2, I used multiple regression
with multiple imputation. Primary
results showed no significant effect of EF change from baseline to 12 months on
PA at 24 months (β=-0.01, p=0.88) and no significant group (BCS vs. controls)
by EF interaction (β=-0.05, p=0.33).
Separate models in BCS and controls showed similar findings. In the entire sample, PA at 12 months
significantly predicted EF change from 12 to 24 months (β=0.17, p=0.01), but
there was no significant group by PA interaction (β=-0.06, p=0.54). Separate analyses by group found a
significant effect of PA for controls (β=0.07, p=0.02), but not for BCS
(β=0.05, p=0.27). Regarding the second
aim, there were no significant interactions between EF change and the proposed
risk factors on PA. Findings were
largely inconsistent with theory and prior research. Continued research in this area will inform
future exercise interventions to improve physical and cognitive health for the
growing population of older cancer survivors.


Antibacterial and antifungal agents are widely used in the management of infectious disease but most of them have developed resistance to micro-organism. To overcome this problem and to lower the side effects, many approaches can be utilized. Benzophenone derivatives are reported to have the broad spectrum of biological activities. In the present study we have screened benzophenone derivatives 5a-k against six bacterial species viz gram positive (Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus) and gram negative (Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella typhi, Proteus vulgaris, Shigella flexneri) bacteria. Also compounds 5a-k were tested with six fungal species viz (Candida albicans, Aspergillus niger, Fusarium solani, Aspergillus flavus, Botrytis cinerea, Candida krusei). The obtained results showed that the synthesized compounds 5a-k exhibited moderate to good activities against all the tested strains. Compounds 5a, 5c, 5d, 5f and 5g have shown good antibacterial and antifungal activities against selected strains.


Innovation is not just a technology, but it is rather a comprehensive vision of what the future should look like and which requires changes in many ambits. Innovation is driven by people's needs, ambitions and dreams, and it is necessary that people at different positions in the society change the way they work and live. Innovation, as a result of human interactions, often fails because people do not understand each other, as they belong to different worlds which have their own languages and cultures. While innovation system-like thinking recognizes that the needs are a good mix of factors for innovation, it is hard to establish the perfect mix beforehand: innovation systems and policies need to be adaptive" (Klerkx, Mierlo & Leeuwis 2012). I tried to bring this complex vision to our future. The actuality of the topic is provided by the fact that we are in the period of the development of digital industrial revolution, on the peak of the technology innovations, slowly resulting in the revolutions of the machines. These technological innovations, trends, equipment or new technological achievements often make our work easier, or they may replace us, and will bring changes transforming the world with them. At present era, the availability and use of the relevant knowledge is essential. In Western Europe and in other more developed countries different spaces provide places for evolving various trends, applying the acquired knowledge, e.g. development of Silicon Valley, polices, clusters, co-workings. These innovative spaces may form a bridge for evolving a global, international or regional technology and knowledge transfer, sharing our knowledge and developing our competitiveness. They may be the engine of a "new world". The entrepreneurship ecosystem in Debrecen was investigated regarding the presence of open innovation spaces. Though Debrecen has already had open innovation spaces, it does not have space operating as HUB. "HUB is a global platform, where people from all corners of the planet connect and engage in collaborative action to realize enterprising ideas for a better world" (HUB GMBH 2012). Furthermore, I studied the fact that why the creation of HUB in Debrecen is reasonable concerning every sector, and what characteristics this space may have. In order to analyze my hypotheses, I used questionnaires made by Delphi survey. During the process experts of this field were asked in two turns. Selecting the experts occurred on the basis of Helix model.


Axial suspension plasma spraying (ASPS) is a relatively new, innovative spraying technique which has produced thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) with attractive properties such as high durability and low thermal conductivity. Using a suspension, it is possible to spray with finer powder particles resulting in coatings that have a columnar microstructure and contain a wide range of pore sizes, both nm-and μm-sized pores. To optimize the thermal properties and to maintain them during service of the components, it will be important to design TBCs with optimal porosity. Hence, an important part in the assessment of ASPS coatings is therefore the characterization of the microstructure and how it is build up, and the determination of porosity. Both aspects are addressed by performing measurement on splats and ASPS-coating using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) technique and by measuring porosity by Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry (MIP).


