24 And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. 25 But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 And he said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." 28 But she answered him, "Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." 29 And he said to her, "For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter." 30 And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.


Background: Plant N-alkylamides (NAAs) are bio-active compounds with a broad functional spectrum. In order to reach their pharmacodynamic targets, they have to overcome several barriers of the body in the absorption phase. The permeability kinetics of spilanthol (a diene NAA) and pellitorine (a triene NAA) across these barriers (i.e. skin, oral/gut mucosa, bloodbrain barrier) were investigated. Methods: The skin and oral mucosa permeability were investigated using human skin and pig mucosa in an ex vivo in vitro Franz diffusion cell set-up. The gut absorption characteristics were examined using the in vitro Caco-2 cell monolayer test system. The initial blood-brain barrier transport kinetics were investigated in an in vivo mice model using multiple time regression and efflux experiments. Quantification of both NAAs was conducted using HPLC-UV and bioanalytical UPLC-MS methods. Results: We demonstrated that spilanthol and pellitorine are able to penetrate the skin after topical administration. It is likely that spilanthol and pellitorine can pass the endothelial gut as they easily pass the Caco-2 cells in the monolayer model. It has been shown that spilanthol also crosses the oral mucosa as well as the blood-brain barrier. Conclusion: It was demonstrated that NAAs pass various physiological barriers i.e. the skin, oral and gut mucosa, and after having reached the systemic circulation, also the blood-brain barrier. As such, NAAs are cosmenutriceuticals which can be active in the brain.


ABSTRACT Given the growing emphasis on academic research output and the challenges encountered in expediting completion of doctoral studies especially, mentorship is increasingly being utilised as a capacity development strategy for supporting scholars to complete post-graduate studies. This article reports on a mentorship project aimed at academic staff enrolled for doctoral studies in a health sciences faculty at a South African university, based on reflections drawn from annual feedback from the mentees and the annual report of the mentor, as well as a focus group conducted with mentees by an independent researcher. Participants found the mentorship, with its combination of individual and group meetings, as well as regular residential writing retreats, to be extremely helpful. A number of key features that enable the mentorship process emerged, and issues relating to supervision and mentorship were highlighted, especially regarding power dynamics.


This study is aimed at integrating theory and practice in the training of subtitlers in South Africa. In spite of the apparent benefits of subtitling for South Africa (improved access to information for viewers with impaired hearing and non-first language speakers of English, raised literacy levels and the promotion of language acquisition), subtitling has not been implemented on a large scale. However, there does seem to be a higher incidence of subtitling on SABC television, albeit of an uneven quality. This study attempts to define the parameters for the training of subtitlers in order to provide in the demand for this type of language transfer. Although the demand is as yet non-existent, PANSALB recognises subtitling as a valid way of addressing a number of language-related problems. In anticipation of the large-scale implementation of subtitling, it is worth initiating training for subtitlers who will be able to supply in this demand in a professional way when it does occur. Subtitler training needs to be firmly rooted in the user needs of South African viewers. Chapter 1 provides an analysis of the needs of viewers with impaired hearing (including pre-lingual and post-lingual deafness), viewers with low literacy levels, as well as viewers who are non-first language speakers of English. The needs of these groups are defined in terms of reading rate, access to non-linguistic audio elements, language structures, phoneme-grapheme correlation, translation, and vocabulary. Chapter 2 investigates existing subtitler courses in other (predominantly developed) countries. Aspects that shape these courses include the national context of subtitling, training aims, academic level, duration, course content, subtitling software and equipment used, practicums, entry levels, candidates envisaged, and the (non) use of scripts. The courses range from vocational to academic-theoretical. Chapter 3 proposes an outline for a South African curriculum for the training of subtitlers by integrating the domestic user-based parameters (chapter 1) and the aspects that shape existing courses in other countries (chapter 2). The curriculum is defined in terms of outcomes that are broken down into knowledge and skills required for their attainment. Chapter 4 addresses a perceived lack in existing subtitling theory, namely the absence of a model for balancing equivalence and condensing. The chapter proposes a semiotic model for subtitling that is aimed at providing a framework for South African subtitlers, as well as contribute to the international debate on equivalence in subtitling.


Managing QoE is one of the most interesting direct applications of workable QoE models. Indeed, being able to predict how users perceive the quality of a service allows the service provider(s) to optimize its delivery, based on several possible criteria. It has been argued, however, that the MOS is ill-suited for this type of application, and that different measures — e.g., rating distributions or quantiles — are better suited for the task. In this paper we build on these ideas by adding the notions of QoE fairness (as opposed to QoS fairness) and user diversity, and discuss how the choice of measures used, the importance of fairness, and how the variations between users can affect the optimal QoE management choices for service providers.


Abstract. Detecting the slow motions of high and distant landslides in remote mountain areas has always been a problem. This paper takes the Woda landslide along the Jinsha River as an example to monitor landslide movement. Although some parts of the landslide body have been found to have moved in recent years, the timing and magnitude of motion have not been systematically monitored or interpreted. Here, we apply the SBAS time series strategy using 65-scene Sentinel-1A/B satellite InSAR images and study the spatial distribution and temporal behaviour of landslide movements between July 4, 2018, and August 29, 2020. Our research results show that the cumulative deformation on the left side of the landslide body with concentrated deformation was approximately 200 mm during the 2-year observation period. By calculating the relationship between the InSAR time series and the precipitation around the landslide, it is found that the landslide deformation is closely related to rainfall. GNSS technology is also deployed on the landslide mass and effectively complements InSAR technology. Simultaneously, based on the results of field surveys and hydrological data analysing the landslide's spatial deformation characteristics and deformation factors, the landslide deformation can also be inferred to be related to precipitation. The method used in this paper can be used for early recognition and early warning of high and remote landslides.


Abstract Probiotics have been used for centuries in making fermented dairy products. The health benefits related to probiotics consumption are well recognized and they are generally regarded as safe (GRAS). Their therapeutic effects are due to the production of a variety of antimicrobial compounds, such as short‐chain fatty acids, organic acids (such as lactic, acetic, formic, propionic and butyric acids), ethanol, hydrogen peroxide and bacteriocins. Ventilator‐associated pneumonia (VAP) is a nosocomial infection associated with high mortality in intensive care units. VAP can result from endotracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation. These interventions increase the risk of infection as patients lose the natural barrier between the oropharynx and the trachea, which in turn facilitates the entry of pathogens through the aspiration of oropharyngeal secretions containing bacteria into the lung. In order to prevent this, probiotics have been used extensively against VAP. This review is an update containing information extracted from recent studies on the use of probiotics to treat VAP. In addition, probiotic safety, the therapeutic properties of probiotics, the probiotic strains used and the action of the probiotics mechanism are reviewed. Furthermore, the therapeutic effects of probiotic treatment procedures for VAP are compared to those of antibiotics. Finally, the influences of bacteriocin on the growth of human pathogens, and the side‐effects and limitations of using probiotics for the treatment of VAP are addressed.


