This study deals with linguistic feedback (see Wiener/48, Fries/52 and Allwood/93) which falls within the domain of cultural description. Feedback can informally be described like this: when a speaker performs a linguistic action which requires a linguistic response from a receiver, the given response has an important function for the speaker. In the ideal case, the listener's response gives information to the speaker that the listener has perceived and understood the communicated content. However, the receiver can also signal that he/she has failed to hear or understand what has been said. As well as that, the receiver can ignore the speaker's action and initiate other actions or get involved in a different conversation. It has been noted, in particular, that if a speaker performs an action that requires a response, it is less certain whether both the speaker's performance and the receiver's responses will succeed. When a receiver does not give a coherent or clear response, then the sender sees that the receiver is experiencing some problem(s) that deserves to be dealt with. For this reason, there might be several alternatives which the sender can initiate, e.g., to abandon the attempt to get the listener's feedback, to misinterpret the answer, or to take the listener's response into account. By increasing awareness of the significance of feedback, we may hope to understand better problems in communication between cultures. The present study focuses on verbal feedback actions and discusses briefly non-verbal feedback actions. The following aspects are central in the study: I) Feedback expressions in spoken Arabic: Feedback turns and non-feedback turns. This subsection will include the following items: feedback consisting of a one-word utterance, complex feedback consisting of an utterance of more than one word, eliciting feedback, giving and eliciting feedback, self-feedback and nonfeedback turns II) The semantic and pragmatic analysis of feedback actions: Criteria for deciding the function of feedback III) Studies of six kinds of conversation and one form of communication, which give examples of feedback in spoken Arabic. This thesis deals also with sociolinguistic feedback and sociolinguistic variations will be described for each individual in conversation. These variations will be described with the help of tables and several selected examples from the data. These examples have to be connected with the main topic (feedback) and related to each social variant. A number of theoretical assumptions about FB and related studies which fall under the same linguistic phenomenon i.e., human response, and possibly have universal relevance, are presented. The need for further empirical research is expressed. The present work is divided into six chapters and based on live conversations recorded in Jeddah (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia).


Smartphone use in presentations is often seen as distracting to the audience and speaker. However, phones can encourage people participate more fully in what is going on around them and build stronger ties with their companions. In this paper, we describe a smartphone interface designed to help audience members engage fully in a presentation by providing real time mobile feedback. This feedback is then aggregated and reflected back to the group via a projected visualization, with notifications provided to the presenter and the audience on interesting feedback events. We deployed this system in a large enterprise meeting, and collected information about the attendees' experiences with it via surveys and interaction logs. Participants report that providing mobile feedback was convenient, helped them pay close attention to the presentation, and enabled them to feel connected with other audience members.


In the international negotiations aimed at reaching an agreement to reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions that are driving global warming, the developed and developing countries are talking past each other. The developed world is speaking the language of efficiency, while the developing world speaks the language of justice. Economic theory and the concept of efficiency are fine for answering the question of who should reduce, but that is not the contentious issue. When it comes to the hotly contested issue of who should pay, economic theory offers no guidance, and the developing world is right to insist that we look to principles of justice. This Article considers three kinds of approaches to the who-should- pay question: 1) those that take status quo emissions levels as their starting point; 2) those that allocate emissions rights on a per capita basis; and 3) those that allocate the costs of emissions reductions on the basis of ability to pay. The Article then considers three possible models for conceptualizing the who-should-pay question in light of widely shared principles of justice: 1) the property model views it as a problem of dividing and allocating a commonly held property right—the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb greenhouse gases; 2) the tort model views it as a question of how to allocate costs when one party causes injury to another; and 3) the tax model views it as a situation in which a group of persons or entities are all engaged in a common enterprise to promote the common good and must allocate the costs of that enterprise. The Article evaluates each of the three approaches to the who-should-pay question under each of these three models of justice, and concludes that the per capita approach is the clear winner. It comports best with the property and tort models of justice, and with respect to the tax model, it comes in a close second. A rough calculation reveals that, if a per capita approach is indeed the most just, then the recent proposals by developing countries that the developed countries each contribute 1% of their gross domestic product to adaptation and mitigation efforts in the developing world is quite reasonable, perhaps even a bargain. Finally, the Article considers and responds to several counterarguments against the per capita approach.


Australia's foreign investment regime arguably has four primary objectives. Its purpose is to: facilitate the flow of inbound foreign investment; screen investment for its potential to damage the Australian national interest; reassure the Australian people that foreign investment is consistent with the national interest; educate foreign investors about Australian laws, regulations, and community standards. This paper uses a strategic framework developed by Moore (1995) at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government to assess whether Australia's foreign investment regime is delivering on its four main objectives. We ask if the regime could offer greater public value to the Australian people were changes to be made to its structure and operation. We conclude that the foreign investment regime is very far from dysfunctional. We argue, however, that more public value may accrue from bringing the regime into line with accepted principles of good governance. We also propose that additional value may be generated by creating a specialist body to educate foreign investors and provide them with ongoing assistance in adjusting to the Australian environment. We suggest that these responsibilities could, in the alternative, be readily assigned to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade consistent with its existing mandate.


This study was carried out to localize/ identify the loci and genes responsible for causing retinal dystrophies in the Pakistani population. For this, a number of large inbred families as well as a large number of patients suffering from Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), cone-rod dystrophy (CRD) and retinitis . pigmentosa (RP) were collected with informed consent and screened for disease causing mutations.

The families were initially screened for all the known retinal dystrophy loci. Following the exclusion of all the known loci, a genome wide search was carried out using polymorphic microsatellite markers. For gene identification, databases were searched for candidate genes within the critical disease interval. For mutation detection in the retinal dystrophy panel, single stranded conformational polymorphism (SSCP) and denaturing high performance liquid chromatography (DHPLC) were carried out. Direct sequencing was performed to find out the disease causing mutation in the genes. The results are as follows.

During screening for the known retinal dystrophy loci, three families (3330RP, 111RP and 010LCA) were found to be linked at the CRB1 gene locus on chromosome 1 q31-32.1. Among these, two families were suffering from arRP with para-arteriolar preservation of retinal pigment epithelium (PPRPE) and one family with LCA. Sequencing analysis of the CRB1 gene revealed three novel disease-causing mutations. In the 3330RP family a homozygous G to A substitution was found at codon 846 in exon 7. This mutation replaced glycine with an arginine residue. Another T to C substitution at codon 1116 in exon 9 changed leucine with a proline in the 111 RP family. Family 010LCA had a homozygous T to C substitution at codon 989 that changed isoleucine with a threonine residue.

Another LCA family (011 LCA) was found to be linked to chromosome 17p13.1. Mutation screening of the AIPL1 gene (present on 17p13.1) revealed a homozygous C to A transversion at codon 116 in exon 2. This mutation changed the amino acid threonine with asparagine.

Two other families (1 CRD and 4CRD) suffering from CRD were observed to be linked to chromosome 14q11. This region of the chromosome harbors the RPGRIP1 gene. The RPGRIP1 gene has previously been reported to cause LCA. Mutation screening revealed a homozygous G to T point mutation in exon 16 (Arg827leu) in the 1 CRD family. Sequencing of the 4CRD family showed a homozygous G to T substitution in exon 13 (Ala547Ser).

This is the first report showing the involvement of RPGRIP1 gene mutation in the pathogenesis of CRD.

Linkage analysis of three arRP families (442RP, 452RP and 336RP) showed significant linkage with markers D8S285 and D8S1815. This locus contains the RP1 gene that has previously been reported to be associated with autosomal dominant RP. Sequencing analysis of the RP1 gene for 442RP and 452RP revealed a homozygous C to T substitution at nucleotide 1118 (Thr373lle). Another homozygous 4bp insertion (1461-1465insTGAA) was found in exon 4 in the 336RP family. This insertion produced a stop codon (TGA) immediately after codon 1461, resulting in the synthesis of a truncated protein of 487 amino acids instead of 2156 amino acids.

A panel of 150 patients was also screened for mutations in the RP1 gene. A heterozygous G to A substitution was found in exon 4 in one patient. This mutation replaced alanine with a threonine at codon 699. These results showed the involvement of the RP1 gene in the pathology of autosomal recessive RP.

The Semaphorin (SEMA4A) gene has been reported to cause severe retinal degeneration in a mouse model. To find out the association of human SEMA4A gene with retinal dystrophies, SSCP analysis was carried out using a panel of 190 patients. Sequencing analysis of the variant bands from SSCP gels revealed two compound heterozygous mutations in two patients with RP and two patients with CRD. These mutations were Asp345His and Phe350Cys. Both the mutations were found to segregate together in all the patients. The parents were heterozygous for each of the two mutations. This suggests that in the autosomal recessive mode of inheritance a single mutation does not lead to the disease state.

Another disease causing mutation was identified in three RP and one LCA patient. This heterozygous G to A mutation was found to change the codon for arginine with that of glutamine (Arg713Gln) suggesting autosomal dominant mode of inheritance. This mutation was not found in the 100 normal control subjects. This is the first report of the involvement of the SEMA4A gene in the pathogenesis of retinal dystrophies in humans.


