Knowledge of mammal migrations is low, and human impacts on migrations high. This jeopardizes efforts to conserve terrestrial migrations. To aid the conservation of these migrations, we synthesized information worldwide, describing 24 large-bodied ungulates that migrate in aggrega- tions. This synthesis includes maps of extinct and extant migrations, numbers of migrants, summaries of ecological drivers and threats migrants confront. As data are often lacking, we outlined steps for science to address and inform conservation actions. We evaluated migrants against this framework, and reported their status. Mass migrations for 6 species are extinct or unknown. Most remaining migrants (n = 9) occur from 6 locations in Africa, with Eurasia and North America containing 6 and 4 remaining mass migrants, respectively (with caribou/reindeer Rangifer tarandus occurring in both regions). All migrants declined in abundance, except wildebeest and other migrants in the Serengeti- Mara Ecosystem (SME), white-eared kob and tiang in Sudan, and some caribou populations. Pro- tected areas only contain migrations for 5 species in the SME, chiru on the Tibetan Plateau, and some caribou populations in North America. Most mass migrants track the seasonal and shifting patterns of greening vegetation over expanses of savannahs, steppes, and grasslands. Principal threats include overhunting and habitat loss from livestock, agriculture, and fencing that excludes animals from forage or water. Conservation science overlooks numerous migrations, so many have already disappeared and continue to do so. Key principles for conserving migrants, exemplified by the SME and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), include securing seasonal ranges, resource protection, government support and minimizing fences. This review forms a baseline for initiating conservation action for many ungulate migrations needing attention.


This study was carried out to investigate the rate of lipid oxidation in fresh rainbow trout (Onchorhynchus mykiss ) and in the sticks treated by (2.5% w/v) sodium acetate (NaA), sodium citrate (NaC) and sodium lactate (NaL). The pH value, free fatty acid (FFA), thiobarbituric acid (TBA) and sensory evaluation (odor, flavor and color) were determined on 0, 3, 6, 9 and 12 days of storage. The results showed that TBA and FFA in control were significantly higher than those in the other groups (P<0.05). Sticks immersed in NaA indicated a significant difference in formation of free fatty acids in comparison with other sodium salt-treated samples on 9 and 12 days after storage. Sticks dipped in NaL had a maximum level of pH at the end of the storage, whereas samples treated by NaA achieved significantly the lowest value of pH, 9 days after storage. Organoleptic assessments of the samples expressed more acceptability of sticks immersed in sodium salt solutions than the control after 3 days of storage. These indicated that sodium salts, particularly sodium acetate, have antioxidant properties.


This thesis work aimed to show the potentialities of the organometallic approach and, in particular, the organoalkali one, in Organic Synthesis (whose possibilities cannot be underestimated). A wide opening on the big landscape of possibilities has been reached by the study of functionalization of minimally acidic hydrocarbons with the Schlosser LICKOR superbase. This has allowed selective functionalization of a biphenylic system with different functional groups and the preparation of molecules of interest in catalysis. The study of the organometallic approach in organic synthesis continued with the functionalization of the virtually "no-cost" substrate 1-fluoronaphthalene with a big variety of functional groups like phosphinic, aldehydic, carboxylic, halides etc.. This preliminary study was useful in order to develop a strategy in the preparation of binaphthylic systems, obtained by a method that uses copper (II) as an arene coupling agent. This method was developed in the laboratories of Prof. Schlosser's Group and gave good results in the preparation of molecules that can be used as ligands in Asymmetric Catalysis. A complementary study was done on the possibility of using chloride as a protecting group in metalation to have also access to the functionalization of 1-fluoronaphthalene in positions different from the 2-position derived from an ortho-metalation. The preparation of hydrazines using organoalkali reagents was the other target studied because hydrazines are useful starting materials for Pharmaceuticals. A preliminary study was done using the addition of organolithium reagents to azobisformamides. At the end, after the encouraging results obtained, an unexpected result was obtained on the reactivity of azobisformamides. Pyrazoles are an important class of heterocycles, widely used as drugs for the therapy of various diseases. In particular, the trifluoromethylpyrazoles are a class of substances that show some activity as antiinflammatory drugs or as selective insecticides. The organometallic approach in preparation and functionalization of these substrates again showed its power.


Riverine plastic pollution is of global concern due to its negative impact on ecosystem health and human livelihood. Recent studies show a strong link between river discharge and plastic transport, but the role of floods is still unresolved. We combined high-resolution mismanaged plastic waste data and river flood extents with increasing return periods to estimate flood-driven plastic mobilisation, from local to global scale. We show that 10 year return period floods already tenfold the global plastic mobilisation potential compared to non-flood conditions. In the worst affected regions, plastic mobilisation increases up to five orders of magnitude. Our results suggest a high inter-annual variability in plastic mobilisation, previously ignored by global plastic transport models. Flood defences reduce plastic mobilisation substantially, but regions vulnerable to flooding often coincide with high plastic mobilisation potential during floods. Consequentially, clean-up and mitigation measures and flood risk management are inherently interdependent and need to be managed holistically.


Abstract Better-educated people are healthier, although the sources of this relationship remain unclear. Starting with basic principles of consumer theory, we develop a model of how health disparities are determined that does not depend on the precise causal mechanism. Improvements in the productivity of health care disproportionately benefit the heaviest health care users. Since richer patients tend to use the most health care, this suggests that new technologies—by making more diseases treatable, reducing the price of health care, or improving health care productivity—could widen socioeconomic disparities in health. An exception to this rule, however, is a simplifying technology, which can contract health disparities, since richer patients are more likely to invest effort in adhering to complex treatment regimens. We present a few empirical case studies to help illustrate the theoretical results. First, we show that a complicated treatment regimen (antiretroviral therapy for HIV) benefited well-educated patients disproportionately. In contrast, simplifying drugs for hypertension coincided with a contraction in cardiovascular disparities not seen in other diseases. Finally, nationally representative data suggest that there are wider disparities by education among the chronically ill populations—precisely the population one would expect to be the heaviest health care users.


This paper investigates how two fundamental consumer characteristics, self-esteem (inner-self) and status seeking (outer-self), influence consumers' purchasing behaviors of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) products via two mediating effects: brand image and self-enhancement. In particular, we analyze these effects in two different CSR domains: environmental and social. By doing so, we are able to verify the underlying mechanisms of how different types of consumers respond to various CSR promotions. We propose a distinctive CSR consumption model incorporating both inner-self and outer-self components. We collected data from two countries, the US and China, using two commonly used online survey platforms: Amazon M-Turk and Loop Information Technology. Using structural equation modeling, our analysis in the environmental domain revealed that both inner-self and outer-self components play a significant role in consumers' desire to purchase CSR products. Additionally, this process is mediated by the brand image of the firm and the tendency to enhance self-value. Interestingly, we found that in the social domain, self-enhancement mediated consumer characteristics and purchasing behavior of CSR product, whereas brand image did not. This indicates that environmental CSR activities increase brand value and its impact on purchase intention, while social CSR activities do not. Additionally, we found similar patterns for both US and Chinese consumers.


This paper examines demand for union membership amongst young workers in Britain, Canada and the United States. The paper benchmarks youth demands for collective representation against those of adult workers and finds that a large and significant representation gap exists in all three countries. Using a model of representation advanced by Farber (1982) and Riddell (1993) we find that a majority of the union density differential between young and adult workers is due to supply-side constraints rather than a lower desire for unionisation on the part of the young. This finding lends credence to two conjectures made in the paper; the first is that tastes for collective representation do not differ among workers (either by nationality or by age) and second that union representation can be fruitfully modelled as an experience good. The experience good properties of union membership explain the persistence of union density differentials amongst youth and adults both over time and across countries.


As enhanced fronto-parietal network has been suggested to support reasoning ability of math-gifted adolescents, the main goal of this EEG source analysis is to investigate the temporal binding of the gamma-band (30–60 Hz) synchronization between frontal and parietal cortices in adolescents with exceptional mathematical ability, including the functional connectivity of gamma neurocognitive network, the temporal dynamics of fronto-parietal network (phase-locking durations and network lability in time domain), and the self-organized criticality of synchronizing oscillation. Compared with the average-ability subjects, the math-gifted adolescents show a highly integrated fronto-parietal network due to distant gamma phase-locking oscillations, which is indicated by lower modularity of the global network topology, more "connector bridges" between the frontal and parietal cortices and less "connector hubs" in the sensorimotor cortex. The time domain analysis finds that, while maintaining more stable phase dynamics of the fronto-parietal coupling, the math-gifted adolescents are characterized by more extensive fronto-parietal connection reconfiguration. The results from sample fitting in the power-law model further find that the phase-locking durations in the math-gifted brain abides by a wider interval of the power-law distribution. This phase-lock distribution mechanism could represent a relatively optimized pattern for the functional binding of frontal–parietal network, which underlies stable fronto-parietal connectivity and increases flexibility of timely network reconfiguration.


