Introduction There is a high prevalence of inactive adults in the UK, and many suffer from conditions such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) or poor mental health. These coexist more frequently in areas of higher socioeconomic deprivation. There is a need to test the effectiveness, acceptability and sustainability of physical activity programmes. Active Herts uses novel evidence-based behaviour change techniques to target physical inactivity. Methods and analysis Active Herts is a community physical activity programme for inactive adults aged 16+ with one or more risk factors for CVD and/or a mild to moderate mental health condition. This evaluation will follow a mixed-methods longitudinal (baseline, and 3-month, 6-month and 12-month follow-ups) design. Pragmatic considerations mean delivery of the programme differs by locality. In two areas programme users will receive a behaviour change technique booklet, regular consultations, a booster phone call, motivational text messages and signposting to 12 weeks of exercise classes. In another two areas programme users will also receive 12 weeks of free tailored exercise classes, with optional exercise 'buddies' available. An outcome evaluation will assess changes in physical activity as the primary outcome, and sporting participation, sitting, well-being, psychological capability and reflective motivation as secondary outcomes. A process evaluation will explore the views of stakeholders, delivery staff and programme leads. Economic evaluation will examine the programme costs against the benefits gained in terms of reduced risk of morbidity. Ethics and dissemination This study was been approved by the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee at the University of East Anglia. Informed written consent will be obtained from programme users in the evaluation. Results will be published in peer-reviewed journals, presented at conferences, and shared through the study website and local community outlets. Trial registration number ClinicalTrials.gov ID number: NCT03153098.


Conclusion. Among the three main gentamicin (GM) compounds following intratympanic application, the cochleotoxicity of C2 was the most severe, whereas that of C1a was the weakest. Understanding of the different cochleotoxicity characteristics of each compound may be of use in future custom-made intratympanic therapy for Ménière's disease. Objective. To investigate differences in cochleotoxicity among three major GM compounds following intratympanic application. Materials and methods. Three GM compounds (C1, C2, and C1a) were isolated. Sprague-Dawley rats were treated every 2 days for 2 weeks with intratympanic application of saline, GM complex, C1, C2, and C1a. The cochleotoxicity of each compound was assessed by measuring auditory brainstem response (ABR) and through morphological analyses using scanning electron microscopy. Results. The ABR threshold of the C2 group was found to be more impaired than those of the other groups. The C1a group showed the mildest elevation of the ABR thresholds. Morphological analyses revealed that the proportion of remaining outer hair cells (OHCs) was the lowest in animals treated with C2. Morphologically, the C1 and C1a groups showed the least damage to OHCs.


The open source model provides a valuable framework for collective knowledge production and dissemination. Open knowledge networks and other cooperative strategies (classified as open source discovery initiatives) are enabling biopharmaceutical companies to access disembodied knowledge-based resources critical to downstream drug development. The objective of these cooperative strategic alliances is to preserve the downstream technological opportunities for multiple firms. When upstream discovery research cannot yield commercial products and when the costs associated with excessive upstream competition are too high, companies jointly benefit from cooperative knowledge production and open knowledge dissemination. An analysis of 39 open source initiatives (consortia) provides us with information on: the likely participants in such initiatives, the focus of knowledge production activities, the characteristics of the knowledge generated, and the management of joint knowledge assets. Based on this analysis, we use game models to understand the decision to participate in such strategic alliances better. Our game models provide a simple but elegant framework for understanding the impact of changing knowledge structures on the payoffs associated with cooperation and defection in knowledge production, and therefore on behaviour.


Background: Folate is a B vitamin involved in one-carbon metabolism and has been postulated to influence the risk of breast cancer. However, epidemiologic studies of folate intake in relation to breast cancer risk are inconclusive. We examined the association between dietary folate intake and the risk of breast cancer by estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) status of the breast tumor in the Swedish Mammography Cohort. Methods: Our study population consisted of 61,433 women who completed a food frequency questionnaire at baseline (1987-1990) and again in 1997. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate rate ratios (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Results: During an average of 17.4 years of follow-up, 2,952 incident cases of invasive breast cancer were ascertained. We observed no association between dietary folate intake and risk of total breast cancer or ER+/PR+ or ER-/PR- tumors. The multivariate RR of total breast cancer comparing extreme quintiles of folate intake was 1.01 (95% CI, 0.90-1.13; Ptrend = 0.84). However, folate intake was inversely associated with risk of ER+/PR- breast cancer (n = 417 cases; RR for highest versus lowest quintile, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.59-1.07; Ptrend = 0.01). Results did not vary by alcohol intake or menopausal status. Conclusions: These findings do not support an overall association between folate intake and risk of breast cancer but suggest that folate intake may be inversely associated with ER+/PR− tumors. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2008;17(12):3444–9)


A new low profile ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna for wearable applications is presented. Its structure is derived from the quadripod kettle antenna (QKA) [1], and is called tripod kettle antenna (TKA). The proposed antenna is very well suited for wearable applications due to its miniature size and low profile. Moreover, the antenna is completely encapsulated in a Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate enabling a certain level of flexibility and a good robustness against different external influences (e.g. different weather conditions). The TKA is a broadband antenna with 70% coverage of the fractional UWB bandwidth (Federal Communications Commission, FCC). The antenna has a polarization perpendicular to the body surface with a quasi-omnidirectional radiation pattern in the plane orthogonal to the polarization. An antenna prototype has been built and characterized, and measured results are in a good compliance with the simulations.


Creative dialogue is a distinct emergent form of interfaith engagement that should be accounted for in any typology of interfaith dialogue methodologies. Creative dialogue features artistic collaboration and the engagement of interpersonal, artistic, and literary methods toward increasing civic interaction, civic discourse, and awareness of diversity. In this article, the analysis of creative dialogue is grounded in data derived from ethnographic study of an interfaith magazine and programme office located in Rome, Italy, and then parsed with scholarly literature about the benefits of engaging in non-discursive modalities. Creative dialogue is shown to allow for the analytical inclusion of dialogue that is neither discursive, nor overtly religious; one that is chiefly experiential, yet often yields a concrete product. This study of creative dialogue – which extends the boundaries of the standard construct of 'interfaith dialogue' far beyond institutional contexts with high-ranking clergy and religious elites – is grounded in a post-secular analysis of religious diversity and pluralism that shows that interfaith dialogue, like religious practice, is fluid, relational, embodied, creative, and socially embedded.


Summary

This thesis explores the origin of sectarian violence and terrorism, the impact of terrorism risk on the individual's democratic preferences and the deterrence effect of the law enforcement interventions against terrorism and violence over time and space in Pakistan. It comprises of six chapters which fall under the category of 'Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law.' The causes and effects of the illegal behavior (terrorism and violence) have been discussed in the chapters 2 & 3, while, chapters 4 & 5 focus on the enforcement of law against these crimes.

Chapter 2 serves two core dimensions: Firstly, to cater for the historical account of the origin of sectarian violence and terrorism and their temporal variation in Pakistan. Secondly, the construction of these crimes has been presented from the religious market perspective. Adam Smith argues in The Wealth of Nations that "... the hazards of government regulation are as real for religion as for any other sector of the economy." Therefore, chapter 2 advocates historical evidence on the hazards of government interventions in the religious market of Pakistan. It explains that rent-seeking behavior on the part of the three players in the religious market, namely, religious sects, government and cold war allies of Pakistan, leads to regular interventions in the religious market. The interventions produce externalities in the form of intolerance in the religious space which slowly and gradually transforms into sectarian violence and terrorism.
The 3rd chapter discusses exposure to the risk of terrorism and its impact on the individual's preferences for liberal democratic values. It explores the following question: Does exposure to terrorism and violence affect democratic opinions and perceptions? Exploiting the individual level socio-economic, religious and political information collected from the 6,000 respondents, the chapter empirically evaluates and presents evidence that acts of terrorism negatively affect preferences towards democratic institutions. The persistent shocks of terrorism decrease the support for the elected legislators while increasing it for the law enforcement institutions like the armed forces. The deterrence effect of the exogenous intervention by law enforcement institutions on different types of tribal violence is explained in the 4th chapter of the thesis. Approximately, 3% territory in the North-West of Pakistan is ungoverned but constitutionally presented in the lower and upper houses. It has never been exposed to modern law enforcement institutions like the judiciary, police and military. Thus, it experienced pervasive tribal violence, revenge killings and drug trafficking over the years. The incident of the September 11, 2001 and the consequent US invasion of Afghanistan provided an exogenous shock to the military institution to enter the ungoverned space for the first time. The empirical results show that the intervention significantly decreases different types of violent conflicts in the ungoverned terrain.

Finally, chapter 5 explores criminologists' hypotheses on the displacement and diffusion of crime control benefits to test the displacement and diffusion effects of anti-terrorism interventions. The empirical analysis highlights that anti-terror interventions displace terrorist activities from the treated to the non-treated districts, thus, impose a significant public cost on the neighborhood. Displacement of the terrorist activities from one district to another in response to the negative sanctions imposed by the law enforcement agencies might be one of the reasons for the pervasiveness of terrorism in Pakistan.

