According to the Supreme Court's current doctrine, Congress generally may not create private causes of action against unconsenting States. It may do so, however, when it uses its power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to enforce the amendment's substantive provisions. That principle, announced in Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, has survived the reinvigoration of state sovereign immunity in recent cases like Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida and Alden v. Maine, and the Court has not considered whether Fitzpatrick is consistent with the approach taken in the more recent cases. This article addresses that question, giving attention to the understanding of the enforcement powers that prevailed during Reconstruction, the legal context in which those powers were created, and the structural reasoning underlying Seminole Tribe and Alden as it applies to the enforcement powers. Its principal conclusions are that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment probably did not expect that it would give Congress power to create private causes of action against unconsenting States, and that, for that reason and others, if the current sovereign immunity cases are correct then Fitzpatrick was not.


As levels of economic prosperity grew in the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s in
South Korea, so people's concern with health, and with leisure opportunities has
grown. In particular since 1988 and the successful staging of the Seoul
Olympics, and with the onset of a fledgling democratic government there has
been increasing pressure to meet citizens' demands for sporting opportunities.
A sport for all policy is a recent innovation in South Korea and little research has
been carried out on its implementation, or indeed on sports participation more
generally in the South Korean context. The rationale for promoting a policy of
sport for all, which is essentially a welfare rationale, reflects the recent major
changes in the political system, that is, a change to a democratic regime in the
late 1980s and into the 1990s, developing from the system of government
characterised by military authoritarianism for the majority of the period since the
Korean War.
The principal aims of the research on which the thesis is based are two hold.
The first is to provide a review of the changing nature of sports policy over time
in South Korea, covering the period from 1945 up to the present day, changes
which have taken place against a background of significant politico-economic
shifts. This is accomplished via an historical review of sports policy and its
reporting by government sources and by media of contrasting political affiliation.
Most recently there has been a discernible change in emphasis in sport policy,
promoting in particular a sport for all approach. The second aim of the thesis is
therefore to review the nature of sports participation in urban South Korea, to
establish the level of participation, the nature of participants, and to identify
barriers to participation, in order to evaluate whether the measures adopted in a
sport for all promotion are coherent and likely to be adequate. This latter aim is
achieved through the analysis of a questionnaire survey administered to a
sample of 600 urban dwellers in the city of Suwon. In addition to supplement
this, detailed sports histories are recorded for 79 individuals and for 10 married
couples, in order to identify how key life events impact upon sports participation
at the individual level.
As with West European and American studies, statistically significantly greater
levels of sports participation in a wider range of sports are associated with higher levels of education, income, full time employment, and gender (males
participate significantly more widely and more often). The sports histories
illustrate how major life events influence sports behaviour, while the sports
histories of married couples reflect the mutual influence of the sports careers of
marital partners, in particular the impact on female sporting behaviour of male
sports careers. These findings suggest approaches and priorities which sports
policy might take in fostering the achievement of sport for all goals.
The major contributions of the thesis to knowledge in this field are, first an
enhanced understanding of the development of sports policy in the South
Korean context, and the relationship between sports policy goals and the goals
of political actors in the evolution of the Korean system of government from
styles of authoritarian nationalism to emergent liberal democracy; and second a
data base on, and analysis of, sports participation in a major urban settlement,
which incorporates for the first time in relation to South Korea, personal sports
history data, and for the first time in the wider sports participation literature,
analysis of the sports histories of married couples. These data are subsequently
analysed in terms of their significance for sports policy in the contemporary
South Korean context.


Operating experience of steam generators has shown that cracks of various morphology frequently occur in the steam generator tubes. These cracked tubes can stay in service if it is proved that the tubes have sufficient safety margin to preclude the risk of burst and leak. Therefore, integrity assessment using exact limit load solutions is very important for safe operation of the steam generators. This paper provides global and local limit load solutions for surface cracks in the steam generator tubes. Such solutions are developed based on three-dimensional (3-D) finite element analyses assuming elastic-perfectly plastic material behavior. For the crack location, both axial and circumferential surface cracks, and for each case, both external and internal cracks are considered. The resulting global and local limit load solutions are given in polynomial forms, and thus can be simply used in practical integrity assessment of the steam generator tubes.


The quantum, strangest feature of this strange universe, cracks the armor that conceals the secret of existence. In contrast to the view that the universe is a machine governed by some magic equation, we explore here the view that the world is a self-synthesizing system of existences, built on observer-participancy via a network of elementary quantum phenomena. The elementary quantum phenomenon in the sense of Bohr, the elementary act of observer-participancy, develops definiteness out of indeterminism, secures a communicable reply in response to a well-defined question. The rate of carrying out such yes- no determinations, and their accumulated number, are both minuscule today when compared to the rate and number to be anticipated in the billions of years yet to come. The coming explosion of life opens the door, however, to an all-encompassing role for observer-participancy: to build, in time to come, no minor part of what we call its past — our past, present, and future -but this whole vast world.


This paper analyzes the determinants of the supply of enlistees to the U.S. Army, using quarterly data from 1975:4 through 1982:3 for the 50 states and the District of Columbia. For high-quality enlistees, defined as those with test scores in the top half of the population or top scoring individuals who are also high school graduates, supply elasticities with respect to military compensation are estimated to be about 1.0. Elasticities with respect to the unemployment rate center on 0.5, larger than most previous estimates. Recruiting resources have the expected effects (Army recruiters increase and other services recruiters reduce Army enlistments). Advertising (both national and local) does not have consistently positive effects. Results are similar for high school graduates,except that the effect of military compensation depends crucially on how it is measured. Estimates of the supply of enlistees of all qualities are weaker still: estimates of compensation effects vary widely, and estimated effects of recruiters and advertising are less plausible. Unemployment elasticities of about 0.3 are smaller than for high-quality recruits, but hardlyn egligible.A tentative explanation for the weaker results of the latter two groupsis that the number of such enlistees is not supply determined, but reflect demand constraints as well. Further work is needed to determine how standards for enlistees vary in each recruiting district in response to both national and local fluctuations in recruit supply.


This essay discusses the preliminary results of recent archaeological investigations into stone axe production and exchange processes at a Neolithic hilltop settlement in South India. The site in question comprises a stone-lined circular structure situated on a plateau area on the side of a topographically complex hill, known locally as Hiregudda. Across the plateau, extensive surface scatters of flaked dolerite material indicate a heavy focus on edge-ground bifacial axe manufacture at the site. Excavation of the structure and its immediate surrounds has revealed stratified deposits of dolerite axes, axe blanks and debitage, as well as a large lithic dumping area adjacent to the structure. Several clusters of axe-grinding grooves are documented on granite boulders and bedrock exposures both in and around the structure, and at least two intensively quarried outcrops of dolerite have been recorded within close vicinity of the plateau. Following a detailed examination of the axe manufacturing technology employed by knappers in the ''workshop'' structure, we suggest that the evidence for large-scale quarrying and industrial activity at Hiregudda points to the importance of this hilltop settlement in the axe production and exchange network of Neolithic South India. We present radiocarbon dating evidence from our investigations that implies the most intensive phase of axe manufacture and possibly distribution at Hiregudda took place during the Late Neolithic–Megalithic transition around the thirteenth or fourteenth millennia B.C.


In this paper, we propose a new methodology to embed deep learning-based algorithms in both visual recognition and motion planning for general mobile robotic platforms. A framework for an asynchronous deep classification network is introduced to integrate heavy deep classification networks into a mobile robot with no loss of system bandwidth. Moreover, a gaming reinforcement learning-based motion planner, a novel and convenient embodiment of reinforcement learning, is introduced for simple implementation and high applicability. The proposed approaches are implemented and evaluated on a developed robot, TT2-bot. The evaluation was based on a mission devised for a qualitative evaluation of the general purposes and performances of a mobile robotic platform. The robot was required to recognize targets with a deep classifier and plan the path effectively using a deep motion planner. As a result, the robot verified that the proposed approaches successfully integrate deep learning technologies on the stand-alone mobile robot. The embedded neural networks for recognition and path planning were critical components for the robot.


This paper uses data from the Australian Election Studies (1987-2001) to investigate the preference for lower taxes or higher social spending among Australian voters. We offer some explanations for the increased support for higher social spending, especially after the election of the Howard Government in 1996. Regression models allow us to distinguish various factors that predict support for higher social spending. The main conclusions of the paper are that support for social spending is higher among voters with 'social-democratic' attitudes and voting preferences but significantly, is also higher among voters who think health and Medicare services have declined since 1998. These findings are discussed in the context of various possible explanations for declining support for tax cuts.