This work was aimed at the detection of the differences in the occurrence of seven bee pathogens between bee colonies kept in commercial and traditional ways. The research was conducted on 120 apparently healthy, commercially kept colonies in DB hives and 24 traditionally kept colonies in primitive, so-called trmka hives on the Pester Plateau. Brood samples were taken from all colonies to assess the occurrence of bee brood disease agents (Paenibacillus larvae, Melissococcus plutonius, Ascosphaera apis and sacbrood virus – SBV) and adult bee pathogens (deformed wing virus – DWV, chronic bee paralysis virus – CBPV and acute bee paralysis virus – ABPV). PCR diagnostics was used in all cases, in compliance with the existing methods adopted by OIE. Concerning bee brood disease-causing agents, in commercial hives P. larvae (16.67% samples), A. apis (15.83%) and the SBV (96.67%) were confirmed, whilst in traditional hives, SBV was the only one detected (33.33%). M. plutonius was not found in any sample. As for adult bee diseases, in both commercial and traditional hives all of the three viruses were detected (DWV, ABPV, CBPV), but their occurrence in the former (100.00, 100.00 and 83.33%, respectively) was significantly (p<0.001) higher than in the latter (33.33% occurrence of each). No commercially kept colonies were free from all disease causes, while in the traditionally kept group there were 66.66% of such colonies. It can be concluded that the traditional way of beekeeping provides significantly better conditions for maintenance of bee health and their resistance to pathogens.


Background: Women between 12 and 50 years are in the reproductive age. The likelihood of or actual presence of pregnancy should be ruled out before they are exposed to medical ionizing radiation. Fetal exposure to ionizing radiation can either induce malformation (teratogenic) or cancer. They should be exposed only when it is safe for the fetus or when the benefit far outweighs the risk in urgent medical conditions. The radiation dose in medical imaging is generally below the threshold to induce malformation (100 mGy) in the fetus, but there is indeed no safe level as the risk of cancer induction later in life can occur at any dose. The referring physician must obtain the last menstrual period (LMP) and sometimes carry out pregnancy test before sending their patients for examinations using ionizing radiation. However, there are circumstances in which these rules are waived. Objective: The purpose of the study is to evaluate the role of the referring physician in the radiation protection of the fetus using the LMP. Subjects and Methods: This is a prospective study over a 2-month period. All the request forms of menstruating women aged 12-50 years sent for conventional radiography are included in the study. Results: One percent provided the LMP in the request forms. 0.6% (one) of our subjects was sure she is pregnant, but 13.7% (25) had an overdue menstruation. Conclusion: The level of compliance of the physicians with the referral guidelines for women of reproductive age is poor.


Background Despite the high HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men (MSM) in sub-Saharan Africa, little is known about their access to HIV services. This study assessed barriers and opportunities for expanding access to HIV services among MSM in Uganda. Methods In October-December 2013, a cross-sectional qualitative study was conducted in 12 districts of Uganda. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 85 self-identified MSM by snowball sampling and 61 key informants including HIV service providers and policy makers. Data were analysed using manifest content analysis and Atlas.ti software. Results Three quarters of the MSM (n = 62, 72.9%) were not comfortable disclosing their sexual orientation to providers and 69 (81.1%) felt providers did not respect MSM. Half (n = 44, 51.8%) experienced difficulties in accessing health services. Nine major barriers to access were identified, including: (i) unwelcoming provider behaviours; (ii) limited provider skills and knowledge; (iii) negative community perceptions towards MSM; (iv) fear of being exposed as MSM; (v) limited access to MSM-specific services; (vi) high mobility of MSM, (vii) lack of guidelines on MSM health services; viii) a harsh legal environment; and ix) HIV related stigma. Two-thirds (n = 56, 66%) participated in MSM social networks and 86% of these (48) received support from the networks to overcome barriers to accessing services. Conclusions Negative perceptions among providers and the community present barriers to service access among MSM. Guidelines, provider skills building and use of social networks for mobilization and service delivery could expand access to HIV services among MSM in Uganda.


The effect of the Antarctic ozone hole extends downward from the stratosphere, with clear signatures in surface weather patterns including a positive trend in the southern annular mode (SAM). Several recent studies have used coupled climate models to investigate the impact of these changes on Southern Ocean sea surface temperature (SST), notably motivated by the observed cooling from the late 1970s. Here we examine the robustness of these model results through comparison of both previously published and new simulations. We focus on the calculation of climate response functions (CRFs), transient responses to an instantaneous step change in ozone concentrations. The CRF for most models consists of a rapid cooling of SST followed by a slower warming trend. However, intermodel comparison reveals large uncertainties, such that even the sign of the impact of ozone depletion on historical SST, when reconstructed from the CRF, remains unconstrained. Comparison of these CRFs with SST responses to a hypothetical step change in the SAM, inferred through lagged linear regression, shows broadly similar results. Causes of uncertainty are explored by examining relationships between model climatologies and their CRFs. The intermodel spread in CRFs can be reproduced by varying a single subgrid-scale mixing parameter within a single model. Antarctic sea ice CRFs are also calculated: these do not generally exhibit the two-time-scale behavior of SST, suggesting a complex relationship between the two. Finally, by constraining model climatology–response relationships with observational values, we conclude that ozone depletion is unlikely to have been the primary driver of the observed SST cooling trend.