With regard to the policy, this dissertation suggests the following recommendations: First, a more comprehensive understanding of the interactions between violent conflicts and the democratization process is needed. The democratic transition can revert to autocracy, if voters are exposed to persistence terrorism risks. Second, an ungoverned territory may not produce negative externalities in the form of organized crimes including terrorism in the short-term, but, exposes to such crimes in the long-term. Therefore, a responsible state needs to invest in the establishment and capacity building of the law enforcement institutions in such territories to avoid future spillovers. And third, effective law enforcement interventions requires not only to deter violence and terrorism in the given geographic space but also their externalities into the neighborhood.


This thesis examines the interaction between missionaries and Aborigines in a remote North Queensland mission conducted by the Church of England (Anglican) denomination. In particular it explores the relationship of the pre-mission Aboriginal contact history of this area with Aboriginal perspectives of whites. It looks at the ambiguities implicit in missionary policy and how this influenced the development of relationships on the Mitchell River Mission. In Queensland, church missions were used by the state government as a cheap way of carrying out its policies for Aborigines. Even though missionaries acted with apparently complete authority on the Mission there was a complex interplay of politics involving Aborigines, missionaries, higher church officials, the national mission agency of the Church of England, and the state government. The outcome of this was a consistent trend towards pauperisation of Aborigines and their remaining in a situation of entrenched disadvantage. A dialectical analysis of the history of race relations, through discussion of the Munpitch concept of the Kokobera people, provides a theoretical basis to the study.


The English Franciscan William of Ockham (c. 1285–1347) was one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in late medieval Europe. Recent scholarship has shown his profound impact on logic, metaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of language in the late Middle Ages and beyond. Following a dispute between the papacy and his Order, Ockham abandoned his academic career and devoted himself to anti-papal polemics. Twentieth-century scholars have produced divergent and often contradictory interpretations of Ockham as a political thinker: a destructive critic of the medieval Church, a medieval Catholic traditionalist, a Franciscan ideologue and a constitutional liberal. This book offers a fresh reappraisal of Ockham's political thought by approaching his anti-papal writings as a series of polemical responses. His aggressive and persistent attack on the papacy emerges in this study as an attempt to rescue the ethical foundations of Christian society from the political influences of heretical popes.


The presentation of the heroes and heroines in Ibsen's early, middle and later plays is undeniably different. In the early plays, the central figures, as represented by Brand and Peer Gynt, stand as super human beings who in following their extreme desires perform all the incredible deeds in their own imaginative worlds. In the middle plays, the central figures, as represented by Nora, Mrs. Alving and Dr. Stockrnann are the midelle class people who struggle against the false values of society for truth and freedom. And in the later plays, the central figures, as represented by Solness, Borkman and Rubek, are mystical frustrated central figures, who gain triumph over their wasted lives through their death. However, beyond all the differences there is one characteristic that makes all Ibsen's central figures similar to one another. The similarity that unites all these central figures is that all of them stand as individuals.


The first South African surrogate babies - triplets at that - were born on 1 October 1987. The surrogate in this case was the 48-year-old mother of a young woman, who was unable to carry a child to term after removal of her uterus. The future of surrogate motherhood is still uncertain in most countries as very few legislatures have addressed the issue directly. Legal precedents are limited and common law principles do not provide adequate answers to the problems surrounding surrogate motherhood. For the purpose of this article, the de jure situation of surrogate motherhood in the United States of America, Britain and Australia will be examined as either their legislatures, or their courts, or both, have been active in this field.


The need to conduct research on the impact of elephant on the environment prompted the construction of exclosures along two of the most important rivers in the Kruger National Park. Scientific research on these exclosures along the Sabie and Letaba rivers addresses how patterns of spatial and temporal heterogeneity of the riparian zone are affected by fire, flood and herbivory. To further assist this research programme, a vegetation survey was conducted at the Nkhuhlu exclosure site along the Sabie River to classify and map the vegetation of the area. This will provide baseline data to assess future changes in vegetation and floristic patterns due to small-scale environmental factors created by the presence/absence of herbivory and fire. Phytosociological data were analysed to identify plant communities and subsequent mapping units. Five plant communities, ten sub-communities and four variants were recognised and described in relation to prevailing soil forms. Differences in species richness, diversity and community structure of the plant communities are clearly articulated.


The in-silico method is extensively utilized in the study of proteomics and genomics studies. The T-cell epitopes prediction is essential step in the development of peptide -based vaccines and diagnostic. The epitopes emanate as an emanation of intricate proteolytic mechanism within cell. Proceed to being perceived by T cells, an epitope is presented on the cell surface as a complex with a major histocompatibility complex protein. Henceforth, T-Cell identified epitopes are excellent binder of MHC. Therefore detection and identification of the MHC binders essential for target based study of drug. In recent study, we analyzed D. medinensis antigenic protein peptide binders to MHC-I and MHC-II molecules. The binding with MHC-I molecules are obtained with are 11mer_H2_Db, 10mer_H2_Db, 9mer_H2_Db, 8mer_H2_Db and for MHC-II are as I_Ab.p, I_Ad.p,


Just at the end of the 106th Congress, after a contentious period of gestation, President Clinton signed into law a piece of legislation with potential impact on computational scientists in medicine and biology. The law establishes a National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, which will bring together basic research in biomedical imaging and bioengineering, including related areas of computer science, at the National Institutes of Health. The NIBIB will emphasize technology development-in contrast to the NIH and other government agencies' existing emphasis on biomedical applications (which are related to specific diseases and organ systems)--but brings no immediate infusion of new money into the field.


For the second time in less than a year, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scientists have purified a novel protein and have shown it can alter gene activity by reversing a molecular modification previously thought permanent. The findings, published May 5, 2006 in the journal Cell, also show that the new protein plays a role in gene activation mediated by androgen receptor, a protein that responds to androgen hormones. In this regard, the novel protein may figure in the development of prostate cancer. Androgens, particularly testosterone and dihydrotestosterone, determine male secondary sex characteristics and stimulate prostate cell growth. Lowering androgen levels usually can make prostate cancers shrink or grow more slowly. In the study, the researchers said the new protein called JHDM2A, like the protein they reported on in the journal Nature in December 2005, is able to remove a methyl group from histone H3, one of four histone proteins bound to all genes. "Human genes are so tightly compact within the nucleus that if the DNA of a single cell were unwound and stretched, it would be a line of about two meters in length. Histones are necessary to package the DNA so that it fits inside a cell's nucleus," said senior author Dr. Yi Zhang, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at UNC's School of Medicine and the university's first HowardHughes Medical Institute investigator. Zhang also is a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Because histones are so intimately associated with DNA, even slight chemical alterations of these proteins can have profound effects on nearby genes. Depending on their precise location and how many methyl groups are added, the presence of alterations can either turn on or turn off a gene. In the study, Zhang learned that the JHDM2A specifically removes methyl-groups from lysine 9 of histone H3. "The important thing is that H3K9 demethylation has been linked to transcription silencing, turning genes off. So that led us to pay attention to this protein's role in reversing whatever function K9 methylation might have," Zhang said. In their experiments, the researchers learned that consistent with reversing a marker of gene silencing (H3K9 methylation), the protein functions as a co-activator - in this case, a co-activator for the androgen receptor target genes. Using human tissue cultures, including prostate cells, Zhang and his colleagues found that over-expression of JHDM2A greatly reduced H3K9 methylation level and led to upregulation, or switching on, of androgen receptor target genes. In contrast, when methylation was increased, the gene was silenced - switched off. It remains unclear for how many different human genes JHDM2A is a primary regulator. According to Zhang, the new findings indicate that the protein will provide another tool to enlist in studies of gene expression regulation. "Given the androgen receptor link, we're now trying to identify the downstream target genes, as well as its role in prostate cancer," he said. "Theoretically, this protein is a very important tool for gene expression studies. Practically, it provides a potential target for prostate cancer because of its enzymatic activity. And it is enzymatic activity that's the favorite target of drug development." Co-authors with Zhang are Drs. Keniche Yamane and Yu-ichi Tsoukada, postdoctoral scientists in Zhang's lab; Charalambos Toumazou and Jiemin Wong from Baylor College of Medicine; and Hediye Erdjument-Bromage and Paul Tempst from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Fore more information, contact Les Lang, (919) 843-9687 or firstname.lastname@example.com


Biotelemetry devices provide unprecedented insights into the spatial behaviour and ecology of many animals. Quantifying the potential effects of attaching such devices to animals is essential, but certain effects may appear only in specific or particularly stressful contexts. Here we analyse the effects of radio transmitter attachment on great tits Parus major tagged over three environmentally dissimilar years, as part of a project studying social- and communication networks. When we radio-tagged birds before breeding, only those tagged in the coldest spring tended to be less likely to breed than control birds. Breeding probability was independent of relative transmitter weight (between 5 and 8% bodyweight). When we radio-tagged both parents during nestling provisioning (transmitter weight between 6 and 8%), tagged parents were more likely than control parents to desert their brood in two out of three years, while in the other year no tagged parents deserted. Tagged parents provisioning larger broods were most likely to desert, especially during lower average temperatures. Video analyses did not reveal any transmitter effects on provisioning behaviour of parents in the year with no desertion. We conclude that radio tagging before breeding did not lead to negative effects, regardless of transmitter weight, but that decisions about radio-tagging both parents during nestling provisioning need to be made with exceptional care, taking both environmental context and transmitter weight into account. Reporting results from long-term radio-tracking studies comprising several environmentally variable years is crucial to understand and predict potential transmitter effects and maximise the tremendous potential of biotelemetry. Journal of Avian Biology