Objective The Injustice Experience Questionnaire (IEQ) assesses injury-related perceived injustice. This study aimed to (1) develop a Japanese version (IEQ-J), (2) examine its factor structure, validity, and reliability, and (3) discover which demographic variable(s) positively contributed to prediction of IEQ-J scores. Methods Data from 71 patients (33 male, 38 female; age = 20+) with injury pain were employed to investigate factor structure by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Concurrent validity was examined by Pearson correlation coefficients among the IEQ-J, Brief Pain Inventory (BPI), and Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS). Internal consistency was investigated by Cronbach's alpha, and test-retest reliability was indicated with intra-class correlations (ICCs) in 42 of 71 patients within four weeks. Relations between demographic variables and IEQ-J scores were examined by covariance analysis and linear regression models. Results IEQ-J factor structure differed from the original two-factor model. A three-factor model with Severity/irreparability, Blame/unfairness, and Perceived lack of empathy was extracted. The three-factor model showed goodness-of-fit with the data and sufficient reliability (Cronbach's alpha of 0.90 for total IEQ-J; ICCs = 0.96). Pearson correlation coefficients among IEQ-J, BPI, and PCS ranged from 0.38 to 0.73. Pain duration over a year (regression coefficient, 11.92, 95%CI; 5.95–17.89) and liability for injury on another (regression coefficient, 12.17, 95%CI; 6.38–17.96) predicted IEQ-J total scores. Conclusions This study evidenced the IEQ-J's sound psychometric properties. The three-factor model was the latter distinctive in the Japanese version. Pain duration over a year and injury liability by another statistically significantly increased IEQ-J scores.


This paper provided the stability conditions and controller design for a class of structural and mechanical systems represented by Tagagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy models. In the design procedure of controller, parallel distributed compensation (PDC) scheme was utilized to construct a global fuzzy logic controller by blending all local state feedback controllers. A stability analysis was carried out not only for the fuzzy model but also for a real mechanical system. Furthermore, this control problem can be reduced to linear matrix inequalities (LMI) problems by the Schur Complements and efficient interior-point algorithms are now available in Matlab toolbox to solve this problem. A simulation example was given to show the feasibility of the proposed fuzzy controller design method.


Micro-econometric intra-cohort profitability analyses of pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension contributions are rare. We use representative employment histories of a birth cohort of German PAYG pension insurants retiring in year 2005 to econometrically examine the determinants of the profitability of such contributions using nominal internal rates of return (IRR) as profitability measure. When future nominal pension entitlements are frozen at today's level, average IRR is slightly above three percent. At the same time, IRR differs substantially across beneficiaries. IRR is increasing in beneficiaries' remaining life expectancies at retirement and in the length of non-contribution periods resulting, for example, from child care or care for an ill partner. Due to survivor pensions, married insurants benefit from higher IRR as compared to the non-married. Interestingly, IRR is decreasing in insurants' earnings capacity, indicating that the system entails an intra-cohort progressive element.


Both spiritual experiences and mindfulness as a psychological variable have been identified as components of wellbeing and health. As there is uncertainty about their relationship, we have investigated the impact of spiritual experiences and mindfulness as well as their interaction on distress in chronically ill patients. The unidimensional Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (DSES), the multidimensional Exceptional Experiences Questionnaire (EEQ), the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI), and the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) were administered to 109 chronically ill patients. Fifty-eight patients (53%) reported regular and frequent spiritual or contemplative practice from different traditions over an average of 14.7 years (SD = 13.7). Patients with regular spiritual practice reported more positive spiritual experiences, were more mindful and less distressed (p < .001). A stepwise linear regression analysis revealed that the EEQ subscale "negative spiritual experiences" (NSE) was the most important single predictor for psychological distress (R2=.38; β=.63). In contrast, both the EEQ subscale "positive spiritual experiences" as well as the DSES that also captures positives daily encounters with a transcendental realm or entity did not account for a significant amount of variance in distress. Further analysis of the regression model (R2=.57), confirmed that NSE was still the largest predictor for distress (β=.61) and that mindfulness (β=–.38) and the interaction between mindfulness and NSE (β=–.23) were the most important buffers protecting individuals from distress. Thus, mindfulness seems not only to be a clinically important protective factor for buffering generic distress, but particularly for distress derived from NSEs. This suggests that in addition to directly facilitating well-being and health by means of positive spiritual experiences, at least some form of regular spiritual or meditative techniques seem to endow an individual with a certain degree of resilience against negative spiritual experiences that is likely a consequence of increased mindfulness. If these findings are vindicated by further studies, spiritual experiences should not be conceived and measured as univariate but rather multivariate constructs.


This essay provides programmatic and administrative recommendations for the effective building of civil, governmental, and private capabilities to help implement human development driven by local communities in Morocco in light of the Arab Spring. The essay relates a human development model rooted in decentralization to situations with powerful regional implications: in Iraq, Palestine, and the Western (Moroccan) Sahara. The engine for sustainable human development depends on local communities and neighborhoods identifying, planning, and implementing the socioeconomic and environmental projects they most need. Morocco has created a number of essential national frameworks for promoting such development, but their implementation is inadequate due to a lack of financing, of effective training, and of the application of methods that promote communal dialogue and democratic planning. Human development is examined in the context of free trade, with particular attention paid to rural areas, where most poverty is concentrated.


Discontinuity meshing has greatly enhanced the visual and numerical accuracy of radiosity solutions. However, its computational expense means that it cannot be used in dynamic interactive environments with current hardware. Techniques are proposed which allow the discontinuity information to be reused as the environment changes. These techniques complement existing dynamic radiosity methods which update the global solution for dynamic environments, while preserving the visual accuracy obtained from discontinuity meshing. The resulting system will allow full interaction with the environment, and still provide an accurate solution.


Networks of smart devices referred to as Internet of Things (IoT) have valuable applications across policy areas in the public sector. However, we lack knowledge on how IoT actually takes part in processes of societal decision making and its social implications. In this paper, we report from research in progress on IoT and big data in the public sector. Empirically, we study three cases of utilization of IoT in three domains where sensors and wireless infrastructures are put in place. Specifically, the case studies are in the contexts of city management (smart city), healthcare and environmental monitoring. Theoretically we make use of the concept of infrastructuring to go beyond the focus on IoT infrastructures as networks of technical objects, and rather foreground IoT as political, value-laden and performative configurations. We focus on algorithmic phenomena to examine the processes by which algorithms shape reality. Our preliminary findings show that this is a promising direction for research. This study will contribute to improve the understanding of how IoT arrangements transform processes of governance in the public sector.


The appearance of the radion field, which is associated with the spin-0 metric fluctuations combined in some manner with the scalar stabilizing field, and of the radion, the corresponding lowest Kaluza-Klein (KK) mode, is a generic prediction of stabilized brane world models. In such models the radion plays the role of the dilaton, and its mass may be somewhat smaller than that of all the KK modes of other particles propagating in the multidimensional bulk. Due to its origin, the radion couples to the trace of the energy-momentum tensor of the Standard Model, the interaction Lagrangian of the radion and the Standard Model fermions being similar to that of the SM Higgs-fermion interactions except for additional terms, which come into play only in the case of off-shell fermions. In the present paper it is shown that all the contributions to perturbative amplitudes of physical processes due to these additional terms are canceled out for both massless and massive off-shell fermions. Thus the additional fermion-radion terms in the interaction Lagrangian do not alter any production and decay properties of the radion compared to those of the Higgs boson.


Gregarines are apicomplexans and exclusively parasites of invertebrates. After the basic publication in the Traite de Zoologie by Grasse in 1953, this second edition is proposed to update the knowledge with information provided by new technologies such as electron microscopy, biochemistry and molecular biology and to enlighten their high diversity of adaptation to invertebrate hosts living in a diversity of biotopes. Morphological features, life cycles, host-parasite interactions and taxonomical data are most informative for the understanding of the evolution of the phylum Apicomplexa.


This paper investigates a novel direct digital frequency synthesizer architecture, based on piecewise linear approximation with segments of nonuniform length. The new approach allows reducing the total number of segments with respect to the well-known uniform segmentation. In this way the size of the coefficient ROM is also reduced with beneficial effects in terms of speed and power. We show that the optimal nonuniform segmentation (that maximizes the spurious-free dynamic range for a given number of nonuniform segments) can be obtained as the solution of a mixed-integer linear programming problem. Three simple, suboptimal, nonuniform segmentation schemes (which lend themselves to efficient hardware implementation) are proposed in this paper. We present also several design examples and VLSI implementation results, which demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed technique.


Objective: Evaluate the accuracy of a tongue tracking system based on the localization of a permanent magnet to generate a baseline of phoneme landmarks. The positional variability of the landmarks provides an indirect measure of the tracking errors to estimate the position of a small tracer attached on the tongue. The creation of a subject-independent (universal) baseline was also attempted for the first time. Method: 2,500 tongue trajectories were collected from 10 subjects tasked to utter 10 repetitions of 25 phonemes. A landmark was identified from each tongue trajectory, and tracking errors were calculated by comparing the distance of each repetition landmark to a final landmark set as their mean position. Results: In the subject-dependent baseline, the tracking errors were found to be generally consistent across all phonemes, and subjects, with less than 25% of the errors reported to be greater than 5.8 mm (median: 3.9 mm). However, the inter-subject variability showed that current limitations of our system resulted in appreciable errors (median: 55 mm, Q3: 65 mm). Conclusion: The tracking errors reported in the subject-dependent case demonstrated the potential of our system to generate a baseline of phoneme landmarks. We have identified areas of improvement that will reduce the gap between the subject-dependent, and universal baseline, while lowering tracking errors to be comparable to the gold standard. Significance: Creating a baseline of phoneme landmarks can help people affected by speech sound disorders to improve their intelligibility using visual feedback that guides their tongue placement to the proper position.