We modeled the source rupture process of the 20 September 1999 Chi-Chi, Taiwan, earthquake (M w 7.6) using an integrated dataset of near-field strong ground motion and Global Positioning System observations. This large inland thrust earthquake produced a surface break more than 80 km long along the Chelungpu fault. The event triggered over 700 strong-motion instruments on the island of Tai-wan. This large ground-motion dataset provides the best opportunity to date to understand earthquake source processes in a major earthquake. First, we develop a 3D curved fault model consistent with the surface rupture data and aftershock distribution. The subsurface fault plane has an average dip of 30Њ to the east, and measures 96 km along strike and 40 km down-dip. Next we applied a genetic algorithm to reconstruct the source rupture process. The inversion results indicate a complex slip distribution with a generally broad triangular shaped slip zone that points down-dip. Most of the displacement occurred over a 15-km depth range in the northern segment of the fault, with the maximum slip exceeding 20 m. The average slip is 3.8 m, and the average rupture velocity is 2.6 km/sec. The mainshock slip distribution clearly complements the aftershock location distribution. Slip rise times range from 8 to 6 sec over most of the primary slip area and decrease slightly as rupture propagates south to north. This relatively long rise time resulted in a low dynamic stress drop and low peak ground accelerations observed at surface stations. The rake angle rotates across the rupture plane from predominantly dip-slip in the southern segment to mostly left-lateral oblique slip in the north. We find that geometrical irregularities over the fault plane played an important role in controlling the temporal rupture behavior. At fault bends, rupture tends to decelerate, the rake angle rotates to a near dip-slip orientation, and the shear stress increases as rupture tries to overcome the bending barriers. The total seismic moment from our inversion is 2.9 ן 10 27 dyne cm, in good agreement with the Harvard and the U.S. Geological Survey moment estimation.


Objective: To report on the care of a patient with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis over four years. Clinical Features: A 14 year old female with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis presented to a private chiropractic rehabilitation clinic for care. She had complaints of mild thoracic and right sacroiliac pain which worsened during prolonged sitting or while running long distances. Her scoliosis measured 24° in the thoracic spine and 17° in the lumbar spine. Abnormalities in chest expansion and axial trunk rotation were also observed and recorded. Intervention and Outcome: Patient participated in a multimodal chiropractic rehabilitation program consisting of 28 clinic visits over 17 months. She also committed to a specific home exercise program. After 17 months, her curvatures decreased to 15°/6°, while showing concomitant improvements in peak expiratory flow, axial trunk rotation, and chest expansion. These outcome measures further improved at follow-up after 4 years with the Cobb angles reducing to 12°/4° respectively. Conclusion: A patient with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis achieved improved outcomes following chiropractic rehabilitation. These improvements were evident at long-term follow-up while performing home-based rehabilitation. Home care exercises should be further explored to aid chiropractic outcomes. Further research may provide more understanding on how the specific modalities utilized in conjunction with chiropractic could have an impact on adolescent idiopathic scoliosis.


The initial presentation of multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) featured cross-validation to mitigate over-fitting, computationally efficient searches of the epistatic model space, and variable construction with constructive induction to alleviate the curse of dimensionality. However, the method was unable to differentiate association signals arising from true interactions from those due to independent main effects at individual loci. This issue leads to problems in inference and interpretability for the results from MDR and the family-based compliment the MDR-pedigree disequilibrium test (PDT). A suggestion from previous work was to fit regression models post hoc to specifically evaluate the null hypothesis of no interaction for MDR or MDR-PDT models. We demonstrate with simulation that fitting a regression model on the same data as that analyzed by MDR or MDR-PDT is not a valid test of interaction. This is likely to be true for any other procedure that searches for models, and then performs an uncorrected test for interaction. We also show with simulation that when strong main effects are present and the null hypothesis of no interaction is true, that MDR and MDR-PDT reject at far greater than the nominal rate. We also provide a valid regression-based permutation test procedure that specifically tests the null hypothesis of no interaction, and does not reject the null when only main effects are present. The regression-based permutation test implemented here conducts a valid test of interaction after a search for multilocus models, and can be applied to any method that conducts a search to find a multilocus model representing an interaction.


The performance of a membrane bioreactor (MBR) was compared to that of a conventional activated sludge (CAS) process aiming to identify the best technological option for a municipal sewage treatment plant (STP). The MBR system was fed by the diluted sewage coming from the main municipal sewer network, which contained an averagely lower concentration of organics, inorganics and biological pollutants. While the CAS system was fed by a concentrated sewage coming from household septic tanks, contained averagely high concentration of organics, inorganics and biological pollutants. CAS showed a higher removal amount of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids (TSS), volatile suspended solids (VSS), Fat-Oil-Grease (FOG), nitrogen, phosphorous, helminths ova (HO), and pathogenic bacteria compared to that of the MBR. Nevertheless, the removal efficiencies of nitrogen, HO and pathogenic bacteria in the case of CAS were lower than that of MBR due to the high concentration of those parameters in the influent fed to CAS. However, both the efficiency and the amount of removal for phosphorous in the case of CAS was quite higher than that of MBR due to extended aeration in CAS. The pathogenic bacteria and HO were almost completely removed by the MBR, whereas the effluent of the CAS system required additional disinfection for the reduction of pathogens and HO. In terms of biological efficiency and influent flexibility, both the systems were satisfying the national standards. Overall, the data suggested that CAS possessed a higher capacity of treating concentrated sewage for removing all pollutants to satisfactory limits except complete removal of pathogenic bacteria and HO. It was obvious that MBR possessed a membrane barrier to retain the pathogens and HO; therefore, they could be removed up to very low levels. However, further investigation is necessary to verify the MBR performance using the same concentrated sewage as that of the CAS.


The Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI)CD Module is the latest educational offering by The Wellcome Trust, a British-based charity. The module is part of the Topics in International Health CD-ROM series. The entire program is designed to provide accessible, current, high-quality information on tropical and international health. The material is directed towards students, teachers, health-care professionals, academics, and researchers in medicine and the life sciences. Each tutorial has been reviewed by at least two international subject experts.

The ARI module includes 11 separate tutorials ranging from etiology and risk factors to epidemiology and program management. An additional image collection of over 600 screens with accompanying text provides a useful bank of visual aids.

While the module covers all major ARIs, the focus is on conditions causing substantial illness and deaths in the developing world. Each tutorial averages 40 screens, with each individual screen featuring a variety of additional interactive tools, such as pop-up boxes and animated features. On average, tutorial post-tests follow every 6-10 screens. Although the content and information differ, each tutorial averages 2-4 hours to complete. Completing all 11 tutorials could take up to 50 hours.

Overall, the module succeeds in consolidating broad-reaching material and providing an authoritative presentation on ARI. Module strengths include the successful presentation of clinically current and well-researched information. (One possible exception is the management of ear problems. The module recommends irrigation of acute otitis media. This practice is highly questionable, and the accompanying illustrations minimize the major risks associated with this procedure in cases where the tympanic membrane has ruptured. The World Health Organization recommends "wicking.")Each tutorial provides ample references, and the repetition of important themes helps reinforce important clinical and public health concepts. The graphic features and video inserts are equally useful. For example, the integration of animated graphics in the pathology tutorial to demonstrate the major steps of viral multiplication offers an innovative visual tool for mastering complex information.

On the other hand, the module suffers in its attempt to cover a large quantity of material in a similar manner. Not all the tutorials are of comparable complexity. While 40 screens may be adequate to discuss ARI prevention and control measures, other sections, such as pathology and respiratory defenses, would have benefited from more discussion. By trying to maintain uniform format of comparable length, parts of these tutorials are superficially summarized at the expense of a clear and in-depth discussion. Another weakness pertains to the varying levels of difficulty in the post-tests interspersed throughout the module. Some of the questions are challenging, whereas other post-tests could be completed correctly without ever having taken the tutorial. Minor typographical errors were noted throughout; however, they did not detract from the overall presentation.

More important issues pertain to the module's intended audience. Although the material and clinical examples are designed to address ARIs in the developing world, they are not aimed at professionals from those countries. Rather, the module is better suited for health professionals from the industrialized world who have an interest in global health. The module would be far more practical had it been field-tested in those countries from which both clinical and public health examples were drawn.

The module requires additional software for accessing video clips, such as QuickTime or RealPlayer. The cost of the CD-ROM is also relatively high: $195.00 for institutions and $55 for students and individual purchasers. These two features limit the module's practicality as a teaching device for health professionals in the developing world. Additionally, the module does not have the capability of multitasking with other software applications. The user must exit the module to use any other software, which limits the ability to access other references at the same time.

In summary, the Acute Respiratory Infection CD Module serves as a useful adjunctive teaching tool for both clinical and public health practitioners serving the developing world. It is not intended to replace the clinical component of provider training. While the material is comprehensive in scope, this aspect conversely leads to an uneven presentation in places. Given the required sophisticated software and cost of the CD, its usefulness for health professionals from the developing world is questionable.


Investors and insurance policyholders are often confronted with complex products and providers' opaque organisational structures. At the same time, the possibility that their claims will not be honoured often poses an existential risk. Financial regulation therefore aims at putting in place a financial services framework that will safeguard market processes whilst also protecting consumers. However, benefits of regulation are accompanied by certain risks, as can be exemplified with the case of insurance regulation.


Based on the mechanism of spoof surface plasmon polaritions (spoof SPPs), a kind of microwave bandpass filter is presented in both theory and experiment, which is realised by a periodic subwavelength metallic Domino array. The transmission bandwidth of spoof SPPs is controllable by designing the geometric parameters of the periodic structure. Simulation and experimental results of the spoof SPPs agree well with each other and verify the feasibility in bandpass filter applications.


The first discovery of ultrahigh-pressure coesite in the European Alps 30 years ago led to the inference that a positively buoyant continental crust can be subducted to mantle depth; this had been considered impossible since the advent of the plate tectonics concepts. Although continental subduction is now widely accepted, there remains debate because there is little direct (geophysical) evidence of a link between exhumed coesite at the surface and subducted continental crust at depth. Here we provide the first seismic evidence for continental crust at 75 km depth that is clearly connected with the European crust exactly along the transect where coesite was found at the surface. Our data also provide evidence for a thick suture zone with downward-decreasing seismic velocities, demonstrating that the European lower crust underthrusts the Adriatic mantle. These findings, from one of the best-preserved and long-studied ultrahigh-pressure orogens worldwide, shed decisive new light on geodynamic processes along convergent continental margins.