Recently, there has been a lot of interest in building compact models for video classification which have a small memory footprint (<1 GB). While these models are compact, they typically operate by repeated application of a small weight matrix to all the frames in a video. For example, recurrent neural network based methods compute a hidden state for every frame of the video using a recurrent weight matrix. Similarly, cluster-and-aggregate based methods such as NetVLAD have a learnable clustering matrix which is used to assign soft-clusters to every frame in the video. Since these models look at every frame in the video, the number of floating point operations (FLOPs) is still large even though the memory footprint is small. In this work, we focus on building compute-efficient video classification models which process fewer frames and hence have less number of FLOPs. Similar to memory efficient models, we use the idea of distillation albeit in a different setting. Specifically, in our case, a compute-heavy teacher which looks at all the frames in the video is used to train a compute-efficient student which looks at only a small fraction of frames in the video. This is in contrast to a typical memory efficient Teacher-Student setting, wherein both the teacher and the student look at all the frames in the video but the student has fewer parameters. Our work thus complements the research on memory efficient video classification. We do an extensive evaluation with three types of models for video classification, viz., (i) recurrent models (ii) cluster-and-aggregate models and (iii) memory-efficient cluster-and-aggregate models and show that in each of these cases, a see-it-all teacher can be used to train a compute efficient see-very-little student. Overall, we show that the proposed student network can reduce the inference time by 30% and the number of FLOPs by approximately 90% with a negligent drop in the performance.


We introduce the Gaussian Process Convolution Model (GPCM), a two-stage non-parametric generative procedure to model stationary signals as the convolution between a continuous-time white-noise process and a continuous-time linear filter drawn from Gaussian process. The GPCM is a continuous-time nonparametric-window moving average process and, conditionally, is itself a Gaussian process with a nonparametric kernel defined in a probabilistic fashion. The generative model can be equivalently considered in the frequency domain, where the power spectral density of the signal is specified using a Gaussian process. One of the main contributions of the paper is to develop a novel variational free-energy approach based on inter-domain inducing variables that efficiently learns the continuous-time linear filter and infers the driving white-noise process. In turn, this scheme provides closed-form probabilistic estimates of the covariance kernel and the noise-free signal both in denoising and prediction scenarios. Additionally, the variational inference procedure provides closed-form expressions for the approximate posterior of the spectral density given the observed data, leading to new Bayesian nonparametric approaches to spectrum estimation. The proposed GPCM is validated using synthetic and real-world signals.


This paper describes a single-mode optical fiber switch which routes individual signals into and out of a wavelength multiplexed data stream without interrupting the remaining channels. The switch uses free-space optical wavelength multiplexing and a column of micromechanical tilt-mirrors to switch 16 channels at 200 GHz spacing from 1531 to 1556 nm. The electrostatically actuated tilt mirrors use an 80 V peak-to-peak 300 KHz sinusoidal drive signal to switch between /spl plusmn/10/spl deg/ with a 20 /spl mu/s response. The total fiber-to-fiber insertion loss for the packaged switch is 5 dB for the passed signals and 8 dB for added and dropped signals, with 0.2 dB polarization dependence. Switching contrast was 30 dB or more for all 16 channels and all input and output states. We demonstrate operation by switching 622 Mb/s data on eight wavelength channels between the two input and output ports with negligible eye closure.


Nonwoven materials are used as filter media which are the key component of automotive filters such as air filters, oil filters, and fuel filters. Today, the advanced engine technologies require innovative filter media with higher performances. A virtual microstructure of the nonwoven filter medium, which has similar filter properties as the existing material, can be used to design new filter media from existing media. Nonwoven materials considered in this thesis prominently feature non-overlapping fibers, curved fibers, fibers with circular cross section, fibers of apparently infinite length, and fiber bundles. To this end, as part of this thesis, we extend the Altendorf-Jeulin individual fiber model to incorporate all the above mentioned features. The resulting novel stochastic 3D fiber model can generate geometries with good visual resemblance of real filter media. Furthermore, pressure drop, which is one of the important physical properties of the filter, simulated numerically on the computed tomography (CT) data of the real nonwoven material agrees well (with a relative error of 8%) with the pressure drop simulated in the generated microstructure realizations from our model.