There are any number of areas in which blasting can be used for ice breaking. Among these are: Breakup of ice in channels into ports, for deep and shallow draft vessels. Ice breakup in frozen areas, for water intake and outlet systems. Ice breakup in rivers to prevent flooding in areas behind ice formations. Breakup of ice to allow ships to navigate in ice locked areas. In determining the factors necessary to break up large areas of ice, one factor is paramount. Displacement of the ice, in total, must occur, and must occur over a large area, all at the same time. Placement of the charges in or on top of the ice causes only a radial breakage, and camoflots of cracking from area of charge to area of charge. The ice, by its very nature brittle and cohesive, will not break up. The method of displacement is relatively simple. Charges placed in the water, at a depth sufficient to lift the water and transmit the shock waves attended upon a detonation in the water, will displace ice throughout the entire area of the blast. Thus, instead of the shattering and "throw" normally associated with ice breakup, a lifting action is applied, in such force as to reduce the ice to small pieces, and return it to the surface of the water. Breakup occurs through three phases. First the cracking due to shock fronts supplied by the initial detonating wave as it travels through the relatively incompressible water. Second, through the lift generated by the upheaval of the water after venting of the bubble formed by the expanding gases, and last, due to breakup upon re-entering or hitting the water on the way down from the initial lift by the water. Explosive icebreaking procedures are reviewed for a general set of circumstances, taking into consideration thickness of ice, size of charge and depth of placement necessary to achieve the desired results.


Planet formation theories predict a large but still undetected population of short-period terrestrial planets orbiting brown dwarfs. Should specimens of this population be discovered transiting relatively bright and nearby brown dwarfs, the Jupiter-size and the low luminosity of their hosts would make them exquisite targets for detailed atmospheric characterisation with JWST and future ground-based facilities. The eventual discovery and detailed study of a significant sample of transiting terrestrial planets orbiting nearby brown dwarfs could prove to be useful not only for comparative exoplanetology but also for astrobiology, by bringing us key information on the physical requirements and timescale for the emergence of life.
In this context, we present a search for transit-signals in archival time-series photometry acquired by the Spitzer Space Telescope for a sample of 44 nearby brown dwarfs. While these 44 targets were not particularly selected for their brightness, the high precision of their Spitzer light curves allows us to reach sensitivities below Earth-sized planets for 75% of the sample and down to Europa-sized planets on the brighter targets. We could not identify any unambiguous planetary signal. Instead, we could compute the first limits on the presence of planets on close-in orbits. We find that within a 1.28 day orbit, the occurrence rate of planets with a radius between 0.75 and 3.25 R$_\oplus$ is {\eta} < 67 $\pm$ 1%. For planets with radii between 0.75 and 1.25 R$_\oplus$, we place a 95% confident upper limit of {\eta} < 87 $\pm$ 3%. If we assume an occurrence rate of {\eta} = 27% for these planets with radii between 0.75 and 1.25 R$_\oplus$, as the discoveries of the Kepler-42b and TRAPPIST-1b systems would suggest, we estimate that 175 brown dwarfs need to be monitored in order to guarantee (95%) at least one detection.


This publication was developed to provide guidance on the benefits of and ways to integrate environmental concerns into disaster risk reduction strategies (DRR) at the local and national levels. As recognised and outlined within the Hyogo Framework for Action priority 4, healthy ecosystems and environmental management are considered key actions in DRR. Although the field of disaster risk management has evolved to recognize the need for addressing sustainable development issues for reducing risk, the environmental dimension has not to date received adequate attention and practical guidance.


Objective: To observe the application of PBL combining CBL in otorhinolaryngological teaching.
Methods: 100 cases of students were selected and randomly divided into control group and observation group, with 50 cases in each group. The control group was given traditional teaching method, while the observation group was given PBL combining CBL teaching method. The learning effect, students' satisfaction, and teacher assessment condition of both groups were compared.
Results: The results of the observation group were: clinic pathologic analysis 96.35 ± 1.02 grades, theory 97.32 ± 1.32 grades, clinical practice 96.98 ± 1.58 grades, and paper 95.87 ± 1.33 grades, which were statistically and significantly different with the control group, with P<0.05. The students satisfaction and teacher assessment of the observation group were respectively 98.00% and 96.00%, which were significantly better than the control group, with P<0.05.
Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the combination of PBL and CBL is more effective in improving students' academic performance and satisfaction than traditional teaching methods.


BACKGROUND & AIMS
Abdominal bloating is an extremely intrusive symptom of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) that is not always accompanied by an increase in abdominal girth (distention), raising the possibility that these 2 features of the condition may not share a common pathophysiology. A number of mechanisms have been postulated for bloating and distention, but the role of visceral sensation, which is often abnormal in IBS, has not been previously investigated, and this study aimed to address this question.

METHODS
Abdominal girth measured by ambulatory abdominal inductance plethysmography and bloating severity was recorded over 24 hours in 39 IBS-constipation (ages, 18-73 years) and 29 IBS-diarrhea patients (ages, 20-59 years) meeting Rome II criteria. Within 1 week, rectal sensory thresholds were assessed with a barostat using the ascending method of limits and tracking.

RESULTS
IBS patients who suffered with bloating alone had lower thresholds for pain (P = .005), desire to defecate (P = .044), and first sensation (P = .07) compared with those who had concomitant distention irrespective of bowel habit. When patients were grouped according to sensory threshold, hyposensitive individuals had distention significantly more than those with hypersensitivity (P = .001), and this was observed more in the constipation subgroup. Static and dynamic compliance did not differ among any of the groups.

CONCLUSIONS
The symptom of bloating alone is associated with visceral hypersensitivity, suggesting that the pathogenesis of bloating and distention may not be the same. Consequently, treatment approaches may have to be different, and measuring visceral sensation could have utility in choosing the right therapeutic modality.


Hybrid electric vehicles are characterized by the existence of an electric energy buffer in the powertrain. Compared to a conventional vehicle the existence of the buffer means an extra degree of freedom in the powertrain. The driver's request for a specific power demand can thus be met by a combination of power from the primary power unit (internal combustion engines or fuel cells) and power from the electric buffer (batteries or ultracapacitors). The subject of this thesis is the control of the load distribution between the power sources in the hybrid electric powertrain. The control problem is to choose the distribution of power from the electric buffer and primary power unit that minimizes the fuel consumption in the long run. To solve this problem the efficiency characteristics of the components in the powertrain must be considered. It is the advantage of hybrids to have the extra degree of freedom because of the buffer so that the primary power unit can be driven independent of the transient traction demand of the vehicle powertrain. The improvement in the fuel consumption is obtained by the operation of the engine in a more efficient region. Furthermore, when the vehicle is braking, the electric energy generated by the traction system can be stored back in the buffer. In conventional vehicles this braking energy is dissipated into the atmosphere. The problem is complicated due to the fact that the future driving demands are largely unknown. This uncertainty of the future driving makes it difficult, from a fuel efficiency viewpoint, to compare the cost of supplying the energy demand from the buffer or the fuel tank. In this thesis this problem is handled by using a prediction based information perspective. It allows utilization of a policy derived by Dynamic Programming. Using a simple model of the power flows, energy levels and a regression model of the future driving, the resulting policy minimizes the expected fuel consumption with respect to the prediction model of the future driving conditions. Additional information from GPS and digital maps or cooperation with the traffic infrastructure further enhances the optimization in terms of improved predictions and constraints and can be used to better schedule the use of the buffer so that further fuel consumption reductions are achieved.


The Multi-User Space (MUS) Link Extension system, a software and data system, provides Space Link Extension (SLE) users with three space data transfer services in timely, complete, and offline modes as applicable according to standards defined by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS). MUS radically reduces the schedule, cost, and risk of implementing a new SLE user system, minimizes operating costs with a lights-out approach to SLE, and is designed to require no sustaining engineering expense during its lifetime unless changes in the CCSDS SLE standards, combined with new provider implementations, force changes. No software modification to MUS needs to be made to support a new mission. Any systems engineer with Linux experience can begin testing SLE user service instances with MUS starting from a personal computer (PC) within five days. For flight operators, MUS provides a familiar-looking Web page for entering SLE configuration data received from SLE. Operators can also use the Web page to back up a space mission's entire set of up to approximately 500 SLE service instances in less than five seconds, or to restore or transfer from another system the same amount of data from a MUS backup file in about the same amount of time. Missions operate each MUS SLE service instance independently by sending it MUS directives, which are legible, plain ASCII strings. MUS directives are usually (but not necessarily) sent through a TCP-IP (Transmission Control Protocol Internet Protocol) socket from a MOC (Mission Operations Center) or POCC (Payload Operations Control Center) system, under scripted control, during "lights-out" spacecraft operation. MUS permits the flight operations team to configure independently each of its data interfaces; not only commands and telemetry, but also MUS status messages to the MOC. Interfaces can use single- or multiple-client TCP/IP server sockets, TCP/IP client sockets, temporary disk files, the system log, or standard in, standard out, or standard error as applicable. By defining MUS templates in ASCII, the flight operations team can include any MUS system variable in telemetry or command headers or footers, and/or in status messages. Data fields can be arranged within messages in different sequences, according to the mission s needs. The only constraints imposed are on the format of MUS directive strings, and some bare minimum logical requirements that must be met in order for MUS to read the mission control center's spacecraft command inputs. The MUS system imposes no limits or constraints on the numbers and combinations of missions and SLE service instances that it will support simultaneously. At any time, flight operators may add, change, delete, bind, connect, or disconnect.


