Substances such as hemoglobin that interfere with analytical processes are recognized as a frequent source of error in laboratory medicine. Standard guidelines for assessment of test interferences assume that interference effects are not related to the concentration of the analyte being measured. However, previous investigations have demonstrated that interference effects can be markedly different, depending on the concentrations of interferent and analyte within the specimen. An experimental protocol for investigating these different types of interference effects has been developed. This protocol utilizes an orthogonally arranged matrix with progressively increasing concentrations of analyte and interferent. Evaluation of the measured analyte concentrations in specimens within the matrix using multiple regression analysis allows the magnitude, direction, and significance of each type of interference to be determined. Unfortunately, implementation of the interference data derived from the multiple regression analysis for judging the clinical acceptability of test results when an interferent is present is difficult. We describe a two-dimensional graphical format for evaluating the clinical acceptability of test results, based on criteria established under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988, in specimens containing hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier solutions.


In the Sesia-Lanzo Zone different complexes are separated on the basis of rock types and dominant metamorphic imprints: one of these is the Eclogitic Micaschists Complex (EMC) that is distinguished by a dominant Alpine eclogite facies fabric. In this contribution, we present the results of a multiscale structural analysis devoted to reconstruct the tectonometamorphic evolution of the Lago della Vecchia metaintrusive and its country rocks (upper Cervo valley, Biella), which are part of the EMC. Seven groups of superposed structures have been detected. Igneous pre-Alpine M0 relicts are preserved in metaintrusive. Alpine structures consist of: S1 foliation (D1) developed under eclogite facies conditions; S2 foliation (D2) is the most pervasive fabric and developed under low-pressure blueschist facies conditions; localised shear zones and open folds (D3 and D4) are associated with the development of greenschist facies assemblages; a kilometre-long shear zones (D5) developed under greenschist facies conditions. Finally, andesitic dikes intrusion postdates D1-D5 structures. On the basis of deformation-metamorphism relationships geothermobarometric estimates were performed to constrain the PT conditions characterising subsequent deformation stages. The resulting Pressure-Temperature-relative time of deformation (P-Td-t) path shows a pre-Alpine magmatic emplacement at around 15 km depth at T=710±19°C that is followed by re-equilibration indicating the conditions of the Alpine eclogitic peak (D1: 2.23±0.18 GPa; 537±43°C), compatible with a cold-subduction environment. A near-isothermal exhumation postdates D1, down to 1.12±0.11 GPa at 477±39°C during D2 deformation stage. Afterwards, temperature and pressure decreased from D2 low-pressure blueschist to D3-D4 greenschist re-equilibrations (P=0.6±0.10 GPa and T=302±24°C). In contrast with the most part of the EMC, where the dominant fabric developed under eclogitic facies conditions, at Lago della Vecchia the dominant fabric developed under low-pressure blueschist facies conditions. This difference suggests that the entire EMC should be characterised by kilometre-scale structural heterogeneities in the dominant tectonometamorphic record.


The minimum message length two-dimensional segmenter (MML2DS) criterion is a powerful technique for road condition data analysis developed at the Nottingham Transportation Engineering Centre (NTEC), University of Nottingham. The criterion analyses condition data sets by simultaneously identifying optimum trends in condition progression, the position in time and space of maintenance interventions, longitudinal segments within links, and the error likelihood of each measurement. This is done in an unsupervised manner through classification and regression models on the basis of the minimum message length (MML) metric. Use of MML, however, often requires an exhaustive comparison of all possible models, which naturally raises considerable search-control issues. This is precisely the case with the MML2DS approach. This paper presents an efficient meta-analytic framework for controlling the generation of progression groups, which considerably reduces the search space before the application of MML2DS. This is achieved by identifying founder sets of longitudinal segments, around which families of segments are likely to be formed. An effective subset of these families is then selected, after which the MML2DS criterion is used as the final arbiter to determine ultimate model configurations and fits. This approach has proved to be very powerful, resulting in significant improvements in efficiency to the effect that accurate results are obtained in a few minutes where it previously took weeks with much smaller data sets. The indications are that this approach can be applied to other techniques besides MML2DS.


During the course of American history, wrongful events have occurred and certain Americans have stood up and spoken out against these wrongs: Tom Paine, Edward R. Murrow, Daniel Ellsberg. Vincent Bugliosi takes his place in this special pantheon of patriots with his powerful, brilliant, and courageous expose of crime by the highest court in the land. When an article he wrote on this topic appeared in The Nation magazine in February 2001, it drew the largest outpouring of letters and e-mail in the magazine's 136-year history, tapping a deep reservoir of outrage. The original article is now expanded, amended, and backed by amplifications, endnotes, and the relevant Supreme Court documents.


This pilot study, examining prisoner health in two WA Prisons, aims to create a way for a standardised program of health checks to be introduced into WA prisons and ultimately across the board for all Australian prisons. The HoPE (Health of Prisoner Evaluation) Project was developed by Natalie and Sharan in response to a report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, which found no consistent State or national review of prisoners' health even though they are known to be a high-risk group. A mental and physical health questionnaire was used to interview both indigenous and non-Indigenous male and female prisoners from urban areas. This aimed to produce an accurate profile of people within the present prison system. The questionnaire which was administered by independent researchers included sections on; * General health and wellbeing * Dental health * History of illness and vaccinations * Exercise and Injury * Psychiatric and psychological history * Suicide and self harm * Alcohol and gambling * Drug use and drug treatments * Contact with family * Sexual behaviour and attitudes * History of sexual assault, sexual abuse and sexual violence * Smoking * Tattooing and body piercing


The focus of this paper is to present an image transformation algorithm to interpret historical imagery land data for autonomous safe landing of a robotic spacecraft. Inherent geographical hazards of Martian terrain may impede safe landing for a science exploration spacecraft. Surface visualization software for hazard detection and avoidance may therefore be applied to enable an autonomous and intelligent spacecraft descent upon entering the planetary atmosphere. The methodology proposed involves integrating linear algebra and computer vision/graphics techniques, with the intrinsic parameters governing spacecraft dynamic motion and camera calibration, in order to assess hazards that might impede spacecraft landing. In this paper, we provide algorithmic details and simulation results of our methodology applied to a representative Mars landing descent profile


Citation metrics are increasingly used to appraise published research. One challenge is whether and how to normalize these metrics to account for differences across scientific fields, age (year of publication), type of document, database coverage, and other factors. We discuss the pros and cons for normalizations using different approaches. Additional challenges emerge when citation metrics need to be combined across multiple papers to appraise the corpus of scientists, institutions, journals, or countries, as well as when trying to attribute credit in multiauthored papers. Different citation metrics may offer complementary insights, but one should carefully consider the assumptions that underlie their calculation.


Pervasive mutations in somatic cells generate a heterogeneous genomic population within an organism and may result in serious medical conditions. While cancer is the most studied disease associated with somatic variations, recent advances in single cell and ultra deep sequencing indicate that a number of phenotypes and pathologies are impacted by cell specific variants. Currently, the accurate identification of low allelic frequency somatic variants relies on a combination of deep sequencing coverage and multiple evidences of the presence of variants. However, in this study we show that false positive variants can account for more than 70% of identified somatic variations, rendering conventional detection methods inadequate for accurate determination of low allelic variants. Interestingly, these false positive variants primarily originate from mutagenic DNA damage which directly confounds determination of genuine somatic mutations. Furthermore, we developed and validated a simple metric to measure mutagenic DNA damage, and demonstrated that mutagenic DNA damage is the leading cause of sequencing errors in widely used resources including the 1000 Genomes Project and The Cancer Genome Atlas.


This book of tutorials is intended as a training guide for those who have a basic familiarity with part and assembly modeling in CATIA V5 Release 16 wishing to create and simulate the motion of mechanisms within CATIA Digital Mock Up (DMU). The tutorials are written so as to provide a hands-on look at the process of creating an assembly, developing the assembly into a mechanism, and simulating the motion of the mechanism in accordance with some time based inputs. The processes of generating movie files and plots of the kinematic results are covered. The majority of the common joint types are covered. Students majoring in engineering/technology, designers using CATIA V5 in industry, and practicing engineers can easily follow the book and develop a sound yet practical understanding of simulating mechanisms in DMU. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. A Block with Constant Acceleration along a Prismatic Joint 3. An Arm Rotating about a Revolute Joint 4. Slider Crank Mechanism 5. Sliding Ladder 6. A Gearing Mechanism 7. Ellipse Generator Mechanism 8. Cam-Follower Mechanism 9. Planetary Gear Mechanism 10. Telescopic Mechanism 11. Robotic Arm 12. Single Cylinder Engine 13. Universal Joint Mechanism 14. C-clamp Mechanism 15. A Mechanism with Coriolis Acceleration 16. Prelude to Human Builder Workbench 17. Exercises Appendix I: Additional Functionalities, Tips and Tricks


In this thesis I examine the development in the theatre
outside London, known as the "repertory theatre movement".
I concentrate on the first three theatres founded, the Gaiety
in Manchester, the Citizens' in Glasgow, and the Liverpool
Repertory Theatre, all of which came into prominence between
1907 and 1917, the ten years which span the life of the
Gaiety Theatre.