The way the processes in a parallel program are scheduled on the processors of a multiprocessor system affects the performance significantly. Finding a schedule of processes to processors which results in minimum completion time is NP-hard. Therefore, one has to resort to heuristic schedules. However, it is often difficult to determine if a specific schedule is close to the optimal case or if it is worthwhile to look for other schedules. Based on information from previous executions of the parallel program, we present a formula for an upper bound on the minimum completion time of the program. The bound is a function of a set of parameters. Some of these parameters are obtained from the previous executions of the program and the others describe the target multiprocessor architecture for which we want to bound the minimum completion time. The bound is optimal when it is based on information from one previous execution. Using these results, we are able to decide if a certain schedule is close to optimal or if it is worthwhile to look for other schedules. This is demonstrated by evaluating the completion time of a specific schedule of a particular program. The proofs used for obtaining the bound are based on program transformations and combinatorial mathematics.


The accounting treatment of intangible assets is a particularly complex and important issue for today's economy, a knowledge based economy. For now days companies, these assets are inductors for success and an important factor for achieving competitive advantage. Also, these assets are an important part of the financial statements. With the increasing weight and importance of the intangible assets the need for financial information of financial statements'users has changed and the current accounting system makes it difficult to cope with these developments. Because of the uncertainty that strikes intangible assets, accounting cannot capture their growing importance. Accordingly investors and other users of financial statements may not receive complete and relevant information for decision making. Basic questions arise here: Does the accounting treatment of intangible assets affect the relevance of financial information? ; May this treatment cause a misallocation of resources? The weakness is that the current accounting system can not capture all significant intangible values. Along with trying to answer the above question the purpose of this paper is to present the accounting treatment related to intangible assets according to international financial reporting standards and to analyze to what extent the accounting treatment of intangible assets affect the relevance of financial information for Romanian pharmaceutical companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange The research was qualitative type, based on empirical data recorded on a sample of 5 Romanian pharmaceutical companies, listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. The qualitative side is given by the fact that the study is based on interpretation, explanation, understanding. Keywords: intangible assets, IAS 38 valuation, financial reporting


This study presents a tool for solving optimal power flows (OPFs) in hybrid high-voltage direct current (HVDC) and high-voltage alternating current (HVAC) systems for grid integration of large wind power plants, located either offshore or onshore. The OPF departs from the assumption that the power being produced from the wind power plants is known, as well as the demand from the AC grid. To model the interaction between the DC and AC grids, the active power conservation is expressed between the AC side and DC side of each converter, taking into consideration converter losses (modelled as a second-order polynomial). The tool developed determines the voltages and the active and reactive power in each bus and branch that ensure the selected objective function. All the electrical variables are limited. Moreover, the currents flowing in each DC and AC branch are also limited. The maximum AC voltage that can be applied by the converters is also limited. To develop the tool, both HVDC and HVAC grids need to be represented appropriately through its impedances and admittances. The tool has been implemented through MATLAB® optimisation toolbox and through a more specific optimisation software GAMS®, leading to the same results for the study case presented.


This paper presents the results from a field trial that was performed during a 4 year period on a 5.5 km long radio link path operating at 26 GHz in Prague. The purpose was to investigate the amount of attenuation due to precipitation and its yearly variations. The attenuation of the radio link signal and the rain rate were measured. The measured attenuation results are compared to the models given by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The propagation measurements show large yearly variations due to variability in rain rate from one year to another. The measured results are in agreement with the ITU long‐term statistical rain attenuation model if the measured rain rate for the individual year is used. For the worst year the number of fades, the fade duration, the fade speed, the worst month statistics, and the polarization correlation are presented. The measurements presented will add to the current knowledge of fading due to precipitation, and some of the results, such as the fade duration distributions, are new knowledge.


Distributed voltage-controlled oscillators (DVCOs) are presented as a new approach to the design of silicon VCOs at microwave frequencies. In this paper, the operation of distributed oscillators is analyzed and the general oscillation condition is derived, resulting in analytical expressions for the frequency and amplitude. Two tuning techniques for DVCOs are demonstrated, namely, the inherent-varactor tuning and delay-balanced cur- rent-steering tuning. A complete analysis of the tuning techniques is presented. CMOS and bipolar DVCOs have been designed and fabricated in a 0.35- m BiCMOS process. A 10-GHz CMOS DVCO achieves a tuning range of 12% (9.3-10.5 GHz) and a phase noise of 103 dBc/Hz at 600 kHz offset from the carrier. The oscillator provides an output power of 4.5 dBm without any buffering, drawing 14 mA of dc current from a 2.5-V power supply. A 12-GHz bipolar DVCO consuming 6 mA from a 2.5-V power supply is also demonstrated. It has a tuning range of 26% with a phase noise of 99 dBc/Hz at 600 kHz offset from the carrier.


Background: When Staphylococcus aureus is grown in the presence of high concentration of external glucose, this sugar is phosphorylated by glucokinase (glkA) to form glucose-6-phosphate. This product subsequently enters into anabolic phase, which favors biofilm formation. The presence of ROK (repressor protein, open reading frame, sugar kinase) motif, phosphate-1 and -2 sites, and tyrosine kinase sites in glkA of S. aureus indicates that phosphorylation must regulate the glkA activity. The aim of the present study was to identify the effect of phosphorylation on the function of S. aureus glkA and biofilm formation. Methods: Pure glkA and protein-tyrosine kinase (BYK) of S. aureus ATCC 12600 were obtained by fractionating the cytosolic fractions of glkA1 and BYK-1 expressing recombinant clones through nickel metal chelate column. The pure glkA was used as a substrate for BYK, and the phosphorylation of glkA was confirmed by treating with reagent A and resolving in SDS-PAGE, as well as staining with reagent A. The kinetic parameters of glkA and phosphorylated glkA were determined spectrophotometrically, and in silico tools were used for validation. S. aureus was grown in brain heart infusion broth, which was supplemented with glucose, and then biofilm units were calculated. Results: Fourfold elevated glkA activity was observed upon the phosphorylation by BYK. Protein-protein docking analysis revealed that glkA structure docked close to the adenosine triphosphate-binding site of BYK structure corroborating the kinetic results. Further, S. aureus grown in the presence of elevated glucose concentration exhibited an increase in the rate of biofilm formation. Conclusion: The elevated function of glkA is an essential requirement for increased biofilm units in S. aureus, a key pathogenic factor that helps its survival and the progress of infection.


Network intermediaries relay traffic between web servers and clients, and are often deployed on the Internet to provide improved performance or security. Unfortunately, network intermediaries can actually do more harm than good. In this thesis, we articulate the dangers of network intermediaries, which motivates the need for pervasive encryption. We further seek to understand the reasons why encryption isn't more widely deployed and fix them. The existence of network intermediaries makes web security particularly challenging, considering that network intermediaries may operate (1) erroneously, or (2) maliciously. We verified that 7% of Internet users are behind proxies that allow either IP hijacking attacks or cache poisoning attacks, and that 0.2% of encrypted connections on a large global website were intercepted without authorization. While the need for encryption is clear, many websites have not deployed Transport Layer Security (TLS) due to performance concerns. We identified three opportunities to reduce the performance overhead of TLS without sacrificing security: (1) prefetching and prevalidating certificates, (2) using short-lived certificates, and (3) configuring elliptic curve cryptography for forward secrecy.