This article examines intellectuals' debates about national identity in interwar and World War II Hungary to uncover their connection to underlying "symbolic geographies" and "mental maps." Focusing on the way in which Hungarian identity and history have been informed by, and indeed inserted into, virtual spatial rubrics that rely on the historically developed cultural concepts of "Europe" and "Asia," and "West" and "East," the paper looks in particular at the "populist-urbanist debate" that raged between two groups of writers, both opposed to the ruling neo-feudal order. The populists were composed mostly of provincial-born intellectuals who saw the recognition and uplift of the peasant as the key to Hungary's salvation. The urbanists were cosmopolitan intellectuals, mostly of assimilated Jewish origin, who saw the wholesale adoption of progressive Western rights and norms as the only way forward.


Abstract The twin fields of limnology and oceanography have been raised apart since birth. Both were born from geology, geography, and biology but were raised separately by the immediate need for water supplies to fuel civilizations (limnology) and by the need for fish and by curiosity about the virgin great unknown (oceanography). I explore differences between inland waters and the sea but conclude that oceans are fast becoming "large saline lakes." Two irresistible forces are drawing these twins back together. First, there is a strong and growing realization that many aquatic ecosystems function in similar ways and thus can productively share a common theoretical foundation. Second, there is the growing understanding that most oceans are now suffering the same insults at the hands of civilization as inland waters have been for centuries. I support these ideas with an analysis of the top-10 most important problems and paradigms in these sister fields and gauge their prevalence in the burgeoning published literature. I suggest that in the coming years limnologists will be able to assist oceanographers in learning to understand, manage, and mitigate the impacts of growing global change. Oceanographers will assist limnologists in questions of salinity and physical scale that have been less prevalent topics in inland waters. Limnologists and oceanographers have much more to gain by uniting than by competing. Water is our common strategic resource, and we have much to learn from each other.


MARKOVA, E., 2010. Influence of the insecticide Fozalon on the structure of syrphid community (Diptera: Syrphidae) in an alfalfa ecosystem. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 16: 1-8 The goal of the study was to establish the influence of the insecticide fozalon upon main population and coenotic parameters of the syrphid flies (Diptera: Syrphidae) – a basic component in the useful entomofauna of the agro-coenoses. The effect of the insecticide on the number of species and qualitative composition of the syrphid coenosis was unessential. The influence of the insecticide fozalon on the population density of each species and the total average density of the community was negative and clearly manifested. The negative effect occurs immediately after the treatment and it was longer for some species. The dominant structure shows no significant change after treatment compared to the same area before the treatment. The used indices for the species structure of the communities in the investigation show a relatively less unfavorable ecological situation for the syrphid cenosis in the field after insecticide treatment.


Agile development is a crucial issue within software engineering because one of the goals of any project leader is to increase the speed and flexibility in the development of new commercial products. In this sense, project managers must find the best resource configuration for each of the work packages necessary for the management of software development processes in order to keep the team motivated and committed to the project and to improve productivity and quality. This paper presents ReSySTER, a hybrid recommender system based on fuzzy logic, rough set theory and semantic technologies, aimed at helping project leaders to manage software development projects. The proposed system provides a powerful tool for project managers supporting the development process in Scrum environments and helping to form the most suitable team for different work packages. The system has been evaluated in a real scenario of development with the Scrum framework obtaining promising results.


We cloned 17 different PCR fragments encoding VH genes of camel (Camelus dromedarius). These clones were derived from the camel heavy chain immunoglobulins lacking the light chain counterpart of normal immunoglobulins. Insight into the camel VH sequences and structure may help the development of single domain antibodies. The most remarkable difference in the camel VH, consistent with the absence of the VL interaction, is the substitution of the conserved Leu45 by an Arg or Cys. Another noteworthy substitution is the Leu11 to Ser. This amino acid normally interacts with the CH1 domain, a domain missing in the camel heavy chain immunoglobulins. The nature of these substitutions agrees with the increased solubility behavior of an isolated camel VH domain. The VH domains of the camels are also characterized by a long CDR3, possibly compensating for the absence of the VL contacts with the antigen. The CDR3 lacks the salt bridge between Arg94 and Asp101. However, the frequent occurrence of additional Cys residues in both the CDR1 and CDR3 might lead to the formation of a second internal disulfide bridge, thereby stabilizing the CDR structure as in the DAW antibody. Within CDRs of the camel VH domains we observe a broad size distribution and a different amino acid pattern compared with the mouse or human VH. Therefore the camel hypervariable regions might adopt structures which differ substantially from the known canonical structures, thereby increasing the repertoire of the camel antigen binding sites within a VH.


Background The endogenous steroidal inhibitor of sodium–potassium-dependent adenosine triphosphate and natriuretic hormone, marinobufagenin, plays a physiological role in ionic homeostasis. Animal models suggest that elevated marinobufagenin adversely associates with cardiac and renal, structural and functional alterations. It remains uncertain whether marinobufagenin relates to the early stages of target organ damage development, especially in young adults without cardiovascular disease. We therefore explored whether elevated 24-hour urinary marinobufagenin excretion was related to indices of subclinical target organ damage in young healthy adults. Design This cross-sectional study included 711 participants from the African-PREDICT study (black 51%, men 42%, 24.8 ± 3.02 years). Methods We assessed cardiac geometry and function by two-dimensional echocardiography and pulse wave Doppler imaging. 24-Hour urinary marinobufagenin and sodium excretion were measured, and the estimated glomerular filtration rate determined. Results Across marinobufagenin excretion quartiles, left ventricular mass (P < 0.001), end diastolic volume (P < 0.001), stroke volume (P = 0.004) and sodium excretion (P < 0.001) were higher within the fourth compared with the first quartile. Partial regression analyses indicated that left ventricular mass (r = 0.08, P = 0.043), end diastolic volume (r = 0.10, P = 0.010) and stroke volume (r = 0.09, P = 0.022) were positively related to marinobufagenin excretion. In multivariate-adjusted regression analysis, left ventricular mass associated positively with marinobufagenin excretion only in the highest marinobufagenin excretion quartile (adjusted R2 = 0.20; β = 0.15; P = 0.043). This relationship between left ventricular mass and marinobufagenin excretion was evident in women (adjusted R2 = 0.06; β = 0.127; P = 0.015) but not in men (adjusted R2 = 0.06; β = 0.007; P = 0.92). Conclusions Left ventricular mass positively and independently associates with marinobufagenin excretion in young healthy adults with excessively high marinobufagenin excretion. Women may be more sensitive to the effects of marinobufagenin on early structural cardiac changes.


The purpose of harbors is to give the maximum shelter to vessels to prevent damage or allow greatest ease in loading or unloading. Small craft are most effected by short period waves, while commercial craft are more effected by long period waves or surge. Small craft require that the wave action be reduced to about 1 foot or less in height to prevent damage at moorings. To obtain quietness within the harbor, it is essential to prevent energy from entering the harbor, or, by absorbing it, after it enters. Energy can enter through three sources: through the entrance, by overtopping, or by transmission through the structures. The entrance to the harbor should be made as small as possible to reduce the amount of energy entering yet it must be wide enough to provide navigation ease and safety. The optimum width of the entrance depends on the type of harbor, the amount of traffic, size of the vessels, and entrance conditions. Assuming the layout of the harbor structures as being fixed, several methods may be used to obtain maximum quietness. Porous breakwaters may be sealed. If a narrow channel is feasible, flat channel side-slopes protected by a rubble cover layer will dissipate a large portion of the energy. Wave energy reaching the interior may be absorbed by suitably placed stone wave absorbers or dissipators. Discussion of some recent pertinent studies follows.


A common approach to the automatic detection of mispronunciation in language learning is to recognize the phonemes produced by a student and compare it to the expected pronunciation of a native speaker. This approach makes two simplifying assumptions: a) phonemes can be recognized from speech with high accuracy, b) there is a single correct way for a sentence to be pronounced. These assumptions do not always hold, which can result in a significant amount of false mispronunciation alarms. We propose a novel approach to overcome this problem based on two principles: a) taking into account uncertainty in the automatic phoneme recognition step, b) accounting for the fact that there may be multiple valid pronunciations. We evaluate the model on non-native (L2) English speech of German, Italian and Polish speakers, where it is shown to increase the precision of detecting mispronunciations by up to 18% (relative) compared to the common approach.


Since the early years of the twenty-first century, the performing arts have been party to an increasing number of digital media projects that bring renewed attention to questions about, on one hand, new working processes involving capture and distribution techniques, and on the other hand, how particular works—with bespoke hard and software—can exert an efficacy over how work is created by the artist/producer or received by the audience. The evolution of author/audience criteria demand that digital arts practice modify aesthetic and storytelling strategies, to types that are more appropriate to communicating ideas over interactive digital networks, wherein AR/VR technologies are rapidly becoming the dominant interface. This project explores these redefined criteria through a reimagining of Samuel Becketts Play (1963) for digital culture. This paper offers an account of the working processes, the aesthetic and technical considerations that guide artistic decisions and how we attempt to place the overall work in the state of the art.