The roots of the movement are traced to Germany and its
network of subsidised theatres, and to the Abbey in Dublin,
which played a crucial role as the catalyst for the movement
The British background to the movement is also explored.
A discussion of the theatres' structure follows, with their
establishment, organisation, finances, policy and the
audience they attracted, surveyed. I then consider the
repertoire of each theatre analysing which plays they performed, which new authors encouraged, and why the emphasis lay on a
certain kind of drama.

The backgrounds of the actors and actresses who joined
the repertory theatres are discussed, as are their techniques,
and how they adapted to the strictures of repertory.
Similarly, the directors who undertook a huge workload
were forced to find a new way of working which would ensure
high artistic standards, while producing a large number of
plays. I shall look at this development of a new stagecraft
in a historical context and evaluate its strengths and weak-nesses.


Phosphorus-doped ZnO (ZnO:P) nanowires were grown by the high-pressure pulsed laser deposition process (HP-PLD), where phosphorus pentoxide is used as the dopant source. The morphology, composition, and microstructural changes of ZnO nanowires after phosphorus doping were investigated with scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction spectrum, energy-dispersive X-ray spectrum, transmission electron microscope, and Raman scattering spectrum. Optical fingerprints of ZnO:P nanowires like neutral acceptor-bound exciton emission (3.357 eV, A0X), free-electron to neutral-acceptor emission (3.311 eV, FA), and their longitudinal optical (LO) phonon replicas were observed, and their dependence on the phosphorus doping concentration was investigated with room/low-temperature photoluminescence spectra. It indicates that acceptor levels with a binding energy of about 130 meV were formed, and the optimized phosphorus concentration was realized with the ZnO:P2O5 (2 wt %) target.


The reason for the present study is the surprising observation of measurements showing that the increase in global temperature is, over a period of already 150 years, equal to 0,135 °C together with an increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere of 20 ppm, at each increase of the world population with 1 billion. So regardless of the explosively increasing industrialization in the past 50 years. The study indicates where, in the substance of the case, the cause for this apparent contradiction can be found, but does not explain the remarkably precise constant ratio over those 150 years. It brings a different, striking precisely, relation upwards: the one between the increase in worldwide energy consumption by mankind and the increase in global temperature. The article closes with the conclusion that the climate problem is a symptom of the world population problem.


Scientists for whom English is not their first language report disadvantages with academic communication internationally. This case study explores preliminary evidence from non-Anglophone scientists in an Australian research organisation, where English is the first language. While the authors identified similarities with previous research, they found that scientists from non-Anglophone language backgrounds are limited by more than their level of linguistic proficiency in English. Academic science communication may be underpinned by perceptions of identity that are defined by the Anglocentric hegemony in science, which dictates not only how academic science is communicated but also who can communicate it. Abstract


Floriculture is a dynamic industry that has transformed from a regional business, where both production and consumption were concentrated in Europe, to a global business organized in global value chains. Although the Dutch still lead the industry, particularly through the Dutch auction, developing countries have strengthened their position as producers in the chain. While consumption in traditional markets remains important, new demand has emerged in the global South. This working paper explains the dynamics and main features of the floriculture global value chain, different sales channels and governance structures, and their implications for how supplier firms in developing countries learn and build technological capabilities. Governance structures in the floriculture global value chain are not only shaped by buyer requirements and auction's institutional rules but also by national and international regulations. The paper argues that there is no static governance structure in the Dutch auction, the dominant sales channel, but rather that buyer-supplier relations in the Dutch auction can move from market-based governance to relational network governance in which unpackers play a crucial role. There are also new governance modes emerging beyond the Dutch auction, such as in online trading as well as in emerging floriculture global value chains in the global South where direct sales channels prevail. The paper further argues that the effort of supplier firms to capture higher value and/or to secure a 'better deal' cannot be understood only as 'upgrading' or moving up in the 'value ladder', as firms appear to use a mix of strategies and move in a variety of directions— up, down and deepen, which enable them to optimize their gains, minimize risks and stabilize income flows.


Requirements Engineering has two main directions, Bespoke (product developed for one customer) and Market-Driven (several potential customers for the same product). These two are in some ways very much alike but in some aspects very different. Over the last couple of years the software development industry has tended to shift more and more to Market-Driven Requirements Engineering. This has brought attention to the challenges facing a Market-Driven development organization, without focusing on the actual shift from Bespoke development. Based on the differences and similarities between Bespoke and Market-Driven Requirements Engineering, this thesis presents a framework for shifting from the former to the latter. The framework (BESMART) involves three steps. Firstly, the organization assesses their potential to become more Market-Driven. Secondly they assess their current way of working to identify which areas that may need to be improved. Finally, BESMART provides multiple suggestions that address the identified improvement areas. The organization is then able to choose the one that best suits their needs. This also lets the organization choose a solution that they find feasible. The framework was used at a case organization during its development. This way it was ensured that the theoretical framework could actually be used in a real world setting. The practical use of BESMART resulted in some refinements aimed at making it more applicable in industry. Once the framework had been applied, it was evaluated by representatives from the case organization. The industry evaluation resulted in some improvement suggestions but showed that the framework was both useful and usable and provided an improvement plan that seemed promising enough to pilot in the organization.


The fluids used in hydraulic systems inevitably contain large numbers of small, solid particles, a phenomenon known as 'fluid contamination'. Particles enter a hydraulic system from the environment, and are generated within it by processes of wear. At the same time, particles are removed from the system fluid by sedimentation and in hydraulic filters. This thesis considers the problems caused by fluid contamination, as they affect a manufacturer of axial piston pumps. The specific project aim was to investigate methods of predicting or determining the effects of fluid contamination on this type of pump. The thesis starts with a theoretical analysis of the contaminated lubrication of a slipper-pad bearing. Statistical methods are used to develop a model of the blocking, by particles, of the control capillaries used in such bearings. The results obtained are compared to published, experimental data. Poor correlation between theory and practice suggests that more research is required in this area before such theoretical analysis can be used in industry. Accelerated wear tests have been developed in the U.S.A. in an attempt to predict pump life when operating on contaminated fluids. An analysis of such tests shows that reliability data can only be obtained from extensive test programmes. The value of contamination testing is suggested to be in determining failure modes, and in identifying those pump components which are susceptible to the effects of contamination. A suitable test is described, and the results of a series of tests on axial piston pumps are presented and discussed. The thesis concludes that pump reliability data can only be obtained from field experience. The level of confidence which can be placed in results from normal laboratory testing is shown to be too low for the data to be of real value. Recommendations are therefore given for the ways in which service data should be collected and analysed.


Presents a formulation for recursive recovery of motion, pointwise structure, and focal length from feature correspondences tracked through an image sequence. In addition to adding focal length to the state vector, several representational improvements are made over earlier structure from motion formulations, yielding a stable and accurate estimation framework which applies uniformly to both true perspective and orthographic projection. Results on synthetic and real imagery illustrate the performance of the estimator. >


Modernism and Music-Daniel Albright 2004-02-03 If in earlier eras music may have seemed slow to respond to advances in other artistic media, during the modernist age it asserted itself in the vanguard. Modernism and Music provides a rich selection of texts on this moment, some translated into English for the first time. It offers not only important statements by composers and critics, but also musical speculations by poets, novelists, philosophers, and others-all of which combine with Daniel Albright's extensive, interlinked commentary to place modernist music in the full context of intellectual and cultural history.


Abstract. In this paper, reanalysis fields from the ECMWF have been statistically downscaled to predict from large-scale atmospheric fields, surface moisture flux and daily precipitation at two observatories (Zaragoza and Tortosa, Ebro Valley, Spain) during the 1961–2001 period. Three types of downscaling models have been built: (i) analogues, (ii) analogues followed by random forests and (iii) analogues followed by multiple linear regression. The inputs consist of data (predictor fields) taken from the ERA-40 reanalysis. The predicted fields are precipitation and surface moisture flux as measured at the two observatories. With the aim to reduce the dimensionality of the problem, the ERA-40 fields have been decomposed using empirical orthogonal functions. Available daily data has been divided into two parts: a training period used to find a group of about 300 analogues to build the downscaling model (1961–1996) and a test period (1997–2001), where models' performance has been assessed using independent data. In the case of surface moisture flux, the models based on analogues followed by random forests do not clearly outperform those built on analogues plus multiple linear regression, while simple averages calculated from the nearest analogues found in the training period, yielded only slightly worse results. In the case of precipitation, the three types of model performed equally. These results suggest that most of the models' downscaling capabilities can be attributed to the analogues-calculation stage.


One of the crucial measurements for characterizing any space weather event is absolute plasma density and plasma density fluctuations, both spatially and temporally. Langmuir probes are the oldest and most proven instruments for these in-situ measurements. This thesis enumerates the development of a miniaturized low-noise Langmuir probe intended for a dual CubeSat mission to study equatorial temperature and wind anomaly in the Earth's ionosphere. The Langmuir probe instrument developed is of a planar geometry and fix biased in the ion saturation region, i.e. negative w.r.t. spacecraft chassis. Operating the Langmuir probe in the ion saturation region avoids excessive spacecraft charging on small spacecraft platforms, while also avoiding high-risk deployables. Specific emphasis is placed on minimizing the physical footprint, power consumption, and measurement noise levels of the instrument, all while maintaining high measurement cadence. In this way, the device is also intended to be functionally dynamic and easily modifiable for future missions requiring similar instrumentation. The effort toward this thesis included circuit design and simulation in National Instruments' Multisim, printed circuit board layout design in National Instruments' Ultiboard, instrument firmware development in Texas Instruments' Code Composer Studio, mechanical design of the system in Dassault's CATIA and SolidWorks, test article board population, extensive instrument testing, and temperature calibration in a TestEquity thermal chamber.