Composites of calcinated bovine bone derived hydroxyapatite (BHA) doped 0.5 and 1 wt% CaF2 were prepared by sintering. The production of BHA from natural sources is preferred due to money and time saving reasons. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction analysis together with measurements of density and compression strength were carried out in the produced samples. The experimental results indicated that compression strength of the composites increase when sintering temperature increases. The best compression strength was achieved after sintering at 1200°C for 0.5% CaF2 addition. The results are in agreement with densification measurements and microstructure analysis. With regards to the amount of CaF2, the results indicate that small additions of F, lower than 0.5%, can further improve the mechanical properties of HA.


Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France. Volume 1: The Clerical Establishment and its Social Ramifications; Volume 2: The Religion of the People and the Politics of Religion. By John McManners. [The Oxford History of the Christian Church.] (New York: Oxford University Press. 1998. Pp. xviii, 817; xiv, 866. $155.00, $165.00 clothbound; $49.95, $45.00 paperback.) The British are renowned travelers. An innate sense of curiosity seems to take them to every possible place on earth, to visit, to observe, and to report. These travel stories have taken many shapes from Dr. Burney's European musical journeys to A Year in Provence, but they share a common perspective: a keen attention to the details, especially the whimsical ones, and a slightly amused way of describing their experience. This view, I suspect, has also influenced British historians, who have with the same flair visited the past and come back with reports that are both comprehensive and entertaining. Since his 1960 dissertation, dedicated to the city of Angers in the eighteenth century, John McManners has proven himself to be the master of this type of historical exploration. With his deep attachment to the Ancien Regime tempered by a very British sense of humor, the future Regius Professor of ecclesiastical history at Oxford gave us the most readable work of social history. The book under scrutiny, written after his retirement from teaching, represents the magnum opus that many academics dream of, but few actually produce. Its well-filled 1700 pages present a complete survey of the French church from Louis XIV's reign to the eve of the French Revolution. Divided into two volumes available separately, it presents successively the clerical establishment (vol. 1) and religious life and politics (vol. 2). In exactly fifty chapters the author offers a complete, up-to-date, and precise description of every aspect of the life of the French church: three chapters on the bishops, three on the parish priests, two on canons and chapters, four on male and female religious orders, preceded by five on Church and State, and followed by a last one on "the Art of Obtaining a Benefice," constitute the first volume. In the second one, nine chapters cover religious practice, including "The Dark Side of the Supernatural" (chap. 30), followed by four very engrossing studies of clerical interventions on moral issues: usury, sexuality, and entertainment. More political, the second part of the book describes the Jansenist conflict that followed the crisis of Unigenitus and the relations of the established church with religious minorities, Protestants and Jews. Entitled "The Crisis of the Ancien Regime," the final three chapters analyze the situation that represented the prodromes to the French Revolution: the political role of the Jansenists, of the bishops, and of the cures. Being a professional historian and a devoted admirer of John McManners, I must confess that long before being asked to review this book I had bought it. …


Inference of demographic history from genetic data is a primary goal of population genetics of model and nonmodel organisms. Whole genome-based approaches such as the pairwise/multiple sequentially Markovian coalescent methods use genomic data from one to four individuals to infer the demographic history of an entire population, while site frequency spectrum (SFS)-based methods use the distribution of allele frequencies in a sample to reconstruct the same historical events. Although both methods are extensively used in empirical studies and perform well on data simulated under simple models, there have been only limited comparisons of them in more complex and realistic settings. Here we use published demographic models based on data from three human populations (Yoruba, descendants of northwest-Europeans, and Han Chinese) as an empirical test case to study the behavior of both inference procedures. We find that several of the demographic histories inferred by the whole genome-based methods do not predict the genome-wide distribution of heterozygosity, nor do they predict the empirical SFS. However, using simulated data, we also find that the whole genome methods can reconstruct the complex demographic models inferred by SFS-based methods, suggesting that the discordant patterns of genetic variation are not attributable to a lack of statistical power, but may reflect unmodeled complexities in the underlying demography. More generally, our findings indicate that demographic inference from a small number of genomes, routine in genomic studies of nonmodel organisms, should be interpreted cautiously, as these models cannot recapitulate other summaries of the data.


Cytotoxic lymphocyte (CTL) responses are not usually generated during primary mixed leukocyte culture (MLC) with H-2 identical cells. Thus NZB mice are unusual in that their spleen cells do mount CTL responses during primary MLC with H-2d identical stimulator cells; the predominant target antigen for these NZB responses is Qa-1b. Considering the numerous immunoregulatory defects in NZB mice, we postulated that these NZB anti-Qa-1 primary CTL responses were due to an abnormality in T suppressor cell activity. Cellular interactions capable of suppressing NZB anti-Qa-1 primary CTL responses were investigated by using one-way and two-way MLC with spleen cells from NZB mice and other H-2d strains. Although H-2d identical one-way MLC with the use of NZB responders resulted in substantial CTL responses, only minimal CTL responses were detected from two-way MLC with the use of NZB spleen cells plus nonirradiated spleen cells from other H-2d mice. Thus the presence of non-NZB spleen cells in the two-way H-2d identical MLC prevented the generation of NZB CTL. Noncytotoxic mechanisms were implicated in the suppression of the NZB CTL responses during two-way MLC, because only minimal CTL activity was generated when NZB spleen cells were cultured with semiallogeneic, H-2d identical (e.g., NZB X BALB) F1 spleen cells. The observed suppression could be abrogated with as little as 100 rad gamma-irradiation to the non-NZB spleen cells. The phenotype of these highly radiosensitive spleen cells was Thy-1+, Lyt-1+, Lyt-2-, L3T4+. The functional presence of these cells in the spleens of semiallogeneic, H-2d identical F1 mice indicated that their deficiency in NZB mice was a recessive trait. These data suggest that NZB mice lack an L3T4+ cell present in the spleens of normal mice that is capable of suppressing primary anti-Qa-1 CTL responses. This model system should facilitate additional investigations of the cellular interactions and immunoregulatory mechanisms responsible for controlling primary CTL responses against non-H-2K/D class I alloantigens. The model may also provide insight into the immunoregulatory defects of autoimmune NZB mice.


In Nature, despite the diversity of materials, patterns and structural designs, the majority of biomineralized systems share a common feature: the incorporation of multiple sets of discrete elements across different length scales. This paper is the first to assess whether the design features observed in the hexactinellid sea sponge Euplectella aspergillum can be transferred and implemented for the development of new structurally efficient engineering architectures manufactured by three-dimensional (3D) additive manufacturing (AM). We present an investigation into the design and survival strategies found in the biological system and evaluate their translation into a scaled engineering analogue assessed experimentally and through finite-element (FE) simulations. Discrete sections of the skeletal lattice were evaluated and tested in an in situ compression fixture using micro-computed tomography (μCT). This methodology permitted the characterization of the hierarchical organization of the siliceous skeleton; a multi-layered arrangement with a fusion between struts to improve the local energy-absorbing capabilities. It was observed that the irregular overlapping architecture of spicule–nodal point sub-structure offers unique improvements in the global strength and stiffness of the structure. The 3D data arising from the μCT of the skeleton were used to create accurate FE models and replication through 3D AM. The printed struts in the engineering analogue were homogeneous, comprising bonded ceramic granular particles (10–100 µm) with an outer epoxy infused shell. In these specimens, the compressive response of the sample was expected to be dynamic and catastrophic, but while the specimens showed a similar initiation and propagation failure pattern to E. aspergillum, the macroscopic deformation behaviour was altered from the expected predominantly brittle behaviour to a more damage tolerant quasi-brittle failure mode. In addition, the FE simulation of the printed construct predicted the same global failure response (initiation location and propagation directionality) as observed in E. aspergillum. The ability to mimic directly the complex material construction and design features in E. aspergillum is currently beyond the latest advances in AM. However, while acknowledging the material-dominated limitations, the results presented here highlight the considerable potential of direct mimicry of biomineralized lattice architectures as future light-weight damage tolerant composite structures.


There are inevitable variations in the signature patterns written by the same person. The variations can occur in the shape or in the relative positions of the characteristic features. For the set of training signature samples, two approaches are proposed. One approach measures the positional variations of the one-dimension projection profiles of the signature patterns, while the other determines the statistical variations in relative stroke positions of the two-dimensional signature patterns. Given a signature to be verified, the positional displacements are determined and the authenticity is decided based on the statistics of the training samples. A matrix estimation technique is also proposed to obtain a better estimation of the covariance matrix for dissimilarity computation. Results show that the proposed systems compare favorably with other methods.


What should be done about rising income and wealth inequality? Should the design and adoption of legal rules take into account their effects on the distribution of income and wealth? Or should the tax-and-transfer system be the exclusive means to address concerns about inequality? A widely-held view argues for the latter: only the tax system, and not the legal system, should be used to redistribute income. While this argument comes in a variety of normative arguments and has support across the political spectrum, there is also a well-known law-and-economics version. This argument, known as the "double-distortion" argument, is simply stated. Legal rules that redistribute income only add to the economic distortions that are already present in the tax system. It would therefore be better for everyone, and especially the poor, to instead adopt an efficient, nonredistributive legal rule, and increase redistribution through the tax system.This Article challenges the double-distortion argument from a law-and-economics perspective. There are two main arguments, in addition to several other subsidiary points. First, in the abstract, there is no reason to believe that legal rules that have redistributive effects will always reduce efficiency; indeed, they can sometimes increase efficiency. Examples from the regulation of product markets, labor markets, and financial markets underscore this claim. In these cases, legal redistribution is more efficient than redistribution through the tax system. Second, legal rules are likely to be more attractive than taxation precisely in cases where inequality itself or normative concerns about inequality is high. Under the optimal tax policy, higher inequality or greater concern about inequality will justify larger tax distortions. Therefore, a particular legal rule is more likely to be more efficient than the optimal tax policy under these circumstances. The ultimate conclusion is that a mix of legal rules and taxation, rather than taxation exclusively, will be the best way to address economic inequality.