A remarkable characteristic of overparameterized deep neural networks (DNNs) is that their accuracy does not degrade when the network width is increased. Recent evidence suggests that developing compressible representations allows the complexity of large networks to be adjusted for the learning task at hand. However, these representations are poorly understood. A promising strand of research inspired from biology involves studying representations at the unit level as it offers a more granular interpretation of the neural mechanisms. In order to better understand what facilitates increases in width without decreases in accuracy, we ask: Are there mechanisms at the unit level by which networks control their effective complexity? If so, how do these depend on the architecture, dataset, and hyperparameters? We identify two distinct types of "frivolous" units that proliferate when the network's width increases: prunable units which can be dropped out of the network without significant change to the output and redundant units whose activities can be expressed as a linear combination of others. These units imply complexity constraints as the function the network computes could be expressed without them. We also identify how the development of these units can be influenced by architecture and a number of training factors. Together, these results help to explain why the accuracy of DNNs does not degrade when width is increased and highlight the importance of frivolous units toward understanding implicit regularization in DNNs.


This study examined social-cognitive processes of aggressive and nonaggressive boys at preadolescent and early adolescent age levels. The social-cognitive variables included processing of cues, attributions, social problem solving, affect labeling, outcome expectations, and perceived competence and self-worth. Results indicated that a wide range of social-cognitive processes is distorted and deficient for violent and moderately aggressive children, and that different types of social cognition contribute unique variance in discriminating among groups. Severely violent boys at both age levels had difficulties with cue recall, attributions, social problem solving, general self-worth, and a pattern of endorsing unusually positive affects that they may experience in different settings. Moderately aggressive boys shared some of the social-cognitive difficulties demonstrated by severely violent boys, but they also displayed indications that their aggression may be more planfully aimed to achieve expected outcomes. When the moderately aggressive and the violent boys differed from the nonaggressive boys on attributional biases and low perceived self-worth, a continuum existed with violent boys displaying more extreme social-cognitive dysfunctions than the moderately aggressive boys. These findings carry implications for cognitive-behavioral intervention with severely violent and moderately aggressive youths.


As for a variable air volume (VAV) system, the air duct static pressure is a typical control variable maintained by modulating supply fan speed. The static pressure equals to the summation of the duct pressure loss downstream of the sensor to the terminal box and box inlet static pressure. Typically, the air duct static pressure is set as a constant set point based on the system design information and sensor location. However, under partial load conditions, the terminal box dampers have to be closed more since the required airflow is less than the design airflow which directly leads to much less pressure loss. Thus the static pressure set point should be reset lower in order to reduce fan power, avoid noise at terminal box dampers and box damper malfunction due to excessive pressure. Different static pressure reset schedules are reviewed and compared, considering the influence of outside air temperature on the building load, availability of the VAV box damper positions, the airflow ratio based static pressure reset has also applicable advantages over the existing constant static pressure set point and two typical reset methods. This paper presents the theoretical models to express the impacts of static pressure reset on fan airflow, fan head, air leakage, fan power and thermal energy for both pressure independent and pressure dependent boxes. The impacts are also demonstrated using the parametric analysis and numerical results to show the benefits of the static pressure reset including reducing fan power, cooling energy and heating energy.


This book is a re-introduction to psychology. It focuses on great scholarly thinkers, beginning with Plato, Marcus Aurelius and St Augustine, who gave the field its foundational ideas long before better known 'founders', such as Galton, Fechner, Wundt and Watson, appeared on the scene. Psychology can only achieve its full breadth and potential when we fully appreciate its scholarly legacy. Bruce Alexander and Curtis Shelton also argue that the fundamental contradictions built into psychology's history have never been resolved, and that a truly pragmatic approach, as defined by William James, can produce a 'layered' psychology that will enable psychologists to face the fearsome challenges of the twenty-first century. A History of Psychology in Western Civilization claims that contemporary psychology has overemphasized the methods of physical science and that psychology will need a broader scientific orientation alongside a scholarly focus in order to fully engage the future.


Speech technology is gaining popularity and is used in a wide range of mobile applications and consumer devices. Speech-based interfaces circumvent the typing difficulties posed by soft keyboards. This paper describes the design and research of a speech-based interface for an enterprise sales application that combines speech recognition, natural language processing, and web services to drive the application. The paper further delves into the research methods applied--paper prototype testing, structured interviews, and a lab study--to gather feedback at various design stages. Finally, the paper describes how each of the three distinct research methods provided researchers with a more complete understanding of the user experience and led to a redesign.


Atheists are America's least trusted group, and stereotypes about them abound: Atheists are non-conformist, sceptical, cynical, and joyless, rarely experiencing awe. Atheists (N = 42) were recruited from the American atheist website and compared to Christians (N = 22) and Buddhists (N = 18). Groups were highly similar in their reported well-being, empathy, and other personality scales, but differed strongly on scales assessing Spirituality and Magical Ideation, where atheists rejected the concepts of spirituality and magical beliefs. Responding to the question, "Have you ever felt wonderment or felt as if you were part of something greater than yourself?," 71% said "yes," citing Nature (54%), Science, (30%), Music/Art (12%), and Human cooperation (8%). Respondents explained their lack of belief as deriving from a preference for logic and rationality, suggesting an intellectual component to atheism. Findings thus support the stereotype of atheists as logical, sceptical, and non-conformist, but not as cynical and joyless.


Delphi method is applied in this study for the developement of Saint-Petersburg (Russia) medical tourism. Medical tourism is an authorized facilitator company having the functions of a national or regional agent and approved by the state authorities that has to be the organizing core. The experts agreed that for attracting tourists the process of international accreditation of clinics, staff, hotel centers and resorts had to be launched. The process, for such a development has to begin with creating an own accreditation system for inbound medical travel services and market players under the authorized national or regional facilitator. It is pointed out that educational programs in medical tourism is an important direction in building this attidute. Thus, surveys have enabled the authors to word formalized suggestions on reference points of the medical tourism development concept for Saint-Petersburg and Leningrad region.


Nowadays, it is widely accepted that wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are significant sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, contributing to the anthropogenic sources. Among the GHG emitted from WWTPs, nitrous oxide (N 2 O) has been identified of having the major interest/concern, since its high global warming potential (GWP), is 298 times higher than that of CO 2 and also to its capability to react with stratospheric ozone causing the layer depletion. Up to now, most of the experimental investigations have been carried out on conventional activated sludge (CAS) processes. The knowledge of N 2 O emission from advanced technologies such membrane bioreactors (MBRs) is still very limited. The present paper is aimed at providing a picture of the GHG emissions from MBR systems. In particular, data of N 2 O acquired from pilot plant systems monitoring are here presented. The key aim of the study was to highlight the effect of wastewater features and operational conditions on N 2 O production/emission from MBRs


Contributing to a social cause can be an important driver for workers in the public and non-profit sector as well as in firms that engage in Corporate Social Responsibility activities. This paper compares the effectiveness of social incentives to financial incentives using an online real effort experiment. We find that social incentives lead to a 20% rise in productivity, regardless of their form (lump sum or related to performance) or strength. When subjects can choose the mix of incentives half sacrifice some of their private compensation to increase social compensation, with women more likely than men. Furthermore, social incentives do not attract less productive subjects, nor subjects that respond more to exogenously imposed social incentives. Our calculations suggest that a dollar spent on social incentives is equivalent to increasing private compensation by at least half a dollar.


With the aid of the All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) database on the Galactic field, we compare the iron abun- dances of fundamental mode RR Lyrae stars derived from the Fourier parameters with those obtained from low-dispersion spectroscopy. We show from a set of 79 stars, distinct from the original calibrating sample of the Fourier method and selected without quality control, that almost all discrepant estimates are the results of some defects or peculiarities either in the photom- etry or in the spectroscopy. Omitting objects deviating by more than 0.4 dex, the remaining subsample of 64 stars yields Fourier abundances that fit the spectroscopic ones with σ = 0.20 dex. Other, more stringent selection criteria and different Fourier decompositions lead to smaller subsamples and concomitant better agreement, down to σ = 0.16 dex. Except perhaps for two variables among the 163 stars, comprised of the ASAS variables and those of the original calibrating set of the Fourier method, all discrepant values can be accounted for by observational noise and insufficient data coverage. We suggest that the agreement can be further improved when new, more accurate spectroscopic data become available for a test with the best photometric data. As a by-product of this analysis, we also compute revised periods and select Blazhko variables.