For over 25 years, school choice advocates have argued that market competition drives educational organizations to become more differentiated and technically-oriented. However, empirical research has only partially supported this view, observing such outcomes only under certain conditions. To better understand the contingent nature of market effects within education, we draw on sociological and organizational theories that emphasize the 'embeddedness' of economic behavior. We test this idea using data from all private schools in Toronto, Canada, a strategic setting that approximates a 'pure' market by being mostly free of public governance. We find that, net of factors like school size and age, market segment is associated with the presence of a variety of organizational features. In conclusion, we ponder ways that institutional norms and community ties not only buffer schools from market forces, but also, infuse consumer preferences.


OBJECTIVES
Interdigital tinea pedis is the most frequent presentation, as well as the most severe clinical form of tinea pedis, constituting a therapeutic challenge. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness and tolerability of two concentrations of Ageratina pichinchensis extract (encecalin content, 0.76 and 1.52%, respectively) on patients with clinical and mycological diagnosis of chronic interdigital tinea pedis.

DESIGN
By means of a randomized, double-blind clinical trial, three groups of patients were treated topically for 4 weeks with a cream containing the following: Group I-the lower concentration of A. pichinchensis extract, group II-the higher concentration, group III-2% ketoconazole.

SUBJECTS
One hundred and sixty (160) ambulatory patients of either sex between the ages of 18 and 65 years were enrolled.

OUTCOME MEASURES
The primary outcome variables were: clinical effectiveness, mycological effectiveness, therapeutic cure, tolerability, and treatment compliance. The secondary outcome variable was therapeutic success.

RESULTS
At the end of treatment, therapeutic cure was achieved by 34.1, 41.8, and 39.53% of Groups I, II, and III, respectively. No statistical difference between the groups was observed.

CONCLUSIONS
Both treatments were effective for the treatment of interdigital-type tinea pedis, while better results were observed on patients that received the higher concentration of the extract.


A concept map is a diagram depicting relationships among concepts which is used as a knowledge representation tool in many knowledge domains. In this paper, we build on the modeling framework of Hui et al. (2008) in order to develop a concept map suitable for testing the empirical evidence of theories. We identify a theory by a set of core tenets each asserting that one set of independent variables affects one dependent variable, moreover every variable can have several operational definitions. Data consist of a selected sample of scientific articles from the empirical literature on the theory under investigation. Our "tenet map" features a number of complexities more than the original version. First the links are two-layer: first-layer links connect variables which are related in the test of the theory at issue; second-layer links represent connections which are found statistically significant. Besides, either layer matrix of link-formation probabilities is block-symmetric. In addition to a form of censoring which resembles the Hui et al. pruning step, observed maps are subject to a further censoring related to second-layer links. Still, we perform a full Bayesian analysis instead of adopting the empirical Bayes approach. Lastly, we develop a three-stage model which accounts for dependence either of data or of parameters. The investigation of the empirical support and consensus degree of new economic theories of the firm motivated the proposed methodology. In this paper, the Transaction Cost Economics view is tested by a tenet map analysis. Both the two-stage and the multilevel models identify the same tenets as the most corroborated by empirical evidence though the latter provides a more comprehensive and complex insight of relationships between constructs.


Author(s): McAnallen, Julia | Advisor(s): Nichols, Johanna | Abstract: The languages of the world encode possession in a variety of ways. In Slavic languages, possession on the level of the clause, or predicative possession, is represented by two main encoding strategies. Most Slavic languages, including those in the West and South Slavic sub-groupings, use a `have' verb comparable to English have and German haben. But Russian, an East Slavic language, encodes predicative possession only infrequently with its `have' verb imet'; instead, Russian uses a construction for predicative possession originating in a locative phrase, e.g. u menja est' kniga, which literally means `at me is a book' for `I have a book'. This locative construction for predicative possession in Russian is often singled out as an aberrant construction in Slavic and attributed to contact-induced influence from Finnic languages. The opposite point of view is also put forth: that the locative construction for predicative possession in Russian is the original construction inherited from Late Proto-Slavic and the `have' verb used in other Slavic languages is merely a calque from Greek. Neither explanation is entirely satisfactory. As a matter of fact, early Slavic textual traditions, based on a comparison of textual examples from Old Church Slavic, Old Serbian and Croatian, Old Czech, and Early East Slavic, reveal that both a `have' verb and a locative construction for predicative possession were used in Late Proto-Slavic, alongside a third construction with the possessor encoded in the dative case.The present-day distribution of encoding strategies in the Slavic languages is explained by tracing the different textual and population histories for multiple areas of Slavdom. Contacts with neighboring languages, especially neighboring non-Slavic languages, over the course of history influenced predicative possessive constructions (PPCs) in all areas of Slavdom. Because the Slavic languages spread rather rapidly over a vast geographic expanse, covering most of Eastern Europe in a matter of a few centuries in the latter half of the first millennium CE, the languages that different Slavic populations came into contact with were often quite different. In particular, languages in the western end of Slavdom were in contact with German-speaking populations to varying degrees of intensity; in the northeastern end of Slavdom, Early East Slavic assimilated and lived alongside large numbers of originally Finnic-speaking populations, who spoke languages closely related to Modern Finnish and Estonian. In short, each Slavic language expanded usage of one of the three original encoding strategies for predicative possession already attested in Late Proto-Slavic and the encoding strategy that expanded brought it closer to usage in neighboring and historically substrate non-Slavic languages. Not only the form of the PPCs themselves came to parallel usage in neighboring non-Slavic languages, but the morphosyntactic and semantic properties of the Slavic constructions also converged with the PPCs used in areal languages. Additional support for the scenarios put forth in this dissertation comes from examination of factors outside the domain of predicative possession, including linguistic features other than predicative possession, textual histories and considerations of language standardization in different areas, socio-historical factors, and demographic factors. While this dissertation traces the development of one grammatical category - predicative possession - in the history of Slavic, the scenarios outlined are meant to contribute more generally to an understanding of linguistic change in the history of Slavic and how those changes reflect the influence of population processes on shaping the path of historical linguistic change.


We study a developing economy in which the representative firm's production function exhibits complementarities between human capital and the available level of technology. The firm invests in the acquisition of new technology, while employees decide how much human capital to acquire. The speed of human capital accumulation positively affects the growth rate of the economy, and as a result a reform that improves the educational system can lead to faster growth. Importantly though, if property rights are weakly enforced, firms have limited incentives to invest in the acquisition of new technologies. This might constrain the demand for human capital, making an educational reform potentially unsuccessful. If property rights are weakly protected, an educational reform results in the choice of a higher level of education only if individuals can transfer their human capital to a different economy, where the demand for their skills is higher. We thus conclude that only if an improvement in the school system is combined with better property rights enforcement will an educational reform unambiguously lead to faster growth.


The magnitude of the achievement gap between children in disadvantaged schools and their
more advantaged peers has been well documented (Hivers et al, 2004; LANDS, DES, 2005; Weir
et al, 2003). Government response has primarily been in investment in schools in terms of extra
staffing, resources, smaller class sizes and early intervention programmes. Until very recently,
there has not been a focus on supporting the quality of literacy instruction in the regular
classroom. This study set out to investigate: (a) how a research-based best practice balanced
literacy framework could be designed for and implemented in the Irish context in collaboration
with a Band 1 DEIS school (the Irish Department of Education's current scheme for schools in
areas of high socio-economic, disadvantage); (b) the particular conditions, resources and kinds of
professional development required to support teachers in implementing such a framework and
how teachers would respond to the change process; (c) the impact of the changes on children's
motivation and engagement with literacy, their knowledge of literacy strategies, and their
achievement on standardised tests of literacy; and (d) parents' perspectives on their children's
motivation and engagement in literacy following the changes in instruction. The study was
informed by the literature on effective schools and teachers in high-poverty areas that were
successful in raising achievement in literacy, the literature on professional development and the
literature on current understandings of essential pedagogical content and strategies in literacy.
The partner school agreed to collaborate in the research over a two-year period. The classroom
teachers of four First classes, the children in these classes, the children's parents, and four special
education teachers consented to participate. A mixed methods design was employed which
allowed for the exploration of multiple questions using the following research tools:
questionnaires; interviews with teachers, children and their parents; observations of teachers in
their classrooms; and a range of formative and summative assessment measures designed to track
changes in children's literacy achievement.
Findings indicated that, by the end of the study, the children had significantly higher
achievement in reading, writing and spelling than would be expected based on their pre-test
scores. Teachers attributed these achievement gains to the changes they had made to their
classroom instruction. Teachers reported having higher expectations for the children and higher
levels of self-efficacy and confidence in their own ability to address literacy difficulties. No one
factor emerged as the agent of change; rather, a synergy of factors at school and classroom levels
were identified as contributing to their success. These included the on-site, context-specific
professional development which enabled teachers to expand their expertise in terms of subject
knowledge and new approaches and methodologies; the provision of resources (mainly reading
materials) which contributed to the motivation and engagement of the children; regular
opportunities for professional debate, dialogue and reflection among teachers through planning
meetings; collaboration with teaching colleagues at the same class level and team-teaching with
the special education team. The adoption of a 90-minute block of uninterrupted time for literacy
signalled a school priority on literacy. It allowed for the provision of a cognitively challenging
curriculum as well as establishing a basis for greater engagement in literacy. Teachers and
parents reported that, following the programme, children were more motivated, engaged, and
strategic in their approach. They were choosing to read and write both inside and outside school
and this had had a positive influence on the family as a whole. Teachers felt that the parental
component was valuable and identified it as an area meriting further development. Thus, a focus
on high-quality instruction combined with support for teachers and parents can begin to help
children in disadvantaged areas to reach their potential on key aspects of literacy.