Jump in and build working Android apps with the help of more than 200 tested recipes. With this cookbook, youll find solutions for working with the user interfaces, multitouch gestures, location awareness, web services, and device features such as the phone, camera, and accelerometer. You also get useful steps on packaging your app for the Android Market.Ideal for developers familiar with Java, Android basics, and the Java SE API, this book features recipes contributed by more than three dozen developers from the Android community. Each recipe provides a clear solution and sample code you can use in your project right away. Among numerous topics, this cookbook helps you:Use guidelines for designing a successful Android app Work with UI controls, effective layouts, and graphical elements Learn how to take advantage of Androids rich features in your app Save and retrieve application data in files, SD cards, and embedded databases Access RESTful web services, RSS/Atom feeds, and information from websites Create location-aware services to find locations and landmarks, and situate them on Google Maps and OpenStreetMap Test and troubleshoot individual components and your entire application


The existence of capital market imperfections causes business investment decisions to be strongly dependent on households' private wealth allocation. I claim that if a linkage exists between private wealth and business decisions, it should be stronger in countries characterized by less developed capital markets. Here, I provide a cross-country comparison assessing the relationship between households' initial net wealth and the probability to switch to entrepreneurship in Italy and United States, using household-level data from the Survey of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) and the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics (PSID). Although they are both developed countries, Italy and US are characterized by striking differences with respect to transaction costs, downpayment requirements and participation in the financial markets. I formulated several theoretical predictions, which are then confronted with the data at hand. First of all, I argue that initial wealth should matter more for Italian potential entrepreneurs, who might encounter more difficulties than US ones in obtaining enough funds to start a business from a bank or a financial institution. In this perspective, "informal markets" (i.e. help from friends or parents) should play a more significant role for Italian potential entrepreneurs, especially for those ones who are more likely to be constrained. Secondly, I claim that a well developed financial market, reducing household exposure to financial risk, would positively affect transition into entrepreneurship. Therefore, I fill a gap in the literature introducing an index of portfolio diversification, calculated as the inverse of the Herfindhal index, in order to control for the level of financial sophistication. Last but not least, I simultaneously estimate the probability to switch to entrepreneurship and changes in net wealth. Using a sample selection model with endogenous switching allows me to deal with endogeneity problems, related to the fact that households might actually pile up assets in advance in order to start a business.


Any proof of P!=NP will have to overcome two barriers: relativization and natural proofs. Yet over the last decade, we have seen circuit lower bounds (for example, that PP does not have linear-size circuits) that overcome both barriers simultaneously. So the question arises of whether there is a third barrier to progress on the central questions in complexity theory. In this paper we present such a barrier, which we call algebraic relativization or algebrization. The idea is that, when we relativize some complexity class inclusion, we should give the simulating machine access not only to an oracle A, but also to a low-degree extension of A over a finite field or ring. We systematically go through basic results and open problems in complexity theory to delineate the power of the new algebrization barrier. First, we show that all known non-relativizing results based on arithmetization -- both inclusions such as IP=PSPACE and MIP=NEXP, and separations such as MAEXP not in P/poly -- do indeed algebrize. Second, we show that almost all of the major open problems -- including P versus NP, P versus RP, and NEXP versus P/poly -- will require non-algebrizing techniques. In some cases algebrization seems to explain exactly why progress stopped where it did: for example, why we have superlinear circuit lower bounds for PromiseMA but not for NP. Our second set of results follows from lower bounds in a new model of algebraic query complexity, which we introduce in this paper and which is interesting in its own right. Some of our lower bounds use direct combinatorial and algebraic arguments, while others stem from a surprising connection between our model and communication complexity. Using this connection, we are also able to give an MA-protocol for the Inner Product function with O(sqrt(n) log n) communication (essentially matching a lower bound of Klauck).


Overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) will promote oxidative damage and can induce reproductive disorder. A therapeutic strategy to reduce effects of reproductive disorder is by maintaining the balance between ROS and antioxidants. Black soybean (BSB) contains phenolic compounds and has a greater antioxidant capacity than yellow soybean. Purple sweet potato (PSP) also has antioxidant capacity, due to the presence of anthocyanin, but is low in protein. The combination of BSB and PSP is expected to limit symptoms of reproductive disorder through decreasing ROS levels, enhancing testosterone production, and improve sperm quality. The results of this study indicate that the combination of PSP and BSB could restore blood glucose levels, improve seminiferous tubules diameter, decrease ROS production, and improve testosterone and sperm quality. A ratio of BSB to PSP of 2:2 and 3:1 were effective to improve symptoms of reproductive disorder in the type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) rat model.


Abstract. In this study we present the first results of a new isotope-enabled general circulation model set-up. The model consists of the fully coupled ECHAM5/MPI-OM atmosphere–ocean model, enhanced by the JSBACH interactive land surface scheme and an explicit hydrological discharge scheme to close the global water budget. Stable water isotopes H218O and HDO have been incorporated into all relevant model components. Results of two equilibrium simulations under pre-industrial and Last Glacial Maximum conditions are analysed and compared to observational data and paleoclimate records for evaluating the model's performance in simulating spatial and temporal variations in the isotopic composition of the Earth's water cycle. For the pre-industrial climate, many aspects of the simulation results of meteoric waters are in good to very good agreement with both observations and earlier atmosphere-only simulations. The model is capable of adequately simulating the large spread in the isotopic composition of precipitation between low and high latitudes. A comparison to available ocean data also shows a good model–data agreement; however, a strong bias of overly depleted ocean surface waters is detected for the Arctic region. Simulation results under Last Glacial Maximum boundary conditions also fit to the wealth of available isotope records from polar ice cores, speleothems, as well as marine calcite data. Data–model evaluation of the isotopic composition in precipitation reveals a good match of the model results and indicates that the temporal glacial–interglacial isotope–temperature relation was substantially lower than the present spatial gradient for most mid- to high-latitudinal regions. As compared to older atmosphere-only simulations, a remarkable improvement is achieved for the modelling of the deuterium excess signal in Antarctic ice cores. Our simulation results indicate that cool sub-tropical and mid-latitudinal sea surface temperatures are key for this progress. A recently discussed revised interpretation of the deuterium excess record of Antarctic ice cores in terms of marine relative humidity changes on glacial–interglacial timescales is not supported by our model results.


The Hannover bone marrow (BM) classification distinguished three phenotypes of BCR/ABL-positive CML: CML of common type (CML.CT), CML with megakaryocyte increase (CML.MI) and CML with megakaryocyte predominance (CML.MP). BCR/ABL-positive essential thrombocythemia (Ph-positive ET) is featured by CML.MP bone marrow picture of small monolobulated megakaryocytes and is part of the CML spectrum as a malignant disease (neoplasia) with an obligate transition into acute leukemia of near to 100% after 10 years follow-up. The Hannover BM classification distinguished three primary prefibrotic BCR/ABL-negative (Ph-negative) myeloproiferative disorders (MPD)s: essential thrombocythemia (ET), polycythemia vera (PV) and chronic or primary megakaryocytic granulocytic myeloproliferation (CMGM/PMGM). The incidence of blasts crisis is low in the Phnegative MPDs ET, PV and CMGM. The risk of myelofibrosis is high in CMGM/PMGM, moderate in PV but low in Ph-negative ET. In BCR/ABL-positive thrombocythemia the platelets are small and indolent (non-reactive) and megakaryocytes are smaller than normal with hypolobulated nuclei caused by BCR/ABL induced maturation defect. BCR/ABL-positive thrombocythemia does not present erythromelalgic thrombotic or bleedings manifestations at increased platelet count in excess of 400 to 1500 × 109/L. The platelets and megakaryocytes in BCR/ABL-negative ET and PV are large due to growth advantage caused by constitutively activated by the JAK2V617F or MPL515 mutation. JAK2 and MPL mutated thrombocythemias are associated with a high risk on aspirin responsive plateletmediated inflammation and thrombosis in the end-arterial circulation (platelet thrombophilia).


The National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) was formed in 2001 to "stimulate collaboration between selected liberal arts colleges and to act as a catalyst for the effective integration of emerging and newer digital technologies into teaching, learning, scholarship, and information management." In July 2015, NITLE migrated its operations from Southwestern University to CLIR. In conjunction with this migration, CLIR initiated a rigorous analysis of NITLE's current condition and the needs of its constituents. CLIR engaged a six-member team of consultants to conduct the assessment. Drawing on a review of NITLE's history, and interviews and surveys of past and current stakeholders, the assessment team identifies ways to build thoughtfully on NITLE's legacy to support the use of digital technologies in liberal education. Six consultants, all current or former CLIR Postdoctoral Fellows, conducted the assessment, which drew on historical records, interviews with NITLE stakeholders, and a survey of the broader community of professionals in technology and liberal education, to develop the following recommendations for any entity seeking to serve constituents similar to those served by NITLE: Maintain a liberal arts focus. Do market research to determine how a future organization should support members at the local or national level, or both. Such research could identify gaps that might best be addressed through regional initiatives, and those that require national coordination. Clearly articulate the organization's mission, primary audience, and value proposition. Pay particular attention to whether faculty members will be a key part of the audience. Ensure that membership fees are in line with members' perceived return on investment. Have a robust and well-communicated business plan. Develop a culture of ongoing assessment to demonstrate the return on investment for members. Regularly communicate with members. Distinguish the organization from others with a similar audience or mission.