In Changing Behavior, Georgianna Donadio, a Florence Nightingale scholar and nurse advocate, outlines her innovative methods for training health-care professionals to better communicate with patients and encourage sustainable behavior changes. She also discusses how recent cultural trends in the United States have contributed to rising rates of depression, cancer, obesity, and diabetes, and she offers a detailed explanation of how improved communication and healthier relationships help to reverse these trends. In order to gain long-lasting health, Donadio believes that people need to have satisfying relationships with others to overcome the deep-seated fears that often thwart attempts to change unhealthy practices. She notes, "As human beings, we find all change stressful. It requires adaptation and learning new strategies for a new job, relationship, living environment, or activity. We want to avoid the stress of change and remain in the known where we have identified and defined our adaptation strategies to suit our comfort level." The author's Behavioral Engagement program teaches health-care professionals how to gain the trust of their patients by actively listening to their fears and concerns. This model involves being "purely present" to others and Donadio lays out how to achieve this behavioral transformation through twenty detailed components that offer readers plenty of practical examples, from changes in body language and eye contact to techniques for clearing one's own mind of personal issues. Donadio provides the scientific research behind her methods in clear and simple language. She also suggests specific actions readers can take to hone their communication skills, and she includes brief selfassessments at the beginning of each chapter. Donadio's theories and methods are accessible to a wide spectrum of readers. Her ideas are clearly articulated and accompanied by examples drawn from her many years of clinical practice. The book includes helpful charts as well as a series of delightful color illustrations of whimsical, abstract human figures that contribute much to the flow and lively presentation of the material. Extensive and interesting endnotes enrich the text, and the large font and generous softcover format improve readability. Additionally, there is plenty of margin space for taking notes. All of these features help to create a clean, well-designed package that nicely presents Donadio's ideas. Changing Behaviors is an important training resource for nearly all health-care workers, from surgeons to hospital volunteers, but its scope is much broader. The author's Behavioral Engagement and Pure Presence techniques are applicable to a wide range of practitioners in the helping professions, such as parents, caregivers, and clergy, and can benefit anyone who wants to learn how to better develop their own relationships. Donadio has an engaging style which is reinforced by an effective book design. This title deserves a wide readership. RACHEL JAGARESKI (May 8, 2012)


Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Urban Drainage, held in Portland, Oregon, September 8-13, 2002. Sponsored by Urban Water Resources Research Council of the Environmental Water Resources Institute of ASCE; International Association for Hydraulic Research; Joint Committee on Urban Drainage of the International Water Association. This collection of 329 papers presents state-of-the-art solutions to common urban storm drainage problems, such as flooding, combined sewer overflows, nonpoint-source runoff quality, urban streams, and more. Papers report on practical applications of new and traditional methods of analysis, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of urban storm drainage systems, as well as on institutional and educational approaches for improving the urban water environment. Topics include: best management practices; decision support and modeling; combined sewer overflows and sanitary sewer overflows; stormwater management; urban streams; monitoring; precipitation and hydrology; flooding; education and involvement; sewer processes; hydraulics; real-time control; and Portland, Oregon, wet weather.


Climate change projections indicate that the UK is expected to experience more
frequent and more intense heat wave periods over the coming decades. Buildings
frequently experience overheating even under the present climate, resulting in
discomfort, health complaints and even mortality. Current house building rates are
low, resulting in a need to adapt the existing building stock to provide more
comfortable and safe environments.
Dynamic thermal simulation computer modelling was used to assess and rank the
effectiveness of selected single and combined interventions (adaptations) in reducing
overheating during a heat wave period for a range of dwelling types, orientations and
occupancy profiles. It is shown that solar protection interventions, such as window
shutters and solar reflective coatings, can be amongst the most effective at reducing
overheating during heat wave periods, but with a corresponding increase in annual
space heating energy use. Whereas the addition of wall insulation, though beneficial
for reducing energy use, may in some cases actually increase summer overheating.
The results and guidance are presented in a way that allows identification of parts of
the building stock most at risk and rapid selection of the best performing interventions
in terms of overheating reduction, cost and annual energy use. It is also shown that
above certain cost levels there is a diminishing return in both overheating
performance and energy use reduction.
The results of this research will provide important information to support
refurbishment decisions of both individual house owners and landlords responsible
for multiple properties, such as housing associations and local authorities.


Extracted from text ... 76
THERE ONCE WAS ...
. . . a lawyer named Kirk
the day on which he took silk
he prepared a short plea
re pet owners' liability
but his own dog chewed up his quilt
. . . a lawyer called Tess
stinking rich one would have to confess
evidence went astray
the accused said hooray
her bank balance showed no duress
. . . a judge called De Soup
who made counsel jump through his hoop
suspects willingly testified
complainants sat mesmerised
he remained one apart from the troop
. . . a judge under stress
all his courts were an absolute mess
prosecutors went home
all his cases postponed
but this is quite normal, I guess
Christa Roodt
Varia
..


The standardization of network configuration interfaces for use with
the NETCONF protocol requires a structured data modeling environment
which promotes human usability and multi-vendor interoperability. The
Network Configuration Extensions (NCX) are a set of specifications
intended to address NETCONF data modeling issues. This document
defines an Access Control Model (ACM) suitable for use with the
NETCONF protocol, intended to promote a more consistent, manageable,
and interoperable infra-structure for ongoing development of NETCONF-
based management interfaces.


BACKGROUND
The National Cancer Registry of Mongolia began as a hospital-based registry in the early 1960s but then evolved to have a population-wide role. The Registry provides the only cancer data available from Mongolia for international comparison. The descriptive data presented in this report are the first to be submitted on cancer incidence in Mongolia to a peer-reviewed journal. The purpose was to describe cancer incidence and mortality for all invasive cancers collectively, individual primary sites, and particularly leading sites, and consider cancer control opportunities.

METHODS
This study includes data on new cancer cases registered in Mongolia in 2003-2007. Incidence and mortality rates were calculated as mean annual numbers per 100,000 residents. Age-standardized incidence (ASR) and age-standardized mortality (ASMR) rates were calculated from age-specific rates by weighting directly to the World Population standard.

RESULTS
Between 2003 and 2007, 17,271 new cases of invasive cancer were recorded (52.2% in males, 47.7% in females). The five leading primary sites in males were liver, stomach, lung, esophagus, and colon/rectum; whereas in females they were liver, cervix, stomach, esophagus and breast. ASRs were lower in females than males for cancers of the liver at 63.0 and 99.1 per 100,000 respectively; cancers of the stomach at 19.1 and 42.1 per 100,000 respectively; and cancers of the lung at 8.3 and 33.2 per 100,000 respectively. Liver cancer was the most common cause of death in each gender, the ASMR being lower for females than males at 60.6 compared with 94.8 per 100,000. In females the next most common sites of cancer death were the stomach and esophagus, whereas in males, they were the stomach and lung.

DISCUSSION
Available data indicate that ASRs of all cancers collectively have increased over the last 20 years. Rates are highest for liver cancer, at about four times the world average. The most common cancers are those with a primary site of liver, stomach and esophagus, for which cases fatality rates are high in all populations. Emphasis is given in the National Cancer Control Program (NCCP) to limiting treatment for these and other high-fatality cancers to the small sub-set of potentially curable cases, while focusing on palliative care and patient support for the remainder. Meanwhile opportunities are being pursued to prevent liver cancer through hepatitis B vaccination and lung cancer through tobacco control, and to reduce cervical cancer mortality by finding lesions at a pre-malignant or early invasive stage.


The purpose of this study is to determine the metaphors that the candidate teachers develop about the nuclear power plants in the socio-scientific issues based environmental education class and the justification of these metaphors. The study was constructed on the basis of a qualitative research model and phenomenological (phenomenology) pattern was used. The study was conducted during an academic semester in the environmental education course. The researcher presented to the classroom teacher candidate the positive and negative effects of the socio-scientific situations on the environment, human, development, economy, and health. It was ensured that teacher candidates were able to relate these issues to the subjects of environmental education course, assess the difficulties and discuss them with large group studies. A study for building the metaphors was conducted in the activity carried out for nuclear power plants as the last activity of the implementation process. The research was conducted with 197 classroom teacher candidates and the data were collected through a metaphor questionnaire prepared in a semi-structured form and the content analysis method was used in data analysis. The time period, when teacher candidates experience the metaphors more frequently, their age or they build the metaphors in the interaction with the environment they are living in and they have listed the metaphors as follows; falling in love, internet, getting married, using medication, gun, frenemies, using the phone, bomb, eating desserts, gambling and smoking. When the reasons why the classroom teacher candidates use the metaphors are reviewed, it has been determined that they basically create supportive, opponent and impartial reasons for the nuclear power plants. Nevertheless, the majority of class teacher candidates perceived as a socio-scientific issue towards nuclear power plants and recognized the contradictory circumstances and apprehended the positive and negative characteristics of nuclear power plants in the context of economic and environmental effects.


Halide perovskites are currently one of the most heavily researched emerging photovoltaic materials. Despite achieving remarkable power conversion efficiencies, perovskite solar cells have not yet achieved their full potential, with the interfaces between the perovskite and the charge‐selective layers being where most recombination losses occur. In this study, a fluorinated ionic liquid (IL) is employed to modify the perovskite/SnO2 interface. Using Kelvin probe and photoelectron spectroscopy measurements, it is shown that depositing the perovskite onto an IL‐treated substrate results in the crystallization of a perovskite film which has a more n‐type character, evidenced by a decrease of the work function and a shift of the Fermi level toward the conduction band. Photoluminescence spectroscopy and time‐resolved microwave conductivity are used to investigate the optoelectronic properties of the perovskite grown on neat and IL‐modified surfaces and it is found that the modified substrate yields a perovskite film which exhibits an order of magnitude lower trap density than the control. When incorporated into solar cells, this interface modification results in a reduction in the current–voltage hysteresis and an improvement in device performance, with the best performing devices achieving steady‐state PCEs exceeding 20%.