Objectives/Research Problem: hite adipose tissue is not just an energy storage depot but now it is recognized to be an active organ in energy homeostasis and physiological functions. It is known to secrete a variety of bioactive proteins known as adipokines. Among these adipokines, adiponectin is reported to have antidiabetic properties which functions as an insulin sensitizer. The present study was performed to evaluate the effects of purified protein containing adiponectin or insulin alone on blood glucose, blood lipid and histopathological changes in the pancreas of streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats.Materials and Method: In this study, thirty male adult Sprague Dawley rats (Rattus norvegicus) weighing 150-250 grams (8-10 weeks) were randomly divided into six experimental groups A, B, C, D, E and F. Hyperglycemia was induced by a single intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (STZ) at rate of 70 mg/kg body weight. Seven days after, the confirmation of hyperglycemia by using a glucometer (Accu-Chek Active) and compatible glucose test strips, Groups A, B and C were treated with 30 mg/kg body weight of purified protein containing adiponectin from chicken, beef and lamb adipose tissues, respectively. Group E was treated with 2 I U/kg body weight insulin. Groups A, B, and C served as hyperglycemia and group F was a normal control and received 1 ml/kg body weight citrate buffer. After 14 days of treatment, the animals were sacrificed, the blood was analysed and the pancreas was processed for histological staining. Data obtained were expressed as means of four replicates.Results and Discussion: Findings showed that STZ-induced diabetes induced hyperglycemia and histopathological changes in the pancreas of rats.Conclusion: Treatment with the purified protein containing adiponectin from abdominal adipose tissues of halal meat resulted in reduction in hyperglycemia and regeneration of beta cells.


Single-crystal anatase TiO2 nanocrystals were assembled into different morphological TiO2 micro/nanoarchitectures, including TiO2 hollow microspheres (HM), solid microspheres (SM), and diamond-shaped nanocrystals (NR), by well-controlled solvothermal reactions. The morphology of the resultant TiO2 micro/nanoarchitectures, along with the micro/nanostructural shape, size and crystallinity, can be controlled by varying the concentration of the reactants. It was found that the formation process of TiO2 hollow microspheres might include the hydrolysis of titanium alkoxide with water from the Mannich reaction, the aggregation of TiO2 nanocrystals, the anisotropic crystal growth, and the Ostwald ripening. In addition, we have performed systematic density functional theory (DFT) calculations on the adsorption energy of ethylenediamine molecules on the exposed surfaces and investigated the formation mechanism of single-crystalline nanocrystals. Furthermore, the three TiO2 micro/nanoarchitectures (SM, HM, and NR) were used as photoanode materials in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) and demonstrated improved light harvesting efficiency and electron collection efficiency, which were much greater than conventional TiO2 nanoparticles under the same conditions. Combined with the large specific surface area and high light scattering ability, the HM-based photoanode achieves the highest power conversion efficiency of 10.66%. Meanwhile, our method provides a versatility for structural engineering of various targeted morphological products to prepare high performance photovoltaic device.


Engineering of the sliding interfaces within swashplate type axial piston machines represents the most complex and difficult part of the design process. The sliding interfaces are subject to significant normal loads which must be supported while simultaneously preventing component wear to ensure long lasting operation. Proper lubrication design is essential to separate the solid bodies from each other, but the complexity of the physics involved makes this a difficult problem. This work focuses on lubrication and the resulting energy losses at the sliding interface between the slipper and swashplate. To better understand the slipper lubrication performance, a numerical model has been developed to predict the behavior of a design. The numerical model considers the multi-physics, multi-scale and transient nature of the lubrication problem by utilizing novel segmented physics solvers and numerical techniques. Partitioned solvers considering the fluid pressure and temperature distributions, structural deformation due to fluid pressure and viscous heating, as well as a solid body dynamics from transient loads have been originally developed and tightly coupled. Although the effort necessary to implement this was significant, by avoiding a more traditional co-simulation approach, high computational efficiency and model fidelity can be achieved. To validate the developed numerical model, a specialized test rig was designed and manufactured. Miniature high-speed inductive position sensors were mounted inside the swashplate of a commercially manufactured pump with only minimal modifications. These six sensors measured the distance between the sensor face and the slipper land as the slipper passed over the sensor, effectively measuring the direct film thickness in real time. The thickness of lubrication represents the greatest unknown predicted by the model and provides the most rigorous validation as well as experimental insight into actual slipper operation. New slippers were installed in the test rig, measured, and then following a period of operation, were measured again. A significant change in film thickness behavior was measured due to the presence of a worn slipper surface during the second period of testing, and this same behavioral change was captured with the simulation model. The developed numerical model was used to conduct case studies demonstrating the potential of virtual pump lubrication design. Slipper sensitivity to operating conditions and materials were explored. Operational changes such as slipper tipping and liftoff at high speeds were numerically observed and would serve to aid a designer in improving the robustness of a design. A multimodeling approach using a surrogate model based upon a design of experiment study and the full numerical model explored the inter-dependence of variables in a multi-land slipper design. In particular, a decrease in total power loss while increasing the outer stabilizing land width at a constant hydrostatic balance factor was observed for low pressure operation.


It has been established that a prolonged copulatory period of 3-4 hours is necessary for maximal insemination to occur in the western corn rootworn (WCR). This complete mating period has been suggested to speed ovarian development. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between copulation and ovarian development in the WCR. Using 11 and 12 day post emergence virgin WCR beetles, four female groups of varying copulatory duration were established: (1) 15 min. in copula (2) 1 hr. in copula (3) 2 hrs. in copula (4) a control group mated until natural completion. After copulation, these beetles along with a control group of unmated females were placed in isolated cage vials. Frequency of egg-laying and post-copulation change in female weight was recorded up until the time of dissection. The beetles were then sacrificed between 21-24 days post-copulation and the effects on ovarian development were evaluated with the following criteria: (1) reproductive status (an ovarian rating system) (2) morphometric analysis of ovarian area (using an Olympus C-R Research Image Analyzer with an IBM/PC Microcomputer). The presence of spermatozoa in the spermatheca was also noted at the time of dissection. The results demonstrate significantly larger mean ovarian area and greater mean reproductive status rating (P<O.05) in the control group of mated until completion females compared with the control group of unmated females. Egg-laying frequency and mean post-copulation change in weight reflected fully developed ovaries present in the mated until completion beetles and not in the unmated beetles. The results with the groups of varying copulatory duration suggest that spermatozoa may play a role in the development of fully maturated ovaries. In addition, it appears that directly after copulation some factor other than spermatozoa is responsible for significant increases in reproductive development. This other factor appears relatively transient and does not maintain a significantly developed reproductive state past approximately 14 days post-copulation. Key-words: oiabrotica virgifera virgifera, western corn rootworm, Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae, copulation duration, ovarian development, morphometric analysis.


One of the challenges in smart textiles is to develop suitable multifunctional materials that can address simultaneously several characteristics such as durability, stretchability, lightweight, and conductivity. Conductive polymers which showed success in different technological fields like polymer solar cells and light emitting diodes are promising in many smart textile applications. In this work, we treated a common polyamide/lycra knitted fabric with PEDOT:PSS for stretchable e-textiles. PEDOT:PSS, with DMSO as a conductivity enhancer and different ratios of water-based polyurethane dispersions as a binder, was applied to the fabric with simple immersion and coating applications. The effect of different application methods and binder ratio on the surface resistance of the fabric was monitored with four point probe electrical surface resistance measurement systems. Samples prepared by immersion technique are more uniform and have higher conductivity than those prepared by a coating technique. SEM images showed that PEDOT:PSS is incorporated into the structure in the immersion method while in the coating it is majorly present on the surface of the fabric. The tensile measurement showed that the acidic PEDOT:PSS and polyurethane dispersion coating has no adverse effect on the tensile strength of the fabric. The coated samples can be stretched up to 700% while still reasonably conductive. The resistance increases only by a small amount when samples were stretched cyclically by stretching 100%. Generally, samples prepared by the immersion method maintained better conductivity while stretching than those by a coating method. The washing fastness of the samples was also assessed.