Generally, filter properties for the CT data and generated microstructure realizations are computed using numerical simulations. Since numerical simulations require extensive system memory and computation time, it is important to find the representative domain size of the generated microstructure for a required filter property. As part of this thesis, simulation and a statistical approach are used to estimate the representative domain size of our microstructure model. Precisely, the representative domain size with respect to the packing density, the pore size distribution, and the pressure drop are considered. It turns out that the statistical approach can be used to estimate the representative domain size for the given property more precisely and using less generated microstructures than the purely simulation based approach.

Among the various properties of fibrous filter media, fiber thickness and orientation are important characteristics which should be considered in design and quality assurance of filter media. Automatic analysis of images from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is a suitable tool in that context. Yet, the accuracy of such image analysis tools cannot be judged based on images of real filter media since their true fiber thickness and orientation can never be known accurately. A solution is to employ synthetically generated models for evaluation. By combining our 3D fiber system model with simulation of the SEM imaging process, quantitative evaluation of the fiber thickness and orientation measurements becomes feasible. We evaluate the state-of-the-art automatic thickness and orientation estimation method that way.


As todays organizations are capturing exponentially larger amounts of data than ever, now is the time for organizations to rethink how they digest that data. Through advanced algorithms and analytics techniques, organizations can harness this data, discover hidden patterns, and use the newly acquired knowledge to achieve competitive advantages.Presenting the contributions of leading experts in their respective fields, Big Data: Algorithms, Analytics, and Applications bridges the gap between the vastness of Big Data and the appropriate computational methods for scientific and social discovery. It covers fundamental issues about Big Data, including efficient algorithmic methods to process data, better analytical strategies to digest data, and representative applications in diverse fields, such as medicine, science, and engineering. The book is organized into five main sections: Big Data Managementconsiders the research issues related to the management of Big Data, including indexing and scalability aspects Big Data Processingaddresses the problem of processing Big Data across a wide range of resource-intensive computational settings Big Data Stream Techniques and Algorithmsexplores research issues regarding the management and mining of Big Data in streaming environments Big Data Privacyfocuses on models, techniques, and algorithms for preserving Big Data privacy Big Data Applicationsillustrates practical applications of Big Data across several domains, including finance, multimedia tools, biometrics, and satellite Big Data processing Overall, the book reports on state-of-the-art studies and achievements in algorithms, analytics, and applications of Big Data. It provides readers with the basis for further efforts in this challenging scientific field that will play a leading role in next-generation database, data warehousing, data mining, and cloud computing research. It also explores related applications in diverse sectors, covering technologies for media/data communication, elastic media/data storage, cross-network media/data fusion, and SaaS.


The effect of alcohol hangover on cognitive processing has received little attention. We explored the effect of alcohol hangover on choice response time (RT), a dominant dependent variable (DV) in cognitive research. Prior research of the effect of hangover on RT has produced mixed findings; all studies reviewed relied exclusively on estimates of central tendency (e.g. mean RT), which has limited information value. Here we present novel analytical methods by going beyond mean RT analysis. Specifically, we examined performance in hangover conditions (n=31) across the whole RT distribution by fitting ex-Gaussian models to participant data, providing a formal description of the RT distribution. This analysis showed detriments to performance under hangover conditions at the slower end of the RT distribution and increased RT variance under hangover conditions. We also fitted an explicit mathematical process model of choice RT – the diffusion model – which estimates parameters reflecting psychologically-meaningful processes underlying choice RT. This analysis showed that hangover reduced information processing efficiency during response selection, and increased response caution; changes in these parameters reflect hangover affecting core decisional-components of RT performance. The implications of the data as well as the methods used for hangover research are discussed.


1. The food consumption of an animal. both at the individual and the population level, is an essential component for assessing the impact of that animal on its ecosystem. As such, measurements of the energy requirements of marine top-predators are extremely valuable as they can be used to estimate these food requirements.

2. The present study used heart rate to estimate the rate of energy expenditure of gentoo penguins during the breeding season. The average daily metabolic rate (ADMR) of penguins when one adult was necessarily present at the nest (incubating eggs or guarding small chicks; IG, 4.76 W kg(-1)) was significantly lower than that when both parents forage concurrently during the major period of chick growth (CR: 6.88 W kg(-1)).

3. The ADMR of a bird was found to be dependent on a number of factors, including the day within the breeding season and the percentage time that the bird spent foraging during that day.

4. When they were ashore, the estimated metabolic rate of IG birds (3.94 W kg(-1)) was significantly lower than that of CR birds (5.93 W kg(-1)). However, the estimated metabolic rates when the birds were at sea during these periods were essentially the same (8.58 W kg(-1)).