This article presents numerical studies on the drag evolution of an axisymmetric body of revolution with microgrooves using Reynolds stress model-based computational fluid dynamics simulations. Experimental data of drag evolution along the non-grooved body were used to validate the numerical model predictions. After validation of the model predictions, a series of numerical simulations were performed to study the effect of toroidal grooving of the axisymmetric body on the drag evolution by varying the depth to the surface radius of the grooves at different Reynolds numbers. A maximum drag reduction of 43% was achieved with such effort. This was possible because of the drastic reduction of turbulent shear stress in the boundary layer, which has a direct relationship with the skin friction drag evolution along the body.


Blind source separation problems emerge in many applications, where signals can be modeled as superpositions of multiple sources. Many popular applications of blind source separation are based on linear instantaneous mixture models. If specific invariance properties are known about the sources, for example, translation or rotation invariance, the simple linear model can be extended by inclusion of the corresponding transformations. When the sources are invariant against translations (spatial displacements or time shifts) the resulting model is called an anechoic mixing model. We present a new algorithmic framework for the solution of anechoic problems in arbitrary dimensions. This framework is derived from stochastic time-frequency analysis in general, and the marginal properties of the Wigner-Ville spectrum in particular. The method reduces the general anechoic problem to a set of anechoic problems with non-negativity constraints and a phase retrieval problem. The first type of subproblem can be solved by existing algorithms, for example by an appropriate modification of non-negative matrix factorization (NMF). The second subproblem is solved by established phase retrieval methods. We discuss and compare implementations of this new algorithmic framework for several example problems with synthetic and real-world data, including music streams, natural 2D images, human motion trajectories and two-dimensional shapes.


Lysine acetylation is a posttranslational modification that is dynamically regulated by the activity of acetyltransferases and deacetylases. The human and mouse genomes encode 18 different lysine deacetylases (KDACs) which are key regulators of many cellular processes. Identifying substrates of KDACs and pinpointing the regulated acetylation sites on target proteins may provide important information about the molecular basis of their functions. Here we apply quantitative proteomics to identify endogenous substrates of the mitochondrial deacetylase Sirtuin 3 (Sirt3) by comparing site-specific acetylation in wild-type murine embryonic fibroblasts to Sirt3 knockout cells. We confirm Sirt3-regulated acetylation of several mitochondrial proteins in human cells by comparing acetylation in U2OS cells overexpressing Sirt3 to U2OS cells in which Sirt3 expression was reduced by shRNA. Our data demonstrate that ablation of Sirt3 significantly increases acetylation at dozens of sites on mitochondrial proteins. Substrates of Sirt3 are implicated in various metabolic pathways, including fatty acid metabolism and the tricarboxylic acid cycle. These results imply broader regulatory roles of Sirt3 in the mitochondria by modulating acetylation on diverse substrates. The experimental strategy described here is generic and can be applied to identify endogenous substrates of other lysine deacetylases.


This post-qualitative inquiry engaged the work of Gayatri Spivak in a two-part conceptual analysis of what is (not) happening with sexual violence prevention and investigations in higher education. Using poststructuralism as the theoretical foundation, part one of the analysis used Spivak's deconstruction to trouble language and meaning in the 2011 Title IX "Dear Colleague" Letter, the 2014 White House Task Force Report "Not Alone," and the 2014 Violence Against Women Act Final Rule. Part two of the analysis deconstructed margin/center politics and explored the production of marginality using sexual assault survivors' narratives and the Office for Civil Rights Title IX Resolution Agreements. This conceptual analysis exposed paradoxes in the claims of safety, protection, and prevention, and revealed the privileging of post-sexual assault intervention strategies over pre-sexual assault prevention strategies. The analysis also revealed how the questionable actions of Title IX machines at higher education institutions work in opposition of safety, protection, and prevention to maintain sexual violence elimination as a condition of impossibility. In an effort to change that condition to one of possibility, recommendations for integrated prevention and intervention strategies and Title IX staff training are provided, as is the recommendation to explore Title IX Regional Investigation Centers.


Graphics processing units (GPUs) are specially designed for parallel applications and perform parallel operations much faster than central processing units (CPUs). In this work, we focus on the performance of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) on GPUs. We present optimizations which remove bank conflicts in shared memory accesses and provide 878.6 Gbps throughput for AES-128 encryption on an RTX 2070 Super, which is equivalent to 4.1 Gbps per Watt. Our optimizations provide more than 2.56x speed-up against the best GPU results in the literature. Our optimized AES implementations on GPUs even outperform any CPU using the hardware level AES New Instructions (AES-NI) and legacy FPGA-based cluster architectures like COPACOBANA and RIVYERA. Even on a low-end GPU like MX 250, we obtained 60.0 Gbps throughput for AES-256 which is generally faster than the read/write speeds of solid disks. Thus, transition from AES-128 to AES-256 when using GPUs would provide military grade security with no visible performance loss. With these breakthrough performances, GPUs can be used as a cryptographic co-processor for file or full disk encryption to remove performance loss coming from CPU encryption. With a single GPU as a co-processor, busy SSL servers can be free from the burden of encryption and use their whole CPU power for other operations. Moreover, these optimizations can help GPUs to practically verify theoretically obtained cryptanalysis results or their reduced versions in reasonable time.


More attention is needed for healthcare centers projects and its development to change and improve the health situation in Iraq. The study of risk in this type of projects is essential to avoid the problems encountered during the project life cycle.  This paper aimed to identify risk factors facing the construction of an advanced healthcare centers and to enhance the possible solutions based on the opinion of experts. For data collection, fifty-five risk factors were presented in a questionnaire form. The result showed that the major risk factor was government corruption, which has a direct influence on the economy and a negative impact on the infrastructure in the country and its development. The analysis showed that financial problems represent the highest risk during the years in all construction projects. Other considerable risk factors were time overrun, labor safety, as well as environmental risks, which are related to waste treatment. Other important risk factors were related to the ventilation system and air conditioning, also risk in providing continuous electrical power during the day. In term of risk groups, the five most effective ones were political, Economic, Safety, Operation & Maintenance and Construction risks.


Haakon Lein & Yuling Shen. 2006. The disappearance of the Karez of Turfan. Report from the project 'Harvest from wasteland. Land, people and water management reforms in the drylands of Xinjiang.' Acta Geographica–Trondheim, Serie A, Nr. 15. Geografisk institutt, NTNU, Trondheim. 18 pp. ISSN 1502-2390 This report has been prepared as part of the project 'Harvest from wasteland. People, land and water management in Xinjiang, China.' This project focuses on land and water management issues as well as ongoing water reforms in locations in the Tarim basin of Xinjiang Uyuar Autonomous Region, Northwest China. The report deals with karez irrigation in Turfan district. Karez irrigation is a type of irrigation based on underground canals and is well known in many dry areas of the Middle East and Central Asia under the name qanats. The report describes the situation today, the number of karez still in use, their importance as regards agriculture as well as to identify causes behind the decline in number of karez in use. The report is based on fieldwork in Turfan in October 2004. A major conclusion is that the karez as a unique form of irrigation is under substantial pressure and that if present development continues karez irrigation will more or less be abandoned in the region within a decade or


Abstract. WorldView-3 (WV-3), launched in August 2014, is a commercial imaging satellite with high spatial resolution that measures reflected radiation in VNIR-SWIR regions in 16 bands. The main objective of this study was to discriminate the alteration minerals in Chadormalu iron deposit area, central Iran, using band ratio techniques on the selected bands of this satellite. To identify the appropriate band ratios the spectral bands of WV-3 were investigated and assessed. Regarding to Fe3+, Fe2+, Al-OH, Fe-OH, Mg-OH and CO32− spectral absorption features, band ratios B5/B2, B13/B9, B13/B14 and B14/B16 were proposed for enhancement of ferrous and ferric iron bearing minerals, sericite, epidote, chlorite, and dolomite. Combination of field observations, geological map and high resolution spectra of rock samples were used to verify the results. Band ratio B5/B2, B13/B9, B13/B14 gray scale images respectively illustrated that Fe3+-rich minerals are occurring in granite, the Fe2+-rich minerals are enhanced in iron ore, green schist, and diorite units, and sericite is occurring in hydrothermally altered granite and iron ore. Since the Fe/Mg-OH vibrational mode in chlorite-epidote and spectral absorption feature of CO32− in dolomite occur in B16, the B14/B16 ratio highlighted chlorite-epidote-rich green schist, diorite and dolomitic marble. The false color composite image of B13/B14, B13/B9, and B14/B16 as RGB produced a large scale map which successfully discriminated the rock types and accompanying alteration minerals. This study demonstrated that WV-3 data have efficient spectral resolution to discriminate alteration minerals with Fe3+, Fe2+, Al-OH and Fe/Mg-OH or CO32− spectral absorption features.