Considered by many to be the greatest writer of his generation, David Foster Wallace was at the height of his creative powers when he committed suicide in 2008. In a sweeping portrait of Wallace s writing and thought and as a measure of his importance in literary history, "The Legacy of David Foster Wallace "gathers cutting-edge, field-defining scholarship by critics alongside remembrances by many of his writer friends, who include some of the world s most influential authors.In this elegant volume, literary critics scrutinize the existing Wallace scholarship and at the same time pioneer new ways of understanding Wallace s fiction and journalism. In critical essays exploring a variety of topics including Wallace s relationship to American literary history, his place in literary journalism, his complicated relationship to his postmodernist predecessors, the formal difficulties of his 1996 magnum opus "Infinite Jest," his environmental imagination, and the social life of his fiction and nonfiction contributors plumb sources as diverse as Amazon.com reader recommendations, professional book reviews, the 2009 "Infinite Summer" project, and the David Foster Wallace archive at the University of Texas s Harry Ransom Center.The creative writers including Don DeLillo, Jonathan Franzen, George Saunders, Rick Moody, Dave Eggers, and David Lipsky, and Wallace s Little, Brown editor, Michael Pietsch reflect on the person behind the volumes of fiction and nonfiction created during the author s too-short life.All of the essays, critical and creative alike, are written in an accessible style that does not presume any background in Wallace criticism. Whether the reader is an expert in all things David Foster Wallace, a casual fan of his fiction and nonfiction, or completely new to Wallace, "The Legacy of David Foster Wallace" will reveal the power and innovation that defined his contribution to literary life and to self-understanding. This illuminating volume is destined to shape our understanding of Wallace, his writing, and his place in history."


We propose a framework based on proactive server roaming to mitigate the effects of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. The active server proactively changes its location within a pool of servers to defend against unpredictable and undetectable attacks. Only legitimate clients can follow the active server as it roams. We present algorithms that are secure, distributed, randomized, and adaptive for triggering the roaming and determining the next server to roam to. We propose some modifications to the state recovery process of existing TCP connection-migration schemes to suit roaming. Preliminary experiments in a FreeBSD network show that the overhead of server roaming is small, in terms of response time, in the absence of attacks. Further, during an attack, roaming significantly improves the response time.


Anthocyanins, a unique class of flavonoid compounds, have recently come to the forefront of investigative research aimed at evaluating the potential applications of natural products to human health. Evidence demonstrating the beneficial effects of anthocyanin consumption has been reported for a myriad of conditions including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and lately, neurodegenerative disease. Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are characterized by the death of specific neuronal populations within the brain and spinal cord, leading to cognitive and/or motor impairment. While the etiology of many of these diseases is largely unknown, several factors have emerged as contributors to the neurodegenerative process. These include conditions such as oxidative and nitrosative stress, glutamate excitotoxicity, endoplasmic reticulum stress, protein aggregation, and neuroinflammation, which ultimately culminate in the death of susceptible neuronal populations. Since anthocyanins have been shown to modulate these phenomena in numerous ways, interest in evaluating their use as therapeutic agents for neurodegenerative diseases has grown. Additionally, the observation that the bioavailability of anthocyanins is very low following consumption relative to that of their metabolites suggests that anthocyanin metabolites may also play a significant role of mediating the beneficial effects of anthocyanin-rich diets. Therefore, we examined the neuroprotective and therapeutic effects of both anthocyanins and phenolic acid iii metabolites derived from anthocyanins in vitro and in a mouse model of ALS. The results of our work reveal that different anthocyanin species possess differential neuroprotective effects in vitro against toxicity induced by nitric oxide and define a novel neuroprotective mechanism for cyanidin-O-3-glucoside under these conditions. Furthermore, we demonstrate that presymptomatic supplementation with an anthocyanin-enriched extract from strawberries significantly delays disease onset and extends survival in the transgenic G93A mutant Cu, Zn-superoxide dismutase (hSOD1) mouse model of ALS. These observations correlate with significant preservation of hind limb grip strength and function in mice treated with anthocyanins. Anthocyanin supplementation is also shown to improve histopathological indices of disease, reducing reactive astrogliosis in lumbar spinal cord tissue, and preserving neuromuscular junctions in gastrocnemius muscle tissue. We next illustrate that phenolic acid metabolites derived from anthocyanins display distinct and complimentary neuroprotective effects in vitro against a diverse array of stressors in cerebellar granule neurons. Lastly, our work shows that treatment with protocatechuic acid, a metabolite of cyanidin-O-3-glucoside, beginning at disease onset provides significant therapeutic benefit to hSOD1 mice, extending survival and preserving hind limb grip strength in animals supplemented with this compound. The results of this dissertation are the first to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of anthocyanins and their metabolites for the treatment of ALS. Collectively, these data demonstrate that both anthocyanins and their metabolites may be of significant clinical benefit for treating this insidious disease, and suggest that further preclinical and clinical examination of these compounds is warranted.


Only Looking forward to a safer future: The new WHO guidelines for safe surgery Each year in Australia there are approximately 2 million hospital admissions for surgical services (Australia's Health, 2008) and this number is set to grow significantly, with forecasts of at least a 22% increase by 2021 (Birrell, Hawthorne & Rapson, 2003). Surprisingly, for such a high-risk high-volume specialty, we have very little data on perioperative adverse events. This lack of even basic data means that we are unable to track event rates, leaving us oblivious to the full extent of the problem. Research on intraoperative adverse events tells us that the rate of major complications is between 3-16%, with a mortality rate of 0.4-0.8%. (Kable, Gibbered & Spigelman, 2002; Gawande et al, 1999). Applying the lowest of these rates (3% & 0.4%) to Australia's surgical population reveals that a staggering 60,000 patients annually suffer significant complications, with 8000 patients dieing during or immediately after surgery as a result of adverse events. This is indeed a significant number, and given that the research indicates that nearly half of these events are preventable (Kable, Gibbered & Spigelman, 2002; Gawande et al, 1999), one that clearly needs addressing. This paper will review the research on perioperative safety and adverse events and examine some of the safety strategies put forward in the new World Health Organizations (WHO) Guidelines for Safe Surgery. These guidelines were developed for the WHO by renowned perioperative safety champion Dr Atul Gawande and contain recommendations for 'safer surgery practices' that have been demonstrated to reduce adverse events.


Information about natural background levels (NBLs) of chemicals in source waters allows water utilities to identify trends in drinking water contamination. We estimate NBLs for chemicals in source waters for Icelandic water utilities at both national levels with all data pooled, and according to geological regime. NBLs were derived by collecting samples from 79 aquifers considered largely unimpacted by human activities. The aquifers were categorized into four geological settings that are representative of the geology of Iceland. NBLs were calculated as 90%iles of all aquifers in each setting and in all pooled. There was a statistical difference between the geological settings in 11 parameters of 37 tested. The 90%ile for nitrate for all aquifers pooled was 1.36 mg/l, indicating little anthropogenic influence on water used for public water supply in Iceland. The results were compared to the chemical status of 60 European aquifers, collected for the European Union's Sixth Framework Program Background Criteria for the Identification of Groundwater Thresholds project, revealing lower dissolved solids concentration for Icelandic groundwater than that from other parts of Europe. The explanation is likely due to high permeability of young geology settings and low population density in Iceland whereas there is a long history of agriculture and industry in most European countries.


This Article calls for a move to the third phase in courts' attitudes toward consumer contracts. In the first phase, consumer contracts were considered ordinary contracts by courts thus requiring no special treatment. In the second phase, courts and legislatures became suspicious of consumer contracts and developed several tools for handling them, focusing on the characteristics of the parties and the transaction. In this Article, we suggest that it is time to introduce a third phase: Rather than examining each consumer contract in isolation, courts need to acknowledge that consumer contracts are a market-phenomenon which calls for a market-based approach. Instead of focusing on the characteristics of the parties and the transaction, courts should inquire whether there is competition, or potential competition, over contracts in the supplier's market. In order to do so, courts should look at the particular features of the supplier's market, that we identify, and also on the potential strategic interaction among competitors. We argue that when competition over contracts, or the threat of such competition, is sufficiently strong, consumer contracts should be deemed efficient and fair, and courts should not strike down clauses incorporated in such contracts. Interestingly, and counter-intuitively, this conclusion holds even where consumers are uninformed. We offer workable guidelines for courts as to how they could implement the market-based approach proposed in this Article and show how this approach could produce outcomes opposite to, but more efficient and fair, than the ones conventionally adopted by courts or offered by legal scholars.


This paper discusses the ethics of euthanasia. Situations are described in which the normal duty to sustain life is overridden by other duties towards the patient; but these situations are contrasted with euthanasia properly so called. Arguments for euthanasia are considered, and a refutation of those arguments is offered. The case against euthanasia is reinforced by an appeal to the possible harmful consequences of a policy under which it is allowed. Particular implications for psychiatry are advocated. South African Psychiatry Review Vol.7(1) 2004: 10-18, 23-26


The genus Rungia Ness (Acanthaceae) has approximately 50 species in the world, mainly distributing in the tropical. In Vietnam, it has 4 species. During the study of the Acanthaceae specimens of Vietnam, we have found Rungia chinensis Benth. (Acanthaceae) as a new record for the flora of Vietnam. It is a herb to 40 cm or more; slender, puberenlent; leaves broadly ovate to oblong-ovate, 2-4 cm long, 1-3 cm wide; lateral veins 4-5 per side; petioles 1-3 cm long. Spikes terminal or axillary, 3-6 cm long; outer bracts elliptic, ca. 6 mm long, 2-4 mm wide, sparingly ciliate; inner bracts broadly obovate or obovate-oblong, 0.7-0.8 mm long, 0.2-0.4 cm wide; brateoles ovate, 0.6-0.7 cm long, 0.4-0.5 cm wide, apex acuminate, margins hyalin, sparingly ciliate; calyx 5 lobed, segments linear-lanceolate; corolla pale purple or white, 6-8 mm long with 2 lips, lower lip 3 lobed; filaments up to 0.5 cm long, hirsute at base; style to 0.7-1 cm long, glabrous; stigma obtuse. Capsule ovoid, ca. 0.6 cm long. It is close to R. pierrei Benoist but only differs from it in leaves broadly obvate to obvate-oblong, 2-4 cm long; bracteole margins hyaline. The specimens were collected in the Lamdong province (Lacduong district), Vietnam by Le Dong Tan et al. and deposited in the Hanoi herbarium, Institute of Ecology and Biological resources, Hanoi, Vietnam (HN).