5. The heart rate recorded when the penguins were submerged (128 beats min(-1)) was significantly higher than that recorded from resting animals when ashore (89 beats min(-1)). However, it was lower than that recorded from birds that were swimming in a water channel (177 beats min(-1)). This might indicate that, although primarily aerobic in nature, there was an anaerobic component to metabolism during diving. An alternative interpretation is that the metabolic requirement during diving was lower than when the birds,were swimming with access to air.

6. There was a significant decline in abdominal temperature. from 38.8 degreesC at the start of a diving bout to 36.2 degreesC at the end, which may, indicate a reduction in overall metabolic rate during submersion. This in turn may explain the lowered heart rate.

7. In the present study. we have shown that the metabolic rate of the gentoo penguin varies during the breeding season. The relatively constant metabolic rate of the birds when at sea could represent an upper physiological limit that the birds are unable to exceed. If so, it will only be possible for the birds to increase foraging effort by diving more frequently and/or for longer periods thus reducing their foraging efficiency (the energy gained during foraging vs. energy spent gaining that food). During years when food is scarce, this reduction in foraging efficiency may have a profound influence on the reproductive productivity of the gentoo penguin.


Recent results indicate that the generic descriptors extracted from the convolutional neural networks are very powerful. This paper adds to the mounting evidence that this is indeed the case. We report on a series of experiments conducted for different recognition tasks using the publicly available code and model of the OverFeat network which was trained to perform object classification on ILSVRC13. We use features extracted from the OverFeat network as a generic image representation to tackle the diverse range of recognition tasks of object image classification, scene recognition, fine grained recognition, attribute detection and image retrieval applied to a diverse set of datasets. We selected these tasks and datasets as they gradually move further away from the original task and data the OverFeat network was trained to solve. Astonishingly, we report consistent superior results compared to the highly tuned state-of-the-art systems in all the visual classification tasks on various datasets. For instance retrieval it consistently outperforms low memory footprint methods except for sculptures dataset. The results are achieved using a linear SVM classifier (or L2 distance in case of retrieval) applied to a feature representation of size 4096 extracted from a layer in the net. The representations are further modified using simple augmentation techniques e.g. jittering. The results strongly suggest that features obtained from deep learning with convolutional nets should be the primary candidate in most visual recognition tasks.


An operating system (OS) of a user equipment (UE), such as a smartphone, supports various first-party and third-party application software. Many application software offer personalized user experience (UX) depending on user settings. A user may spend a considerable amount of time and effort downloading the application software and configuring their settings. The user, however, periodically replaces the smartphone, and often they download and configure the settings of various application software again on the new UE, same as they had done on the previous UE. This leads to a lengthy process of migrating from one UE to another. This publication describes methods the operating system (OS) uses to aid the user transfer various application software and their settings from one user equipment (UE) to another. As described herein, transferring may refer to copying or moving. To transfer the user's application software and their settings from one UE to another, the OS enables application software developers to implement a system-level application programming interface (API). In the case when an application software developer does not implement or support the OS's system-level API, the OS uses a machine-learning model that aids the user to configure the settings of a non-initialized application software in the new UE, the same way they had done using the previous UE.


Winner of the 1998 Lambda Literary Award for Photography and Visual ArtsIn 1985 photographer Robert Giard set out to create an archive of portraits of gay and lesbian writers from across the United States. The result is the most extensive photographic record of the gay and lesbian literary community ever undertaken. This book contains 182 of the more than 500 portraits Giard has made. The collection underscores the diversity of the gay population and encompasses a broad range of literary genres: fiction, poetry, drama, personal narrative, history, criticism, and political/activist statements. Taken as a whole, the portraits and excerpts encompass the many-faceted history of the gay/lesbian experience in the United States over the past seventy-five years.The book also features a foreword by Julia VanHaaften, Curator of Photographs at the New York Public Library; an introduction by Giard, "Self-Portrait of a Gay Reader"; an essay by Christopher Bram on gay writing; and an essay by Joan Nestle on lesbian writing.


Low Power consumption has become growing larger for communication systems and battery operated devices. These are laptop computers, multimedia products, and cell phones. For this battery operated devices, the energy consumption is a critical issue for design since it affect the batteries life. Thereby, the reduction of the energy consumption is become one of the most growing topics in the electronics industry and it is the most challenging areas of research. In the present time, modern design and technologies external testing become more difficult. Therefor built-in self-test has to rise as a sign of future excellence solution to the testing problem. BIST is a design for testability methodology to find out faulty elements in a system by incorporate test logic on-chip. A modern low power test pattern generator is using a linear feedback shift register (LFSR), called LP-TPG, is presented to reduce the average and peak power of a digital circuit during test. The test patterns generated by LPTPG are more than conventional LFSR. The objective of having intermediate patterns is to reduce the internal activities of primary inputs which decrease the switching activities in the circuit under test (CUT), and power consume. The irregular nature of the test patterns is holding on perfect. The area over the additional components to the LFSR is significant compared to the large circuit sizes. The experimental results are shown verify up to 63% and 20% reduction in average and peak power, respectively.