Traffic congestion is one of the most pressing issues for smart cities. Information on traffic flow can be used to reduce congestion by predicting vehicle counts at unmonitored locations so that counter-measures can be applied before congestion appears. To do so pricy sensors must be distributed sparsely in the city and at important roads in the city center to collect road and vehicle information throughout the city in real-time. Then, Machine Learning models can be applied to predict vehicle counts at unmonitored locations. To be fault-tolerant and increase coverage of the traffic predictions to the suburbs, rural regions, or even neighboring villages, these Machine Learning models should not operate at a central traffic control room but rather be distributed across the city. Gaussian Processes (GP) work well in the context of traffic count prediction, but cannot capitalize on the vast amount of data available in an entire city. Furthermore, Gaussian Processes are a global and centralized model, which requires all measurements to be available at a central computation node. Product of Expert (PoE) models have been proposed as a scalable alternative to Gaussian Processes. A PoE model trains multiple, independent GPs on different subsets of the data and weight individual predictions based on each experts uncertainty. These methods work well, but they assume that experts are independent even though they may share data points. Furthermore, PoE models require exhaustive communication bandwidth between the individual experts to form the final prediction. In this paper we propose a hierarchical Product of Expert model, which consist of multiple layers of small, independent and local GP experts. We view Gaussian Process induction as regularized optimization procedure and utilize this view to derive an efficient algorithm which selects independent regions of the data. Then, we train local expert models on these regions, so that each expert is responsible for a given region. The resulting algorithm scales well for large amounts of data and outperforms flat PoE models in terms of communication cost, model size and predictive performance. Last, we discuss how to deploy these local expert models onto small devices.


Introduction: Burn injuries are physically and psychologically devastating types of trauma and are common among children especially in the home environment. They are more prevalent and are a public health problem in developing countries principally because of poor socioeconomic conditions. Effective prevention programs should be tailored for specific geographic locations and guided by the results of well-designed studies aimed at investigating local risk factors for burns. Studies targeting households can result in the identification of risk factors operating within family setups. Study Objective: To determine the association between occurrence of burn injury and family history of burns among patients hospitalized at a large hospital in a developing country in Africa. Methodology: This was age- and gender-matched case–control study comprising 202 patients admitted with burns (cases) and 202 nonsurgical patients (controls) admitted into the pediatric and medical wards. The study site was Kenyatta National Hospital, an 1800-bed national referral and teaching hospital in Kenya. The dependent variable was burn injury whereas the independent variables were family history of burn injury, history of hospitalization, and presence of a burn injury scar in the burnt family member. History of hospitalization following burn injury was termed as an indicator of severe burn injury having been sustained. Data Analytical Methods: The Chi-square test was used to identify the differences between the cases and control group variables, and logistic regression analysis and odds ratio were done to determine the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Results: The male:female ratio was found to be 1:1, and burn injuries were found to be most common in the 0–4 years age bracket (n = 86, 42.6%), with the second most common age bracket being 20–40 years (n = 78, 38.6%). The injuries were mainly sustained in homes (n = 161, 80.9%) and the remainder at work (n = 15, 7.5%) and other places (n = 23, 11.6%). There was no significant difference between the two groups with regard to family history of burns (odds ratio [OR] = 0.689, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.443–1.073, P = 0.062) and presence of a burn scar in previously burnt family members (OR = 1.083, 95% CI: 0.308–3.805, P = 1.0). There was, however, a statistically significant higher incidence of postburn injury hospitalizations among the cases than the controls (OR = 2.354, 95% CI: 1.064–5.208, P = 0.033). Conclusion: Family history of burn injury with hospitalization of those affected is an indicator of households at a higher risk for burn injuries. More of the cases had history of hospitalization for burn injury among their family members, indicating that they had more risk factors operating within their environment, or their practices made them more prone to burn injuries. Identification of the specific risk factors involved is key in the prevention of burn injuries in homes.


This study examines the role of accrual based earnings derived from accrual accounting basis in comparison with cash flows in the prediction of future operating cash flows of quoted non financial companies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia . Using a sample of 55 Egyptian companies and 35 Saudi companies over a period of 5 years (2015 – 2019) and employing the OLS regression analysis, the results suggest that both earnings and cash flows have predictive ability in predicting future operating cash flows in both countries. However, the results show that cash flows are a better predictor of future operating cash flows than earnings in both countries. Our study findings are in contrast to the assertion of Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) that earnings are a better predictor of future cash flows.


The level of stress among academics in higher education institutions has significantly increased over the past decade Mental health and well-being of academics can be affected once they are exposed to stressful work conditions and use negative coping strategies This study was set against the backdrop of the pandemic disease, COVID-19, which has challenged the daily work of academics and risen to the various new stressors This study aims to investigate the current status of occupational stress, coping styles, mental health and emotional well-being of university academics during the COVID-19 outbreak in Northern Ireland, and examine the effect of stress and coping strategies on mental health and emotional well-being A cross-sectional online survey was conducted using a sample size of 87 academic staff working in a university in Northern Ireland SPSS version 25 was used to analyse the collected data The results showed academics experienced moderate stress levels, and distraction behaviours were the most common form of coping mechanism Academics were in the moderate status of mental health and poor emotional well-being Occupational stress has a significant effect on mental health and emotional well-being Positive reframing and acceptance coping styles have an impact on emotional well-being This study contributes to the understanding of occupational stress, coping strategies, mental health and emotional well-being of academics in higher education in Northern Ireland The findings can help to develop reliable methods to inform policy on health and well-being for university academics, which in turn lead to increased productivity at work


Corporations are not, in fact, living, breathing human beings, and therefore should not be treated as such in the campaign finance context. While this may seem like an obvious statement and conclusion, a majority of the United States Supreme Court does not agree. In its much-maligned January 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court held - in sweeping and conclusory language - that when it comes to spending money for or against political candidates, corporations should be treated identical to human beings. That conclusion is not only wrong, but is also ill-conceived.This Article uses Citizens United as a vehicle to provide an initial look at the relationship between the theories of the First Amendment and the conceptions of the corporate form, studied through the lens of electoral speech. This Article broadly explores the interplay between the speech interests of corporations and their members in engaging in electoral speech and the different theories of the corporate personality. Against that backdrop, this Article discusses a number of reasons why - contrary to what the majority said in Citizens United - the government has a compelling interest in limiting corporate electoral speech.In the campaign finance context, the Court should be concerned with the interests of distinct but overlapping groups - spenders' interests in speaking, the government's interest in curbing corruption and promoting speech rights, and non-spending speakers' and listeners' interests in speaking and hearing political speech. The interests of each of these groups are furthered by restrictions on for-profit corporate electoral spending.In arguing that for-profit corporations should not be treated as identical to individuals and some non-profit corporations, this Article focuses on one type of speech by corporations - the ability of corporations to spend unlimited general treasury funds on advertisements advocating the election or defeat of candidates. The provision of federal law overturned by the Supreme Court in Citizens United addressed only this issue, but the Court made sweeping conclusions about the purported impermissibility of speaker-based identity restrictions.


Biofilm reactors are an alternative technology to the conventional activated sludge process for treating wastewater. Understanding the microbial activity microdistribution in heterogeneous biofilms will enable exploration of microbial microdistribution, substrate transfer, and reaction processes inside biofilms. However, the microbial activity obtained from models and the reported measurement techniques are imprecise and complex, respectively. In this study, a convenient approach for estimating the relative microbial oxygen metabolic activity microdistribution inside biofilms is proposed. The oxygen-infusion processes within the biofilm produced by a rotating biological contactor (RBC) were measured by an oxygen microelectrode system. The measurement results showed that there were regular catastrophe points of dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration vs. time, and the DO concentration change rate increased notably at the catastrophe points. This catastrophe point phenomenon was observed for the first time and was analyzed using the three-dimensional diffusion-reaction model. Based on the analysis, it appears that the catastrophe point begins the biomass-limited stage. These points can be used to estimate the relative microbial oxygen metabolic activity microdistribution inside biofilms. This proposed method is convenient and less destructive than other methods. This approach enables the exploration of oxygen transfer-reaction micro-processes, dynamic OUR microdistribution, and microbial microdistribution inside biofilms.


: Preferential adsorption of poly(2-vinylpyridine) - deuterated polystyrene - poly(2-vinylpyridine) (PVP - dPS - PVP) triblock copolymers from toluene onto silicon leads to the formation of dPS loops tethered by the PVP end blocks. Using neutron reflectometry, we have determined the segment density profiles of these looped polymer brushes in toluene, a good solvent for the dPS block, and in cyclohexane at 20 (cid:176) C (poor solvent), 32 (cid:176) C, (near- £ solvent), and 50 (cid:176) C (marginal solvent). While the swelling behavior qualitatively agrees with that observed for singly grafted brushes, there are interesting differences in the local structural details: In a good solvent, the segment density profiles are composed of an inner parabolic region and a long, extended tail. In cyclohexane, the profiles are described by exponential decays. We ascribe these features to a novel polydispersity effect that arises due to tethering the PS loops by both ends. The results also show that the less dense layers undergo more significant changes in swollen height as solvent quality is changed and that the looped brushes of different molecular weight, asymmetry, and tethering density adhere to scaling relationships derived for lightly cross-linked polymer gels.