Anders Blok:
The Performativity of Sociology – Dismantling the Poor Society?
This essay raises questions about the contribution of sociology to bettering or dismantling its always less-than-satisfactory society. What happens if we stop viewing sociological theory and analysis as explanations of society, and start seeing them as additions to society, as narrative equipment for societal ac¬-tors? And what consequences does such a performative perspective imply for the critical capacity of sociology? Drawing inspiration from actor-network theory (ANT), this essay suggests that the mundane symbolic products of so¬cio¬logy are co-constitutive for the continual (re)creation of "society". Texts, concepts, statistics, and analyses contribute to collecting and effectuating social groups. Interesting sociology gains attention from various publics by participating in critical dialogues. Rather than cool-headed distance, a critical proximity is called for, with sociologists engaging the critical moments of social life, while developing a "sociology of criticism" capable of respecting the critical capacities of social co-actors. Criticism is a practical endeavour, with various means of intervention available. This performative perspective suggests two important societal narratives for future sociological engagement are suggested: cosmopolitization of society and democratization of expertise.


A duplication of the gene encoding the peripheral myelin protein 22kDa (PMP22) underlies the commonest inherited neuropathy, Charcot Marie Tooth disease 1A (CMT1A). Although demyelination is a characteristic disease feature, the clinical impairment of CMT1A patients is determined by the extent of axonal loss. Patients suffer from slowly progressive, distally pronounced muscle atrophy and sensory impairments. A therapy is not available yet.
In the present doctoral thesis it is shown that, with the help of Pmp22 transgenic rodent models for CMT1A, Pmp22 overexpressing Schwann cells acquire a persistent dedifferentiation phenotype already during early postnatal development which is similar to Schwann cell dedifferentiation after acute nerve injury. In contrast to nerve lesion, dedifferentiation in Pmp22 overexpressing Schwann cells is triggered by an imbalanced activity of the PI3K/AKT and MEK/ERK signaling pathways. A common feature of both models, however, is a de novo expression of Neuregulin-1 type I in Schwann cells.
With the help of conditional knock-out mice without Neuregulin-1 in Schwann cells, it is demonstrated that the Neuregulin-1 type I expression in Schwann cells after acute nerve injury is essential for proper regeneration. Also Pmp22 transgenic mice without Schwann cell-Neuregulin-1 showed an impairment of the neuropathic phenotype. Vice versa, the experimental reinforcement of Neuregulin-1 signaling by axonal overexpression lead to an improvement of various disease features in CMT1A mice.
In a preclinical experimental therapeutic approach with recombinant Neuregulin-1 in Pmp22 transgenic rats during early postnatal development, almost diminished impaired Schwann cell differentiation and improved nerve function until adulthood.
These data suggest that proper Schwann cell differentiation within a limited postnatal time window is crucial for long-term axonal support.


The design literature contains many diagrammatic models that represent the relationship between how designers intend artefacts to be experienced and how they are subsequently experienced by consumers, users and other stakeholders. Despite the prevalence of such models, they remain largely disconnected from each other, both within and across design disciplines, and also disconnected from the models of communication whose basic structure they share. The existing models are therefore difficult to locate and useful conceptual developments are often overlooked. The consequences of this are that unnecessary effort is expended in developing representations that duplicate those that already exist or new models are developed from inappropriate foundations. To address such issues, this article reviews many of the existing models that can be found in the different disciplines that comprise the fields of communication and design. The most pertinent features of these models are extracted and synthesised into a generic communication-based model of design. This acts as both a guide to what the existing models emphasise and an integrated foundation from which future models might be developed.


Background : In this research Primary Health Care systems were reviewed and the nurses' roles were determined and then a model was designed for health networks in Iran. Methods: This was a triangulation research done in comparative method. In first step, PHC systems reviewed in different countries such as UK, Australia, Canada, Sweden and Turkey selected in purposive sampling. In second step, the process of management of PHC services in selected countries were determined from accessibility, providers and referral system, and then compared to PHC system in Iran. Afterward a primary model was designed. In third step, the model was validated using experts judgment (n = 30) and the results analyzed by descriptive statistics and final model was designed. Results: In all of the studied countries, PHC services were delivered by health team including family physicians, nurses, midwives, and health technicians in systematic network including local health centers, family physician offices and nursing clinics. Family physicians and nurses had a basic role in delivery of services. Also other health practitioners such as psychiatrists were practiced with health team. PHC services in most cases on the bases of people's need and health information were transmitted between the providers by health files. The effective referral system exists between health services. Conclusion: The model of PHC delivery was on the bases of health team with systematic network of the local health centers and provides accessibility, quality and comprehensively of services. We suggest to employee educated nurses in health centers to provide more health services. KEY WORDS: Role, Midwife, Role of midwife, Health care service providing system, Iran, world


The international mobility of people and migration flows are critically influenced by differences in per capita incomes, real wages, job opportunities, institutional capacities and living standards across nations and cities. Its dynamics are shaped by social networks and regulated by the migration policies of receiving countries. International migration represents around 3.3% of world's population; up from 2.7% in 1995. It is composed mainly of working-age people, with men and women migrants being in roughly equal numbers. Historically, the globalization process of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was also accompanied by large migration flows, mostly, from the "Old World" (Europe) to the "New World" (United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia, and other countries in the Global South). Starting in the 1980s migration has increased relative to a rise in total population, although the share of international migration to total population was, on average, higher in the first wave of globalization of the 1870–1914 period.
 Main substantive topics and new themes in the field of international migration include: (a) the motivations and determinants of the international mobility of the wealthy (High-Net Worth Individuals, HNWIs), a largely unexplored topic in the literature of international migration; (b) the international migration of talent (high-skills, educated, and gifted people), (c) the linkages between the mobility of talent and the mobility of capital and their evolution over time affected by macro regimes and international conditions, (d) The relation between macroeconomic and financial crises (e.g., the 2008–2009 crisis), stagnation traps and immigration flows, (e) the influence of international migration on inequality within and between countries, and (f) forced migration, displaced population and humanitarian crises, following war, violence, persecution, and human rights violations.


Environmental sustainability has received increasing attention in both scientific and public life over the past 40 years. Almost all problems are the result of the behaviour of people. Hence, successful solutions to environmental problems must be social as well as technological. Psychology has offered a variety of theoretical approaches to understanding environmentally sustainable behaviour (ESB), including rationaleconomic, social dilemmas, attitude and behavioural models. A related psychological literature also exists regarding the ways in which ESBs may be promoted most effectively in the community.

The early chapters of this thesis provide a critical review of the major theoretical approaches in psychology to understanding ESB, as well as the ways in which the psychological literature has conceptualised applied intervention programs to promote ESB.

It is suggested that a more holistic framework for conceptualising ESB is required which allows for the integration of the strengths of the variety of current approaches, and which also helps to understand their potential limitations. As such, a social-ecological framework is detailed that draws upon principles from both social and ecological psychology and has as its central tenet that ESBs should be conceptualised as the result of the ways in which members of a community interact with their environments.