Implicitly exploitable parallelism for Logic Programming has received ample attention. Defeasible Argutmentation is specially apt for this optimizing technique. Defeasible Logic Programming (DLP), which is based on a defeasible argumentation formalism, could take full advantage of this type of parallel evaluation to improve the computational response of its proof procedure. In a defeasible argumentation formalism, a conclusion q is accepted only when the argument A that supports q becomes a justification. To decide if an argument A is a justification a dialectical analysis is performed. This analysis considers arguments and counter-arguments. DLP extends conventional Logic Programming, capturing common sense reasoning features, and providing a knowledge representation language for defeasible argumentation. Since DLP is an extension of Logic Programming, the different types of parallelism studied for Logic Programming could be applied. We propose new sources of parallelism that can be implicitly exploited in the defeasible argumentation formalism implemented through DLP. Both the argumentation process and the dialectical analysis benefit from exploiting those sources of parallelism.


The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is making good on a promise to become more transparent in an unprecedented way. By January 2014, it plans to introduce a broad new policy of public access to clinical trial data. Such sweeping glasnost doesn9t appeal to the pharmaceutical industry, which is concerned that disclosing clinical study reports could open data to potential competitors. Others worry that without stringent safeguards, sensitive data about individual patients could end up in the wrong hands. EMA is discussing how to shape the new policy with academics, patient organizations, and drug companies; their final advice is due by the end of next month.


South American worship surrounded by city noise Episcopal Church of the Nativity, Santiago de Cali, Colombia, 2 July 2006 Santiago de CaIi, with a population of two million, is the third largest city in Colombia, following Bogota and Medellin. It was founded in 1536 by a Spanish conquistador who had sailed with Columbus. It remained relatively unimportant until railroads and highways connected it to the Pacific Ocean and to other parts of the Colombia interior, and so gave it some strategic commercial advantages. Industrialization followed in the 1950s, attracting immigration and creating slums. From the 1970s to the 1990s it was home to the CaIi drug cartel?, a major supplier of cocaine to the United States; the drug industry has since become more fragmented in Colombia. Drug-related violence remains endemic in the city. Anglican Christianity is a small player in Colombia. The current bishop of Colombia, in an interview published in Episcopal Life (1 May 2006), reports that his diocese has twenty thousand members, twentyfive parishes, and twenty-six clergy, but his interviewer parenthetically hints that the figures might be exaggerated, and the diocesan website (www.iglesiaepiscopal.org.co, accessed August 2006) identifies only eleven clergy and seven lay missionaries. Anglicans first took an interest in this part of the world, as John Kater noted in this journal in June 1988, when American business became involved. The Panama Railroad Company was organized in New York in 1847, and in 1853 the Board of Missions of the Episcopal Church sent the first Anglican missionary to Panama, then a province civilly administered from Bogota. When railway construction brought West Indian immigrants, English missionaries came too, and the Church of England became the Anglican authority in the area. With the purchase of the Canal Zone by the United States in 1903, the region was definitively pulled into the American orbit, and in 1904 the Episcopal Church assumed jurisdiction. Colombia exited the diocese of Panama in 1946, and in 1963 it was constituted a missionary diocese by General Convention. It remains part of Province IX of the Episcopal Church. On 2 July 2006, a visitor gives a taxi driver the address of the Episcopal Church of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ in Santiago de CaIi. When he and his wife are dropped in front of a large, handsome, and well attended church, he is initially impressed that the Episcopal church has such a large following in South America. But then checking a sign in front of the church more carefully, he finds that he has been left at St. Pius X Catholic Church. Finding better directions, he walks five blocks to the Church of the Nativity, arriving at the service a few minutes late, but in time for greetings. The church is located on a busy street with restaurants, bars, and stores, and has no doors to block any of the noise. The building was formerly a garage next to a street-front store. The partition between the two has been removed, except for one support, and the space has been adapted to worship. The congregation of about eighteen sits on plastic garden chairs. There are two priests, both native Colombians, wearing cassocks but not surplices. Decorations on the wall, made of styrofoam, portray the chalice and bread. …


We consider the long standing problem in field theories of bosons that the boson vacuum does not consist of a 'sea', unlike the fermion vacuum. We show with the help of supersymmetry considerations that the boson vacuum indeed does also consist of a sea in which the negative energy states are all "filled", analogous to the Dirac sea of the fermion vacuum, and that a hole produced by.the annihilation of one negative energy boson is an anti-particle. This might be formally coped with by introducing the notion of a double harmonic oscillator, which is obtained by extending the condition imposed on the wave function. Next, we present an attempt to formulate the supersymmetric and relativistic quantum mechanics utilizing the equations of motion.


The database research community has been building methods to store, access, and update data for more than four decades. Throughout the evolution of the structures and techniques used to access data, access methods adapt to the ever changing hardware and workload requirements. Today, even small changes in the workload or the hardware lead to a redesign of access methods. The need for new designs has been increasing as data generation and workload diversification grow exponentially, and hardware advances introduce increased complexity. New workload requirements are introduced by the emergence of new applications, and data is managed by large systems composed of more and more complex and heterogeneous hardware. As a result, it is increasingly important to develop application-aware and hardware-aware access methods. The fundamental challenges that every researcher, systems architect, or designer faces when designing a new access method are how to minimize, i) read times (R), ii) update cost (U), and iii) memory (or storage) overhead (M). In this paper, we conjecture that when optimizing the read-update-memory overheads, optimizing in any two areas negatively impacts the third. We present a simple model of the RUM overheads, and we articulate the RUM Conjecture. We show how the RUM Conjecture manifests in stateof-the-art access methods, and we envision a trend toward RUMaware access methods for future data systems.


The World Wide Web has succeeded in the large part because its software architecture has been designed to meet the needs of an Internet-scale distributed hypermedia system. The modern Web architecture emphasizes scalability of component interactions, generality of interfaces, independent deployment of components, and intermediary components to reduce interaction latency, enforce security, and encapsulate legacy systems. We introduce the Representational State Transfer (REST) architectural style, developed as an abstract model of the Web architecture to guide our redesign and definition of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol and Uniform Resource Identifiers. We describe the software engineering principles guiding REST and the interaction constraints chosen to retain those principles, contrasting them to the constraints of other architectural styles. We then compare the abstract model to the currently deployed Web architecture in order to elicit mismatches between the existing protocols and the applications they are intended to support.


Zeolites are highly crystalline materials with well-defined micropores that have the ability to strongly adsorb certain molecules and completely exclude others. Zeolites are widely used as adsorbents in gas separation by adsorption processes. Gas separation by zeolites might occur via three different routes; namely, equilibrium separation, molecular sieving and kinetic selectivity. However, the small size of zeolite pores (0.2 – 1.3 nm), hinders the large molecules from accessing the zeolite structure cavities and even the small molecules may exhibit very limited diffusion speeds within these pores. Accordingly, there has been considerable interest in synthesizing zeolite with larger pores for better adsorption characteristics.
In this thesis, a new strategy described as slow crystallization and growth rate at room temperature in the presence of surfactant micelles was used to synthesize hierarchical Na-A zeolites. The surfactant used in this work is cetyltrimethylammonium bromide – CTAB which is cheap and commercially available. The sluggish formation and growth of the zeolite crystals in this system due to the moderate synthesis conditions was responsible for retaining the surfactant micelles within the crystallization domain. After the removal of CTAB template, the products showed large mesopores which were attributed to the interstitial voids between the aggregated zeolite nanocrystallites. The size of the mesopores can be further expanded by using linear hydrocarbon (n-dodecane) as a swelling agent. Increasing the amount of n-dodecane in the synthesis mixture resulted in increasing the size of the mesopores. Conversely, the size of the mesopores decreased when a swelling agent with shorter hydrocarbon chain than n-dodecane, such as n-hexane was used. The effects of the aging period and the concentration of CTAB in the synthesis mixture on the pore size distribution were also investigated. Additionally, the effect of combining two swelling agents in one system on the textural properties of the synthesized mesoporous Na-A zeolite was also examined. Different calcination conditions and the hydrothermal stability of the resultant material were also studied. The colloidal suspension of the synthesized zeolite showed negative zeta potential in the entire range of pH. The mesoporous Na-A zeolite synthesized in this work showed higher ethylene adsorption capacity as compared to the conventional microporous Na-A zeolite.
For fundamental understanding of the formation of the resultant micro-mesoporous Na-A zeolite, a detailed study of the formation and growth of the zeolite particles was necessary. In this study, the concentration of n-dodecane was raised in the system until high internal phase emulsion (HIPE) was formed. The characterization showed that Na-A zeolite crystals consisting of thin crystalline polyhedral shell and multi-hollow polycrystalline core were formed following a reverse crystallization mechanism. A systematic investigation of the crystal growth over different crystallization stages indicates that these extraordinary crystals were formed via two step crystallization. Initially, n-dodecane droplets stabilized with a thin layer of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide enhance the formation of aggregates of amorphous nanoparticle which later transform into polycrystalline aggregates by local crystallization of each nanoparticle into a crystallite. Crystallized islands are built on the surface of the polycrystalline aggregates which are then extended and merged resulting in typical cubic morphology of LTA zeolite. Surface recrystallization continues towards the core via Oswald ripening process increasing the thickness of the shell. During the entire growth process, the n-dodecane droplets are retained inside the polycrystalline aggregates, probably due to slow crystallization rate at room temperature. The removal of the n-dodecane droplets and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide molecules results in Na-A zeolite particles with core-shell structure. The shell is highly crystalline Na-A zeolite and the core comprises of multi-hollow polycrystalline aggregates. The product shows mesoporosity with large size distribution attributed to polycrystalline aggregates that are free of the crystallized shell. This part of our work demonstrates two points; the synthesis of new kind of mesoporous Na-A with multi-hollow polycrystalline morphology and also demonstrates, for the first time, formation of LTA zeolite crystal via reverse crystallization route while retaining the identity of LTA zeolite.
The resultant micro-mesoporous zeolite particles were ion exchanged to 5A zeolite and used as primary building units for construction of walls of 5A monolithic structures with novel channeling design that mimics a tree's vascular system. The performance of these monoliths on CO2 separation was examined and compared to conventional 5A beads. Three different sizes of channels were introduced into the monoliths body; large parallel channels (500 μm) which are interconnected via their walls to medium and small scale channels. The medium (85 − 20 μm) and small (9 − 1 μm) scale channels are abundantly distributed throughout the walls of the monoliths. The effects of the number of the parallel channels (cell density per square inch), the concentration of medium scale channels and the concentration of the binder in the monoliths were investigated. Monoliths with high cell density (209 cpsi) showed sharper CO2 breakthrough front compared to the low cell density monolith (88 cpsi). Additionally, increasing the concentration of the medium scale channels in the walls of the monolith resulted in a significant reduction in the width of CO2 breakthrough curve suggesting even gas flow distribution and lower mass transfer resistance. The pressure drop per unit length measured across bed loaded with the prepared monoliths was 1.3 times less than 5A beads packed bed. The experimental data were simulated and the results showed that the effective diffusivity of CO2 molecules in beds of monoliths was six times faster than in 5A packed bed. On the other hand, the concentration of the binder concentration in the monoliths body did not show a noticeable influence on the trend of the breakthrough front or the pressure drop measurement. The high effective diffusivity and low pressure drop in addition to a considerable adsorption capacity in our monoliths indicates that they are competitive alternatives for conventional 5A beads and promising adsorbents for CO2 separation by adsorption processes.