'Reduce, reuse, and recycle' urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. But as architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart point out in this provocative, visionary book, this approach only perpetuates the one-way, 'cradle to grave' manufacturing model, dating to the Industrial Revolution, that creates such fantastic amounts of waste and pollution in the first place. Why not challenge the belief that human industry must damage the natural world? In fact, why not take nature itself as our model for making things? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we consider its abundance not wasteful but safe, beautiful and highly effective.Waste equals food. Guided by this principle, McDonough and Braungart explain how products can be designed from the outset so that, after their useful lives, they will provide nourishment for something new - continually circulating as pure and viable materials within a 'cradle to cradle' model. Drawing on their experience in redesigning everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, McDonough and Braungart make an exciting and viable case for putting eco-effectiveness into practice, and show how anyone involved in making anything can begin to do so as well.


Lassa virus (LASV), an Old World arenavirus, is responsible for hemorrhagic fevers in western Africa. The privileged tropism of LASV for endothelial cells combined with a dysregulated inflammatory response are the main cause of the increase in vascular permeability observed during the disease. Mopeia virus (MOPV) is another arenavirus closely related to LASV but nonpathogenic for non-human primates (NHPs) and has never been described in humans. MOPV is more immunogenic than LASV in NHPs and in vitro in human immune cell models, with more intense type I IFN and adaptive cellular responses. Here, we compared the transcriptomic and proteomic responses of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) to infection with the two viruses to further decipher the mechanisms involved in their differences in immunogenicity and pathogenicity. Both viruses replicated durably and efficiently in HUVECs, but the responses they induced were strikingly different. Modest activation was observed at an early stage of LASV infection and then rapidly shut down. By contrast, MOPV induced a late but more intense response, characterized by the expression of genes and proteins mainly associated with the type I IFN response and antigen processing/presentation. Such a response is consistent with the higher immunogenicity of MOPV relative to LASV, whereas the lack of an innate response induced in HUVECs by LASV is consistent with its uncontrolled systemic dissemination through the vascular endothelium.


Composites consist of a unique combination of filler and matrix materials that can be tailored to fit a diverse range of applications. This paper describes the current markets, products and demands in the composite industry and provides insight into where the future of the industry is headed. This is achieved through market analysis of the composites industry and a breakdown of the market based on end use applications. Examples of the current products in each segment are provided along with analysis of each market segment based on current trends and innovations.


In this paper, we present a state-of-the-art model and introduce a new dataset for grounded language learning. Our goal is to develop a model that can learn to follow new instructions given prior instruction-perception-action examples. We based our work on the SAIL dataset which consists of navigational instructions and actions in a maze-like environment. The new model we propose achieves the best results to date on the SAIL dataset by using an improved perceptual component that can represent relative positions of objects. We also analyze the problems with the SAIL dataset regarding its size and balance. We argue that performance on a small, fixed-size dataset is no longer a good measure to differentiate state-of-the-art models. We introduce SAILx, a synthetic dataset generator, and perform experiments where the size and balance of the dataset are controlled.


For information on obtaining reprints of this article, please send e-mail to: email@example.com. R seven associate editors have completed their terms on the editorial board of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. They are Joanne Bechta-Dugan, Lionel Briand, Martin Shepperd, Edmund Clarke, Philip Johnson, Luqi, and Norm Schneidewind. Each of these colleagues has served the journal and, hence, the community with enthusiasm and energy, and we have all benefited from the work that they have done. It is a pleasure to thank each of them for their many contributions to the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.


Visceral (VL) and cutaneous
leishmaniasis (CL)
are
public health problems
in the
southwest of
Saudi
Arabia. The
causative parasites, the vectors
and the
possible
animal
reservoirs In that area were
all
unknown
before this
study
began.
Because of the size of the
area
and to
achieve
the
different aims of the study,
a
laboratory
was
established
in
Abha City which is in the centre of the
study area,
altitude
approximately 2000 m.
More than 50 isolates from
CL lesions,
17 from VL
patients and 700 human filter
paper
blood
samples
were
collected. Eighty nine
feral dogs
were
captured
In
Kala-azar endemic areas and examined
for
Leishmania. More than
8,000 sandflies collected
from fixed
stations
were examined
and more than 1600 Phlebotomus females
were
dissected.
Forty four human isolates from human CL lesions
were
typed
by the isoenzyme technique which showed that L. tropica is
responsible for CL in both lowlands
(altitude
about
450
-
700 m) and the highlands (altitude
about
2000
m).
Only
one
zymodeme (LON-63) was found in the isolates from the
lowlands but, in the highlands, four
zymodemes
(LON-10, 71,
72 and 73) were found. Zymodemes
LON-10
and
LON-71
were also
Isolated from Phlebotomus sergenti, which
has
been
shown
clearly to be a major vector of L. tropica In the
highlands.
Animal susceptibility experiments showed. that
neither
BALB/c
mice nor the golden hamster were
susceptible to
L. tropica. L. donovani sensu lato zymodeme
LON-42
causes
zoonotic
Infantile Kala-azar in areas
at altitudes of up
to
700m.
Neither the vector nor the reservoir
host
were
identified in
spite of an active search
for them. The limited
sero-epidemiological survey using the
ELISA
procedure
revealed a
high frequency of antibodies in children
in
Al Baha
province, much greater than was previously
believed to
exist.
Feral dogs In this area
were
found to
be
carriers
of
typical L. infantum, NOT the
parasite
found in
man.
The
prevalence rate in dogs was
high (19.3%).
The
dog's
possible
role in the epidemiology
of
Kala-azar in the
study
area
is
discussed.
The entomological studies
revealed that
six
species
of
Phlebotomus exist in the study
area,
with
Ph.
sergenti
as the
dominant species In the highlands
and
Ph.
bergeroti in the
lowlands. Some species such as
Ph.
arabicus
are
limited to
high altitudes (about 2000 m),
and
others such as
Ph. alexandri to low altitudes (up to
700
m).
Ph.
orientalis
was
found mainly in the highlands but
a
few
samples were
collected from the lowlands. Sergentomyi
species were
abundant in all areas. The seasonal
distribution based
on
a
longitudinal study indicated that the
population peak
in
both ecological areas (high and
lowlands)
occurs
in July.
The factors Including the collection
method
and trap
sites
controlling the apparent seasonal
distributions
are
discussed. Statistical
data
on
the total
cases of
CL
and
VL
reported In The Kingdom are
presented and
data from the study area are compared with those from
other
areas
such
as
the Eastern Province (where L.
major
is
dominant) to
give an
overall picture of the leishmaniases throughout the
country.


When courts apply the technique of purposive legislative interpretation there will be cases in which the result of that interpretation cannot be reconciled with the literal meaning of the statute. Confronted with such a situation, the CJEU tends to give prevalence to the purposive interpretation, i.e. to read up or down legislation it deems to be literally deficient. At the same time the Court recognizes that individuals, under the principle of legal certainty and predictability, are entitled, in principle, to rely on the wording of legislation. The Court has yet to develop a principled approach on how to deal with that conflict. Based on the experiences of English and German law with the reading up or down of legislation this article tries to identify the most convincing approach the CJEU might choose to adopt.


Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is a widespread and disabling condition affecting many thousands of people in the UK, causing distress in many areas of their lives. Most people with CLBP do not have access to specialist advice and resort
to managing it themselves. The government drive to encourage people to manage their own long-term conditions has led to some work on the use of self-help techniques with CLBP. However little research has been done with CLBP
populations who are not seeking specialist advice. This study actively sought people from this population group. Focusing - a self-help technique based on the
client-centred psychological approach - was introduced to two people who had long-term CLBP. In addition two people who had been using Focusing in their lives for some time and have long-term CLBP (but have not applied Focusing to
that problem) were also recruited. Focusing was taught either face-to-face or by telephone for six weekly hour-long sessions; the experienced Focusers spent an hour each week for six weeks Focusing with their pain. Using a mixed methods approach the four participants were interviewed a
number of times, namely before, immediately after and three to six months following the Focusing sessions. They also completed the WHOQOL-PainUK questionnaire, the short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire and a global QOL measure at these three times. During the Focusing sessions they completed the
SF-MPQ and the global QOL weekly. Within the concurrent nested design the qualitative aspect formed the theoretical driver for the study; the quantitative element providing a smaller amount of data. This enabled the findings to be
framed in a way which makes them accessible to the wide range of healthcare professionals involved in the management of CLBP; an approach described as one of 'utility'. The management of potential incongruencies in using a mixed method approach was a continuous theme throughout the study and a model - the context of stability model - was devised to enable a harmonisation of these in the study design.During the study three of the four participants reported a change in the meaning of their pain, and improvement in the perception of their pain and its impact. After using Focusing with their CLBP participants reported that the pain no longer controlled what they did, they were able to feel more 'themselves' and
value themselves and Focusing had given them a supported place to talk about their pain. Focusing appears to have an impact for these people in enabling the acceptance of CLBP and an improvement in overall quality of life was found.
The physical, psychological and independence quality of life domains in particular showed sustained improvement. No negative side effects were noted by any of the participants. Further study is needed to demonstrate whether the use of Focusing with CLBP confers longer term benefits and is suitable for a wider range of people.