In particular, it is argued that people's ESBs will be influenced by the extent to which they perceive particular environmentally relevant objects as 'affording' (Gibson, 1979) negative impact on the natural environment.

Two field experiments were conducted (a pilot and a larger main study) which aimed to apply the social-ecological framework to the promotion of water and energy consumption within a local community in the city of Perth, Western Australia.

The results of both field experiments showed significant reductions in water consumption as a result of the installation around the home of labels that aimed to attune residents to the water consumption affordances of various appliances. The same effects were not, however, obtained from energy consumption labels.

In light of these differential effects upon water and energy consumption, a third, qualitative, study was conducted to examine the potential differences in residents' representations of these two resources and the ways in which residents constructed the use of these resources in their talk. A series of in-depth interviews was conducted with a sample of residents who had taken part in the main field experiment. These were analysed from the perspectives of social representations theory (Moscovici, 1984) and discursive psychology (Edwards and Potter, 1992; Potter and Wetherell, 1987).

This analysis revealed important differences in the ways in which these two resources were constructed. It also showed the ways in which community members were able to position themselves as responsible 'users', rather than 'wasters' of resources, the importance of justice and equity in residents' resources discourse, and the ways in which 'truth' in the environmental domain is constructed and ascribed to certain groups.

The results of the field experiments and qualitative study together suggest that whilst attuning residents to the environmental impact affordances of relevant objects in their homes does affect their ESBs, this process can not be separated from the influence of the social environment in which these behaviours are embedded. It is also argued that such social environmental influences may be best understood in terms of the linguistic devices that members of a particular society have at their disposal to explain and legitimate their behaviour.

The major conclusion of the thesis is that attempts to investigate and promote environmentally sustainable behaviour should utilise multiple understandings from the social sciences, rather than remaining wedded to any one particular theoretical or methodological approach. The social-ecological framework that has guided the theoretical and practical work contained in this thesis represents an attempt at such integration. The implications of the findings for public policy efforts to promote ESB are also discussed.


This study measured the flow behaviour of whey protein isolate mixtures with cinnamic or ferulic acids. Samples were heated in a vacuum (80 °C, –0.9 atm, 280 r.p.m., 0.5 h). The flow curves of all samples showed a non- Newtonian shear thinning flow and the viscoelastic properties were typical for weak gel systems. At pH 6.0, 6.7, and 8.0, the highest shear stress values were obtained with 20, 40, and 40 mg of cinnamic acid g–1 protein, respectively. At pH 6.0, the use of ferulic acid (20 mg g–1 protein) resulted in the elevation of shear stress values, but at pH 8.0, ferulic acid caused a decrease in shear stress values in comparison to cinnamic acid. The thixotropic area (AT) was increased in mixtures containing 20–40 mg cinnamic acid g–1 protein (at pH 6.7) and 20 mg of cinnamic acid g–1 protein (at pH 6.0). Similarly, the addition of ferulic acid (40 and 20 mg g–1 protein at pH 6.7 and 6.0, respectively) caused a significant increase in AT. At pH 8.0, no significant differences in AT values were observ...


Two-phase systems of microstructured complex fluids are an important class of engineering materials. Their flow behaviour is interesting because of the coupling among three disparate length scales: molecular or supra-molecular conformation inside each component, mesoscopic interfacial morphology and macroscopic hydrodynamics. In this paper, we propose a diffuse-interface approach to simulating the flow of such materials. The diffuse-interface model circumvents certain numerical difficulties in tracking the interface in the classical sharp-interface description. More importantly, our energy-based variational formalism makes it possible to incorporate complex rheology easily, as long as it is due to the evolution of a microstructure describable by a free energy. Thus, complex rheology and interfacial dynamics are treated in a unified framework. An additional advantage of our model is that the energy law of the system guarantees the existence of a solution. We will outline the general approach for any two-phase complex fluids, and then present, as an example, a detailed formulation for an emulsion of nematic drops in a Newtonian matrix. Using spectral discretizations, we compute shear-induced deformation, head-on collision and coalescence of drops where the matrix and drop phases are Newtonian or viscoelastic Oldroyd-B fluids. Numerical results are compared with previous studies as a validation of the theoretical model and numerical code. Finally, we simulate the retraction of an extended nematic drop in a Newtonian matrix as a method for measuring interfacial tension.


In this paper, a review of the educational research that is being developed in Spain is realized in the areas of Electrical, Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics through the works presented to the prizes CESEI (Spanish Chapter of the Education Society of the IEEE) in his three editions. There are two categories of candidates to the prizes, one for the Doctoral Thesis and the second for the Final Degree (or Master) Projects. An analysis of the working areas, the subjects covered as well as the conferences and journals where the results are published has been done. The main goal of this paper is to have a general vision about the work done in such areas of educational research in Spain that will be very interesting for academic staff and researchers.


In contemporary American society, the relaxation of social prohibitions on vulgar language, together with what some have noted to be an advertising culture that appears to demand hyperbole, combine to create an environment where much language that was formerly impermissible is now allowed. Nevertheless, a small number of words have retained their taboo status, most notably the word fuck. The word also displays our cultural ambivalence about sexual expressions and sexual activity, not only because it is considered to be obscene, but because of the question that was memorably expanded upon by comedian Lenny Bruce: If fucking is so great, then why is Fuck you one of the most offensive retorts in the English language? This paper will provide an answer to that question. I argue that the word fuck functions as a metaphor for male sexual aggression, and that, notwithstanding its increasing public use, enduring cultural models that inform our beliefs about the nature of sexuality and sexual acts preserve its status as a vile utterance that continues to inspire moral outrage.


A media access control protocol for optical code-division multiple-access packet networks with variable length data traffic is proposed. This protocol exhibits a sliding window with variable size. A model for interference-level fluctuation and an accurate analysis for channel usage are presented. Both multiple-access interference (MAI) and photodetector's shot noise are considered. Both chip-level and correlation receivers are adopted. The system performance is evaluated using a traditional average system throughput and average delay. Finally, in order to enhance the overall performance, error control codes (ECCs) are applied. The results indicate that the performance can be enhanced to reach its peak using the ECC with an optimum number of correctable errors. Furthermore, chip-level receivers are shown to give much higher performance than that of correlation receivers. Also, it has been shown that MAI is the main source of signal degradation


Macrophage JNK in Metabolic Disease Inflammation is thought to be an important driver of diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance. Proinflammatory, M1 phenotype macrophages and the c-jun NH2 terminal kinases (JNK) are central players in this process. But whether JNK expression is specifically required inside macrophages is unclear. In mice containing a macrophage-specific deletion in both Jnk1 and Jnk2, Han et al. (p. 218, published online 6 December; see the Perspective by Ferrante Jr.) found that the mice were protected against many of the diet-induced metabolic changes, including insulin resistance, despite similar weight gain as control mice on a high-fat diet. This protection was associated with a decrease in the presence of M1 macrophages in adipose tissue. A kinase in macrophages is required for high-fat diet–induced metabolic changes and inflammation. [Also see Perspective by Ferrante Jr.] The cJun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling pathway contributes to inflammation and plays a key role in the metabolic response to obesity, including insulin resistance. Macrophages are implicated in this process. To test the role of JNK, we established mice with selective JNK deficiency in macrophages. We report that feeding a high-fat diet to control and JNK-deficient mice caused similar obesity, but only mice with JNK-deficient macrophages remained insulin-sensitive. The protection of mice with macrophage-specific JNK deficiency against insulin resistance was associated with reduced tissue infiltration by macrophages. Immunophenotyping demonstrated that JNK was required for pro-inflammatory macrophage polarization. These studies demonstrate that JNK in macrophages is required for the establishment of obesity-induced insulin resistance and inflammation.