Background Gays, lesbians and bisexuals (i.e. non-heterosexuals) have been found to be at much greater risk for many psychiatric symptoms and disorders, including depression. This may be due in part to prejudice and discrimination experienced by non-heterosexuals, but studies controlling for minority stress, or performed in very socially liberal countries, suggest that other mechanisms must also play a role. Here we test the viability of common cause (shared genetic or environmental etiology) explanations of elevated depression rates in non-heterosexuals. Method A community-based sample of adult twins (n=9884 individuals) completed surveys investigating the genetics of psychiatric disorder, and were also asked about their sexual orientation. Large subsets of the sample were asked about adverse childhood experiences such as sexual abuse, physical abuse and risky family environment, and also about number of older brothers, paternal and maternal age, and number of close friends. Data were analyzed using the classical twin design. Results Non-heterosexual males and females had higher rates of lifetime depression than their heterosexual counterparts. Genetic factors accounted for 31% and 44% of variation in sexual orientation and depression respectively. Bivariate analysis revealed that genetic factors accounted for a majority (60%) of the correlation between sexual orientation and depression. In addition, childhood sexual abuse and risky family environment were significant predictors of both sexual orientation and depression, further contributing to their correlation. Conclusions Non-heterosexual men and women had elevated rates of lifetime depression, partly due to shared etiological factors, although causality cannot be definitively resolved.


This chapter presents ethnographic research from a project which followed children in a UK primary school in their final year (referred to as year six, children are 10 and 11 years old) in primary school to their first year in secondary school (referred to as year seven, children are 11 and 12 years old). In the UK children might make as few as two transitions between schools (from primary to secondary) or as many as four (from infant to junior to secondary to post 16 colleges). The transition focussed on here is one which nearly all children in the UK make and as such the data and analysis apply to a large number of children in the UK. The chapter will present data which provide insight into the practices of the primary and secondary schools and enable a reflection on the experiences of the children in managing their transition. I do not claim that the practices in the schools, or the experiences of the children, are the same for all schools in the UK, rather I use the data to illustrate important aspects of transition from both the personal (the children) perspective and the policy (school and government) perspective. Such perspectives will, I hope, be interesting to a wider international audience because the issues raised are applicable to educational transitions over time and over place and contribute to a meta understanding of transition. The main argument of the chapter, which emerges from the research, is that explanations of the mechanisms of transition are distributed across social meanings but that transition is experienced at an individual level. Further, those social meanings construct learning in the new transition environment, the quotidian practices of the secondary school are not neutral to the new students, they are value laden and serve to include and exclude and so demand attention. This, it is argued, is an ontological truth surrounding transition.


A widely-used actor-critic reinforcement learning algorithm for continuous control, Deep Deterministic Policy Gradients (DDPG), suffers from the overestimation problem, which can negatively affect the performance. Although the state-of-the-art Twin Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (TD3) algorithm mitigates the overestimation issue, it can lead to a large underestimation bias. In this paper, we propose to use the Boltzmann softmax operator for value function estimation in continuous control. We first theoretically analyze the softmax operator in continuous action space. Then, we uncover an important property of the softmax operator in actor-critic algorithms, i.e., it helps to smooth the optimization landscape, which sheds new light on the benefits of the operator. We also design two new algorithms, Softmax Deep Deterministic Policy Gradients (SD2) and Softmax Deep Double Deterministic Policy Gradients (SD3), by building the softmax operator upon single and double estimators, which can effectively improve the overestimation and underestimation bias. We conduct extensive experiments on challenging continuous control tasks, and results show that SD3 outperforms state-of-the-art methods.


The modern trend is for investors to diversify. Shareholders who own one S&P 500 firm tend to own many of the others as well. This trend casts doubt on the traditional compensation and deterrence rationales for legal rules that hold corporations liable for the acts of their agents. Today, when A Corp sues B Corp (for breach of contract, theft of trade secrets, or any other legal wrong), many of the same shareholders own both the plaintiff and the defendant. For these shareholders, damages just shift money from one pocket to another, minus of course lawyer fees. We offer here a new rationale for corporate liability in such cases of "intraportfolio litigation.�? Although corporae managers are typically rewarded for maximizing firm profits, what shareholders really care about is overall portfolio value. Firm-on-firm lawsuits can reduce principal-agent conflict by assigning intraportfolio costs to the managers responsible for them. Firm-specific financial data thus become a better tool for diversified shareholders to use in motivating and evaluating managers. Not all intraportfolio litigation can be justified on informational grounds, however. For example, securities fraud class actions against corporations lack informational value because the damages awards overstate the intraportfolio harm. Our theory thus provides lawmakers with a framework for distinguishing between value-creating and value-destroying lawsuits among diversified shareholders.


A comparative study has been carried out between different models of implementing surface tension for PLIC-VOF methods: i) the well known Continuum Surface Force (CSF); ii) Staggered Grid Interface Pressure (SGIP); iii) Modified Meier's. As main difference with respect the CSF model, the two last use information of the interface location for the calculation of the surface tension forces, therefore, they need a model of interface reconstruction. The models will be tested under static and dynamic conditions, for the case of a drop and bubble between water and air. In order to reduce the 'parasitic' currents that is characteristic of this type of models, two different strategies are used: i) a new method for the calculation of the interface curvature based on the use of polar coordinates; ii) the use of kernels for smoothing the jump of the colour function and the interface. Additionally, the influence of the order of accuracy of the reconstruction algorithms employed that affect the curvature estimation and the surface tension force calculation is also checked. After testing the different cases, it can be concluded that SGIP and modified Meier perform in a comparable way, and much better than CSF model without kernel, that is only competitive with the use of the kernels. However, modified Meier is preferred respect SGIP due to its straitghforward implementation on unstructured meshes.Copyright © 2010 by ASME


Many innovative hedge fund fee structures have been introduced in recent years in response to concerns about both the level of hedge fund fees and the incentives they may provide. A traditional fee structure consists of a flat fee charged as a percentage of the assets under management, together with a performance fee consisting of a percentage of the profits earned. A fee structure that has become more popular recently is the first-loss structure, in which the manager receives a higher performance fee in return for providing some downside protection to investors by insuring some of their losses. Combinations of these fee structures have also been proposed, with the possibility that investors may benefit from some diversification among the fee structures. By considering the investors' risk–reward trade-off, the authors show that there is in fact very little benefit from such fee diversification. TOPICS: Real assets/alternative investments/private equity, performance measurement


The recently proposed global monsoon hypothesis interprets monsoon systems as part of one global-scale atmospheric overturning circulation, implying a connection between the regional monsoon systems and an in-phase behaviour of all northern hemispheric monsoons on annual timescales (Trenberth et al., 2000). Whether this concept can be applied to past climates and variability on longer timescales is still under debate, because the monsoon systems exhibit different regional characteristics such as different seasonality (i. e. onset, peak and withdrawal). To investigate the interconnection of different monsoon systems during the pre-industrial Holocene, five transient global climate model simulations have been analysed with respect to the rainfall trend and variability in different sub-domains of the Afro-Asian monsoon region. Our analysis suggests that on millennial timescales with varying orbital forcing, the monsoons do not behave as a tightly connected global system. According to the models, the Indian and North African monsoons are coupled, showing similar rainfall trend and moderate correlation in centennial rainfall variability in all models. The East Asian monsoon changes independently during the Holocene. The dissimilarities in the seasonality of the monsoon sub-systems lead to a stronger response of the North African and Indian monsoon systems to the Holocene insolation forcing than of the East Asian monsoon and affect the seasonal distribution of Holocene rainfall variations. Within the Indian and North African monsoon domain, precipitation solely changes during the summer months, showing a decreasing Holocene precipitation trend. In the East Asian monsoon region, the precipitation signal is determined by an increasing precipitation trend during spring and a decreasing precipitation change during summer, partly balancing each other. A synthesis of reconstructions and the model results do not reveal an impact of the different seasonality on the timing of the Holocene rainfall optimum in the different sub-monsoon systems. Rather they indicate locally inhomogeneous rainfall changes and show that single palaeo-records should not be used to characterise the rainfall change and monsoon evolution for entire monsoon sub-systems.


Cardiorhythm Africa, the inaugural conference of AFHRA, was conceived during the biennial PASCAR congress held in Johannesburg in November 2019, with the ambition to be the largest ever pan-African conference focused purely on arrhythmia. Significant aims were to (1) bring together arrhythmia specialists from across Africa and from the diaspora; and (2) announce the newly formed African Heart Rhythm Association (AFHRA), an affiliate organisation of PASCAR formed from the amalgamation of the Cardiac Pacing and Arrhythmias taskforces. The meeting held in Nairobi (29-31 January 2020) was organised to provide a focus on resource-constrained arrhythmia management within the African context and novel/advanced and potentially home-grown solutions. There was full representation from all five PASCAR regions (North, East, West, Central and Southern Africa). This report summarises the scope and perspective of the first Cardiorhythm Africa meeting and presents the future directions for this annual meeting.