Background: An intact semantic memory system is vital for accurate naming of objects; naming failures exhibited by individuals with dementia have been a means of identifying the nature of the semantic memory impairment. However, naming impairment has also been reported in healthy older adults. Categorisation is a process of concept formation within semantic memory. Category type influences ability to synthesise category concepts. Studies investigating categorisation skills in adults with dementia have revealed deterioration in conceptual knowledge as compared to age‐matched healthy cohorts. Aims: It is hypothesised that normal older adults are impaired at the lexical access stage of word retrieval; those with dementia have deficits in the earlier concept identification stages of word retrieval and lexical access difficulties. Methods & Procedures: A group of adults with dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT) and a group of normal elderly adults were examined on naming and category concept generation tasks relative to accuracy and error types. Participants were 15 adults with DAT and 15 age‐, education‐, and gender‐matched neurologically intact adults. MMSE results supported division of two groups. All participants were native English speakers, literate, with normal hearing. Experimental tasks were the Test of Adolescent/Adult Word Finding (TAWF) and a category concept generation task (CCGT). For the CCGT, participants were presented with four category examples for common and goal‐directed categories and instructed to provide a category label. Context vignettes accompanied category examples for half the categories. Outcomes & Results: For the TAWF, there were no significant group differences for standard scores. Further analysis revealed that: (1) the control group performed significantly poorer on picture naming: nouns than any other subtest; (2) normal controls performed better than the DAT group on all subtests except picture naming: nouns; and (3) the DAT group performed significantly worse on category naming than all other subtests. Analysis of CCGT revealed that: (1) normal controls performed better than the DAT participants on goal‐directed categories with context but not without context; (2) performance was higher for goal‐directed categories with context for controls only; and (3) performance was higher on common than goal‐directed categories without context for controls. Conclusions: The results indicate that normal older adults are impaired in lexical access; those with DAT have deficits in the earlier conceptual stages of word retrieval in addition to lexical access difficulties. DAT participants especially had difficulty with category naming. The DAT adults showed minimal differences in performance from a no‐context to context condition. The findings support previous research that adults with DAT display semantic memory impairments.


The nonlinear and chaotic dynamics of a shallow fluid layer are investigated numerically using large-scale parallel numerical simulations. Two particular situations are studied in detail. First, a fluid layer is placed between rigid boundaries and heated from below to yield the chaotic dynamics of thermal convection rolls (Rayleigh-Bénard convection). Second is a free-surface fluid layer placed on a shaker to yield nonlinear surface waves (Faraday waves). In both cases the full governing partial differential equations are solved using parallel spectral element methods. Rayleigh-Bénard convection is studied in a cylindrical dish with realistic boundaries. The complete flow field is obtained as well as the spectrum of Lyapunov exponents and Lyapunov vectors. The Lyapunov exponents and their corresponding perturbation fields are used to determine when and where events occur that contribute most to the chaotic dynamics. Roll pinch-off and roll mergers are found to be the largest contributors. Two dimensional and three dimensional Faraday waves are studied with periodic boundary conditions. The full Navier-Stokes equations are solved including the complex dynamics of the free surface waves to gain a better understanding of the interplay between the viscous boundary layers, the nonlinear streaming flow, and the bulk flow. The vortices in the bulk flow are weak compared to the flow in the viscous boundary layers. The surface waves are found to be non-sinusoidal and the time evolution of the waves are explored for both large and small amplitude waves. iii Acknowledgments I would first and foremost like to thank my advisor Dr. Mark Paul for giving me this wonderful research opportunity. It was a great learning experience and I am very privileged to have worked with him. I cherish all of the encouragement, guidance, and thought provoking discussions we have had during my time at Virginia Tech. I want to thank my parents Audrey and Jon. Without them and their support, none of this would have been possible. I also want to thank my significant other and best friend Rachel for all of her inspirations and encouragement. Thanks go to my committee members Dr. Tafti and Dr. Iliescu for their support of this research. I would finally like to acknowledge all of my friends, classmates, and labmates for their help and support.


Purpose: To investigate if there exists a difference in breathing patterns between patients treated with SBRT and IMRT using RQA and DC (using K2: correlation entropy and D2: correlation dimension) measures. Methods: 9 patients treated with SBRT and 8 treated with IMRT were scanned with 4D CT and the breathing patterns were acquired. One of the SBRT patients was scanned with and without meditation. Each breathing signal consisted of a scalar time series and recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) was utilized to determine the following measures: Periodicity of the system as percentage of recurrence points (%RR), determinism (DET), maximum diagonal line length (L_max) whose inverse the divergence (DIV) is measure for how fast trajectories diverge from each other, the average diagonal line length (L) that can be interpreted as the mean prediction time of the signal, and the entropy (ENTR) a measure of information complexity. In addition the invariant measures of K2 and D2 were also estimated. A locally nonlinear forecast was applied to predict future breathing signals of N time step ahead for the patient with and without meditation. Results: Our results showed %RR has significant correlation with L_max and has inverse correlation with DIV. DET has significant correlation with Lmax, L, ENTR and DIV. Independent t test suggests there is no difference between the SBRT and IMRT groups in terms of the RQA measures and K2. Patient that had undergone meditation showed improvement in %RR, L_max, DIV, K2 and had an estimated correlation dimension of 1.7. Prediction showed similar results for one and three time step ahead but meditation one had better prediction horizon when time step was higher. Conclusion: RQA is a powerful tool that allows one to analyze the dynamic nature of breathing pattern. No significant difference was found in the dynamical complexity of SBRT and IMRT patients.


Background & Objective: Nanomedicine delivery systems are known as potent therapeutictools. In addition to possessing an effective agent of turmeric, Curcumin shows antibacterial properties as well. Curcumin is not water-soluble and it can be solved in water via nanotechnology-base methods. Chitosan is a natural and biodegradable substance that is utilized for the Production of Nanoparticles (NPs) carrying drug. In the following investigation, curcumin is loaded in chitosan NPs and ultimately, the resulting nano-drug is studied as an antibacterial agent. Materials & Methods: In this study, NPs are produced using chitosan and Tripolyphosphate (TPP) salt. Curcumin solution was loaded in chitosan NPs during their production. Next, the skins of BALB/c mice infected with staphylococcus aureus are treated by curcumin-loaded chitosan NPs for 3 days. Afterwards, in order to evaluate the antibacterial property of the nano-drug, these skin suspensions of mice are cultured in bacterial medium. Results: Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) reveals the charge of + 7 ± 2 mV and the size of 160 ± 10 nm in curcumin-loaded chitosan NPs. Moreover, Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) indicates a spiral shape. Therefore, the evaluation of the optical density by spectrophotometry demonstrates that 75 ± 2 % of curcumin are loaded in chitosan NPs. Bacterial culture shows that curcumin-loaded chitosan NPs significantly inhibited staphylococcus aureus growth. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that curcumin-loaded chitosan NPs can be applied as a potent agent in treatment of bacterial skin infections .


The determination of boron in organic compounds has been a difficult and unrewarding task until recent times. As a result investigators, for the most part, have relied on other elemental determinations, such as C, H, N and halogen, for the information needed for the proof of structure arguments necessary for the validation of new compounds. During the past few years technological developments in the management of the direct-current argon plasma (DCP) have led to a sensitive, convenient, and reliable means of determining boron as well as certain other elements whose analytical chemistry has been fraught with difficulties. As a consequence of the progress in this area of applied spectroscopy, we have been able to develop a highly satisfactory analytical method, based on DCP, for the determination of boron in tetraarylborate salts. This method should be applicable to other organo-boron systems in which the analyte is soluble in an appropriate organic solvent system.


50% of the world's energy consumption and CO2 emissions come from modern buildings, building trades and construction. Is it possible to greatly reduce our energy use simply by designing buildings differently? What about choice of materials and new – or even ancient – technologies to passively heat, light, and cool buildings? Join us for an evening of exploration as the Environmental Science Institute (UT-Austin) presents "Design with Climate: Building for a Cooler Planet " by Dr. Werner Lang.


Understanding the Fourteenth Amendment is the key question of Constitutional law, both as it pertains to individual rights and, in many areas, as it relates to questions of Congressional power as opposed to the reserved powers of the states. The Amendment is often disaggregated and read clause by clause - but the intellectual and political background of its framers suggests that the Amendment in fact forms a coherent whole and that reading it as a whole might be a fertile source of new meanings. The Amendment was written by politicians who had spent their careers deeply involved in anti-slavery politics. The political concepts developed by this movement are unfamiliar to most lawyers today. One such concept, richly documented by historians, is that of the Slave Power. The Slave Power, as used by mainstream anti-slavery politicians like Charles Sumner, William P. Fessenden and Thaddeus Stevens, referred to the institutions that had grown up under the original Constitution of 1789 to protect and advance the South's slave system. A glance at the writings of anti-slavery politicians is enough to suggest that in writing the Amendment they were taking aim at what they regarded as the key elements of the Slave Power - the overrrepresentation of slave states in Congress and the Electoral College, and the ability of the Southern states to suppress free debate and democratic political institutions within their borders. The individual rights guarantees of Section One, seen through this lens, are not a limited set of minimal rights but in fact seem designed as a broad charter of freedom for residents of all the states, with Section Five placing Congress squarely in control of the political progress at the state level.