In recent decades, studies about Media Education have proliferated in both national and international levels. It is widely accepted the citizens' lack of Media Literacy and their need to expand the research by focusing on its causes and solutions. In this context, this article aims to examine the undergraduate teaching and the way universities deal with the problem of media literacy. We understand that in order to optimize the general media competence, we should influence on communication professionals, who are responsible for the media messages; and on education professionals, who have an impact on the active audiences. All these actors confluence in a single space: the university. Therefore, the work aims to identify the needs and lacks in the curriculum of the media and education studies which eventually lead to Media Literacy deficit of citizens. For this purpose, a questionnaire was administered to the heads of all Spanish undergraduate studies related to communication and education. Additionally, their curricula and syllabus were analyzed through content analysis. The results are revealing. First, there is a lack of courses directly related to Media Education. Second, most of the courses indirectly related to it are focused on the technological dimension. Finally, based on the content analysis, most of the courses considered by the professors directly related to media education have in fact an indirect connection


Iron is an essential nutrient for bacteria but the reactivity of Fe2+ and the insolubility of Fe3+ present significant challenges to bacterial cells. Iron storage proteins contribute to ameliorating these challenges by oxidizing Fe2+ using O2 and H2O2 as electron acceptors, and by compartmentalizing Fe3+. Two types of iron-storage proteins coexist in bacteria, the ferritins (Ftn) and the heme-containing bacterioferritins (Bfr), but the reasons for their coexistence are largely unknown. P. aeruginosa cells harbor two iron storage proteins (FtnA and BfrB), but nothing is known about their relative contributions to iron homeostasis. Prior studies in vitro have shown that iron mobilization from BfrB requires specific interactions with a ferredoxin (Bfd), but the relevance of the BfrB:Bfd interaction to iron homeostasis in P. aeruginosa is unknown. In this work we explore the repercussions of (i) deleting the bfrB gene, and (ii) perturbing the BfrB:Bfd interaction in P. aeruginosa cells by either deleting the bfd gene or by replacing the wild type bfrB gene with a L68A/E81A double mutant allele in the P. aeruginosa chromosome. The effects of the mutations were evaluated by following the accumulation of iron in BfrB, analyzing levels of free and total intracellular iron, and by characterizing the ensuing iron homeostasis dysregulation phenotypes. The results reveal that P. aeruginosa accumulates iron mainly in BfrB, and that the nutrient does not accumulate in FtnA to detectable levels, even after deletion of the bfrB gene. Perturbing the BfrB:Bfd interaction causes irreversible flow of iron into BfrB, which leads to the accumulation of unusable intracellular iron while severely depleting the levels of free intracellular iron, which drives the cells to an acute iron starvation response despite harboring "normal" levels of total intracellular iron. These results are discussed in the context of a dynamic equilibrium between free cytosolic Fe2+ and Fe3+ compartmentalized in BfrB, which functions as a buffer to oppose rapid changes of free cytosolic iron. Finally, we also show that P. aeruginosa cells utilize iron stored in BfrB for growth in iron-limiting conditions, and that the utilization of BfrB-iron requires a functional BfrB:Bfd interaction.


We present a new method for rendering high dynamic range images on conventional displays. Our method is conceptually simple, computationally efficient, robust, and easy to use. We manipulate the gradient field of the luminance image by attenuating the magnitudes of large gradients. A new, low dynamic range image is then obtained by solving a Poisson equation on the modified gradient field. Our results demonstrate that the method is capable of drastic dynamic range compression, while preserving fine details and avoiding common artifacts, such as halos, gradient reversals, or loss of local contrast. The method is also able to significantly enhance ordinary images by bringing out detail in dark regions.


Abstract. Usually data assimilation methods evaluate observation-model misfits using weighted L2 distances. However, it is not well suited when observed features are present in the model with position error. In this context, the Wasserstein distance stemming from optimal transport theory is more relevant. This paper proposes the adaptation of variational data assimilation for the use of such a measure. It provides a short introduction of optimal transport theory and discusses the importance of a proper choice of scalar product to compute the cost function gradient. It also extends the discussion to the way the descent is performed within the minimization process. These algorithmic changes are tested on a nonlinear shallow-water model, leading to the conclusion that optimal transport-based data assimilation seems to be promising to capture position errors in the model trajectory.


Purpose

The literature establishes complex relationships between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and performance, with mixed findings suggesting the variability of the magnitude of the relationship between the two. Some studies report a positive relationship, some negative, while some report an insignificant relationship between EO and performance. These conflicting findings suggest that the EO-performance relationship is more complex than a simple main-effects-only relationship. The literature offers two distinct approaches – integrating moderating or mediation variables in advancing the EO-performance relationship. The purpose of this paper is to extend current knowledge by examining underlying processes through which EO contributes to performance and the specific conditions under which this process is facilitated.

Design/methodology/approach

To test the hypotheses the authors chose small service firms in Australia. Industry representation included: accommodation and food services; health care services; rental, hiring and real estate services; transport, postal and warehousing; arts and recreation services; retail trade; construction and training services; and professional, scientific and technical services. The services sector offers a unique opportunity to analyze variances in entrepreneurial engagement and organizational outcomes given the competitive intensity within the service sector which requires firms to engage in venturing, renewal and innovation. The proposed hypotheses were tested through a hierarchical regression analysis.

Findings

This study finds the support for the mediation effect of marketing capability on the EO-performance relationship. Critically, this study also finds that marketing resources moderates on the indirect effect of EO on performance via marketing capability. The findings supporting both the mediation and moderation effects of marketing capability and marketing resources on the EO-performance relationship (moderated mediation model) suggests that greater insight into how EO influences small service firm performance can be achieved through considering in combination with other firm-level constructs (marketing capability and marketing resources in this study).

Originality/value

It addresses the call by prior studies to link the EO construct to theory by embedding marketing resources and marketing capabilities in the EO-performance relationship. Importantly, by accounting for both mediation and moderation effects the authors provide a more complete picture of the EO-performance relationship that highlights the mediating role of marketing capability and the moderating role of marketing resources. This approach helps to reconcile the critical but separate directions proposed by prior studies in advancing the EO-performance relationship.


The effectiveness of service provisioning in large-scale networks is highly dependent on the number and location of service facilities deployed at various hosts. The classical, centralized approach to determining the latter would amount to formulating and solving the uncapacitated k-median (UKM) problem (if the requested number of facilities is fixed), or the uncapacitated facility location (UFL) problem (if the number of facilities is also to be optimized). Clearly, such centralized approaches require knowledge of global topological and demand information, and thus do not scale and are not practical for large networks. The key question posed and answered in this paper is the following: "How can we determine in a distributed and scalable manner the number and location of service facilities?" We propose an innovative approach in which topology and demand information is limited to neighborhoods, or balls of small radius around selected facilities, whereas demand information is captured implicitly for the remaining (remote) clients outside these neighborhoods, by mapping them to clients on the edge of the neighborhood; the ball radius regulates the trade-off between scalability and performance. We develop a scalable, distributed approach that answers our key question through an iterative re-optimization of the location and the number of facilities within such balls. We show that even for small values of the radius (1 or 2), our distributed approach achieves performance under various synthetic and real Internet topologies that is comparable to that of optimal, centralized approaches requiring full topology and demand information.


This paper discusses several new technologies for mooring floating marine energy converter (MEC) devices, such as wave energy generators, tidal current turbines and floating wind turbines. The principal mooring component is a special nylon fiber rope which provides cyclic tension fatigue endurance much superior to that of conventional nylon ropes. The nylon fiber is treated with a new proprietary coating which has excellent wet yarn abrasion properties. The parallel-subrope type rope construction further reduces internal abrasion. Extensive laboratory testing was carried out on this new nylon rope design. Cyclic tension fatigue tests were conducted at mean loads and load amplitudes typical of actual service conditions and at higher mean loads and amplitudes. These tests demonstrate that the special nylon rope has essentially the same, desirable stretch characteristics as conventional nylon rope and has much better endurance performance. The mooring connection to the floating MEC device consists of a high-modulus fiber rope pendant which passes through a low-friction bell-mouth nylon fairlead on the MEC device. This eliminates the use of heavy, unreliable chain in this critical connection. A unique bag anchor system would be used on sand, clay, rock and other sea beds in which conventional drag embedment anchors and driven piles are impractical. The bag anchor consists of a large abrasion resistant carcass with lifting straps and top closure. The bag is transported to site in a collapsed form and is filled with local sand or aggregate to provide ballast weight. Several or many such bags are enclosed within a fiber rope net for deployment and are grouped together for connection to the mooring line. The paper will be of particular interest to designers of moorings for MEC systems in shallow water and severe wave environments. It will also be of interest for other mooring applications.


Analytical procedures are usually based on the assumption that random errors are inevitable and must be accommodated by overdetermining the value sought. For example, if one wishes to determine the absorptivity of a compound at a particular frequency he will generally measure the absorbance for several concentrations and determine the best straight line (after demonstrating Beer's law to be valid for the system). One absorbance and concentration would be sufficient except for the experimental uncertainties.