We present a data definition framework that enables the convenient specification of data types in ACL2s, the ACL2 Sedan. Our primary motivation for developing the data definition framework was pedagogical. We were teaching undergraduate students how to reason about programs using ACL2s and wanted to provide them with an effective method for defining, testing, and reasoning about data types in the context of an untyped theorem prover. Our framework is now routinely used not only for pedagogical purposes, but also by advanced users. Our framework concisely supports common data definition patterns, e.g., list types, map types, and record types. It also provides support for polymorphic functions. A distinguishing feature of our approach is that we maintain both a predicative and an enumerative characterization of data definitions. In this paper we present our data definition framework via a sequence of examples. We give a complete characterization in terms of tau rules of the inclusion/exclusion relations a data definition induces, under suitable restrictions. The data definition framework is a key component of counterexample generation support in ACL2s, but can be independently used in ACL2, and is available as a community book.


The inability of simple layered models to fit both Rayleigh wave and Love wave data has led to the proposal of an upper mantle interleaved with thin soft horizontal layers. Since surface-wave dispersion is not sensitive to the distribution of soft material but only to the fraction of soft material a variety of models is possible. The solution to this indeterminancy is found through body-wave analysis. It is shown that body waves are dispersed according to the thinness and softness of the layers. Three models, each of which satisfy all surface-wave data, are examined. Transmission seismograms calculated for these models show one to be impossible, one improbable and the other possible. Synthesis of the seismograms is accomplished through the use of time domain theory as the complicated frequency response of the models makes a frequency oriented Haskell-Thompson approach impractical.


More than one type of voltage-gated calcium channel has been identified in muscle cells and neurons. Many specific organic and inorganic blockers of the conventional, slowly inactivating high threshold (L) calcium channel have been reported. No specific blockers of the low threshold (T) channel have been as yet identified. Amiloride, a potassium sparing diuretic, has now been shown to selectively block the low threshold calcium channel in mouse neuroblastoma and chick dorsal root ganglion neurons. The selective blockade of the T-type calcium channel will allow identification of this channel in different tissues and characterization of its specific physiological role.


A methanol extract of Gutenburgia cordifolia showed a greater fall in diastolic than systolic blood pressure in anaesthetised rats. The plant extract produced cardiodepressant activity on isolated rabbit heart and caused contraction on isolated rabbit ileum. The contraction was reduced but not abolished with atropine. On isolated guinea pig ileum, the contraction was abolished by atropine, the presence of an acetylcholine-like compound in the plant extract is indicated.


This paper investigates the strategic decision making process (SDMP) of Greek banks' top management in the context of profound organisational changes introduced in 2012 due to the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. It focuses on the impact of three key dimensions of the SDMP, namely, rationality, intuition and political behaviour, relating to four changes introduced, namely, mergers and acquisitions, branch network rationalisation, integration of information technology (IT) and downsizing of operations and personnel. A survey questionnaire was conducted, targeting Greek banks' top management. Out of 140 questionnaires, 78 were returned, a 55.71% response rate. Data was analysed using structural equation modelling. Research findings identify rationality as a key dimension of SDMP for all organisational changes, as there was high focus on identifying and analysing all required information, use of external financial advisors, and reliance on multiple methods of information gathering. Decision-makers used their intuition in the form of past experience when making acquisition decisions, whilst their personal judgment and "inner voice" were neglected. Finally, political behaviour was not displayed during this process, as decision-makers were open with each other about their interests and preferences, and there was no bargaining, negotiation or use of power amongst them. One limitation was that of not considering all the factors that might help measure SDMP. Also, this study was conducted in a period of political and financial uncertainty for Greek banks, as well as for the Greek economy in general, so findings may not be generalizable to other industries and countries. Conducting interviews could have offered deeper insight as well. This study's value lies in the fact that the organisational changes were determined by Greece's leaders, and thus the Greek banks had to operate under a dynamic, inflexible and non-autonomous environment. Also, this study extends prior SDMP research by examining the impact of the three key SDMP dimensions on four types of organisational change.


Abstract We examine patterns of localized surface elevation change in lower Mercer and Whillans Ice Streams, West Antarctica, which we interpret as subglacial water movement through a system of lakes and channels. We detect and measure the lake activity using repeat-track laser altimetry from ICESat and image differencing from MODIS image pairs. A hydrostatic-potential map for the region shows that the lakes are distributed across three distinct hydrologic regimes. Our analysis shows that, within these regimes, some of the subglacial lakes appear to be linked, with drainage events in one reservoir causing filling and follow-on drainage in adjacent lakes. We also observe changes near ice raft 'a' in lower Whillans Ice Stream, and interpret them as evidence of subglacial water and other changes at the bed. The study provides quantitative information about the properties of this complex subglacial hydrologic system, and a relatively unstudied component of ice-sheet mass balance: subglacial drainage across the grounding line.


Residency training involves surgery by resident surgeons at various levels of experience and proficiency, supervised by an experienced attending physician. We reviewed the results of strabismus surgery performed at four institutions with two residency training programs. Five hundred twenty-two cases with follow up greater than 6 weeks were evaluated. These cases included 315 attending procedures and 207 resident procedures under direct attending supervision. Success was defined as a strabismic deviation of 8 prism diopters or less. Average postoperative follow-up was 57 weeks and did not differ between groups. There was no statistical difference between the resident success rate of 58% (121/207) and the attending success rate of 69% (217/315) after adjusting for population differences. The average final deviation of the patients postoperatively was 7 delta for the attending group and 10 delta for the resident group. Amblyopia was significantly more frequent in the resident cases (P < .001). Adjustable sutures were used significantly more often in attending cases (P < .0001). This study supports the premise that resident strabismus surgery is as successful as attending surgery.


Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate how indigenous software companies are pricing and licensing their product and service offerings. Nearly a decade ago, almost all software product companies sold software by offering perpetual licences and the software companies performed local installations on their clients' premises. Today the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model is having a profound influence on the way software is currently charged and licensed. In place of an upfront payment in the form of a licence fee the cost of the service, upgrades, backups and support are all included in a specific fee (subscription).

The Ireland-Newfoundland Partnership (INP) fund supported this research project. The research focused on Irish and Newfoundland indigenous software companies and with the help of the INP fund, the researcher collected part of the primary data in Newfoundland, Canada. Conducting the study in two jurisdictions enabled the researcher to identify similarities and differences amongst the indigenous software vendors in the two regions.

Mixed-methods surveys are pursued to achieve the research objectives. The primary data used in this study was gathered through a questionnaire administered to 220 indigenous Irish software companies, with a response rate of 29% and a series of six semi-structured interviews. The interviews were conducted with owners and managers in Ireland and Newfoundland. This mixed-method survey enabled the researcher to establish information as regards the industry sector, gain an in-depth understanding of how software companies are pricing and licensing their software offerings and understand exportation of software.

The findings that emerged from this research show that pricing was dependent on a vendor's software business model. The outcome of this study shows that there appears to be a mixture of software licensing methods used by software vendors surveyed. Some vendors are using the traditional software licensing methods while others are using contemporary methods such as usage-based methods. A second finding that surfaced from this study relates to the pricing methods used by software vendors surveyed. In general, vendors' pricing methods are categorised as cost-based, competition-based or customer-based. It emerged that despite the software owners indicating that they use customer-based methods, a cost-based approach dominated both the questionnaire and interview findings. It was also discovered that software vendors were no longer offering pure product or pure services to their customers and that SaaS was increasing in popularity as a pricing model amongst the Irish and Newfoundland software vendors.

The outcome of this study offers a software-pricing template attached as Appendix F, which would help practitioners to learn from their experience and induct staff assuming responsibility in this area.


The assessment of interactions between trade and the environment is dominated by intensive ideological and scientific controversies. These controversies also influence the development of international rules for trade within the GATT/WTO regime. Despite recognition of the need for accepted institutional rules, only slow institutional changes can be observed. The connection of environmental protection with protectionist measures favouring old industrial and agricultural sectors makes it especially difficult to define accepted and objectiflable criteria for justifiable trade interventions. This paper analyses the incentives within the GATT/WTO regime to use institutional experiences for learning processes and institutional reforms. By using an interdisciplinary methodology of evolutionary economics and political science, new procedural criteria to identify learning efforts are developed. These criteria offer opportunities to show the reform potential within and outside the international trade system to overcome common misunderstandings and controversies.


Governments are increasingly focusing on achieving growth at regional, national and international levels. Research and practice indicates that innovation is a key driver for achieving this goal. Unfortunately, finding efficient ways to promote and manage innovation is not a straightforward task. It depends on potentially conflicting parameters that are critical for turning innovative ideas into local and national economic prosperity. To address the challenge, regional and national governments are adopting best-practice vehicles of innovation management. In this article, we focus on one such vehicle, namely business incubators. After presenting basic definitions, we provide quantitative and qualitative research findings on the positive effects that incubators may have on regional development. These findings are often constrained by lack of access of researchers in the internal structure of incubators, thus providing only an "outside-in" viewpoint. Our involvement in the development of an IT-focused incubator in the UK provided new research insights, from an "inside-out" perspective. The latter is presented in terms of an integrated incubator model and the structure of its components is described and analyzed.