Though China is taking many steps to offer affordable houses to the public, the gap between the demand and supply for such affordable houses is still huge. Rapidly growing demand for affordable housing has encouraged large Chinese cities, faced with housing imbalance, to invest in developing affordable properties. As a result, the Chinese central government has started to encourage local governments to use Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and private capital to sup-plement the funding deficit. There is also an on-going debate regarding the need to establish prerequisites for institu-tions to meet in order to achieve effective PPPs. In this paper, we examine what the current institutional environment is in China and how China is meeting these prerequisites for effective PPPs. We also examine the main programs on affordable housing and propose a potential field for using PPPs. We draw the conclusion that PPPs are more favorable for renting-oriented type projects than owning-oriented projects. In this context, the advantages of the PPP model for China's renting-oriented affordable housing programs are would be the provision of private financing, the enhancing efficiency by involving private sector experts and the statement of bundling constructions and maintenance and operation work in the contract, which motivates the private sector to build properties up to standard for its cost efficiency from the whole project perspective.


There were different dialects prevalent among Arabs to whom The Holy Quran was sent down. It was sent down by Allah in accordance with their dialects & language so that they may not face any difficulty while reading it. Had He sent it down in one dialect, it would not have been possible for them to understand & act upon it. So it has sent down in different dialects of Arabs .The Companions heard it accordingly from the prophet & did not neglect a single letter or sign or reading .Thus it was transferred from generation to generation.

There are many aspects of Quranic readings so far its meaning & its effect on faith, jurisprudence & Arabic language is concerned. Their each & every aspect has been separately discussed. Linguists consider Quranic readings as their main source & they quote them to prove their claims. It is will been that 'Khalil' & 'Sibwaih' didn't Condemn any of the readings of the Quran. However Linguists from Kufa have found fault with a group of readings. The opinion of Linguist from Basra is more natural & accurate. They advance them on argument & base their principals upon them.

This discussion is a syntactical Quranic discussion as it deals with the relation of grammar with the Quran & its readings. The grammar grew up in the lap of the Holy Quran. So the Quran is the Origion of Arabic grammar. It is its fountain head which will Safeguard it & publish it for all the time coming. This Study intends to remove all doubts about the opinions of grammarians. Most of the reciters of the Quran resort to the judgment of grammarians in this connection. It also throws light on glaring difference of opinions among grammarians as regards their Criticism of the readings.

At the same time we don't want to underestimate the effects of predecessors for adverse opinion. No research Scholar can ignore their efforts. They expressed their opinions & criticized sincerely & earnestly. Who can dare to ignore grammarians like Abi Amr bin AL-ALA, Asmai, Kisai & Abu Ali AL-Farsi.

But they were all human beings prone to mistake. All these grammarians were complimentary to one another. So the later Scholars allow what had been forbidden by the formers. So they thank that criticizing a continuous reading is necessary & this seems to be the right approach.


Weathering of materials leads to degradation of the fabric of buildings which if left unchecked will lead to an increase in the rate, and possibly severity, of degradation. Adjustments to maintenance regimes could accommodate marginal changes to degradation rate. However, for significant increases in degradation rate, adaptations may be required. Globally, any new deterioration mechanisms are unlikely. However, in the future previously insignificant problems may start to become significant at a local level, for which there is a lack of local knowledge or experience. Adaptation in the context of existing buildings is a means to further protect the existing fabric, to consolidate performance and control the rate of deterioration. This adaptation goes beyond the scope of enhanced maintenance. For historic buildings, there will be tension between the need to conserve the building and simultaneously adapt in the face of increased climate change driven weathering. Impact studies are needed to identify priorities for adaptation by identifying the scale and impact of degradation‐related defects for the future building stock. Such studies need to be integrated with authoritative information on projected future climate. Adaptation of building design is needed to ensure new buildings consider performance in both current and future climates. A whole‐life approach to building design is needed. To achieve this building standards, building codes need to be developed which consider future climate design. Traditional vernacular styles may offer an opportunity for learning design lessons and adapting design practices that could help facilitate appropriate climate protection. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:590–599. doi: 10.1002/wcc.398


This study uses a random coefficient estimation procedure to analyze the U.S. gasoline market from 1960-1995 with three main objectives: (1) provide an empirical methodology that can estimate a gasoline demand function capable of performing well in prediction; (2) evaluate the elasticities of the models presented to determine which model is more accurate at capturing supply shocks that impacted gasoline demand; and (3) evaluate the behavior of the elasticities of the beta coefficients. This research will show that the variation from historical economic patterns was a result of supply shocks. I argue that when the OLS model of the gasoline market developed by William H. Greene is used supply shocks are not well captured because the coefficients are fixed. If the random coefficient model developed by P.A.V.B. Swamy is introduced, the coefficients vary over time, and thereby, enable supply shocks to be included in the model and more accurate forecasts are produced, as well as, meaningful time patterns in the beta coefficients.


A major effort of site characterization activities at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, a site being studied by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as a potential repository of high-level radioactive waste, is directed toward understanding the efficacy of the natural barrier to isolate waste. Characterization of potential aqueous radionuclide migration from waste containers to the accessible environment, a distance of 5 km, is a key step in that determination because of regulations which stipulate that the site must be able to isolate waste for 10,000 years. The Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project (YMP) has an integrated radionuclide migration program that combines investigations to characterize processes that affect radionuclide transport, including solubility, speciation, sorption, diffusion, and dispersion, and studies to investigate aspects of the natural system affecting those processes, such as mineralogy, mineral stability, and water chemistry. The program also includes studies to understand the behavior of the natural system under disturbed conditions of the thermal pulse, which would potentially alter the chemistry of both heated water and rock hundreds of meters away from the potential repository. This paper focuses on the integration of results from numerous geochemical investigations into models for understanding transport processes.