A major aim of island biogeography has been to describe general patterns of species richness across islands and to identify the processes responsible. Data are often collected across many islands; with larger datasets providing increased statistical power and more accurate parameter estimates. However, there is often structure in observational data, violating an assumption of linear models that each datum is independent. In island biogeography this structure may take the form of an island, archipelago or taxon being represented by multiple data points. We survey recent papers in this field and find that these forms of non-independence are a common feature. Most authors addressed this problem by conducting separate analyses for each archipelago, taxon or combination of the two, but a better tool for dealing with non-independence and structure in data, the mixed model, already exists. We demonstrate the advantages of a mixed model approach by applying it to a well-known dataset that spans 134 observations of single island endemic (SIE) richness across 39 islands, four archipelagos and four taxa. Taking island area and age into account, SIE richness varies substantially more among archipelagos than it does among islands or taxa. We find that SIE richness rises with island age on the Azores and Galapagos, while on the Canaries and Hawaii SIE richness initially rises with age but later declines on older islands. Our analyses demonstrate three advantages to island biogeography of applying a mixed modelling approach: 1) structure in the data is controlled for; 2) the variance among islands, archipelagos and taxa is estimated; 3) all the data can be included in a single model, making it possible to test whether trends are general across all archipelagos and taxa or are idiosyncratic.


[1] Global warming may intensify the hydrological cycle and lead to increased drought severity and duration, which could alter plant community structure and subsequent ecosystem water and carbon dioxide cycling. We report on the net ecosystem exchange of carbon dioxide (NEE) of a semidesert grassland through a severe drought which drove succession from native bunchgrasses to forbs and to eventual dominance by an exotic bunchgrass. We monitored NEE and energy fluxes using eddy covariance coupled with meteorological and soil moisture variables for 6 years at a grassland site in southeastern Arizona, USA. Seasonal NEE typically showed a springtime carbon uptake after winter-spring periods of average rainfall followed by much stronger sink activity during the summer rainy season. The two severe drought years (2004 and 2005) resulted in a net release of carbon dioxide (25 g C m−2) and widespread mortality of native perennial bunchgrasses. Above average summer rains in 2006 alleviated drought conditions, resulting in a large flush of broad-leaved forbs and negative total NEE (−55 g C m−2 year−1). Starting in 2007 and continuing through 2009, the ecosystem became increasingly dominated by the exotic grass, Eragrostis lehmanniana, and was a net carbon sink (−47 to −98 g C m−2 year−1) but with distinct annual patterns in NEE. Rainfall mediated by soils was the key driver to water and carbon fluxes. Seasonal respiration and photosynthesis were strongly dependent on precipitation, but photosynthesis was more sensitive to rainfall variation. Respiration normalized by evapotranspiration showed no interannual variation, while normalized gross ecosystem production (i.e., water use efficiency) was low during drought years and then increased as the rains returned and the E. lehmanniana invasion progressed. Thus, when dry summer conditions returned in 2009, the potential for ecosystem carbon accumulation was increased and the ecosystem remained a net sink unlike similar dry years when native grasses dominated ecosystem structure.


Abstract. Plant transpiration links physiological responses of
vegetation to water supply and demand with hydrological, energy, and carbon
budgets at the land–atmosphere interface. However, despite being the main
land evaporative flux at the global scale, transpiration and its response to
environmental drivers are currently not well constrained by observations.
Here we introduce the first global compilation of whole-plant transpiration
data from sap flow measurements (SAPFLUXNET, https://sapfluxnet.creaf.cat/, last access: 8 June 2021).
We harmonized and quality-controlled individual datasets supplied by
contributors worldwide in a semi-automatic data workflow implemented in the
R programming language. Datasets include sub-daily time series of sap flow
and hydrometeorological drivers for one or more growing seasons, as well as
metadata on the stand characteristics, plant attributes, and technical
details of the measurements. SAPFLUXNET contains 202 globally distributed
datasets with sap flow time series for 2714 plants, mostly trees, of 174
species. SAPFLUXNET has a broad bioclimatic coverage, with
woodland/shrubland and temperate forest biomes especially well represented
(80 % of the datasets). The measurements cover a wide variety of stand
structural characteristics and plant sizes. The datasets encompass the
period between 1995 and 2018, with 50 % of the datasets being at least 3 years long. Accompanying radiation and vapour pressure deficit data are
available for most of the datasets, while on-site soil water content is
available for 56 % of the datasets. Many datasets contain data for species
that make up 90 % or more of the total stand basal area, allowing the
estimation of stand transpiration in diverse ecological settings. SAPFLUXNET
adds to existing plant trait datasets, ecosystem flux networks, and remote
sensing products to help increase our understanding of plant water use,
plant responses to drought, and ecohydrological processes. SAPFLUXNET version
0.1.5 is freely available from the Zenodo repository (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3971689; Poyatos et al., 2020a). The
"sapfluxnetr" R package – designed to access, visualize, and process
SAPFLUXNET data – is available from CRAN.


A genome stability regulator integrates DNA repair and stress signaling pathways. The mammalian silent chromatin regulator family of proteins (sirtuins, or SIRT) are involved in stress response and genome maintenance pathways. They have dual enzymic activities, functioning as both deacetylases and mono-ADP-ribosyltransferases. Mao et al. show that SIRT6 functions in double-strand-break (DSB) DNA repair, through the homologous recombination and nonhomologous end joining repair pathways. The repair activity is highly stimulated under conditions of stress, when SIRT6 is rapidly recruited to sites of DNA damage. SIRT6 then associates with, and mono-ADP-ribosylates, the poly-ADP ribose polymerase 1 (PARP1), thereby activating PARP1 to poly-ADP-ribosylate other break-associated proteins, facilitating recruitment of additional DNA repair factors. Because PARP1 is involved in both base excision repair and DSB repair, SIRT6 integrates DNA repair and stress signaling pathways. Z. Mao, C. Hine, X. Tian, M. Van Meter, M. Au, A. Vaidya, A. Seluanov, V. Gorbunova, SIRT6 promotes DNA repair under stress by activating PARP1. Science 332, 1443–1446 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Concurrent seasonal adjustment uses the most recent raw data in calculating seasonal adjustment factors, in contrast with methods where factors are estimated periodically and projected forward. The Current Employment Statistics (CES) – State and Area program at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics uses a unique two-step seasonal adjustment approach where the benchmarked universe data are adjusted separately from the survey-based data due to different seasonal patterns exhibited by data from the two sources. A history of survey-based estimates are used each January to provide projected factors for the coming year. Switching to a concurrent adjustment method was examined and is being considered. The concurrent adjustment method yielded factors that were more accurate (evidenced by smaller revisions.) Employment data were less volatile month-to-month under the concurrent method, and also more closely matched universe data, which are considered to be a more accurate gauge of economic reality. Some of the improvement was due to better estimation of a regression effect that is used to adjust for the varying number of weeks between survey reference periods.