Ten years have passed since devolution was implemented for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This anniversary is worthy of note for all scholars of UK social welfare, not just those with a specialist interest in political reform or the 'Celtic' nations, because reflection on the first decade of devolution inspires a rethink of some of the basic working assumptions of social policy analysis (see below, also Mooney et al., 2006), for example the extent to which the notion of a UK welfare state remains meaningful (cf. McEwen and Parry, 2005). This themed section provides an opportunity to consider the impact of devolution on broader understandings of polity, policy and practice as well as pointing to further possible divergences in and across the UK. These are explored in relation to key areas of social welfare intervention in Scotland, focussing particularly on poverty, inequality and social justice; immigration and the experiences of labour migrants in rural areas; the use of private finance; key literature and useful sources.


Description: Tax policy has become a hotly disputed and politically dividing issue in the Czech Republic over the last years, culminating in a major public-finance reform. At the same time, risk and uncertainty have turned into a buzzword for virtually any discussion on economical and social topics, without actually being incorporated in most mainstream analytical tools. This research study undertakes the onerous task of addressing both of these problems. In its course, a stochastic model for the valuation of the fiscal claim is developed and used to analyze the incidence of tax under income uncertainty for a set of corporate and personal income tax schedules. This allows for a comprehensive comparative analysis of various fiscal structures, where an elaborate case is made of recent Czech legislative developments and their presumable impacts. Further applications of the model are also being discussed, ranging from business valuation and investment analysis to fiscal budgeting. This suggests that the option-based approach may serve as a useful heuristic to address numerous tax-related problems.


Abstract. The OGC® Web Processing Service (WPS) Interface Standard provides rules for standardizing inputs and outputs (requests and responses) for geospatial processing services, such as polygon overlay. The standard also defines how a client can request the execution of a process, and how the output from the process is handled. It defines an interface that facilitates publishing of geospatial processes and client discovery of processes and and binding to those processes into workflows. Data required by a WPS can be delivered across a network or they can be available at a server. PyWPS was one of the first implementations of OGC WPS on the server side. It is written in the Python programming language and it tries to connect to all existing tools for geospatial data analysis, available on the Python platform. During the last two years, the PyWPS development team has written a new version (called PyWPS-4) completely from scratch. The analysis of large raster datasets poses several technical issues in implementing the WPS standard. The data format has to be defined and validated on the server side and binary data have to be encoded using some numeric representation. Pulling raster data from remote servers introduces security risks, in addition, running several processes in parallel has to be possible, so that system resources are used efficiently while preserving security. Here we discuss these topics and illustrate some of the solutions adopted within the PyWPS implementation.


This thesis focuses on the route choice behavior of car drivers (uni-modal networks). More precisely, we are interested in identifying which route a given traveler would take to go from one location to another. For the analysis of this problem we use discrete choice models and disaggregate revealed preferences data. Route choice models play an important role in many transport applications, for example, intelligent transport systems, GPS navigation and transportation planning. The route choice problem is particularly difficult to analyze because it involves the modeling of choice behavior in large transportation networks. Several issues need to be addressed in order to obtain an operational model. First, trip observations in their original format rarely correspond to link-by-link descriptions of chosen paths and they therefore need to be matched to the network representation used by the modeler. This involves data processing that can introduce bias and errors. Second, the actual alternatives considered by the travelers are unknown to the analyst. Since there is a large, possibly infinite, number of feasible paths in the network, individual specific choice sets of paths need to be defined. Third, alternatives are often highly correlated due to physical overlap between the paths (shared links). Models with flexible correlation structure are complex to specify and to estimate. Simple models are therefore often used in practice even tough the associated assumptions about correlation are violated. Fourth, most route choice models assume that the decision is performed pre-trip. Their application in a context where drivers receive real-time information about traffic conditions is questionable. In this thesis we address each of the aforementioned issues. First, we propose a general modeling scheme that reconciles network-free data with a network based model so that the data processing related to map-matching is not anymore necessary. The framework allows the estimation of any existing route choice model based on original trip observations that are described as sequences of locations. We illustrate the approach with a real dataset of reported long distance trips in Switzerland. Second, a new paradigm for choice set generation in particular and route choice modeling in general is presented. Instead of focusing on finding alternatives actually considered by travelers, we propose an approach where we focus on obtaining unbiased parameter estimates. We present a stochastic path generation algorithm based on an importance sampling approach and derive the corresponding sampling correction to be added to the path utilities in the route choice model. This new paradigm also has implications on the way to describe correlation among alternatives. We argue that the correlation should be based not only on the sampled alternatives but also on the general network topology. Estimation results based on synthetic data are presented which clearly show the strength of the approach. Third, we propose an approach to capture correlation that allows the modeler to control the trade-off between the simplicity of the model and the level of realism. The key concept capturing correlation is called a subnetwork. The importance and originality of this approach lie in the possibility to capture the most important correlation without considerably increasing the model complexity. This makes it suitable for a wide spectrum of applications, namely involving large-scale networks. We illustrate the model with a GPS dataset collected in the Swedish city of Borlange. The final contribution of this thesis concerns adaptive route choice modeling in stochastic and time-dependent networks, as opposed to the static network setting assumed in existing models. Optimal adaptive routing problems have been studied in the literature but the estimation of such choice models based on disaggregate revealed preference data is a new area. We propose an estimator for a routing policy choice model and use synthetic data for illustration. Given the uncertainty related to travel times and traffic conditions in transportation networks, we believe that adaptive route choice modeling is an important direction for future research. To summarize, this thesis addresses issues related to data processing (network-free data approach), algorithms for choice set generation (sampling of alternatives) and models (subnetwork approach and adaptive route choice model). Moreover, we use real applications (Borlange GPS dataset and reported trips in Switzerland) to illustrate the models and algorithms.