The April 2015 Nepal earthquake (known as the Gorkha earthquake) occurred at 06:11:25 (UTC) on the 25th of April, with a magnitude of 7.8Mw. It was the worst natural disaster to strike Nepal since the 1934 Nepal-Bihar earthquake. Precise determination of ground displacement in this area will provide important information to better understand the structure and scope of the earthquake, contributing to faster and more accurate earthquake prediction. In this paper, we use precise point positioning to determine the displacements of 17 GNSS stations around the epicenter for the day of the earthquake. The processing results show that the common displacement direction is close to south-southwest with the largest value being approximately 2 m and the affected area being about 160 km in the southeast direction centered around the earthquake epicenter. However, a detectable GNSS signal was still observed at a station some 647 km away from the epicenter. References Akram Afifi, Ahmed El-Rabbany, 2016. Improved Between-Satellite Single-Difference Precise Point Positioning Model Using Triple GNSS Constellations: GPS, Galileo, and Beidou, Positioning, 7, 63-74. Doi.org/10.4236/pos.2016.72006. Galetzka J.,  Melgar D., Genrich J.F.,  Geng J., Owen S., Lindsey E.O., Xu X., Bock Y., Avouac J.-P., Adhikari L.B., Upreti B.N., Pratt-Sitaula B., Bhattarai T.N., Sitaula B.P., Moore A., Hudnut K.W., Szeliga W., Normandeau J., Fend M., Flouzat M., Bollinger L., Shrestha P., Koirala B., Gautam U., Bhatterai M., Gupta R., Kandel T., Timsina C.,  Sapkota S.N., Rajaure S., Maharjan N., 2015. Slip pulse and resonance of the Kathmandu basin during the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, Nepal, Science, 349, 1091-1095. Han Yue, Thorne Lay, Susan Y. Schwartz, Luis Rivera, Marino Protti Timothy H. Dixon, Susan Owen, and Andrew V. Newman, 2013, The 5 September 2012 Nicoya, Costa Rica Mw 7.6 earthquake rupture process from joint inversion of high-rate GPS, strong-motion, and teleseismic P wave data and its relationship to adjacent plate boundary interface properties, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 118, 5453-5466. Doi:10.1002/jgrb.50379. Ji C., K. M. Larson, Y. Tan, K. W. Hudnut, and K. Choi, 2004. Slip history of the 2003 San Simeon earthquake constrained by combining 1-Hz GPS, strong motion, and teleseismic data. Geophysical Research Letters, 31(17), L17608, 10.1029/ 2004GL020448c. Jianghui Geng, 2015. http://geoapp03.ucsd.edu/gridsphere/gridsphere?cid= Lamjung%2C+Nepal. Jianghui Geng, Chuang Shi, Maorong Ge, Alan H. Dodson, Yidong Lou, Qile Zhao, Jingnan Liu, 2012. Improving the estimation of fractional-cycle biases for ambiguity resolution in precise point positioning. Journal of Geodesy, 86, 579-589. Kouba J., 2009, A Guide to using International GNSS Service (IGS) products, Natural Resources Canada, http://igscb.jpl.nasa.gov/components/usage.html. Mahmoud Abd Rabbou, Ahmed El-Rabbany, 2015. PPP Accuracy Enhancement Using GPS/GLONASS Observations in Kinematic Mode, Positioning, 6, 1-6. Mathias Lemmens, 2015. GPS and the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake, GIM International November 2015, 29-31. Matt King, Stuart Edwards and Peter Clarke, 2002. Precise Point Positioning: Breaking the Monopoly of Relative GPS Processing, Engineering Surveying Showcase 10/2002, 33-34. Nguyen Ngoc Lau, 2009. How Accuracy GPS Precise Point Positioning can be achieved? Journal of Science and Technology Development, 12(18), 25-31. Nguyen Ngoc Lau, 2012. Monitoring the Tohoku earthquake on 11. March 2011 by using GPS Technology, International Symposium on Geoinformatics for Spatial-Infrastructure Development in Earth and Allied science, Ho Chi Minh - Vietnam,  279-289. Nguyen Ngoc Lau, 2013. Precise Point Positioning using GPS and GLONASS measurements, Journal of Geodesy and Cartography (in Vietnamese), 15, 9-17. Nguyen Ngoc Lau, Duong Minh Au, Nguyen Van Tuan, Dang Van Cong Bang, 2012. Precise point positioning using GPS and GLONASS measurements. Report of ministry-level of project B2010-30-33B2012-20-33. Nguyen Ngoc Lau, Tran Trong Duc, Duong Tuan Viet, Dang Van Cong Bang, 2010. Automatic GPS precise point processing via internet. Report of ministry-level of project B2010-30-33. Nguyen Ngoc Lau, Ha Minh Hoa, Richard Coleman, 2011. A new technique for processing GLONASS carrier phase measurements over medium length baselines using IGS products, International Journal of Geoinformatics, 7(4), 11-20. Tomokazu Kobayashi, Yu Morishita and Hiroshi Yarai, 2015. Detailed crustal deformation and fault rupture of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, Nepal, revealed from ScanSAR-based interferograms of ALOS-2, Earth, Planets and Space, 67, 201p. UNAVCO, 2015, https://www.unavco.org/highlights/2015/nepal.html. USCG, 2015. https://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/everyone/nepal2015/ . Zumberge J.F., Heflin M.B., Jefferson D.C., Wattkins M.M. and Webb F.H., 1997. Precise point positioning for the efficient and robust analysis of GPS data from large networks, Journal of Geophysical Research, 102(B3), 5005-5017.


This paper reports on a study analysing the spatial distribution functions, the correlation structures, and the power spectral densities of high‐resolution LIDAR snow depths (∼1 m) in two adjacent 500 m × 500 m areas in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, one a sub‐alpine forest the other an alpine tundra. It is shown how and why differences in the controlling physical processes induced by variations in vegetation cover and wind patterns lead to the observed differences in spatial organization between the snow depth fields of these environments. In the sub‐alpine forest area, the mean of snow depth increases with elevation, while its standard deviation remains uniform. In the tundra subarea, the mean of snow depth decreases with elevation, while its standard deviation varies over a wide range. The two‐dimensional correlations of snow depth in the forested area indicate little spatial memory and isotropic conditions, while in the tundra they indicate a marked directional bias that is consistent with the predominant wind directions and the location of topographic ridges and depressions. The power spectral densities exhibit a power law behaviour in two frequency intervals separated by a break located at a scale of around 12 m in the forested subarea, and 65 m in the tundra subarea. The spectral exponents obtained indicate that the snow depth fields are highly variable over scales larger than the scale break, while highly correlated below. Based on the observations and on synthetic snow depth fields generated with one‐ and two‐dimensional spectral techniques, it is shown that the scale at which the break occurs increases with the separation distance between snow depth maxima. In addition, the breaks in the forested area coincide with those of the corresponding vegetation height field, while in the tundra subarea they are displaced towards larger scales than those observed in the corresponding vegetation height field. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Climate change will impact many economic sectors and aspects of natural and human wellbeing. Quantifying these impacts as they vary across regions, sectors, time, and social and climatological scenarios supports detailed planning, policy, and risk management. This article summarises and compares recent climate impact assessments in Europe (the JRC PESETA III project) and the USA (the American Climate Prospectus project). Both implement a multi-sector perspective combining high resolution climate data with sectoral impact and economic models. The assessments differ in their coverage of sectors and scenarios, mix of empirical and process-based methods, handling of uncertainty, and representation of damages. Despite the dissimilarities, projected relative economic impacts are comparable, with human mortality as the dominant impact category. Both studies further show a large spatial heterogeneity of impacts that may amplify pre-existing economic inequality in the EU and US, and that mitigation can considerably reduce economic impacts. The comparison highlights the various decision-points involved in interdisciplinary climate impact modelling and lessons learnt in both projects, on the basis of which we provide recommendations for further research.


The stringent guidelines for producing, harvesting, and shipping certified non-hormone treated beef for the European Union create additional costs that greatly reduce the competitiveness of U.S. beef. What had once been a large market for beef variety meats and then a niche market for non-treated beef has all but vanished because the E.U. hormone ban and regulations for producing and certifying non-treated beef have made U.S. product too expensive to export. Some producers continue to obtain U.S. Department of Agriculture certification for their non-hormone treated beef, but most are selling their fully traceable, certified cattle into the domestic natural beef market at no additional premium compared with cattle verified as non-treated via a producer-signed affidavit. As an international trade issue, the beef hormone ban (and U.S. retaliation) continues to play a role in policy decisions and trade negotiations. As more countries negotiate accession to the European Union, for example, the United States stands to lose additional trade potential. In addition, although retaliation appears to be blocking trade at about the appropriate level, some E.U. countries may actually be benefiting from the retaliatory duties applied to some agricultural products based on country of origin.


Abstract Background: Adolescents with substance use disorder (SUD) and conduct problems exhibit high levels of impulsivity and poor self-control. Limited work to date tests for brain cortical thickness differences in these youths. Objectives: To investigate differences in cortical thickness between adolescents with substance use and conduct problems and controls. Methods: We recruited 25 male adolescents with SUD, and 19 male adolescent controls, and completed structural 3T magnetic resonance brain imaging. Using the surface-based morphometry software FreeSurfer, we completed region-of-interest (ROI) analyses for group cortical thickness differences in left, and separately right, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and insula. Using FreeSurfer, we completed whole-cerebrum analyses of group differences in cortical thickness. Results: Versus controls, the SUD group showed no cortical thickness differences in ROI analyses. Controlling for age and IQ, no regions with cortical thickness differences were found using whole-cerebrum analyses (though secondary analyses co-varying IQ and whole-cerebrum cortical thickness yielded a between-group cortical thickness difference in the left posterior cingulate/precuneus). Secondary findings showed that the SUD group, relative to controls, demonstrated significantly less right > left asymmetry in IFG, had weaker insular-to-whole-cerebrum cortical thickness correlations, and showed a positive association between conduct disorder symptom count and cortical thickness in a superior temporal gyrus cluster. Conclusion: Functional group differences may reflect a more nuanced cortical morphometric difference than ROI cortical thickness. Further investigation of morphometric differences is needed. If replicable findings can be established, they may aid in developing improved diagnostic or more targeted treatment approaches.


In 1991, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began to implement a full-scale National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program. The long-term goals of the NAWQA program are to describe the status and trends in the quality of a large, representative part of the Nation's surfaceand groundwater resources and to provide a sound, scientific understanding of the primary natural and human factors affecting the quality of these resources. In meeting these goals, the program will produce a wealth of water-quality information that will be useful to policy makers and managers at the national, State, and local levels. A major design feature of the NAWQA program is the integration of water-quality information at different areal scales. The principal building blocks of the program are the stud\-unit investigations on which the national-level assessments are based. The 60 study-unit investigations that make up the program are hydrologic systems that include parts of the Nation's major river basins and aquifer systems. These study units include areas ranging from 1.200 to more than 65.000 square miles and incorporate about 60 to 70 percent of the Nation's water use and population served by public water supply. In 1991, the South Platte River basin was among the first 20 NAWQA study units selected for study under the full-scale implementation plan.


TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) is a TNF superfamily member, defined by its high homology to CD95L/FasL and TNF-alpha. It is known for its strong selective apoptotic effect on many transformed cell lines and tumor cells but not in most normal cell types. TRAIL appears to be a more complex molecule than predicted, with a higher therapeutic potential than previously anticipated. This is mainly because it has 5 different receptors that it can bind to in contrast to other TNF family members with one or two receptors; it is expressed widely in human tissues; and it has anti-inflammatory effects. For instance, type 1 diabetes (T1D) development was exacarbated in non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice when TRAIL function was blocked, and TRAIL -/- C57BL/6 mice developed T1D at a much earlier stage following streptozotocin (STZ) injection, compared to mice which displayed normal TRAIL expression. Furthermore, TRAIL displayed a pro-angiogenic effect in primary human vascular endothelial cells. It also induced survival against the apoptosis triggered by pro-inflammatory cytokines in vascular smooth muscle cells, as well as promoting migration and proliferation. Results from studies aiming to clear out the role of TRAIL in diabetes development suggest a protective role for this molecule on beta cells. TRAIL generally does not induce beta cell apoptosis, plays a protective role in these cells against the apoptotic effects of cytokines such as FasL and TNF-alpha, and its receptors are expressed at a significant level in the pancreatic islets. While TRAIL's role or potential use in diabetes is investigated in various cell and animal systems by many reasearch groups including ours, it is still not clearly identified. Our previous and current results, which mainly support a protective role for TRAIL, will be discussed comparatively with similar and contradictory results of other groups.


Most current vapor‐intrusion screening models employ the assumption of a subsurface homogenous source distribution, and groundwater data obtained from nearby monitoring wells are usually taken to reflect the source concentration for several nearby buildings. This practice makes it necessary to consider the possible influence of lateral source–building separation. In this study, a new way to estimate subslab (nonbiodegradable) contaminant concentration is introduced that includes the influence of source offset with the help of a conformal transform technique. Results from this method are compared with those from a three‐dimensional numerical model. Based on this newly developed method, a possible explanation is provided here for the great variation in the attenuation factors of the soil vapor concentrations of groundwater‐to‐subslab contaminants found in the EPA vapor‐intrusion database.


Background: Around 30% of the population of both developing and developed countries are infected by Toxoplasma gondii. Research has shown that in the Toxoplasma infection's initial stage, changes are made in the infected human physiology, behavior, as well as in the animals that are infected artificially. Changes in personality shifts were observed in simple response times and psychiatric diseases and intelligence consisting of schizophrenia, dementia, and suicidal tendencies. Correspondingly, changes in behavior such as raised attraction toward feline odors and reduction in neophobia were observed in experimental studies. Aims: The aim of our study is to investigate the association between latent T. gondii infection and various mental illnesses in the city of Taif, KSA. Settings and Design: A cross-sectional study involving patients who are receiving medical care for various mental disorders in a psychiatric health hospital in Taif, KSA, and a control group of patients not suffering from any previous mental disorders. Materials and Methods: Blood samples were drawn from patients with different mental disorders and a control group. T. gondii-IgG ELISA was performed. Statistical Analysis Used: Statistical tests data were analyzed using a Chi-square test. Statistical analyses were carried out using SPSS version 11. Results and Conclusions: A statistically significant association between mental disorders and latent Toxoplasma infection (IgG positive) was observed. 60% of the study group were positive for Toxoplasma IgG compared to only 30% of the control group. The most frequent mental disorder observed in the positive cases was schizophrenia (55%), followed by depression with suicidal tendencies (22%). Moreover, 66% of the study group reported having owned a cat or had come into close contact in their history. Our results support the hypothesis of major involvement between latent T. gondii infection and mental disorders. We recommend that Toxoplasma-IgG test routinely be performed to all patients with mental disorders and considering administering anti-Toxoplasma drugs to all positive cases.


A Pathway to Leukemia Leukemia is initiated and maintained by a small number of self-renewing cells called leukemia stem cells (LSCs), which share properties with hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), the self-renewing cells that produce healthy blood cells. Wang et al. (p. 1650) studied mouse models of acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), a disease that is often refractory to existing therapies. Activation of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway was required for efficient oncogene-mediated conversion of HSCs into LSCs. This pathway is among the most well studied signaling pathways in cell biology, setting the stage for testing of β-catenin signaling antagonists in preclinical models of AML. The self-renewing cells that drive the growth of leukemia arise, in part, through activation of a well-known cell signaling pathway. Leukemia stem cells (LSCs) are capable of limitless self-renewal and are responsible for the maintenance of leukemia. Because selective eradication of LSCs could offer substantial therapeutic benefit, there is interest in identifying the signaling pathways that control their development. We studied LSCs in mouse models of acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) induced either by coexpression of the Hoxa9 and Meis1a oncogenes or by the fusion oncoprotein MLL-AF9. We show that the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway is required for self-renewal of LSCs that are derived from either hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) or more differentiated granulocyte-macrophage progenitors (GMP). Because the Wnt/β-catenin pathway is normally active in HSCs but not in GMP, these results suggest that reactivation of β-catenin signaling is required for the transformation of progenitor cells by certain oncogenes. β-catenin is not absolutely required for self-renewal of adult HSCs; thus, targeting the Wnt/β-catenin pathway may represent a new therapeutic opportunity in AML.


Each year, around 500,000 children under 5 die from diarrhea, making it the third-leading cause of death in this age group. More than 80 percent of these deaths are attributable to unsafe drinking water. Drinking water can be made safe through dilute chlorine solution, but take-up of this technology has been low. Previous work has shown that free community-wide provision of dilute chlorine solution through "dispensers" – reservoirs of chlorine solution at water sources that make chlorination easy and free – increases take-up of chlorination. However, it has remained unclear whether this increase also translates into reduced mortality. Here we show that four years of community-wide provision of dilute chlorine solution in rural Kenya reduces all-cause under-5 mortality by 1.4 percentage points (95% CI: 0.3 pp, 2.5 pp), a 63% reduction relative to control. We estimate that at USD 25 per DALY averted, free provision of chlorine solution is twenty times more cost-effective than the WHO "highly cost-effective" threshold.


Changing demographics and an emphasis on competency-based social work education call for innovative approaches to the delivery of curricular content. In an effort to introduce BSW students to the socio-political issues facing the local Latino immigrant community, a service-learning project was developed in collaboration with the Spanish Language Department and a local middle school. An analysis of outcomes from social work student evaluations showed that students engaged with the community and issues in new and unexpected ways. Through their engagement in a cross-cultural group project, students developed greater cultural competency, honed their group practice skills in an unfamiliar context, provided a needed service to the community, and raised their awareness about the working conditions of new immigrants as part of a developing framework for social action. Details and implications of the project as a means to build student competencies are described.


Abstract A substantial body of research links the developmental outcomes of young people to the relationships they have with adults. However, very little research provides insight into the mechanisms whereby relationships achieve their outcomes or the specific qualities of those relationships. This paper explores the construction of relationships between young people and adults in three different socio-cultural settings in Cape Town. Four young people in each setting, namely Ocean View, Fish Hoek and Masiphumelele were interviewed about their relationships with the most important adults in their lives. Where possible, the adults they identified were interviewed also. Interviews were unstructured and analysed thematically. Fundamentally, constructions of the relationships in all three settings were found to be similar. All adults encouraged young people to succeed and sought to protect them against risk. However, the nature of the opportunities and risks, and of the material context in general, differ between the three different study sites and have considerable import for the narratives of the relationships from each. The paper argues that the differences between the three sites indicate the responsiveness and adaptation of ideals and discourses to environmental demands, rather than fundamental ideological discrepancies.


Purpose
This paper aims to apply frame analysis to explore the mental models by which building managers interpret the impact of building occupants on energy use and rationalize their approach to occupant engagement.

Design/methodology/approach
Findings from four energy-efficient buildings (two schools and two office buildings) in Norway are presented. The methodology includes individual semi-structured interviews with both operational and strategic facilities managers

Findings
Concepts and theoretical perspectives with the potential to shape the building managers' perceptions include technical knowledge and expertise, management responsibilities, familiarity with occupant routines and understanding of energy-efficient technologies. No significant impact was attributed to the actions of occupants in the areas of comfort, core function and behavior. Significant impact was attributed to their movement and presence. Perceptions of impact were found to influence, yet not determine, the building managers' choices of practice.

Practical implications
Factors with the potential to affect the adoption of occupant engagement initiatives were highlighted. This study pointed to the role that automation and centralization can play in influencing facilities managers to rescind from their management responsibilities.

Originality/value
To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first study to use framings in thoughts to investigate the process by which facilities managers rationalize occupant engagement, in relation to their perception of occupant impact on energy use.


Demonstration learning is a powerful and practical technique to develop robot behaviors. Even so, development remains a challenge and possible demonstration limitations, for example correspondence issues between the robot and demonstrator, can degrade policy performance. This work presents an approach for policy improvement through a tactile interface located on the body of the robot. We introduce the Tactile Policy Correction (TPC) algorithm, that employs tactile feedback for the refinement of a demonstrated policy, as well as its reuse for the development of other policies.