Security is an essential entity to any software application. The most famous
threat to any software application is unauthorized updating and deleting of the
application and data. Characteristics of a software application that could contribute to
the degree of security concerns are accessibility, forgery, vulnerability and density. If
the software application contains most of these characteristics, the more vulnerable it
would be to any security threats. Thus, a web application being an open application
and contains all of the characteristics faces the most degree of security concern and
open to all possibility security threats such as hacker, eavesdropping and spooling. A
security system that would secure the web application from most of the security
threats is crucially needed. The findings of this research is in the form of a prototype of a security system
specifically for a web application. The web application that it secures is a knowledge
application. The prototype is called SecureApp. It is developed by using Microsoft
Visual Basic as its development tool and Microsoft Access as its database package.
SecureApp consists of two main applications which are User Identification and
Security Administration. These applications follow a predetermined security policy
developed to protect the web application. Theory of encryption is used in its design
and development for both applications especially to secure the passwords.
SecureApp gives solution to the problem of securing a web application from any
unauthorized users and other threats. The Security Administration application would
allow the Security Administrator to monitor and detect any users who tries to b reach
the security policy of the web application. Whereas, the User Identification application
would secure the web application and ensure that the security policy of the web
application is not breached.


Armoring involves the placement of erosion resistant materials (e.g., large rocks and boulders, cement, pilings, and large woody debris) or the use of bioengineering techniques along shorelines, streambanks, or in other areas of high flow velocities and/or wave-tidal energy to reduce or eliminate erosion of natural shorelines and risk to human infrastructure. Unfortunately, altering the physical conditions of the streambank or shoreline through armoring, or bank stabilization, can radically alter the local characteristics of natural habitats and may influence the habitat for some distance surrounding the structure. Bank stabilization also affects natural channel processes that are essential to habitat creation and maintenance. As a result, the ecological functions of the impacted area can be altered, including the use of these habitats by fish, macroinvertebrates, birds, and other organisms. Conceptual models are used to organize available information relative to ecosystem impacts. This conceptual model and accompanying text outline relationships between shoreline modification techniques; the physical, chemical, and biological processes and functions of freshwater systems; and the potential impacts to salmonid fitness at both large (reach level) and small (site level) scales. Particular emphasis is placed on the evaluation of effects on salmonid species and their essential habitat.


Since the last few years, archaeologists have the opportunity to use a very powerful tool in order to detect archaeological structures located in forest terrain : the airborne LiDAR. A Laser beam, emitted from an airplane, partially goes through the vegetation and is reflected on the ground. A measure of the time necessary for the light signal to return to the source allows then, knowing precisely the position of the transmitter, to reconstruct the relief very accurately.
The cost of this tool tends to decrease, and it is now used in almost all the research programs dealing with archaeology when at least a part of the studied area is located under the vegetation.
Resorting to the LiDAR yields a huge quantity of data, constituted of clouds made of millions of points from which it is necessary to extract the relevant information. A manual processing of these data is then boring, time consuming, and even sometimes impossible: the automation of the detection process becomes necessary.

The presented work deals with the process of automatic detection of archaeological structures. It is applied to former agricultural constructions, built from the medieval to the modern period. They can be found in very high densities in some places in Auvergne. These structures have been chosen to test the process of automatic detection because they are particularly delicate to treat: they are indeed very variable in forms, appearing sometimes isolated, sometimes in group and they are characterised by small relief variations very difficult to detect among the global relief.

The process presented uses the associated potentiality of Scilab and a Geographic Information System software. At first, the point cloud is interpolated in order to obtain a Digital Terrain Model (DTM). This DTM is then smoothed, by a moving average filter, in order to erase the abrupt relief variations, generally from anthropogenic origin: the macro relief is then highlighted. It's then removed from the initial data, so that only the micro relief becomes visible. We thus obtain a Local Relief Model (LRM) in 2D ½.. An algorithm of automatic recognition allows then to detect the structures, to classify them, to extract their geometrical characteristics and to create a database in a totally automated way.


On October 11, 2006, Britain's highest court, the House of Lords, issued a blockbuster ruling that completely changed the landscape of libel law and press freedoms in the United Kingdom. The Times of London described the case, Jameel v. Wall Street Journal, as, "a judgment that lawyers predict will usher in a new era of journalism." Given England's reputation as an attractive jurisdiction for defamation plaintiffs and a frequent destination for "libel tourism," this case is likely to alter the environment for serious political journalism throughout Europe and North America. This article carefully describes the case, including its key holdings and the important changes that it makes to traditional British libel law. It then goes on to analyze the doctrine of qualified privilege that emerges from the decision and to compare it to the constitutional protections from defamation liability that have been developed in the United States beginning with the U.S. Supreme Court case of New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964. The critical role that the fourth estate rationale plays in both approaches is discussed. Important differences in both the doctrinal definition of protected speech and the mechanism of protection employed in England and the United States are recognized and evaluated. Fundamental trade-offs inherent in the crafting of special protection from defamation liability for highly-valued speech are identified and applied to the approaches adopted in the United States and in Jameel. Finally, the article offers some suggestions on the likely future development of the qualified privilege doctrine in Great Britain.


Understanding the effects of climate change on planktonic ecosystems requires the synthesis of large, diverse data sets of variables that often interact in nonlinear ways. One fruitful approach to this synthesis is the use of numerical models. Here, we describe how models have been used to gain understanding of the physical-biological couplings leading to decadal changes in the southern California Current ecosystem. Moving from basin scales to local scales, we show how atmospheric, physical oceanographic, and biological dynamics interact to create long-term fluctuations in the dynamics of the California Current ecosystem.


A significant amount of research has been done in an attempt to improve the outcomes of patients found in cardiac arrest outside the hospital. The American Heart Association has long advocated Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS), a procedure that encompasses cycles of chest compressions with advanced airway maintenance and defibrillation. Recent evidence has suggested that these current guidelines are ineffective due to prolonged "hands off" time. New research suggests utilizing a technique known as continuous chest compression CPR that delays advanced airway management and instead focuses on defibrillation and continuous chest compressions. Across the country, research has demonstrated that when EMS providers utilize this technique and have support from the receiving hospital, survival to hospital discharge rates have increased from 4.7% (using standard ACLS) to 17.6% (with the new technique). The Newark (OH) Fire Department protocols were modified to implement continuous chest compression CPR for the care of patients in cardiac arrest. The present research analyzes quality improvement (QI) / quality assurance (QA) data from this fire department to determine how the change in protocol affected patient outcome. The results of this study suggest that patient outcome is not related to the type of cardiac arrest treatment provided by EMS. AN ANALYSIS OF CONTINUOUS 3 An Analysis of Continuous Chest Compression CPR for EMS Providers During Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest


Current implementations of high-latency anonymous communication systems are based on pool mixes. These tools act as routers that apply a random delay to the messages traversing them, making it hard for an eavesdropper to guess the correspondences between incoming and outgoing messages. This hides the identities of communicating partners in the network, but it does not prevent an adversary continuously monitoring the network from unveiling the communication profiles of the users. In this paper, we tackle the problem of designing the delay characteristic of pool mixes so as to maximize the protection of the users against profiling attacks. First, we propose a theoretical model for users' sending behavior which we validate using three real data sets of a different nature. Then, we use this model to perform a privacy analysis of the system and obtain the delay function of the mix, which is optimal in the sense of protecting the users. Since computing the delay characteristic of this optimal pool mix requires information about the users' behavior, we also propose a user-independent but less effective mix design. We evaluate these pool mixes, comparing them with one of the most studied existing designs, the binomial pool mix. Our experiments show that an adversary against our optimal design may need up to 30 times as long to achieve the same level of disclosure as for a binomial pool mix.


The rapid growth in the use of smart phones and respective mobile applications has created new ways for the tourism industry to connect with their visitors while travelling. This paper proposes a taxonomy of mobile apps in tourism from two perspectives: a taxonomy on what services travel-related apps provide to the user and a taxonomy based on the level of customization the user has with the mobile application. The taxonomies provide insights into app development trends as well as gaps in the mobile app landscape. Understanding the opportunities currently provided by apps is also critical from a marketing perspective.