Inoculated seeds of phasey bean (Macroptilium lathyroides cv. Murray) were sown in a sand
culture in a naturally-lit glasshouse, and imgated daily with nitrogen-Free nutrient solution. At early
flowering, the plants were either left uncut or cut at node 5 (high) or node 1 (low), retaining the
corresponding residual leaf areas of 74, 11 and Ocm 2 plant 1respectively. Following this initial cutting,
new shoots were individually harvested at the frequency of one, two, three, four or eight times
over a penriod of 56 days in Phase 1. Total dry weight of new shoots, seed yields and nitrogen concentrations
in the herbage were assessed. A II plants were allowed to regrow during the next 21-day
recovery period in Phase 2. Then, the root systems and plant tops were harvested. Nodulation,nitrogen fixation (total N) and regression analyses on s011Je plant parameters were computed. In Phase
1, cumulative yields of new shoots harvested following high or low-level cutting declined significantly
with increasing harvesting frequency, but yield reductions due to low-level cutting were detected only
under high harvesting frequencies. In Phase 2, recovery growth was always better following high than
low-level cutting, but unexpectedly, the various harvesting frequencies had no effect on recovery
growth following high cutting. After low-level cutting, high or low harvesting frequency reduced
recovery growth compared with moderately frequent defoliation (two harvests in 56 days), which
coincided with early flowering on the new top growth. Recovery growth had a positive linear correlation
(r = 0.98 ***) with nitrogen fixation, which was also linearly correlated with nodulation. These
results are briefly discussed with reference to the current concept that regrowth of nodulated forage
legumes is largely dependent on symbiotic nitrogen fixation.


Wild animals raid crops, attack livestock, and sometimes threaten people. Conflicts with wildlife are widespread, assume a variety of forms, and elicit a range of human responses. Wildlife pests are frequently demonized and resisted by local communities while routinely 'controlled' by state authorities. However, to the great concern of conservationists, the history of many people-wildlife conflicts lies in human encroachment into wildlife territory.
In Natural Enemies the authors place the analytical focus on the human dimension of these conflicts - an area often neglected by specialists in applied ecology and wildlife management - and on their social and political contexts. Case studies of specific conflicts are drawn from Africa, Asia, Europe and America, and feature an assortment of wild animals, including chimpanzees, elephants, wild pigs, foxes, bears, wolves, pigeons and ducks.
These anthropologists challenge the narrow utilitarian view of wildlife pestilence by revealing the cultural character of many of our 'natural enemies'. Their reports from the 'front-line' expose one fact - human conflict with wildlife is often an expression of conflict between people.


The aim of this paper is to reveal the current situation regarding the use of mobile phones as a mean of information sharing by Cypriot farmers. In particular, a project at the Agricultural Research Institute is underway, to survey methods currently used for agricultural information and knowledge sharing, to determine the level of satisfaction of the farmers of the available sources of information, and to suggest how ICT tools can be applied to help in transferring agricultural knowledge to farmers who live and work in rural and remote areas. The results showed that nearly 98% of the farmers in Cyprus use the mobile phone as a source of agriculture information. Furthermore it was found that there are no differences between educational groups and between crop farmers and their livestock counterparts concerning mobile phone usage. Future research is needed to examine the factors that affect mobile phone usage, its usefulness and the possible benefits for the Cypriot farmers.


Abstract Eplerenone is a drug that protects the cardiovascular system. 11α-Hydroxycanrenone is a key intermediate in eplerenone synthesis. We found that although the cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzyme system in Aspergillus ochraceus strain MF018 could catalyse the conversion of canrenone to 11α-hydroxycanrenone, its biocatalytic efficiency is low. To improve the efficiency of 11α-hydroxycanrenone production, the CYP monooxygenase-coding gene of MF018 was predicted and cloned based on whole-genome sequencing results. A recombinant A. ochraceus strain MF010 with the high expression of CYP monooxygenase was then obtained through homologous recombination. The biocatalytic rate of this recombinant strain reached 93 % at 60 h without the addition of organic solvents or surfactants and was 17–18 % higher than that of the MF018 strain. Moreover, the biocatalytic time of the MF010 strain was reduced by more than 30 h compared with that of the MF018 strain. These results show that the recombinant A. ochraceus strain MF010 can overcome the limitation of substrate biocatalytic efficiency and thus holds a high poten tial for application in the industrial production of eplerenone.


Classical supervised learning enjoys the luxury of accessing the true known labels for the observations in a modeled dataset. Real life, however, poses an abundance of problems, where the labels are only partially defined, i.e., are uncertain and given only for a subset of observations. Such partial labels can occur regardless of the knowledge source. For example, an experimental assessment of labels may have limited capacity and is prone to measurement errors. Also expert knowledge is often restricted to a specialized area and is thus unlikely to provide trustworthy labels for all observations in the dataset. Partially supervised mixture modeling is able to process such sparse and imprecise input. Here, we present an R package called bgmm, which implements two partially supervised mixture modeling methods: soft-label and belief-based modeling. For completeness, we equipped the package also with the functionality of unsupervised, semi- and fully supervised mixture modeling. On real data we present the usage of bgmm for basic model-fitting in all modeling variants. The package can be applied also to selection of the best-fitting from a set of models with different component numbers or constraints on their structures. This functionality is presented on an artificial dataset, which can be simulated in bgmm from a distribution defined by a given model.


CONTEXT
There is heightened interest in food allergies but no clear consensus exists regarding the prevalence or most effective diagnostic and management approaches to food allergies.

OBJECTIVE
To perform a systematic review of the available evidence on the prevalence, diagnosis, management, and prevention of food allergies.

DATA SOURCES
Electronic searches of PubMed, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. Searches were limited to English-language articles indexed between January 1988 and September 2009.

STUDY SELECTION
Diagnostic tests were included if they had a prospective, defined study population, used food challenge as a criterion standard, and reported sufficient data to calculate sensitivity and specificity. Systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for management and prevention outcomes were also used. For foods where anaphylaxis is common, cohort studies with a sample size of more than 100 participants were included.

DATA EXTRACTION
Two investigators independently reviewed all titles and abstracts to identify potentially relevant articles and resolved discrepancies by repeated review and discussion. Quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses was assessed using the AMSTAR criteria, the quality of diagnostic studies using the QUADAS criteria most relevant to food allergy, and the quality of RCTs using the Jadad criteria.

DATA SYNTHESIS
A total of 12,378 citations were identified and 72 citations were included. Food allergy affects more than 1% to 2% but less than 10% of the population. It is unclear if the prevalence of food allergies is increasing. Summary receiver operating characteristic curves comparing skin prick tests (area under the curve [AUC], 0.87; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.81-0.93) and serum food-specific IgE (AUC, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.78-0.91) to food challenge showed no statistical superiority for either test. Elimination diets are the mainstay of therapy but have been rarely studied. Immunotherapy is promising but data are insufficient to recommend use. In high-risk infants, hydrolyzed formulas may prevent cow's milk allergy but standardized definitions of high risk and hydrolyzed formula do not exist.

CONCLUSION
The evidence for the prevalence and management of food allergy is greatly limited by a lack of uniformity for criteria for making a diagnosis.


This study builds on the motivation to integrate social media into corporate communications and attempts to understand analytically what works and does not work in terms of the corporate engagement of new communications technologies. The purpose of this study is to better understand the ways in which an organization integrates social media into their communication efforts with an emphasis on feedback within these settings. Of particular importance to this concept of feedback is not just how an organization speaks to their audience within a social media setting, but how they manage listening within the same context; how does audience/stakeholder response filter back through corporate channels when received through social media networks?
The specific purpose of this MRP is to observe social listening, that is, how information and communication flows between social media and corporation, with an emphasis on message transmission, processing, and feedback and feed-forward processes through the theoretical lens of autopoiesis, a micro-theory within the larger communications theory of cybernetics. Facebook, in particular, is understood as an autopoietic system. This investigation was undertaken in the form of a case study involving the corporate Facebook page of EMC Corporation, a Fortune200 company. All observation for this study occurred on the Internet and data was collected by taking screenshots of EMC's official Facebook page. These screenshots were analyzed through the lens of autopoiesis and by using methods from discourse analysis.