The main aim of this thesis was to find out which donor cells would be most suitable for production of cloned rabbits with a targeted modification of their genome, and their corresponding patterns of reprogramming hetero- and euchromatic histone modifications (H3K4m2/3 and H3K27m3). For these purposes, we carried out NT with rabbit mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and adult fibroblasts (RAFs). As totally 13 cell lines of MSCs have been tested, they didn't show stably higher development potential than RAFs, even though the blastocyst rate of embryos cloned from MSC A/B reached to 76%. Finally two cloned rabbits were produced from meschnymal stem cells. H3K27m3 was undetectable in all stages of nuclear transfer embryos except for one cell stage and blastocysts. It seems that H3K27m3 is faithfully reprogrammed in transferred nuclei of all donor cell types, with minor differences in zygotes and blastocysts. Strong signals for H3K4m2/3 were detected at the one to two-cell stages of in vivo embryos with a slight decrease at the 4-cell stage, followed by a more drastic decrease at the 8-cell stage, where the signal minimum was reached. In 16-cell embryos signals slightly increased and then reached in morulae and blastocysts the levels observed in one-two cell embryos. In all types of nuclear transfer embryos fluorescence intensity ratios differed from that of in vivo embryos. The minimum was not reached at the 8-cell stage but at the 4-cell stage. Reprogramming of H3K4m2/3 modification occurred quite differently with either type of cells irrespective of the cell origin or type and no close similarities in the patterns of this reprogramming was observed between in vivo and nuclear transfer embryos. Embryos cloned from MSC A/B differed from all others in the way that H3K4m2/3 was generally lower and remained in the range of the donor cells. This suggests that reprogramming of H3K4m2/3 modification is more aberrant with MSC A/B cells than with any other cell type used in this study. However, with MSC A/B cells, a significantly higher or similar proportion of cloned embryos developed to blastocysts indicating that reprogramming of H3K4m2/3 modification does not correlate with developmental potential of donor cells. In conclusion, our study provides evidence that histone modifications for heterochromatin are faithfully reprogrammed during NT of rabbit somatic cells, while patterns of epigenetic reprogramming of euchromatic histone modifications differ between individual cell lines irrespective of their origin or type and are not correlated with their developmental potential. Although MSCs were not superior to RAFs in respect to the criteria tested in our study they may be suitable nuclear donors for generating transgenic cloned rabbits due to their high developmental plasticity.


Abstract: Based on research into the confiscated photographic and document archives in the hands of the top antiquities dealers (Robin Symes-Christos Michaelides, Robert Hecht, Giacomo Medici, and Gianfranco Becchina), so far more than 250 looted and smuggled masterpieces have been repatriated from the most reputable North American museums, private collections, and galleries, mainly to the Italian and the Greek states. Most of these repatriations were advertised in the press as voluntary action by the institutions and the individuals who possessed them. However, this is far from true; the repatriations were the results of lengthy negotiations, where the presentation of evidence alternated with diplomatic tactics and legal threats in order for the two parties (in some cases, three) to reach an agreement. Among the much-celebrated repatriated antiquities are at least two cases that require further research regarding their legal owner. This article aims to analyze these two cases and to set out new questions. In the end, there is doubt that the state who finally received these antiquities is necessarily the one from which they have been looted and smuggled. Based on this analysis, the article aims to highlight alternative paths to the discovery of the truth, paths that might have been more effective, if they had been followed.


The state-of-the-art deep neural networks are vulnerable to common corruptions (e.g., input data degradations, distortions, and disturbances caused by weather changes, system error, and processing). While much progress has been made in analyzing and improving the robustness of models in image understanding, the robustness in video understanding is largely unexplored. In this paper, we establish a corruption robustness benchmark, Mini Kinetics-C and Mini SSV2-C, which considers temporal corruptions beyond spatial corruptions in images. We make the first attempt to conduct an exhaustive study on the corruption robustness of established CNN-based and Transformer-based spatial-temporal models. The study provides some guidance on robust model design and training: Transformer-based model performs better than CNN-based models on corruption robustness; the generalization ability of spatial-temporal models implies robustness against temporal corruptions; model corruption robustness (especially robustness in the temporal domain) enhances with computational cost and model capacity, which may contradict the current trend of improving the computational efficiency of models. Moreover, we find the robustness intervention for image-related tasks (e.g., training models with noise) may not work for spatial-temporal models.


This paper examines the effect of the public sector and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) on wage inequality in urban China using China Household Income Project data. It applies quantile regression analysis, the Machado and Mata decomposition to investigate how urban wage inequality was affected by the changes in wage structure and employment shares of the public sector and SOEs. We find that since the radical state sector reforms designed to reduce overstaffing and improve efficiency in the late 1990s, urban wage gaps were narrowed due to the reduction in the employment share of the state sector; the wage premium of the state sector in comparison with the non-state sector increased significantly; and changes in the wage structure of the labour market caused the rise in urban wage inequality.


A growing number of scholars argue that Hispanic—White disparities in college pathways are at least partly attributable to the fact that Hispanic students experience the college preparation and enrollment process differently from their White peers. Recent research suggests that one way in which the process differs between the two groups is in how parent resources, and particularly forms of parent social capital, facilitate college preparation and enrollment. This study examines whether group-level variability in the utility of parent social capital can help explain the recent finding that parent income and education confer greater benefits among White youth, relative to similar Hispanic youth, when it comes to 4-year college enrollment. The study also asks whether engagement in college-aligned actions might mediate the association between parent social capital and college enrollment. The study focuses on a nationally representative sample of Hispanic and White 10th graders in 2002 who completed high school expecting to complete a bachelor's degree. The study uses multiple group structural equation modeling techniques and three waves of data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS: 2002) to test whether forms of parent social capital indirectly influence 4-year college enrollment through an association with college-aligned actions. Multiple group invariance testing is used to test whether associations of interest are measurably different across the two groups. The results suggest that Hispanic-White differences in the intergenerational transmission of parents' educational and economic resources can be partly attributed to differences in the functioning of parent social capital. This finding is consistent with the assertion that social capital often serves as a hidden form of capital— and mechanism of stratification— by facilitating the conversion of tangible resources into advantageous outcomes.


Purpose
A pilot project commissioned to assess feasibility and impact of peer support in an Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) service highlighted the importance of team readiness. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the lessons learned in recognising and facilitating team readiness in an NHS setting.

Design/methodology/approach
The literature suggests that mental health teams need to be ready to implement peer support, if this is to be done successfully. The authors describe the process of preparing for peer support, obstacles that arose and ways that the team found to address these.

Findings
The team had actively sought to develop peer support for some time, and negotiated with Trust managers to agree these roles in principle. However, initially unspoken concerns about duty of care emerged as a key obstacle. An arguably paternalistic desire to protect potential peer worker colleagues from stress and distress could have resulted in unnecessary risk aversion and a narrowing of the role. Willingness and opportunity to reflect on the change in relationship from service user/professionals to colleagues enabled these concerns to be aired, and practical solutions agreed.

Practical implications
Team enthusiasm is not the same as team readiness. The team's willingness to identify and reflect on implicit concerns facilitated an acceptance of the change in relationship with peer workers, which in turn enabled the development of standard operating procedures to ensure safe and effective peer support as "business as usual."

Originality/value
This paper considers the process of welcoming peer workers in an EIP team and offers practical suggestions that may be of value to other teams seeking to implement peer support in similar adult mental health settings.


To simulate metasomatism at convergent plate boundaries, the process of phengite dehydration, followed by reactions between the expelled fluid and a model mantle material consisting of forsterite + enstatite, was investigated at subduction zone conditions using a piston cylinder apparatus. An experimental technique has been devised in which the fluid, which should be set free during phengite decomposition at about 950°C and 3.5 GPa, would be triggered by a temperature gradient of about 50 K to infiltrate through a perforated Au-foil the hotter part of the capsule, containing the model mantle material. Crystallization of phlogopitic mica and Al-rich enstatite at the boundary phengite - (forsterite + enstatite), representing the "slab - mantle" contact region, indicates successful experimental simulation of mantle wedge metasomatism. Cs-Rb exchange coefficients K D , determined from compositions of newly formed phlogopitic micas, recrystallized phengite and of an amorphous phase, representing the quenched liquid, agree well with recently determined alkali-fractionation data between micas and fluid. The composition of the quenched liquid is rich in alkali, aluminium, silicon, and poor in magnesium, which is in agreement with fluid solubility data determined in earlier experimental studies at similar conditions.


This book at hand explores emerging scientific and technological areas in which Intelligent Computing Systems provide efficient solutions and, thus, may play a role in the years to come. It demonstrates how Intelligent Computing Systems make use of computational methodologies that mimic nature-inspired processes to address real world problems of high complexity for which exact mathematical solutions, based on physical and statistical modelling, are intractable. Common intelligent computational methodologies are presented including artificial neural networks, evolutionary computation, genetic algorithms, artificial immune systems, fuzzy logic, swarm intelligence, artificial life, virtual worlds and hybrid methodologies based on combinations of the previous. The book will be useful to researchers, practitioners and graduate students dealing with mathematically-intractable problems. It is intended for both the expert/researcher in the field of Intelligent Computing Systems, as well as for the general reader in the fields of Artificial and Computational Intelligence who wishes to learn more about the field of Intelligent Computing Systems and its applications. An extensive list of bibliographic references at the end of each chapter guides the reader to probe further into application area of interest to him/her.


The paper deals with the analysis of market land prices that were collected from land purchased contracts in the Czech Republic. Regression model was used to identify determinants explaining variability of market prices between 2008 and 2009. It was found out that type of plantation, region, type of buyers, plot size, distance to regional city or number of parcels play significant role. These factors explain more than a half of variance in land price. Quality of land that was expressed through administrative price has significant effect on market price. Yet, such effect became less import in regions nearby cities (e.g. Prague and Olomouc), where the market land price is significantly influenced by the distance to the district city. Land reform, however has not been confirmed to stimulate higher prices for sellers. It is reasonable to expect that part of the remaining variation could still be accounted for by non-random variables.