Targeting breadth is defined as the number of consumer interests that an ad network uses to form the set of potential advertisers who compete for an ad impression to a consumer in the context of display advertising. Despite its relevance and importance to display ad platforms, the impact and optimal design of targeting breadth remain largely unexplored. We develop an integrated model of decisions made by consumers, advertisers, and the platform, where advertisers' bids are characterized by the mean field equilibrium. Using a proprietary dataset obtained from a large ad platform that comprises of 1.26 million ad impressions over 56,000 unique ads from 4,400 consumers over six weeks, we estimate model parameters, draw insights, and configure the optimal targeting breadth to improve the platform's ad revenue. Counterfactual experiments indicate that both click-through rate (CTR) and cost-per-click (CPC) first increase and then decrease, when a broader targeting is used in ad serving. The inverted-U shaped effect of targeting breadth on CTR is because a broader targeting tends to serve more ads that are less relevant to consumers (which decreases CTR), but also from different product categories and therefore alleviate the negative spillovers from the highly similar ads delivered simultaneously (which increases CTR). For CPC, the non-monotonic effect is driven by the increased competition (which increases CPC) and the lower match value of targeted audience (which decreases CPC) under a broader targeting. Moreover, the platform's revenue can be improved by 9.2% if optimizing the targeting breadth uniformly and by another increase of 6.8% if setting the targeting breadth individually.


When the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was created in 2001, the world responded enthusiastically. In the ensuing decade, wealthy countries and donors have poured more than $11 billion into fighting these three diseases. But an increasing chorus of global health experts believes the world has been ignoring another health crisis of equal or even greater magnitude: the spiraling epidemic of noncommunicable diseases. Long the scourge of Western nations, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and respiratory diseases like asthma now kill more people worldwide than all other causes combined. And the trend will only accelerate as the global population ages and sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy food become more common around the world.


Work plays a central role in the lives of many people, and thus the impact of occupational stress is an important issue both for individual employees or professionals and the organizations in which they work. Stress experienced at work can have adverse outcomes for the well-being of individuals and organization as whole. Stressors have a major influence upon mood, our sense of well-being, behaviour, and health. The present study focuses on measuring the effect of physical, psychological and behavioural stress outcome on job performance of women doctors. Primary data were collected for the study from 231 women doctors working at various government hospitals and private hospitals in Coimbatore through a structured questionnaire. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to analyse the effect of stress outcomes on job performance of women doctors. The study found that psychological and behavioural stress outcomes have a significant direct effect on the job performance, whereas physical stress outcome does not have a direct effect but it has an indirect effect through psychological and behavioural stress outcomes on women doctors' performance.


Two dimensional (2D) temperature and concentration distribution is related to the combustion structure, the combustor efficiency in engines, burners, gas turbines and so on. Recently, tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) as a multi-species measurement technique with high sensitivity and high response has been developed and applied to industrial process monitoring and control technologies in combustion environments. With these engineering developments, transient phenomena such as start-ups and load changes in engines have been gradually elucidated in various conditions. This paper discusses a study of the fast response 2D temperature distribution measurement method based on the combination of TDLAS and Computed Tomographic (CT) reconstruction using absorption spectra of water vapor at 1388nm. The computed tomography tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (CTTDLAS) method was appliedtoengine exhausts for 2D temperature distribution measurements. The measured 2D temperature showed better characteristics compared with the temperature measured by a thermocouple. Theoretical H2O absorption spectra in the 1388 nm near-infrared region calculated by the revised HITRAN database were used for temperature measurement. For accurate measurement of temperature in combustion gases, the spectroscopic databases were modified using experimentally measured spectral parameters that are not found in the databases. Accuracy of temperature measurement using TDLAS have also been discussed to demonstrate its applicability to various types of combustor.


Abstract: Background: Unintentional Childhood Injuries pose a major public health challenge in Africa and Uganda. Previous estimates of the problem may have underestimated the childhood problem. We set to determine unintentional childhood injury pattern, odds, and outcomes at the National Paediatric Emergency unit in Kampala city using surveillance data. Methods: Incident proportions, odds and proportional rates were calculated and used to determine unintentional injury patterns across childhood (1-12 years). Results: A total of 556 cases recorded between January and May 2008 were analyzed: majority had been transported to hospital by mothers using mini-buses, private cars, and motorcycles. Median distance from injury location to hospital was 5 km. Homes, roads, and schools were leading injury locations. Males constituted 60% of the cases. Play and daily living activities were commonest injury time activities. Falls, burns and traffic accounted for 70.5% of unintentional childhood injuries. Burns, open wounds, fractures were commonest injury types. Motorcycles, buses and passenger-cars caused most crashes. Play grounds, furniture, stairs and trees were commonest source of falls. Most burn injuries were caused by liquids, fires and hot objects. 43.8% of cases were admitted. 30% were discharged without disability; 10%, were disabled; 1%, died. Injury odds and proportional incidence rates varied with age, place and cause. Poisoning and drowning were rare. Local pediatric injury priorities should include home, road and school safety. Conclusions: Unintentional injuries are common causes of hospital visit by children under 13 years especially boys. Homes, roads and educational facilities are commonest unintentional injury sites. Significant age and gender differences exist in intentional injury causation, characteristics and outcomes. In its current form, our surveillance system seems inefficient in capturing poisoning and drowning. The local prevention priorities could include home, road and school safety; especially dissemination and uptake of proven interventions. Burns should be focus of domestic injury prevention among under-fives. Commercial passenger motorcycles require better regulation and control.


This paper examines the effects of monetary policy on the equity values of European banks. We identify monetary policy shocks by looking at changes in the EONIA one-month and two-year swap contract rates during narrow windows around the press statements and press conferences announcing monetary policy actions taken by the ECB. We find that an unexpected decrease of 25 basis points on the short-term policy rate increases banks' stock prices by about 1% on average. These effects vary substantially over time; in particular, they were stronger during the crisis period and reversed during the recent period with low and even negative interest rates. That is, with rates close to or below zero, further interest rate cuts became detrimental for banks' equity values. The composition of banks' balance sheets is important in order to understand these effects. In particular, the change in sensitivity to interest rate surprises as rates drop to low and negative levels is much more pronounced for banks with a high reliance on deposit funding, compared to other banks. We argue that this pattern can be explained by a reluctance of banks to pay negative interest rates on retail deposits. JEL Classification: E52, E58, G21


Real-time video communication over wireless networks is a challenging problem because wireless channels suffer from fading, additive noise and interference, which translate into packet loss and delay. Since modern video encoders deliver video packets with decoding dependencies, packet loss and delay can significantly degrade the video quality at the receiver. Many error resilience mechanisms have been proposed to combat packet loss in wireless networks, but only a few were specifically designed for packet switched video telephony over Third Generation (3G) networks. The first part of the thesis presents an error resilience technique for packet switched video telephony that combines application layer Forward Error Correction (FEC) with rateless codes, Reference Picture Selection (RPS) and cross layer optimization. Rateless codes have lower encoding and decoding computational complexity compared to traditional error correcting codes. One can use them on complexity constrained hand-held devices. Also, their redundancy does not need to be fixed in advance and any number of encoded symbols can be generated on the fly. Reference picture selection is used to limit the effect of spatio-temporal error propagation. Limiting the effect of spatio-temporal error propagation results in better video quality. Cross layer optimization is used to minimize the data loss at the application layer when data is lost at the data link layer. Experimental results on a High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network simulator for H.264 compressed standard video sequences show that the proposed technique achieves significant Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Percentage Degraded Video Duration (PDVD) improvements over a state of the art error resilience technique known as Interactive Error Control (IEC), which is a combination of Error Tracking and feedback based Reference Picture Selection. The improvement is obtained at a cost of higher end-to-end delay. The proposed technique is improved by making the FEC (Rateless code) redundancy channel adaptive. Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) is used to adjust the redundancy of the Rateless codes according to the channel conditions. Experimental results show that the channel adaptive scheme achieves significant PSNR and PDVD improvements over the static scheme for a simulated Long Term Evolution (LTE) network. In the third part of the thesis, the performance of the previous two schemes is improved by making the transmitter predict when rateless decoding will fail. In this case, reference picture selection is invoked early and transmission of encoded symbols for that source block is aborted. Simulations for an LTE network show that this results in video quality improvement and bandwidth savings. In the last part of the thesis, the performance of the adaptive technique is improved by exploiting the history of the wireless channel. In a Rayleigh fading wireless channel, the RLC-PDU losses are correlated under certain conditions. This correlation is exploited to adjust the redundancy of the Rateless code and results in higher Rateless code decoding success rate and higher video quality. Simulations for an LTE network show that the improvement was significant when the packet loss rate in the two wireless links was 10%. To facilitate the implementation of the proposed error resilience techniques in practical scenarios, RTP/UDP/IP level packetization schemes are also proposed for each error resilience technique. Compared to existing work, the proposed error resilience techniques provide better video quality. Also, more emphasis is given to implementation issues in 3G networks.


in this paper, flow diagnostics inside a novel left ventricular assist device, called Para-aortic Blood Pump (PaBP), is studied on a human blood circulation simulation platform. Two flow diagnostic methods were explored to verify if any thrombosis or hemolysis risk of the current PaBP engineering design model. First, tracer particle flow visualization method was applied to reveal basic flow patterns during PaBP operated on a human blood circulation simulation platform. Second, dye dilution method was applied to identify if any residual non-replaceable fluid still remained inside the PaBP during operation. The flow patterns from tracer particle flow visualization method reveal that an unsteady counterclockwise coherent vortex occurs during counter-pulsation operation of PaBP. The unsteady coherent vortex structure stays within PaBP until inner diaphragm contraction. The results of the dye dilution method proved effective replacement of fluid in the PaBP after a few flow cycles. Therefore, the current PaBP design is proven to be a low risk of thrombosis during diastole.