The discussion of women and politics in Indonesia has been mostly confined to the national and regional levels since a law requiring a minimum of 30% female candidates in legislative elections took effect. There are, however, only a few studies of women and politics at the village level, examining women's contributions to village development. This study aims to explain the gap between the lack of representation of coastal women in rural politics and the extensive contributions of women to rural economic development. This is a qualitative study that involves informants in village administration, women managing business groups, an empowerment program manager, and others. The study's results show that women's representation in politics and village administration is low, even though the female population is comparable to the male population. However, women contribute substantially to development of the rural economy in several sectors. These include empowerment programs, in which women act as managers, initiators, actors, and beneficiaries, as well as the management of fishing, tourism, and environmental conservation groups. The involvement of women in rural economic development is an extension of their traditional domestic role, while they lack the experience and social capital to enable them to actively participate in rural politics. The study highlights the importance of supporting women's representation through affirmative inclusion policies and political education for village women regarding political rights, the functions of village deliberation boards, the rules of village administration, etc. It also identifies a need to train government officials in gender sensitivity, so they can support the goal of equal representation in rural politics.


Since the beginning of the Web 2.0, many authors state that the 2.0 educational possibilities are huge and that 2.0 full exploitation has not been still achieved. There are numerous discrepancies in the consideration of social networks and other 2.0 websites as learning tools. In this paper we are trying to move forward on this question. Therefore, we have carried out a research with students whose average age allows classifying them as digital natives. We wish to know what degree they are using several well-known 2.0 websites and how they place them in respect of the learning opportunities they offer. Also, we propose a simple indicator which helps us know the production-consumption ratio of the students in those websites. The obtained results indicate that a high percentage of the studied sample has an absolutely consumer profile. And only a few cases could be described as prosumers or moderate producers. From all of these data, we identify the need for teachers to help their students to unveil the existence of new 2.0 websites related to their subjects and to promote creation, collaboration and publishing tasks which allow the students to overcome the barrier they have in this aspect. Palabras clave Web 2.0; productores; consumidores; prosumidores; redes sociales; aprendizaje colaborativo; estudiantes


This volume is divided into 2 parts. Part 1 treats the era prior to the treaty of Srirangapatnam 1792, contracted with Tipu Sultan, under which Malabar fell to the share of the East India company as a portion of cessions made by Tipu to the allies, Part 2 treats the period subsequent to 1792 up to the 1880's. The book starts with administrative orders and proceedings and then gives the list of the cities of the treaties alphabetically. The cities or towns noticed are Bednur, Cannannore, Cochin, Iruvalinad, Kadattanad, Kavalappara, Kolattanad, Koorg, Kottayam, Kumbla, Kurumbranad, Mysore, Parappanad, Payyurmala, Pulavaye, Tellicherry, Travencore, Temmalapuram, vadamalapuram, Valluvanad, Vettatnad, Vittul Hegra and Zamourins territories. This book is considered to be the 3rd volume to the 2 volumes of the authors other monumental work-the Malabar Manual.


Temporary ponds are characterized as being in natural or close to natural states in Central and Eastern Europe, especially those located in forested landscapes. As these ponds function as breeding sites for many amphibians, they represent an ideal target to explore the terrestrial and aquatic habitat preferences of different species. We surveyed 133 small ponds in a forested, hilly region of North-Central Hungary. The occurrence of ten amphibian species and amphibian species richness were compared to six pond-related habitat variables and the extent of four terrestrial habitat types in the area surrounding the ponds. Our results suggest that most species' occurrence and species richness are chiefly related to pond characteristics, although terrestrial habitat variables could also be a determining factor in particular species. Whereas the majority of amphibian species prefer larger, hence more permanent water bodies with abundant aquatic vegetation, the common frog (Rana temporaria) chooses small, shallow wallow pits for breeding and has special requirements concerning terrestrial habitat composition. This could explain its restricted distribution in the area. Our results suggest that maintaining a diverse set of ponds and forestry management which facilitates habitats' structural heterogeneity are both important factors for the preservation of the rich amphibian fauna in Central Europe.


Carboxymethyllysine (CML) has been identified as a modified amino acid that accumulates with age in human lens proteins and collagen. CML may be formed by oxidation of fructoselysine (FL), the Amadori adduct formed on nonenzymatic glycosylation of lysine residues in protein, or by reaction of ascorbate with protein under autoxidizing conditions. We proposed that measurements of tissue and urinary CML may be useful as indices of oxidative stress or damage to proteins in vivo. To determine the extent to which oxidation of nonenzymatically glycosylated proteins contributes to urinary CML, we measured the urinary concentrations of FL and CML in diabetic (n = 26) and control (n = 28) patients. The urinary concentration of FL correlated strongly with HbA1 measurements and was significantly higher in diabetic compared with control samples (9.2 ± 6.5 and 4.0 ± 2.8 μg/mg creatinine, respectively; P < 0.0001). There was also a strong correlation between the concentrations of CML and FL in both diabetic and control urine (r = 0.67, P < 0.0001) but only a weakly significant increase in the CML concentration in diabetic compared with control urine (1.2 ± 0.5 and 1.0 ± 0.3 μg/mg creatinine, respectively; P = 0.05). The molar ratio of CML to FL was significantly lower in diabetic compared with control patients (0.25 ± 0.12 and 0.43 ± 0.16, respectively; P < 0.0001). The correlation between urinary FL and CML and the increase in CML in diabetic urine suggests that urinary CML is derived in part from autoxidation of FL in nonenzymatically glycosylated proteins, whereas the decreased ratio of CML to FL in diabetic urine suggests that oxidative stress is decreased in diabetes. The ratio of CML to FL showed no correlation with age in either diabetic or control populations, arguing against an increase in oxidative stress to proteins with age.


As with all of pharmaceutical production, the regulatory environment for the production of therapeutics has been changing as a direct result of the US FDA-initiated Quality by Design (QbD) guidelines and corresponding activities of the International Committee for Harmonization (ICH). Given the rapid growth in the biopharmaceutical area and the complexity of the molecules, the optimum use of which are still being developed, there is a great need for flexible and proactive teams in order to satisfy the regulatory requirements during process development. Process Analytical Technologies (PAT) applied in biopharmaceutical process development and manufacturing have received significant attention in recent years as an enabler to the QbD paradigm. PAT Applied in Biopharmaceutical Process Development and Manufacturing covers technological advances in measurement sciences, data acquisition, monitoring, and control. Technical leaders present real-life case studies in areas including measuring and monitoring raw materials, cell culture, purification, and cleaning and lyophilization processes via advanced PAT. They also explore how data are collected and analyzed using advanced analytical techniques such as multivariate data analysis, monitoring, and control in real-time. Invaluable for experienced practitioners in PAT in biopharmaceuticals, this book is an excellent reference guide for regulatory officials and a vital training aid for students who need to learn the state of the art in this interdisciplinary and exciting area.


On challenging, uneven terrain a legged robot's open loop posture will almost inevitably be inefficient, due to uncoordinated support of gravitational loads with coupled internal torques. By reasoning about certain structural properties governing the infinitesimal kinematics of the closed chains arising from a typical stance, we have developed a computationally trivial self-manipulation behavior that can minimize both internal and external torques absent any terrain information. The key to this behavior is a change of basis in torque space that approximates the partially decoupled nature of the two types of disturbances. The new coordinates reveal how to use actuator current measurements as proprioceptive sensors for the approximate gradients of both the internal and external task potential fields, without recourse to further modeling. The behavior is derived using a manipulation framework informed by the dual relationship between a legged robot and a multifingered hand. We implement the reactive posture controller resulting from simple online descent along these proprioceptively sensed gradients on the X-RHex robot to document the significant savings in standing power.


Wetlands as one of the most important and most valuable natural ecosystems in the world play an important role in filtering pollutants and reduce dust, creating a favorable microclimate, biodiversity and genetic and organic materials reservoirs. In central part of Iran, climatic and human factors have created significant differences between dry and wet surfaces of Gavkhooni wetland in recent decades and have provided a background to produce more dust in central part of Iran. This research aims to study and assess important factors that influence the process of changes occurring in wetlands and wetland drying up during the last 22 years by using remote sensing and artificial neural networks. To do so, 21 landsat imagery has been used. After that, Normalized Difference Water Index was calculated and the dry and wet surfaces has been separated. The average rainfall, temperature, flow, evaporation and water table depth for the study area was interpolated using Thiessen method and the trend of these parameters was examined using the Mann Kendall. Finally, to determine the importance of each factor affecting wetlands drying up, various functions of artificial neural networks were compared and the best model was used to determine the importance of each parameter. The results of Mann Kendall showed a significant decrease in ground water level and input flow to the wetlands in the period of the study. This study showed that the most important factors that influence the level of the Gavkhuni wetland are flow entering the lagoon, evaporation, drop in groundwater level, temperature and rainfall respectively.


Abstract: The paper analyzes the main factors leading to the Justice and Development Party's 2011 electoral victory and proposes that the party's ability to engage with the Turkish public and its effective governance are the main reasons behind its electoral successes. The AKP's position could be characterized by "electoral hegemony," yet it seems that the AKP's power—which stems from its transformative role in Turkey's modernization and foreign policy—has not yet paved the way to the consolidation of democracy. The AKP's ability to put together a societal consensus is thus critical in a Turkish politics characterized by a dominant party and a weak opposition.