In today's services driven economic environment, it is imperative for organizations to provide better quality service experience to differentiate and grow their business. Customer satisfaction (C-SAT) is the key driver for retention and growth in Retail Banking. Wait time, the time spent by a customer at the branch before getting serviced, contributes significantly to C-SAT. Due to high footfall, it is improbable to improve the wait time of every customer walking in the branch. Therefore, banks in developing countries are strategically looking to segment its customers and services and offer differentiated QoS based service delivery. In this work, we present a system for customer segmentation, and scheduling based on historic value of the customer and characteristics of current service request. We describe the system and give mathematical formulation of the scheduling problem and the associated heuristics. We present results and experience of deployment of this solution in multiple branches of a leading bank in India.


The purpura accompanying the two foregoing cases of sarcoimatosis would seem to find its explanation in the coexistence of several factors, the main feature being an involvement of the vascular system by the sarcomatous elements. There existed in Case I a direct lesion of the vessel wall whereby the sarcoma cells invaded directly the various coats, and were found mainly between the intima and the adventitia, dissecting their way, as it were, along these tracts in the vessel walls. There was further an extensive involvement of the perivascular lymphatics, from which point, indeed, it would seem that the sarcoma cells had invaded the walls of the vessels themselves. In Case II, moreover, not only was there a definite invasion of the lymph spaces near the vessels, but, furthermore, there was undoubted evidence of the existence of emboli of sarcoma cells in the lumina of the blood vessels; and in the immediate vicinity of such conditions hæmorrhages were invariably found. While some vessels, and indeed a great many, were quite free from such emboli, in others the lumina were completely occluded by spindle cells, so as to preclude the possibility that these were merely a collection of desquamated endothelial cells, such as is frequently found as the result of post-mortem changes. That such an embolic condition can exist is by no means an unreasonable supposition, and, while it is generally recognised that multiple sarcomata are usually made up of small round cells, in this case we have an undoubted example of sarcomatosis of the spindle-celled variety. There are numerous instances of this " embolic purpura," as it may be called, especially in French and German literature, the condition being associated with rheumatism, valvular lesions of the heart, and other diseases which induce directly or indirectly the formation of emboli. Krauss, Gimard, Leloir, and others have insisted with considerable emphasis on the embolic origin of many purpuric conditions, and in some instances they have verified their observations by histological examination. Leloir assumes that, in addition to the presence of the ordinary emboli and the changes in the vessel walls with desquamative endarteritis, the blood itself may be much altered chemically, and that in the cachectic conditions clots may be thrown down from the circulating blood and be carried onward to form capillary emboli, with resulting hæmorrhagic infarctions. Krogerer, some ten years ago, in examining the skin removed from patients with symptomatic purpura, found definite thromboses in the smaller veins, and even in the arteries. According to his view, the alterations in the vessel walls gave rise to slowed circulation and tendency to thrombosis, bringing about a liability to hæmorrhages. His plates bear out his theories regarding the thrombi, many of which show considerable organization. But a careful examination of the purpuric areas shows further that a mere invasion of the vascular system by sarcoma cells can not explain all the various blood effusions present. On examining the skin, for instance, in those areas where large irregular hæmorrhages had occurred, there was but little evidence of vascular invasion, while the emboli, on the other hand, seemed to exist mainly in the localized smaller and more circumscribed patches. One must therefore conclude that in such instances a combination of factors will alone afford a rational explanation of the purpura, and that in the general condition of the patient we shall find another cause for the enormous effusions of blood. In both of our cases there were high fever, cachexia, and a rapid progressive asthenia, all being the results of a sarcomatosis, and implying also grave alterations in the composition of the blood. From this we may infer an altered condition of the vessel walls, and hence probably a combination of circumstances sufficient to explain the incidence of hæmorrhage. The raised cutaneous nodules in our second case, some of which were hæmorrhagic, can not be regarded as pure sarcomatous metastases, for on microscopic examination they merely revealed hæmorrhage or necrosis, or both, and sometimes plugging of the vessels. There was nowhere in these nodules evidence of new growths. Such elevations, then, must have been produced rather by a temporary serous or cellular exudation coincident with or following upon the hæmorrhage—a probability which is emphasized by the fact that during the last days of the patient's illness many of the nodules diminished in size. Whether the œdema and infiltration were secondary to the embolic process in the subcutaneous vessels or whether they were merely coincident with the hæmorrhage would be difficult to decide. The ringlike spots, however, are of special interest, inasmuch as it has been shown that they have been present in more than one case of sarcoma. It is not impossible that such spots may be definitely related either to the embolic processes or to a direct invasion of the cutaneous vessels, though, so far as we know, there do not exist any experimental proofs to bear out such a theory. From what has been said, however, it is evident that the cutaneous vessels were plugged during the last few days of the illness, at a time when the walls of the smaller vessels and capillaries were already greatly enfeebled. The result of the embolic formation may therefore mean a decided deficiency in the supply of nutriment to the involved area, the collateral circulation naturally being poor under the circumstances. As soon, then, as the vessels had become plugged, the surrounding blood supply would be poured in to a limited extent, and, on meeting the enfeebled vessels, might possibly break through their thin walls, thus producing a zone of hæmorrhage around the area deprived of its normal nutrition. In other words, the condition may be regarded as in many respects analogous to that presented in embolic infarcts in regions with end arteries, central necrosis with peripheral congestion and hæmorrhage being induced, the latter being chiefly limited to the outer zone of the necrotic area. The cutaneous vessels under such circumstances may be regarded as end arteries in a functional sense, since the collateral circulation would be so diminished under the altered conditions that no complete nourishment could be afforded to the area supplied normally by the plugged vessel. Von Recklinghausen has directed especial attention to the occurrence of cutaneous hæmorrhages following embolic or thrombotic occlusion of peripheral arteries. The possibility of some toxic condition as a factor in the production of the purpura in our cases may also be suggested; but while we would not exclude this possibility, we are unable to find any positive evidence in its favour. Focal necroses, which are often associated with toxic and infectious processes, were present only in direct association with the hæmorrhages, and were not distributed in the liver, spleen, and kidneys in the manner characteristic of toxic infections. Nevertheless the absence of these necroses does not exclude the possibility of the existence of some form of toxæmia. Infection demonstrable by bacteriological examination was absent, and there is no reason to regard our cases as allied to the infectious purpuras. The thermic theory suggested by Fagge at all events finds no place in the production of the multiple tumours in our cases, inasmuch as in each instance extensive visceral growths had given rise to the metastases.