In developing economies resource gap is critical and widening resulting to huge fiscal and budgetary deficits. The growing resource gap is frequently of by mobilizing internal and external borrowings and consequently shifting the burden of debt to posterity. Therefore, revenue mobilization is challenging proposition in an economy like Nepal where a majority of the people live in abject poverty and the people engaged in economic activities have extremely limited taxable capacity. In addition, legal base of taxation is compressed with unlimited tax shelters and tax administration lacks innovative mechanism to identify new taxpayers and bring them into taxnet. The tar of or tax burden ratio is estimated to be 15.7% of GDP in FY 2008/09. In Nepal's tax structure revenues are buoyant but inadequate to supplement development activities. Interestingly. there was no adverse impact of conflict on internal revenues and. subsequently. ODA to Nepal have increased over the years. The tax system .suffers from structural constraints with tremendous administrative and procedural complexities envisaged in the existing Income Tax Act, which lacks simplicity and transparency. The major problems of taxation in Nepal include: (1) marginally high tar rates (2) limited tar base (3) low lax elasticity (4) poor voluntary compliance (4) leakages in tax collection (5) rigid Income Tax Art, 20(K) (6) inefficient, indifferent and corrupt tax administration, and (7) no consolidated record of property (land and building) with the Internal Revenue Department. The tax system in Nepal calls for a periodic reforms to ensure growth, equity and stability. The studies and reports on taxation exhibit that several reforms have had been undertaken by the government in the past to simplify and modernize the tax system These reforms were confined to improving tax structure by designing appropriate policy instruments. The reforms in taxation in Nepal consist of three types: (1) reforms in tax laws and regulations (2) reforms in environment, and (3) reforms in tar administration. Key words : Taxation; Economics; Poor Economic Journal of Nepal A Quarterly Publication of the Central Department of Economics T.U., Kirtipur Vol. 32, No. 1 January-March 2009, Issue No. 125 Page: 1-13 Uploaded date : 5 July 2011


The African white rice stem borer (Maliarpha separatella Ragonot) is a major pest of rice in Kenya. To understand and develop appropriate management packages, its population dynamics were studied at Mwea irrigation scheme in Central Kenya. This was for two wet and two dry periods. Farmer fields located in different parts of the scheme and outside the scheme were sampled every fortnight. Farms sampled represented five water provision schedules (System of Rice intensification (SRI), rain fed, flood irrigated, sporadic irrigation, and fallow period). Five planting regimes (on season, off season double cropping, ratoon, and late planting) and three management styles (controlled by National Irrigation Board (N.I.B), not controlled by N.I.B and out-growers) were studied. During each sampling, a 1mx1m quadrant was used randomly and pest counted on all the plants within the quadrant. Results showed that the number of M. separatella varied significantly (p<0.05) in the scheme. Pest densities were highest in off season planted rice (13.1). High numbers were also found in Non N.I.B controlled fields with sporadic irrigation (8.1) and the lowest in the N.I.B, fallow (2.5) and this was significant (p<0.05). There were no significant differences in pest infestations on the normal season crop (0.3) and the ratoon crop (0.6) p<0.05 and SRI and conventional irrigated fields (p<0.05). From the results it is recommended that off season planting of rice be discouraged and that efforts are made to ensure that farmers synchronize planting dates and other cultural practices for the crop, within the scheme and in rice farms outside the scheme.


This Article challenges the emerging consensus that arbitrators who adjudicate investor-state disputes should strive for greater consistency. It submits that consistent adjudication can only be realized by sacrificing accuracy, sincerity and transparency. For many national and supranational legal systems, this is a price worth paying to promote goals like equality, certainty, predictability and perceived legitimacy of dispute resolution. The case for privileging these goals, however, loses much of its force in the context of investment treaty arbitration. Substantive investment law, currently consisting of approximately three thousand instruments, is fragmented and dynamic. And due to its ad hoc character, arbitration is flawed as a vehicle for harmonizing law. For these reasons, arbitrators in investor-state arbitrations should resist any norm of precedent in the sense of deference to earlier awards. At the same time, arbitrators ought to be mindful that their awards contribute to the development of substantive law in an area of great public importance. The Article concludes that the key lessons from precedent lie in its forward-looking aspects, namely the decision-making and reason-giving responsibilities that flow from the notion that decisions will have effects beyond resolution of the immediate dispute.


Obesity and diabetes among adults and children remains a public health concern. Rates of obesity among both demographics are slowly increasing. A plethora of research is available that unveils demographics of those who are at risk of obesity and diabetes. Barriers to healthy eating have also been documented. However, obesity remains a behavioral concern. The Food Education Project (FEP) began in 2012 and emphasizes health education throughout partnered schools in San Francisco. Health educators are employed and lead after school enrichment courses which are chosen by students. The students served are aged 5-17 and are at risk for obesity in public and private schools. Lesson plans are generated according to age group to engage students and enhance knowledge surrounding health, food, environment, and nutrition. Students are taught self-efficacy and self-awareness through cooking healthy meals and participating in outdoor gardening activities throughout the 36-week course. Parents of elementary school children expressed gratitude for FEP upon interaction with health educators. Students have expressed their desire for healthy eating through their enthusiasm and excitement during courses. Future work should analyze surveys distributed to Immaculate Conception Academy High School, a partnered school and second cohort with FEP. Pre- and post- surveys should assess knowledge retained and behaviors changed after the culmination of the course to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. Call for more support from governmental organizations to contribute to healthy eating could be beneficial to improve community health.


Improving productivity of knowledge workers is one of the major challenges in today's global environment. Through exploratory research, effort has been made to identify various tools & techniques those can improve productivity of knowledge workers. Through survey, effort has been made to find out perception of top level scientists on - usefulness of various tools & techniques; use of these tools & techniques and encouragement given in organisations for acquiring skill in these; trainings given for these tools & techniques and relative importance given by scientists for these tools & techniques. Questionnaires have been designed and given to select scientists at top level to find out their perception on various aspects indicated above, followed by interview where responses were not adequate or further clarifications were required. Scientists have indicated that most of the identified tools & techniques can improve their productivity and these are used in organisations or scientists are encouraged to acquire skill in the same and majority of them are presently not trained in these tools & techniques. They also indicated the relative importance of various tools & techniques. The extensive use of these tools & techniques and provision of trainings to the scientists in these can improve their productivity.


The core principle of segmented gamma-tracking germanium detector arrays like AGATA and GRETA, that will be used in future for 4pi gamma detection, is the application of pulse shape analysis (PSA). The 3D position sensitivity of the HPGe detectors is based on differences in the shape of the charge pulses associated with different interaction points inside the whole volume. It is therefore necessary for this analysis to have a data base containing pulses for all the interaction points inside the detector volume. A full 3D scanning of the detectors, which experimentally determines pulse shapes for each position inside the active volume, is therefore needed. In this thesis, a novel scanning system is presented to determine the HPGe detector pulse shapes as a function of the gamma-ray interaction position inside the detector. The device is based on a pulse shape comparison scan (PSCS) and the positron annihilation correlation (PAC) method which makes it about 100 times faster than the conventional coincidence based scanners.
The performance and efficiency of the system is superior because of using a position sensitive detector (PSD)/gamma camera. It consists of a LYSO scintillating crystal optically coupled to a position sensitive photomultiplier tube. The individual multianode readout (IMAR) approach is used to achieve a spatial resolution of ~ 1 mm and to optimize its field of view to ~ 28 cm^2. A Compton scattering imaging technique is implemented to perform an accurate position calibration of the gamma camera. The employment of PSD yields an added advantage of imaging capability which allows to study e.g. the details of the inner structure of HPGe detectors and electric field anisotropy effects.
The position response of a planar HPGe detector is obtained using the apparatus and the risetime distribution plots are compared with those obtained via a conventional scanning system. However, to validate the aforementioned scanning principle, an AGATA symmetric detector is tested. The risetime values are measured as a function of the interaction position in both the coaxial and quasi-planar region of the detector. Furthermore, the Multi Geometry Simulation (MGS) code is used to generate theoretical distribution plots for comparison. The transition in charge carrier transport behaviour as a function of the depth is studied for the region of the complex electric field. Systematic deviations between simulation and measurement are observed for the critical front part of the AGATA detector. They are interpolated as due to a non-linear impurity concentration profile of the germanium crystal, asking for rigorous scanning of all detectors in the future.


There has been a significant evolution in surgical technique of cataract extraction. The technical advances in phaco machines, phacotips, and availability of ophthalmic viscoelastic devices have played a great role in cataract surgery to be faster and more controlled now than before. Similarly, local anesthesia techniques in cataract surgery have also advanced significantly from retrobulbar, peribulbar, sub-Tenon's, to topical anaesthesia. Even though, the sub-Tenon's anesthesia technique reduced the risk of complications of peribulbar/retrobulbar anesthesia but the technique is still associated with a possibility of damage to optic nerve, retrobulbar hemorrhage, and ocular muscle injury. Topical anesthesia is used to block the afferent nerves of the cornea and the conjunctiva (long and short ciliary nerves, nasociliary nerves). This technique eliminates the possible complications of injectable anesthesia. However, it does not eliminate pain sensitivity of the iris, the zonule, and the ciliary body which is achieved by intracameral technique of anesthesia with preservative free 1% lidocaine.  In a constantly evolving arena, the sub-Tenon's block has gained popularity while the deep angulated intraconal (retrobulbar) block has been largely superseded by the shallower extraconal (peribulbar) approach. Hyaluronidase is a useful adjuvant because it promotes local anesthetic diffusion and hastens block onset time but there is a possibility of getting an allergic reaction. Ultrasound-guided eye blocks afford real-time visualization of needle position and local anesthetic spread. An advantage of sonic guidance is that it may eliminate the hazard of globe perforation by identifying abnormal anatomy, such as staphyloma.