As a former Portuguese colony, Macao is the only region in China where Cantonese, a variety of Chinese, and English, an international language, are enjoying de facto official statuses, with Putonghua being a quasi-official language and Portuguese being another official language. Recently, with an increasing number of Mainland Chinese students crossing the border to pursue their tertiary studies in Macao, the question as to how they cope with the complex sociolinguistic situation there is of great importance. The present study focuses on how Mainland students perceived Chinese-English code-mixing during their sojourn. It has been found that in the process of their adapting to Macao, the Mainland students' attitudes towards Chinese-English code-mixing shifted due to the influence of local flexible ideologies about multilingualism. Accordingly, they could strategically resort to Chinese-English code-mixing, a linguistic practice negatively perceived on the Mainland, to socialize with people of different linguistic backgrounds when sojourning in Macao. In this process a flexible cross-border identity was constructed.


In computer graphics, many traditional problems are now better handled by deep-learning based data-driven methods. In applications that operate on regular 2D domains, like image processing and computational photography, deep networks are state-of-the-art, beating dedicated hand-crafted methods by significant margins. More recently, other domains such as geometry processing, animation, video processing, and physical simulations have benefited from deep learning methods as well. The massive volume of research that has emerged in just a few years is often difficult to grasp for researchers new to this area. This tutorial gives an organized overview of core theory, practice, and graphics-related applications of deep learning.


Environmental agencies are interested in relating mortality to pollutants and possible environmental contributors such as temperature. The Gaussianity assumption is often violated when modeling this relationship due to asymmetry and then other regression models should be considered. The class of Birnbaum–Saunders models, especially their regression formulations, has received considerable attention in the statistical literature. These models have been applied successfully in different areas with an emphasis on engineering, environment, and medicine. A common simplification of these models is that statistical dependence is often not considered. In this paper, we propose and derive a time-dependent model based on a reparameterized Birnbaum–Saunders (RBS) asymmetric distribution that allows us to analyze data in terms of a time-varying conditional mean. In particular, it is a dynamic class of autoregressive moving average (ARMA) models with regressors and a conditional RBS distribution (RBSARMAX). By means of a Monte Carlo simulation study, the statistical performance of the new methodology is assessed, showing good results. The asymmetric RBSARMAX structure is applied to the modeling of mortality as a function of pollution and temperature over time with sensor-related data. This modeling provides strong evidence that the new ARMA formulation is a good alternative for dealing with temporal data, particularly related to mortality with regressors of environmental temperature and pollution.


The past few years have witnessed an explosive growth in the use of mobile devices as the enabling technology for accessing Internet based services, as well as for personal communication needs in networking environments. Most studies indicate that it is impossible to utilize strong cryptographic functions for implementing security protocols on mobile devices. Our work refutes this. Specifically, we present a performance analysis focused on the most commonly used cryptographic protocols for mobile applications and we proposed provably secure authentication protocol that is more efficient than any of the existing authentication protocol in the literature. The increasing progress in wireless mobile communication has attracted an important amount of attention on the security issue. To provide secure communication for mobile devices, authenticated protocol is an important primitive for establishing trusted connection. In this work, we focus on an important constraint of such devices – battery life – and examine how it is impacted by the use of security protocols. We believe such investigations to be an important first step toward addressing the challenges of energy-efficient security for battery-constrained systems. Our result shows that proposed authentication protocol provides a better security guarantee and incurs much less energy consumption than the existing authentication protocols. Finally, performance analysis will show that compared with existing authentication protocols, our proposed scheme is to be more simple, secure and efficient.