In this essay I give an overview of approaches to discourse analysis, trying to point out interesting new perspectives on the one hand and older research methods on the other. In chapter 2 my description begins with communicative dynamism and the chain of reference which looks back at a long tradition of studying topic and comment or theme and rheme. For decades a problem has troubled linguists which they were not able to overcome. As long as they tried to deal with aspects of information flow, i.e. ´given`, ´new` or ´recoverable` information, of syntax, i.e. subject vs. object, of semantics, i.e. agent vs. instrument, of perspectivization and figure-ground alignment in an implicit and undifferentiated way, the results were bound to be muddled or at least questionable. This is the reason why I present a rather detailed account of Langacker´s fresh look at these phenomena with the help of several new and interesting criteria and models.
The development in the area of cooperative interaction, speech acts and inferencing (chapter 3) is of an incremental nature. The combination of philosophical ideas and sociological perspectives has paved the way toward promising practical applications such as cross-cultural and cross-social studies, studies of child development, language teaching and even aviation communication.
I have treated ethnography of communication in the shortest fashion (chapter 4). But this approach is so complex that it would take a much longer paper to describe all the relevant facets of it in detail. It is widely used in fieldwork studies and this is evidence of the fact that adopting this methodology of participant observation is very valuable, indeed.
Conversational analysis (chapter 5) is a field that is gaining ground. Numerous new articles have appeared lately. It can be assumed that one of the reasons for this is that whereas written communication has a long research history, this is not the case for spontaneously spoken language in interaction so that new research results can be expected. Studying conversation means studying utterances in social interaction, where the meanings are created and negotiated. What comes to light in such studies is the importance of interpersonal meanings of solidarity of group members and social feedback.
I deal with narratological and psychotherapeutic aspects of story-telling in chapter 6. It became evident that there is a deeper social and psychological dimension to this ordinary everyday activity. The relatedness to conversation analysis is obvious: Stories allow speakers to hold the floor longer than usual. They use this opportunity to make their points by often implicitly referring to social rights and obligations.
The mental representation approach (chapter 7) deals with the cognitive processes that take place in the mind of the hearers and which allow them to interpret the discourse elements contextually and produce a mental text representation. It has been positively influenced by the upsurge of Cognitive Linguistics. It is not only restricted to the "static" description of referential and relational coherence. It also deals with the question of what interactants do in order to safeguard communicational success. This is work done at the intersection of the mental and the interactional processes which are involved in communication.
The approaches are diverse and multifaceted because human communication is diverse and multifaceted. This assessment is not meant to suggest that the approaches are basically equivalent. Their description shows that they focus on different aspects of communication and/or interaction and that they assign different importance to the structure or the function of discourse.
Discourse analysis is not restricted to a single discipline but is essentially interdisciplinary. Its main source disciplines are linguistics, sociology, anthropology, psychology and philosophy.


Dendritic cells (DCs) are the most potent antigenpresenting cells in the human body. When primed with antigens, DCs activate both helper and killer T cells and B cells. In the past decade, DC-based vaccine has emerged as an important strategy for cancer immunotherapy (1). Several phase I or II clinical trials of DC-based immunotherapy to treat different cancers have been reported with increased survival and mild vaccination-related side effects (2,3). However, DC-based immunotherapy has several limitations. For example, molecular composition of DCs may change and is difficult to be defined (4). Tumor cells may secret soluble immunosuppressive cytokines that could convert immature DCs into tolerogenic DCs, which may activate Treg cells (5). Live DCs are inconvenient for storage (4) and have to be produced locally with quality control issues.


In this discussion paper, we analyze the following issues with regard to the environment and trade. (1) What kind of consideration will be necessary for the case in which external diseconomies such as pollution are cross-border, or global, in comparison with the case in which external diseconomies are local? (2) It is generally said that the emissions tax and the trading of emissions quotas have the same effect and that the emissions tax is more desirable if the double dividend of the tax is taken into account. However, even under an open economy in which trade can take place, do the equivalence of the emissions tax and emissions trading, as well as the advantage of the emissions tax, reasonably apply? What are more desirable environmental policies under an open economy? (3) Although technologies that reduce the pollution intensity of pollution goods seem desirable from a common sense perspective, does the non-pollution-intensive technological progress of pollution goods improve a country's economic welfare? What kinds of technological progress are desirable under an open economy?


Living Standards Measures (LSMs) are a way of segmenting or classifying the adult population of a country based on access to and use of a wide range of goods and services. LSMs are a very strong tool for grouping people for the purposes of target marketing rather than demographic segmentation. In any country with third world characteristics where a large portion of the economy is informal rather than formal, understanding consumer behaviour for the purpose of targeting consumers effectively becomes a formidable challenge. A research has been conducted, centered on LSM3-10 consumer behaviour with regard to purchase and consumption of non-alcoholic beverages in Zimbabwe. Beverage consumption patterns are revolving since Zimbabwe started experiencing an economic downturn from 1992 and subsequently went into recession. Beverage consumption patterns continue to change as the economic climate changes, and hence, the need to understand consumer beverage consumption patterns to Zimbabwe's changing harsh economic conditions. A hypothesis has been put to test, that is, "LSM3 to LSM 10 will maintain their beverage consumption irrespective of the country's economic conditions". The methodology used in this survey is quantitative and descriptive with use of observation data, desk research and a survey instrument, the questionnaire which was designed for the purpose of the study. The research findings show that the motivation goal for a shopping trip have evolved from obligatory motive to circumstantial. On the cultural factors, life styles and social influences have also changed hence affecting shopping behaviour across all LSMs. It is empirically concluded that the hypothesis is false given the fact that the research findings show a shift in shopping behaviour as outlined above. It is therefore recommended that from a product development perspective, marketers develop products and services that are aligned to socio-economic changes in a country whether positive or negative. Dissertation The Dynamics Of Consumer Behaviour In A Harsh Economic Environment A Case study ofZimbabwe v ITABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER


The image auto rectification project at Google aims to create a pleasanter version of user photos by correcting the small, involuntary camera rotations (roll / pitch/ yaw) that often occur in non-professional photographs. Our system takes the image closer to the fronto-parallel view by performing an affine rectification on the image that restores parallelism of lines that are parallel in the fronto-parallel image view. This partially corrects perspective distortions, but falls short of full metric rectification which also restores angles between lines. On the other hand the 2D homography for our rectification can be computed from only two (as opposed to three) estimated vanishing points, allowing us to fire upon many more images. A new RANSAC based approach to vanishing point estimation has been developed. The main strength of our vanishing point detector is that it is line-less, thereby avoiding the hard, binary (line/no-line) upstream decisions that cause traditional algorithm to ignore much supporting evidence and/or admit noisy evidence for vanishing points. A robust RANSAC based technique for detecting horizon lines in an image is also proposed for analyzing correctness of the estimated rectification. We post-multiply our affine rectification homography with a 2D rotation which aligns the closer vanishing point with the image Y axis.


Using the 1998/99 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey dataset, this article examines the behavior of men who think they are at risk for HIV/AIDS and those who indicate they have no AIDS risks. Using a theoretical framework that borrows from rationale choice theory and individual-level characteristics, the article explores the links between AIDS risks status and changes in preventive behavior. The results show high levels of AIDS-related knowledge among men in Ghana. In addition, the majority of the men indicated that they had changed their behavior in response to AIDS although they were more likely to cite the avoidance of multiple partners rather than the use of condoms in their sexual encounters. In the logistic regression models, education, marital status, and religion emerged as important predictors of changes in behavior. The fact that few men used condoms as an HIV/AIDS preventive method raises a number of policy issues, the implications of which are discussed in this article.


This paper analyses how Pakistani print news media framed two armed conflict that occurred between India and Pakistan post-Pulwama attack in 2019 using five framing categories; conflict, morality, responsibility human interest, and solution. Using census approach subset of data; 282 opinions and editorials were collected from a population of 1,321 published number of items. Results from content analysis showed that media published a significant amount of content in editorials and opinions regarding armed conflicts. Content analysis disclosed that Pakistani print media placed emphasis on the use of conflict frame, and the use of human-interest frame was seen slightly low in numbers across all the newspapers during framing of Balakot airstrike and Pakistani retaliation after the Pulwama attack. However, there was no significant difference found between framing categories used by print news media. Findings are discussed in the context of journalistic priorities in selecting specific frames during framing of armed conflicts that holds national and international prominence.


We have developed an application of passive seismic interferometry (SI) using P-wave coda of local earthquakes for the purpose of crustal-scale reflection imaging. We processed the reflection gathers retrieved from SI following a standard seismic processing in exploration seismology. We applied SI to the P-wave coda using crosscorrelation, crosscoherence, and multidimensional deconvolution (MDD) approaches for data recorded in the Malargue region, Argentina. Comparing the results from the three approaches, we found that MDD based on the truncated singular-value decomposition scheme gave us substantially better structural imaging. Although our results provided higher resolution images of the subsurface, they showed less clear images for the Moho in comparison with previous seismic images in the region obtained by the receiver function and global-phase SI. Above the Moho, we interpreted a deep thrust fault and the possible melting zones, which were previously indicated by active-seismic and magnetotelluric methods in this region, respectively. The method we developed could be an alternative option not only for crustal-scale imaging, e.g., in enhanced geothermal systems, but also for lithospheric-scale as well as basin-scale imaging, depending on the availability of local earthquakes and the frequency bandwidth of their P-wave coda.


Usability plays very important role in fulfilling the quality requirements of a software system as it expresses the relationship between the software and its application domain. If the software system is usable then it is more productive, useful and thus it satisfies user"s expectations. Inspite of such importance of usability there are no explicit criteria to measure it because usability can be measured with the help of usability experts, industry experts, research scholars and end users. This paper provides analytical view about various usability evaluation methodologies with their comprehensive structure. General Terms Software Engineering


Recent progress in hardware and methodology for training neural networks has ushered in a new generation of large networks trained on abundant data. These models have obtained notable gains in accuracy across many NLP tasks. However, these accuracy improvements depend on the availability of exceptionally large computational resources that necessitate similarly substantial energy consumption. As a result these models are costly to train and develop, both financially, due to the cost of hardware and electricity or cloud compute time, and environmentally, due to the carbon footprint required to fuel modern tensor processing hardware. In this paper we bring this issue to the attention of NLP researchers by quantifying the approximate financial and environmental costs of training a variety of recently successful neural network models for NLP. Based on these findings, we propose actionable recommendations to reduce costs and improve equity in NLP research and practice.