When students are dealing with online tutorial, there are challengers they must answer using any skill they have. The challenge and skill must be at the same 'height' in order for them to immerse with online tutorial activities. Several aspects will be considered as challenge and skill. One challenge under the scrutiny is the page length used to present course materials. The length of tutorial presented in an online tutorial portal varies depends on its topic. The comfort of reading long tutorial depends on how the materials are presented in an online tutorial website, whether it is presented as one long page or shorter multi pages. The comfort that the students obtain from reading an online tutorial may influence whether they decide to continue reading the material or abandon it. This paper reports the result of a study to investigate how tutorial length influences student engagement. The research method employed in this study was a laboratory experiment followed by a post experiment survey where respondents were asked to give their opinion about several statements related to the research variables. Respondents were students who were voluntarily agree to participate in this experiment; total respondents were 95 students. Six hypotheses were tested using PLS, and all of them were supported by the collected data.


Professor Andrewes has recently been kind enough to refer in his commentary on Thucydides to a suggestion of mine. This present note seeks to expand the idea, and to relate it to north Arcadian politics of the early fourth century B.C. Tradition gave some prominence in the archaic period to Orchomenus in eastern Arcadia; and genealogy supported this prominence, since, apart from a belief that Areas himself was a son of the eponym Orchomenus, there was a continuing belief that this Orchomenus founded not only Orchomenus itself but also Methydrium.


Concept-based explanations permit to understand the predictions of a deep neural network (DNN) through the lens of concepts specified by users. Existing methods assume that the examples illustrating a concept are mapped in a fixed direction of the DNN's latent space. When this holds true, the concept can be represented by a concept activation vector (CAV) pointing in that direction. In this work, we propose to relax this assumption by allowing concept examples to be scattered across different clusters in the DNN's latent space. Each concept is then represented by a region of the DNN's latent space that includes these clusters and that we call concept activation region (CAR). To formalize this idea, we introduce an extension of the CAV formalism that is based on the kernel trick and support vector classifiers. This CAR formalism yields global concept-based explanations and local concept-based feature importance. We prove that CAR explanations built with radial kernels are invariant under latent space isometries. In this way, CAR assigns the same explanations to latent spaces that have the same geometry. We further demonstrate empirically that CARs offer (1) more accurate descriptions of how concepts are scattered in the DNN's latent space; (2) global explanations that are closer to human concept annotations and (3) concept-based feature importance that meaningfully relate concepts with each other. Finally, we use CARs to show that DNNs can autonomously rediscover known scientific concepts, such as the prostate cancer grading system.


This book contains the proceedings of an international colloquium in honour of Professor Walter van Gerven which was held in Leuven on 15-16 September 2000 and organized by the Universities of Leuven and Maastricht in the framework of the lus Commune Research School. Walter van Gerven has been a professor of Law in Leuven for four decades and in Maastricht between 1994 and 2000; he has been Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Communities (1988-1994) and was Member of the Committee of Independent Experts which screened the European Commission in 1999. The book is built around three themes: good governance in the European Union, judicial review of administrative action and liability of supranational, State and private actors. A great number of very distinguished scholars have contributed to this book: Lord Slynn of Hadley, Deirdre Curtin, Christiaan W.A. Timmermans, Gil Carlos Rodriguez Iglesias, Sacha Prechal, Jurgen Schwarze, Takis Tridimas, Bruno de Witte, Jeremy Lever, Pierre Larouche, Francis G. Jacobs, Luc Gyselen, Paul J.G. Kapteyn, Arthur Hartkamp and Pieter VerLoren van Themaat.


We measured the spectral dependence of the polarimetric sensitivity to temperature in three HB PCFs of different construction. The birefringence in the investigated fibers is induced respectively by elliptical shape of the core, by a pair of large cladding holes adjacent to the core or by one row of the cladding holes with diameters smaller than the other cladding holes. Our results show that the temperature sensitivity in the birefringent PCFs can vary in the range from 0 to 0.1 rad/K×m, is highly dispersive, and highly dependent upon fiber geometry. We also demonstrate that for one of the investigated fibers, the temperature sensitivity changes its sign at λ=1.44 μm, which makes this fiber completely insensitive to temperature at this wavelength


Background— Studies suggest that magnesium intake may be inversely related to risk of hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus and that higher intake of magnesium may decrease blood triglycerides and increase high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels. However, the longitudinal association of magnesium intake and incidence of metabolic syndrome has not been investigated. Methods and Results— We prospectively examined the relations between magnesium intake and incident metabolic syndrome and its components among 4637 Americans, aged 18 to 30 years, who were free from metabolic syndrome and diabetes at baseline. Metabolic syndrome was diagnosed according to the National Cholesterol Education Program/Adult Treatment Panel III definition. Diet was assessed by an interviewer-administered quantitative food frequency questionnaire, and magnesium intake was derived from the nutrient database developed by the Minnesota Nutrition Coordinating Center. During the 15 years of follow-up, 608 incident cases of the metabolic syndrome were identified. Magnesium intake was inversely associated with incidence of metabolic syndrome after adjustment for major lifestyle and dietary variables and baseline status of each component of the metabolic syndrome. Compared with those in the lowest quartile of magnesium intake, multivariable-adjusted hazard ratio of metabolic syndrome for participants in the highest quartile was 0.69 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.52 to 0.91; P for trend <0.01). The inverse associations were not materially modified by gender and race. Magnesium intake was also inversely related to individual component of the metabolic syndrome and fasting insulin levels. Conclusions— Our findings suggest that young adults with higher magnesium intake have lower risk of development of metabolic syndrome.


The challenging issues in supporting data intensive applications on clusters include efficient movement of large volumes of data between processor memories and efficient coordination of data movement and processing by a runtime support to achieve high performance. Such applications have several requirements such as guarantees in performance, scalability with these guarantees and adaptability to heterogeneous environments. With the advent of user-level protocols like the Virtual Interface Architecture (VIA) and the modern InfiniBand Architecture, the latency and bandwidth experienced by applications has approached to that of the physical network on clusters. In order to enable applications written on top of TCP/IP to take advantage of the high performance of these user-level protocols, researchers have come up with a number of techniques including User Level Sockets Layers over high performance protocols. In this paper, we study the performance and limitations of such substrate, referred to here as SocketVIA, using a component framework designed to provide runtime support for data intensive applications. The experimental results show that by reorganizing certain components of an application (in our case, the partitioning of a dataset into smaller data chunks), we can make significant improvements in application performance. This leads to a higher scalability of applications with performance guarantees. It also allows fine grained load balancing, hence making applications more adaptable to heterogeneity in resource availability. The experimental results also show that the different performance characteristics of SocketVIA allow a more efficient partitioning of data at the source nodes, thus improving the performance of the application up to an order of magnitude in some cases.


Based on the contribution of each of the cities in the region Gerbangkertosusila shows a striking difference between one and the other regions. Poverty and unequal income per capita differences also lead to the inequality in Gerbangketosusila. If in the gross inequality Gerbangkertosusila happen then it will affect the economy in the province of East Java in general and the northern part of East Java in particular. By knowing the causes through analysis of the potential sectors of the city in the region to gross domestic product Gerbangkertosusila East Java province, then the potential sectors will be able to support the economic development in East Java. This study aimed to analyze the potential sectors and inequality in Gerbangkertosusila, attributable to the observation of programs and government policies promoting economic development in the province of East Java Williamson Index. In Gerbangkertosusila has some potential sector that can support economic development along with the reduction of income inequality that occurred, manufacturing, mining, and agriculture. Of the existing sectors have the potential to be developed through a development priority programs along with policy direction to boost the economy in the northern part of the province of East Java Gerbangkertosusila the region.


Today, Internet technologies are enabling a wave of innovations that have an important impact on the way businesses deal with their partners and customers. Most businesses are moving their operations to the Web for more automation, efficient business processes, and global visibility. Web services are one of the promising technologies that help businesses in achieving these operations and being more Web-oriented. Besides the new role of the Internet as a vehicle of delivering Web services, a major growth in the field of wireless and mobile technologies is witnessed. Because users are heavily relying on mobile devices to conduct their operations, enacting Web services from mobile devices and possibly downloading these Web services for execution on mobile devices are avenues that academia and industry communities are pursuing. M-services denote the Web services in the wireless world. In this chapter, two research initiatives carried out at Zayed University are presented and referred to as SAMOS, standing for Software Agents for MObile Services, and SASC, standing for Software Agents for Service Composition.