School finance equity has been one of the key issues in educational policy for the past few decades. Since the 1970s, states have implemented a number of educational finance reforms in response to court orders, and political forces and public demand to equalize funding distribution among districts (Ladd, Chalk, & Hansen, 1999; Ladd & Hansen, 1999). In particular, widespread finance disparities among school districts became a legal challenge in many states. Education finance systems in 43 states had been involved in litigation between 1971 and 1999, and school funding systems in 19 of those states were declared unconstitutional (Minorini & Sugarman, 1999). These legal decisions forced states to change state funding formulas, school finance policy, or state education systems in order to improve school finance equity. Similar to many other states, Missouri's funding formula change was primarily influenced by court decision. In 1993, the circuit court of Cole County ruled "The existing school finance system does not provide an 'equal ... opportunity' for all school age children as is required by ... the Missouri Constitution" (Committee for Educational Equity v. Missouri, 1993, p. 29). As described in the decision, "various statistical measures confirm the degree and extent of these wide inequalities" (p. 13) and "All relevant standard measures of equity ... clearly and consistently indicate that Missouri funding for its public schools is highly disequalized and is getting worse" (p. 15). National data, furthermore, showed that Missouri was the worst state in school finance equity in the early 1990s, measured by selected equity indices. In 1992, Missouri's school finance equity indices in total revenue were 39.58 for the coefficient of variation, 1.54 for the federal range ratio, and 0.18 for the Gini Coefficient (Parrish, Hikido, & Fowler, 1998). Among the 49 states, excluding Hawaii, which has only one school district, Missouri had the highest scores in all three equity indices, showing the very wide disparities across districts in the state. This finance funding inequality had been an issue during the 1980s. Although Missouri revised its school funding formula twice, in 1969 and 1977, to improve finance equity, "the formula was vastly under-funded and was not serving the equalization purpose for which it was originally designed" (Lamb, 1997, p. 59). In 1992, state lawmakers started to redesign the school finance system in anticipation of a court decision that would be overturned, increasing the demand on equal distribution of school funding. A few months after the court decision declaring the school funding system unconstitutional, the Missouri legislature adopted the Outstanding Schools Act in 1993, which established new programs and policies to significantly improve the quality of education and local school districts' accountability. One of the important elements of the Act was to introduce a new foundation funding formula designed to raise additional state revenue of nearly $400 million for schools and to ensure greater finance equity in the allocation of basic state aid to school districts (Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2001). The new foundation formula is driven by the local school district's eligible pupil count, times a guaranteed tax base, times the local general operating tax rate. This formula introduced several important features to bring about school funding equity (The Office of State Auditor of Missouri, 2003; Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 1999; Ogle, 1999). First, the foundation formula used a guaranteed tax base (GTB) in the calculation of a district's entitlement. The GTB is designed to equalize the revenue-raising ability of each school district, at least up to some point (Odden & Picus, 2004) In the previous formula, GTB was an add-on used to reward districts that levied higher tax rates, but the new formula put equal emphasis on a foundation (Lamb, 1997). …


BACKGROUND
Levels of physical activity and physical fitness are low after stroke. Interventions to increase physical fitness could reduce mortality and reduce disability through increased function.

OBJECTIVES
The primary objectives of this updated review were to determine whether fitness training after stroke reduces death, death or dependence, and disability. The secondary objectives were to determine the effects of training on adverse events, risk factors, physical fitness, mobility, physical function, health status and quality of life, mood, and cognitive function.

SEARCH METHODS
In July 2018 we searched the Cochrane Stroke Trials Register, CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, SPORTDiscus, PsycINFO, and four additional databases. We also searched ongoing trials registers and conference proceedings, screened reference lists, and contacted experts in the field.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised trials comparing either cardiorespiratory training or resistance training, or both (mixed training), with usual care, no intervention, or a non-exercise intervention in stroke survivors.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two review authors independently selected studies, assessed quality and risk of bias, and extracted data. We analysed data using random-effects meta-analyses and assessed the quality of the evidence using the GRADE approach. Diverse outcome measures limited the intended analyses.

MAIN RESULTS
We included 75 studies, involving 3017 mostly ambulatory participants, which comprised cardiorespiratory (32 studies, 1631 participants), resistance (20 studies, 779 participants), and mixed training interventions (23 studies, 1207 participants). Death was not influenced by any intervention; risk differences were all 0.00 (low-certainty evidence). There were few deaths overall (19/3017 at end of intervention and 19/1469 at end of follow-up). None of the studies assessed death or dependence as a composite outcome. Disability scores were improved at end of intervention by cardiorespiratory training (standardised mean difference (SMD) 0.52, 95% CI 0.19 to 0.84; 8 studies, 462 participants; P = 0.002; moderate-certainty evidence) and mixed training (SMD 0.23, 95% CI 0.03 to 0.42; 9 studies, 604 participants; P = 0.02; low-certainty evidence). There were too few data to assess the effects of resistance training on disability. Secondary outcomes showed multiple benefits for physical fitness (VO2 peak and strength), mobility (walking speed) and physical function (balance). These physical effects tended to be intervention-specific with the evidence mostly low or moderate certainty. Risk factor data were limited or showed no effects apart from cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2 peak), which increased after cardiorespiratory training (mean difference (MD) 3.40 mL/kg/min, 95% CI 2.98 to 3.83; 9 studies, 438 participants; moderate-certainty evidence). There was no evidence of any serious adverse events. Lack of data prevents conclusions about effects of training on mood, quality of life, and cognition. Lack of data also meant benefits at follow-up (i.e. after training had stopped) were unclear but some mobility benefits did persist. Risk of bias varied across studies but imbalanced amounts of exposure in control and intervention groups was a common issue affecting many comparisons.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Few deaths overall suggest exercise is a safe intervention but means we cannot determine whether exercise reduces mortality or the chance of death or dependency. Cardiorespiratory training and, to a lesser extent mixed training, reduce disability during or after usual stroke care; this could be mediated by improved mobility and balance. There is sufficient evidence to incorporate cardiorespiratory and mixed training, involving walking, within post-stroke rehabilitation programmes to improve fitness, balance and the speed and capacity of walking. The magnitude of VO2 peak increase after cardiorespiratory training has been suggested to reduce risk of stroke hospitalisation by ˜7%. Cognitive function is under-investigated despite being a key outcome of interest for patients. Further well-designed randomised trials are needed to determine the optimal exercise prescription, the range of benefits and any long-term benefits.


Federalism as balance between the federal government and the states is a deeply entrenched principle of American constitutional law. Without the idea of balance or some replacement concept, judges and constitutional scholars seem incapable of conceptualizing federalism and resolving federalist conflicts. The thesis of the Article is that federalism as balance must be reexamined to assess whether it is jurisprudentially sound. For this purpose, the Article introduces a framework for understanding balancing discourse generally. Upon examination, federalism as balance does not satisfy the requirements articulated by this framework. The result is that this conception has no discernible content and therefore can play no identifiable analytic role in either conceptualizing or resolving federalist conflicts. The failure of federalism as balance to be an analytically sound element in understanding federalism is an additional reason for reexamining the political safeguards argument for enforcing federalism. Without sufficient analytic content, federalism as balance is merely a rhetorical device which legislators can use just as well or as poorly as judges.