The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the acute effects of missing a meal on alertness. The participants were ten university students between 20–29 years old, five females and five males. Participants were chosen on the basis of their good sleep and eating practices. Measurements were collected during an eight hour period starting at 8.00 AM on four separate days. During the test period, participants carried out their normal study activities while on separate days receiving either just breakfast, just lunch, both lunch and breakfast, or no meal at all. During the test period, EEG was monitored continuously while subjective ratings of performance and tiredness were collected every half-hour. The results showed that while there were neither physiological nor subjective indications of tiredness which could be attributed to meal consumption, subjective feelings of lack of energy and motivation was significantly more pronounced at the end of the workday when missing a meal or two.


This book presents the various design methods of a state-feedback control law and of an observer. The considered systems are of continuous-time and of discrete-time nature, monovariable or multivariable, the last ones being of main consideration. Three different approaches are described: Linear design methods, with an emphasis on decoupling strategies, and a general formula for multivariable controller or observer design; Quadratic optimization methods: Linear Quadratic Control (LQC), optimal Kalman filtering, Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control; Linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) to solve linear and quadratic problems. The duality between control and observation is taken to advantage and extended up to the mathematical domain. A large number of exercises, all given with their detailed solutions, mostly obtained with MATLAB, reinforce and exemplify the practical orientation of this book. The programs, created by the author for their solving, are available on the Internet sites of Springer and of MathWorks for downloading. This book is targeted at students of Engineering Schools or Universities, at the Masters level, at engineers desiring to design and implement innovative control methods, and at researchers.


Objectives: Delayed management of patients with shoulder instability may increase the prevalence and severity of concomitant intra-articular shoulder injuries resulting from persistent instability. We hypothesize that patients with a longer delay from an initial dislocation event to MRI demonstrate a greater degree of intra-articular shoulder damage. Methods: We performed a retrospective review of 89 patients from a single institution with clinically and radiographically confirmed traumatic, anterior, primary shoulder dislocations. Patients were divided into two groups: those undergoing MRI less than (N=44; LT6) or greater than (N=45; GT6) 6 months from the initial dislocation event. MRI assessment included evaluation of the severity of cartilage damage and bone loss, in addition to the presence of soft-tissue injuries to the labrum, capsule and rotator cuff. Subsequent treatment including type and method of surgical intervention, as well as recurrent postoperative instability, were evaluated. Results: The delayed MRI group demonstrated a greater degree of pathology compared to the early imaging group. A higher percentage of SLAP tears (58% vs. 34%), posterior labral tears (22% vs. 7%) and cartilage damage (73% vs. 27%) were present in the GT6 versus LT6 group. There was no difference in anterior glenoid bone loss. For those patients who underwent surgical stabilization for symptomatic instability, there was a statistically significant difference in recurrence of instability between the early MRI group (0/21) than that of the delayed MRI group (6/33 or 18%). Conclusion: Patients who undergo MRI greater than 6 months from the time of primary shoulder dislocation demonstrate a greater incidence and severity of intra-articular pathology including SLAP tears, posterior labral tears and anterior glenoid cartilage damage. Recurrent instability is significantly higher after shoulder stabilization surgery when performed more than 6 months from the primary dislocation event.


Background: Significant proportions of school children in the UK do not meet the minimum recommended daily requirements of 60-min moderate-intensity physical activity. Beyond taught classes, playtimes offer the opportunity for children to play and be physically active. Painted markings are one recent addition to school playgrounds that are inexpensive and have been shown to stimulate increased levels of physical activity among children during playtimes. Playground markings and supportive playground assistants can act as cues to increase physical activity. Purpose: While evidence exists to support the impact of playground markings on the levels of physical activity, no attempts have been made to assess the effects of playground markings on important indicators of psychological health such as self-esteem and physical self-concept. The way children view themselves from a physical perspective is likely to impact their future engagement in sport and physical activities. Given that the levels of physical activity have been found to be related to physical self-perceptions and self-esteem, and playground markings appear to facilitate increased physical activity, this study aimed to evaluate the effects of installing playground markings and training playground assistants on children's physical self-perceptions. Participants and setting: Participants were 218 primary school children (117 girls and 101 boys) aged 10 and 11 years. Informed consent was gained from all schools, and parents were given the choice to withdraw their child from the project before commencement of testing. Twelve schools received playground markings, while four further schools acted as controls. Playground assistants were trained to help facilitate use of markings by children. Playground markings consisted of painted lines and boxes. Data collection: The participants completed the Children and Youth Physical Self-Perception Profile under the supervision of trained research assistants. The behaviour of the children was also observed during the morning and lunch playtime periods prior to the installation of playground markings and again 8 months after installation. The System for Observing Children's Activity and Relationships during Play was used to assess playtime behaviour with 242 observations in total undertaken. Every sixth child to enter the playground was randomly observed for 10 min. Data analysis: Mixed-model ANOVAs were used to test for differences in physical self-perceptions of the children on the basis of intervention and over time. Percentage changes in observed physical activity and pro-social behaviours were calculated to determine differences between schools that received markings and those that did not. Findings: No significant differences were found in physical self-perceptions on the basis of intervention or over time. However, boys did report significantly higher perceptions of sport competence, physical conditioning, physical strength and physical self-worth than girls. Observed physical activity was found to increase by 7.5% in schools that received markings as opposed to a 7.7% decline in control schools. In addition, pro-social behaviours were found to increase by 6.7% following the installation of playground markings. Conclusion: These findings indicate that while playground markings can facilitate increased physical activity during playtimes, this does not translate into enhanced self-perceptions in children when evaluated 8 months after intervention.


In many applications of genetic algorithms, there is a tradeoff between speed and accuracy in fitness evaluations when evaluations use numerical methods with varying discretization. In these types of applications, the cost and accuracy vary from discretization errors when implicit or explicit quadrature is used to estimate the function evaluations. This paper examines discretization scheduling, or how to vary the discretization within the genetic algorithm in order to use the least amount of computation time for a solution of a desired quality. The effectiveness of discretization scheduling can be determined by comparing its computation time to the computation time of a GA using a constant discretization. There are three ingredients for the discretization scheduling: population sizing, estimated time for each function evaluation and predicted convergence time analysis. Idealized one- and two-dimensional experiments and an inverse groundwater application illustrate the computational savings to be achieved from using discretization scheduling.


Textual evidence indicates that the novelist Endō Shūsaku read the anticolonialist writer Frantz Fanon in the early 1950s, incorporating Fanon's arguments on color and colonialism into his depiction of Japanese subjects after 1945. Examination of that heretofore unnoticed encounter provides an opportunity to reconsider the paradigms by which each writer is understood today and the terms in which they imagined a world not ordered by empires, whether European, American, or Japanese.


Communication coalescing is a static optimization that can reduce both communication frequency and redundant data transfer in compiler-generated code for regular, data parallel applications. We present an algorithm for coalescing communication that arises when generating code for regular, data-parallel applications written in High Performance Fortran (HPF). To handle sophisticated computation partitionings, our algorithm normalizes communication before attempting coalescing. We experimentally evaluate our algorithm, which is implemented in the dHPF compiler, in the compilation of HPF versions of the NAS application benchmarks SP, BT and LU. Our normalized coalescing algorithm improves the performance and scalability of compiler-generated code for these benchmarks by reducing the communication volume up to 55% compared to a simpler coalescing strategy and enables us to match the communication volume and frequency in hand-optimized MPI implementations of these codes.


Abstract. The general basin and range Apennine topographic characteristic is generally attributed to the presently active normal fault systems, whose long-term activity (throughout the Quaternary) is supposed to have been responsible for the creation of morphological/structural highs and lows. By coupling field geological survey and geophysical investigations, we reconstructed the 3-D geological model of an inner tectonic basin of the central Apennines, the Subequana Valley, bounded to the northeast by the southern segment of one of the major active and seismogenic normal faults of the Apennines, known as the Middle Aterno Valley–Subequana Valley fault system. Our analyses revealed that, since the late Pliocene, the basin evolved in a double half-graben configuration through a polyphase tectonic development. An early phase, Late Pliocene–Early Pleistocene in age, was controlled by the ENE–WSW-striking and SSE-dipping Avezzano–Bussi fault, that determined the formation of an early depocentre towards the N–NW. Subsequently, the main fault became the NW–SE-striking faults, which drove the formation during the Quaternary of a new fault-related depocentre towards the NE. By considering the available geological information, a similar structural evolution has likely involved three close tectonic basins aligned along the Avezzano–Bussi fault, namely the Fucino Basin, the Subequana Valley, and the Sulmona Basin, and it has been probably experienced by other tectonic basins of the chain. The present work therefore points out the role of pre-existing transverse tectonic structures, inherited by previous tectonic phases, in accommodating the ongoing tectonic deformation and, consequently, in influencing the structural characteristics of the major active normal faults. This has implications in terms of earthquake fault rupture propagation and segmentation. Lastly, the morpho-tectonic setting of the Apennine chain results from the superposition of deformation events whose geological legacy must be considered in a wider evolutionary perspective. Our results testify that a large-scale basin and range geomorphological feature – often adopted for morpho-tectonic and kinematic evaluations in active extensional contexts, as in the Apennines – just led by range-bounding active normal faults may be actually simplistic, as it could not be applied everywhere, owing to peculiar complexities of the local tectonic histories.