Versova is an important fishing village of Bombay district and Versova creek is situated near the
sources of organic and industrial pollution which discharge their waste indiscriminately into it. However,
recently increasing incidents of fish mortality along with depletion of fish catch have affected the
fishermen to a large extent. Out of 12 different types of nets with a total number of more than one thousand
nets which were operated here, only seven types with about three hundred nets are remaining in
operation. During October 1988 mortality of many commercially important species like Mugil, Cynoglossus,
catfishes and sciaenids was noticed. Subsequent mortalities were observed during 1991, 1993 '
and 1995 with more number of species. Monitoring of creek water which was mostly a blend of black,
brown and gray colour with foul smells revealed that many times dissolved oxygen is absent here when
in adjoining areas it is up to 4 d l , pH of the creek was always in lower range and even salinity value
dropped up to 1.29 x lo-' due to added influx of fresh water by way of domestic and industrial discharge
and making it unsuitable for marine organisms.


Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of the morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he'd somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.


Access to quality education is now a huge challenge in Thailand with ever-increasing inequality between rural and urban populations. Existing teaching and learning facilities are no longer adequate. Mobile learning has been suggested as a sustainable and appropriate delivery mechanism to reduce this rural/urban education gap. Students are supplied with their own mobile device at no cost to learners or their families. Opportunities offered through mobile learning to auto mechanic education in Thailand were explored. Data from 384 auto mechanic students were collected and descriptive and multiple regression analyses were performed based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 (UTAUT2) model. Results showed that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation and personal innovativeness were positively related to behavioral intention to use mobile learning. Furthermore, effort expectancy, hedonic motivation and personal innovativeness were the most significant predictors of behavioral intention to use mobile learning. Auto mechanic students in Thailand had positive perceptions toward mobile learning and the effect of students' effort expectancy provided a better explanation for the adoption of mobile learning in auto mechanic education.


The aim of the present work "Ionic, Water-Soluble Polyfluorene-Type Copolymers" was, a) to synthesize water soluble semiconducting polymers, b) to investigate the effect of surfactant on the aqueous polymer solutions, and c) to check applications in optical, electronic & optoelectronic devices. Water-soluble conjugated polymers are of particular interest as fluorescent components in sensors both for chemical and biological analysis as well as for OLEDs which are built in a layer-by-layer self assembly approach. Solubility in water is essential for interrogating biological substrates and this can be achieved by introducing neutral or charged hydrophilic functionalities to the terminal position of the polyfluorene backbone.
 In case of anionic polyelectrolytes, the water solubility was achieved by functionalizing the side chain by attaching sulfonate group. While in case of cationic polyelectrolytes, water solubility was achieved by functionalizing the side chain by attaching ammonium groups. Anionic water-soluble copolymers were synthesized in four steps.
 Solutions of the anionic water-soluble copolymer, poly[9,9-bis(4-sulfonylbutoxy-phenyl)fluorene-co-1,4-phenylene] in water were turbid (low PL efficiency). Addition of surfactants leads to a clear solution (PL efficiency increases to ~100%). The surfactant used in our study was C 12 E 5 (n-dodecylpentaoxyethylene glycol ether) as a non-ionic surfactant. There is a dramatic increase in the fluorescence quantum yield of the above copolymer on incorporation into C 12 E 5 micelles and this can be important for sensor applications. Efforts are being made to check the applications of this copolymer in polymer LEDs.
 Other anionic water-soluble copolymers with biphenyl, thienylene and bithiophene spacer groups were synthesized by Suzuki or Stille -type cross-coupling reactions.
 Cationic, water-soluble copolymers were synthesized using the procedure developed by Bazan et. al , who used related oligomers and polymers for DNA sensing. The synthesis involves four steps with a Suzuki -type cross-coupling reaction in the key step towards a non-ionic precursor polymer.
 Studies of a polyelectrolyte-surfactant system, poly{9,9-bis[6-(N,N-trimethyl-ammo-nium)hexyl]fluorene- co -1,4-phenylene} /C 12 E 5 have been done. Other cationic, water-soluble copolymers with thienylene and bithiophene spacer units have been also synthesized.
 The purification of the water soluble polyelectrolytes was done by dialysis with water using a dialysis membrane with a cutoff of 3,500 gmol -1 .


Ventilator-Induced lung injury (VILI) is a form of acute lung injury that is initiated or exacerbated by mechanical ventilation. The aging lung is more susceptible to lung injury. Harmful mechanical stretch of the alveolar epithelium is a recognized mechanism of VILI, yet little is known about how mechanical stretch affects aged epithelial cells. An activated response known as Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) Stress occurs at the cellular level, which is increased with aging. The disrupted ER function results in disruption in cellular homeostasis, apoptosis, and inflammation. We hypothesized that age and mechanical stretch increase proinflammatory gene expression that is mediated by ER stress. Type II alveolar epithelial cells (ATII) were harvested from C57Bl6/J mice 8 weeks (young) and 20 months (old) of age. The cells were cyclically mechanically stretched at 15% change in surface area for up to 24 hours. Prior to stretch, groups were administered 4-PBA or vehicle as a control. Mechanical stretch upregulated both ER stress and proinflammatory gene expression in ATIIs. Age-matched and mis-matched monocyte recruitment by ATII conditioned media was quantified. Administration of 4-PBA attenuated both the ER stress and proinflammatory increases from stretch and/or age and significantly reduced monocyte migration to ATII conditioned media. Age increases susceptibility to stretch-induced ER stress and downstream inflammation in a primary ATII epithelial cell model.


Sjogren's syndrome, a chronic disease which affects particularly the female gender, represents one of the most common autoimmune diseases and does not affect women of childbearing age, but is especially prevalent during perimenopause. It may be primary when only exocrine glandular dysfunctin occurs (xerophthalmia, xerostomia) or it may be secondary, when is most often associated with rheumatoid arthritis or systemic lupus erythematosus and affects the whole body. Pregnancy cases in the context of this disease are relatively rare, precisely by their incidence in women for whom fertility is not a priority anymore, at the age of 40 or 50 years old, but observing the trend of the last decades, through the implications offered by the modern society, with the increasing age when the first baby is conceived, the number of cases and associated outcome increase. The pregnancy outcome in the context of this disease is insufficiently known comparing to the one appearing in women affected by other autoimmune disorders. The most fearfull complication is represented by the fetal risk of congenital heart block. We report the case of a 29-year-old patient diagnosed with primary Sjogren's syndrome, consistent with AECG criteria (American-European Consensus Group, 2002) prior to pregnancy, which required a multidisciplinary approach and a close cooperation between the obstetrician, rheumatologist, ophthalmologist and internal medicine physicians. During the 36th week of pregnancy she delivered by caesarean section. Both the patient and the newborn postoperative evolutions were favorable, with no evidence of fetal heart complications. Taking into account the potential maternal and fetal complications, the management of pregnant women diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome represents a real challenge for the obstetrician and requires an interdisciplinary approach in order to decrease the morbidity and mortality, both of the mother, as well as the fetus.


Abstract Objectives Dysregulated signal transduction and activator of transcription-3 (STAT3) signalling in CD4+ T cells has been proposed as an early pathophysiological event in RA. We sought further evidence for this observation, and to determine its clinical relevance. Methods Microarray technology was used to measure gene expression in purified peripheral blood CD4+ T cells from treatment-naïve RA patients and disease controls newly recruited from an early arthritis clinic. Analysis focused on 12 previously proposed transcripts, and concurrent STAT3 pathway activation was determined in the same cells by flow cytometry. A pooled analysis of previous and current gene expression findings incorporated detailed clinical parameters and employed multivariate analysis. Results In an independent cohort of 161 patients, expression of 11 of 12 proposed signature genes differed significantly between RA patients and controls, robustly validating the earlier findings. Differential regulation was most pronounced for the STAT3 target genes PIM1, BCL3 and SOCS3 (>1.3-fold difference; P < 0.005), each of whose expression correlated strongly with paired intracellular phospho-STAT3. In a meta-analysis of 279 patients the same three genes accounted for the majority of the signature's ability to discriminate RA patients, which was found to be independent of age, joint involvement or acute phase response. Conclusion The STAT3-mediated dysregulation of BCL3, SOCS3 and PIM1 in circulating CD4+ T cells is a discriminatory feature of early RA that occurs independently of acute phase response. The mechanistic and functional implications of this observation at a cellular level warrant clarification.


Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were carried out to gain an understanding of the interfacial interactions and the phase separation process in a polymer dispersed liquid crystalline (PDLC) system. The most important components of the PDLC system of interest are: E7 (an eutectic mixture of cyanobiphenyl liquid crystals), a crosslinked polyacrylate, and octanoic acid (OA). The miscibility of the different components was investigated and the anchoring characteristics of 4n-pentyl-40-cyanobiphenyl (5CB) molecules on the penta-acrylate polymer surface were analyzed. The effects of introducing a surfactant on the miscibility and the anchoring strengths were also studied. Bilayers of polymer and liquid crystal (LC) of different alignments, show that an amorphous 5CB structure on the polymer surface was energetically most favorable, whereas homeotropic alignment had the next higher energy and planar alignment was the least favorable. Calculated solubility parameters indicate that prior to polymerization, the prepolymer and LC are miscible and OA is equally immiscible with both of them. Upon polymerization, the polymer is no longer miscible with the LC; phase separation occurs and OA acts as a surfactant forming a layer between the polymer and the LC. Anchoring energies calculated from the interfacial tensions indicate that the LC and polymer interface is strong. On addition of the surfactant, the anchoring energy at the interface of the LC and the surfactant becomes weaker. This decrease in anchoring strength may be one of the major factors responsible for a reduction in droplet size and also a lowering of critical field for switching, both of which are observed experimentally in volume holograms made of these PDLC materials. q 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.