For many decades, the United States has been conducting an extraordinary natural experiment: Randomly assigned three-judge panels on courts of appeals produce extensive evidence of the effect of judicial ideology on judges' votes. If the political party of the appointing president is treated as a rough proxy for ideology, then it becomes possible to test three hypotheses: (a) a judge's votes, in ideologically contested areas, can be predicted by the party of the appointing president; (b) a judge's ideological tendency, in such areas, will be amplified if the panel has two other judges appointed by an appointing president of the same political party; and (c) a judge's ideological tendency, in such areas, will be dampened if the panel has no other judge appointed by an appointing president of the same political party. All three hypotheses are confirmed in many areas, including affirmative action, campaign finance, sex discrimination, sexual harassment, piercing the corporate veil, disability discrimination, race discrimination, and review of environmental regulations. An important implication is that panel composition has a strong effect on likely outcomes, thus creating extremely serious problems for the rule of law. Taken as a whole, the evidence suggests that judges frequently issue collegial concurrences, that is, concurrences produced by the unanimous views of the other judges on the panel, and that judges are subject to group polarization, by which groups of like-minded people go to extremes. Notably, all three hypotheses are rejected in the areas of federalism, criminal appeals, and takings of private property, because Republican and Democratic appointees vote essentially alike. In the areas of abortion and capital punishment, the first hypothesis is confirmed, but the second and third are rejected, because judges vote their convictions, and are not affected by the composition of the panel. Disaggregating the data by circuit allows courts of appeals to be ranked along an ideological spectrum; it also shows striking differences between Republican appointees and Democratic appointees on different circuits. Normative implications are briefly explored.


Roadside Theater is a populist theatre company. Refusing liberal elitism, activist vanguardism, and the authoritarian pseudo-populism of Donald Trump, Roadside works in grassroots partnerships that cross racial, political, and rural-urban lines. Combining theatre production, community organizing, and economic development, this work creates the conditions for residents of the Appalachian coalfields and neighbors nationwide to confront exploitative power structures and divisive culture wars, tell their own stories, build shared power and wealth, and create a future where "We Own What We Make."


This article reports the results of a project that examined student perceptions of the psychosocial learning environment in a distance education classroom. The study utilized a survey instrument, Distance Education Learning Environments Survey (DELES) that was distributed as a pre-test/post-test to three sections of the same course taught in three distinct formats: traditional classroom instruction, distance learning, and hybrid (partially on-line/partially face-to-face). The DELES survey is a web-based tool specifically designed to assess the learning environment using a standardized, validated instrument. At the beginning of the project, the DELES-Preferred was administered to the three pilot groups. It measures the perception of the "actual" environment, perceptions of the preferred environment, or the "ideal" learning environment of the students. In addition, a brief overview of the DELES instrument is described as well as the implications of the research project findings. Project results, based on the DELES administration, indicate that Instructor Support was rated highest by the students enrolled in the course taught in the traditional manner (4.68 mean) closely followed by the Hybrid course (4.66 mean) while the course taught totally at a distance averaged a 3.62 mean. However, Student Interaction and Collaboration averaged higher scores in the course taught in the Hybrid manner (4.23) followed by the traditional course (3.97) and then the distance course (3.12). Specific scales of Personal Relevance, Authentic Learning, Active Learning, Student Autonomy and Satisfaction (scale of affect) are further addressed in the article.


Pair production is a way to change a photon, a gamma particle, into matter or energy. It is found that if a photon of energy greater than 1.02 MeV strikes a foil containing a large number of protons, high Z, the photon disappears and in its place an electron-positron pair is formed. A position has the same mass as an electron, but the opposite charge, e + . It may be possible to utilize the photons of radiation and use the process of pair production to create useful energy. This conversion of radiation to energy would be inexpensive considering that radiation is readily available from a variety of sources.


If electrons are the lifeblood of a modern economy, copper makes up its blood vessels. In cables, wires, and contacts, copper is at the core of the electrical distribution system, from power stations to delicate electronics. As consumption has risen exponentially—reaching 17 million metric tons in 2012—miners have met the world9s demand for 10,000 years. But that might soon change. A group of resource specialists has taken the first shot at projecting how much more copper miners will wring from the planet. Results of their model, described this month, show that production peaks by about midcentury even if copper is more abundant than most geologists believe. That would drive prices sky-high, trigger increased recycling, and force inferior substitutes for copper on the marketplace.