Objective: To evaluate umbilical cord blood ischemia-modified albumin (IMA) levels in cases of fetal distress (FD) and to explore fetal blood IMA levels regarding the route of delivery. Methods: Umbilical cord and maternal serum IMA concentrations were assessed in term 40 cases with cesarean section (CS) due to FD, 76 cases with elective repeat CS and 85 cases with noncomplicated vaginal delivery. Results: The maternal and umbilical cord IMA levels were significantly lower in vaginal deliveries when compared with CS cases either in FD or previous CS groups (p = 0.02). Although no statistically significant difference was found in IMA levels of CS groups (previous CS vs. FD), cord blood IMA levels tend to be higher in FD group. Neither demographic characteristics nor fetal outcome parameters were found to have any correlation with maternal IMA levels. However, umbilical cord IMA levels were found to be negatively correlated with 1th min Apgar scores (r = –0.143, p = 0.043). Conclusions: IMA seems to be responsive to hypoxic FD showing the highest levels in cases with severe fetal hypoxia. Higher levels of IMA in cases with elective repeat CS might indicate acute transient hypoxia and possible myocardial ischemia in these cases.


This thesis investigates teacher cognition of classroom interaction as represented in narratives by Amazonian language teachers. Language teacher cognition has been investigated in the great educational centres in Brazil, but has been overlooked as a research theme in Amazonas, the context of this study. In order to bridge this existing gap in language teacher research, the current study develops a narrative enquiry in the public and private school settings to find the different understandings of interaction in the English as a foreign language (heretofore EFL) classroom as articulated by teachers. The study is grounded in theories of teacher education and cognition, applied and socio-linguistics, socio-cultural theories and discourse analysis to further the understanding of concepts that are of rising importance in the EFL field: teacher cognition, classroom interaction, and narrative research. In brief, teacher cognition refers to teachers' mental lives and to the ways they perceive their practice. In this research, four constructs (knowledge, thought, beliefs, and decision-making) are considered to represent the broad conceptualisation of teacher cognition. Classroom interaction corresponds to the collaborative moments which happen in the language classroom among students, or between students and teacher, in order to improve learning. Narrative enquiry relates to both the method and methodology which is used to understand diverse knowledge processes. In simple terms, in this thesis, narrative enquiry explores teachers' stories about their practice and determines the ways in which they can be analysed and interpreted. This qualitative research has been designed from a constructionist epistemological standpoint and an interpretivist theoretical perspective. Because it investigates complex concepts, this research does not follow one specific philosophical background but finds inspiration in critical pedagogy and matters of knowledge in the Brazilian context. The data produced by nine experienced EFL teachers was systematically analysed. Starting from the four individual constructs of teacher cognition, the interpretation of the data develops to concepts and themes which emerged from this initial analysis. The findings generated new understandings of the construction of knowledge as personal practical knowledge (PPK) and its relationship to other constructs of teacher cognition, to experience, to the teachers' individual contexts and to styles of storytelling. From these main findings, the present study proposes a model of narrativised teacher cognition to better understand the interrelation between the cognitive constructs and discursive strategies, as well as build a new and concrete dimension to teachers' articulation of their practice.


During software evolution, source code is constantly refactored. In real-world migrations, many methods in the newer version are not present in the old version (e.g.,60% of the methods in Eclipse 2.0 were not in version 1.0). This requires changes to be consistently applied to reflect the new API and avoid further maintenance problems. In this paper, we propose a tool to extract rules by monitoring API changes applied in source code during system evolution. In this process, changes are mined at revision level in code history. Our tool focuses on mining invocation changes to keep track of how they are evolving. We also provide three case studies in order to evaluate the tool.


We explore the notion of the quantum auxiliary linear problem and the associated problem of quantum Backlund transformations (BT). In this context we systematically construct the analogue of the classical formula that provides the whole hierarchy of the time components of Lax pairs at the quantum level for both closed and open integrable lattice models. The generic time evolution operator formula is particularly interesting and novel at the quantum level when dealing with systems with open boundary conditions. In the same frame we show that the reflection K-matrix can also be viewed as a particular type of BT, fixed at the boundaries of the system. The q-oscillator (q-boson) model, a variant of the Ablowitz-Ladik model, is then employed as a paradigm to illustrate the method. Particular emphasis is given to the time part of the quantum BT as possible connections and applications to the problem of quantum quenches as well as the time evolution of local quantum impurities are evident. A discussion on the use of Bethe states as well as coherent states and the path integral formulation for the study of the time evolution is also presented.


Organic micropollutants (OMPs) are synthetic and naturally occurring organic compounds that may pose long-term ecotoxicological risks to the aquatic life occur at low levels. This work seeks to characterize the spatiotemporal occurrence and mass flows of OMPs in the Onondaga Lake-Three Rivers system in central New York. In collaboration with the Upstate Freshwater Institute, multiple batches of water samples were collected from the lake-river system between June and October 2017 and analyzed for OMPs using a suspect screening workflow developed on liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry. To date, a total of 52, 31, and 37 OMPs were identified and quantified in Onondaga Lake, its four major tributaries, and the Three Rivers, respectively. Lamotrigine, estradiol, benzotriazole, methyl benzotriazole, sucralose, and atrazine were measured in every sample, suggesting their ubiquitous presence in the lake-river system. Over the study period, the horizontal concentration profiles of OMPs in Onondaga Lake showed relatively consistent patterns, but the vertical distribution of OMPs in the lake was influenced by thermal stratification and wastewater discharge from a regional WWTP serving the Syracuse metropolitan area. Specifically, OMPs derived from point source wastewater discharge exhibited peak concentrations in the thermocline in July 2017, but such phenomenon disappeared in October 2017, likely due to changes in lake stratification. OMPs were generally detected at lower levels in the lake tributaries and the Three Rivers, suggesting diffuse inputs from agricultural activities or irregular wastewater discharge. Further calculations of the OMP mass flow revealed that the WWTP might account for up to 67-86% of the OMP mass flow entering the lake, which is in line with its high percentage of wastewater inflow. Onondaga Lake itself contributed 12-24% of the OMP mass flow entering the Three Rivers, confirming its role as a regionally important source of OMPs. Occurrence and Mass Flows of Organic Micropollutants in the Onondaga Lake – Three Rivers System


Metal casting component are found in 90 percent of manufactured goods and
equipment, from critical components for aircraft and automotive industry to
home applications. However, molten metal used to produce metal casting in
practice generally contains impurities and inclusions which are deleterious to
final cast metal product. Currently, filtration technique by using ceramic foam
filter has been accepted as a successful method of reducing inclusions from
molten metal during the casting of metal parts.
The present research has been done to fabricate and improve a ceramic
foam filter for using in filtration of molten metal, especially aluminium based
alloys. It is an objective of the present innovation to provide a ceramic foam
filter characterized by cost of raw materials. Ceramic foam filters are
produced by impregnating polyurethane foam with ceramic slurry, drying,
baking and finally firing the foam in the oven.
Experimental tests were carried out to the filters to measure dimensions,
weight, cold compression strength, and permeability properties before pouring process. After pouring process, the filter was cut into several
sections to measure the macro and microstructure of the filter and ensure
that impurity particles captured by a filter.
Thermal shock properties, obtained from pouring liquid aluminium when filter
was placed in the gating system to ensure that the filters could withstand
temperatures of aluminium alloys.
Further experiments were carried out to investigate and determine the
efficiency of produced ceramic foam filter on quality of cast products. The
result obtained in this investigation, the mechanical properties for aluminum
LM6 alloy sand casting increased when ceramic foam filter was inserted into
the gating system.
A produced filter by using new materials is economical to be produced.
Further more, the analysis data shows present innovation filter which can be
made in any shape and size, has excellent thermal shock resistance,
adequate compressive strength, acceptable density and permeability
properties.


Employment agreement between employer party and employee party is made byusing fixed agreement, so within the process of making agreement is not through precontractsteps as it is normally initiated with negotiation process between employee partyand employer party and also this agreement is made under hand. Although employmentagreement is made in term of fixed agreement and under hand, but this agreement keeps onthe effort to refer to regulation listed in Article 1320 Civil Act and Article 52 point 1 ofIndonesian Republic Regulation no. 13 of 2003 as it is the legal main condition for anagreement and also as the basic law of employment agreement.The legal consequence of employment agreement which is made between employerparty and employee party that the sanction assigned to employees who violate theregulation agreed in this employment agreement, namely: If employer or employeeterminate employment agreement within certain period prior ended, so the party whoterminates this employment agreement must pay compensation to other party at the restsalary of the worker until the period or the worker should finish his contract period, excepttermination of employment agreement die to serous force/fault from employee. Any dispute taken place as consequence of this employment agreement should be settled by both partiesthrough Registration Office of District Court Denpasar.


In this paper, we present a novel nanostructure of reduced graphene oxide supported by vertical aligned ZnO nanorods for flexible supercapacitors. Layer-by-layer strategies are adopted to fabricate the electrodes on PET flexible substrates. Cu foil, Al-doped ZnO film and chemical-vapor deposition graphene is introduced on PET to serve as current collectors. ZnO nanorods are synthesized by a hydrothermal method under low temperature. The structural and electrochemical properties of these nanostructured electrodes are systematically investigated.