This study investigates a new client-dependent normalisation to improve biometric authentication systems. There exists many client-de-pendent score normalisation techniques applied to speaker authentication, such as Z-Norm, D-Norm and T-Norm. Such normalisation is intended to adjust the variation across different client models. We propose ``F-ratio'' normalisation, or F-Norm, applied to face and speaker authentication systems. This normalisation requires only that as few as two client-dependent accesses are available (the more the better). Different from previous normalisation techniques, F-Norm considers the client and impostor distributions simultaneously. We show that F-ratio is a natural choice because it is directly associated to Equal Error Rate. It has the effect of centering the client and impostor distributions such that a global threshold can be easily found. Another difference is that F-Norm actually ``interpolates'' between client-independent and client-dependent information by introducing a mixture parameter. This parameter can be optimised to maximise the class dispersion (the degree of separability between client and impostor distributions) while the aforementioned normalisation techniques cannot. unimodal experiments XM2VTS multimodal database show that such normalisation is advantageous over Z-Norm, client-dependent threshold normalisation or no normalisation.


Using detailed panel data from the Pale of Settlement area between 1800 and 1927, we document that anti-Jewish pogroms—mob violence against the Jewish minority—broke out when economic shocks coincided with political turmoil. When this happened, pogroms primarily occurred in places where Jews dominated middleman occupations, i.e., moneylending and grain trading. This evidence is inconsistent with the scapegoating hypothesis, according to which Jews were blamed for all misfortunes of the majority. Instead, the evidence is consistent with the politico-economic mechanism, in which Jewish middlemen served as providers of insurance against economic shocks to peasants and urban grain buyers in a relationship based on repeated interactions. When economic shocks occurred in times of political stability, rolling over or forgiving debts was an equilibrium outcome because both sides valued their future relationship. In contrast, during political turmoil, debtors could not commit to paying in the future, and consequently, moneylenders and grain traders had to demand immediate (re)payment. This led to ethnic violence, in which the break in the relationship between the majority and Jewish middlemen was the igniting factor.


SUMMARY Kallikrein is present in the renal tubule near the macula densa, and it has recently been shown to actuate inactive renin in human plasma. We recently showed that kallikrein was a potent stimulus of renin release and increased renin secretion in a dose-dependent fashion. To study its effect on renal renin release, we supervised rat renal cortical slices with purified rat urinary kallikrein. Kallikrein-stimulated renin release was completely abolished by trasylol and by amiloride, but was not affected by soybean trypsin inhibitor. Indometnacin did not block kallikrein action, indicating that kallikrein's effect is not mediated rla kinin generation and prostaglandins. Kallikrein-stimulated renin release was not blocked by propranolol, trasylol did not block isoproterenol, and dibutyryl cyclic AMP stimulated renin release, indicating that kallikrein may not play a role in the β-adrenergk mechanism of renin release. There was no demonstrable acid-actiratable or kallikrein activatable renin in the superfusate, suggesting that all of the renin released was in the actire form. Cathepsin D and plasmin also stimulated renin release from kidney slices in pH 6.0 buffer, whereas trypsin and pepsin did not. Our results support the hypothesis that kallikrein may play a role in the secretion of renin by the kidney. Other proteases can also release renin from the kidney. (Hypertension 3 (supp I): I-13-I-17, 1981)


The Poisson likelihood with rectied linear function as non-linearity is a physically plausible model to discribe the stochastic arrival process of photons or other particles at a detector. At low emission rates the discrete nature of this process leads to measurement noise that behaves very dierently from additive white Gaussian noise. To address the intractable inference problem for such models, we present a novel ecient and robust Expectation Propagation algorithm entirely based on analytically tractable computations operating reliably in regimes where quadrature based implementations can fail. Full posterior inference therefore becomes an attractive alternative in areas generally dominated by methods of point estimation. Moreover, we discuss the rectied linear function in the context of other


The angular distribution of the radiation emitted into the far field by TE(0); and TM(0) optical guided waves was measured and compared with a theory assuming surface roughness to be the source of the scattering. The comparison with theory was made in such a way that a detailed knowledge of the surface under investigation was not required.


Communism was not always hated and feared by everyone in Eastern Europe. At a certain moment in recent post-war history, a group of influential intellectuals in Poland—now a place where even ex-communist politicians are careful to swear their allegiance to free markets—wanted to reform but still keep a Communist system. That moment was the Polish October, named for the month in 1956 when Wladyslaw Gomulka, a man who believed in a "Polish road to socialism," took power as First Secretary of the Communist Party. Just as the Czechs in 1968 believed in "socialism with a human face," the Poles in 1956 believed that Communism could be, in the jargon of their day, "revised" to better fit people's needs. The Polish October was the result of a complex network of events beginning with Stalin's death in 1953, coming to a climax with workers' strikes in June, 1956 in Poznan, and ending in Khrushchev's acquiescence to Gomulka's election in October, 1956. During this period, one of the important contributors to the intellectual ferment that led to the October, the theatre group Studencki Theatr Satyryków or STS, established a cultural niche for alternative theatre that mocked the Communist system and led to one of the most political, vital alternative theatre movements in the world.


The eukaryotic MCM2-7 replicative helicase is a hetero-complex composed by 6 homologues belonging to the AAA+ ATPase superfamily. These proteins form a ring-like structure which is essential for the initiation and the progression of the replication fork. In order to better understand the cellular role and mechanism of action of these proteins, I carried out structural and functional studies on two different systems: the archaeal MCM proteins, that forms a homomeric ring representing a simplified model of the eukaryotic complex, and the less well studied human MCM8, whose exact role in eukaryotic cells has not been elucidated.
MCM interacts in two ways with the DNA: the canonical "loaded" mode where the MCM protein is encircling the DNA, and a "associated" mode where the DNA is wrapped around the enzyme. Using the protein from the archaeon Methanothermobacter thermautotrophicum, I biochemically shown that binding of MCM proteins affect the degree of supercoiling of dsDNA and that subdomain A is crucial for this interaction. To determine the structure of the C-terminal domain of the MCM proteins, the less studied region, I produced three different constructs corresponding to the C terminus of the MCM proteins from M. thermoautotrophicum and Sulfolobus solfataricus. Despite a large effort using "high throughput" crystallisation techniques, no well diffracting crystals could be reproducibly obtained. An alternative structural biology approach has been adopted, using NMR analysis. Preliminary data are compatible with the bioinformatics prediction of a winged helix domain, but further work on isotope-labelled proteins is necessary for a full 3D characterisation.
Two other MCM proteins have been more recently described (MCM8 and MCM9): they are present in a variety of eukaryotic organisms, do not interact with the MCM2-7 complex and their function in the cell is still unknown. These protein are co-evolutionary related and it is conceivable that they have a functional link. I cloned and expressed in E. coli cells a large number of hMCM8 fragments: two of them (the N-terminus and the AAA+ domain) can be successfully expressed in soluble form and have been purified and used for biochemical assays. Both proteins forms dimers, bind ssDNA and the AAA+ catalytic domain displays ATPase activity. Further effort will be done to optimise the purification protocol to obtain proteins suitable for structural studies. In order to assess the hypothesis of a functional relationship between MCM8 and MCM9 proteins, a similarly extensive cloning strategy was applied to human MCM9, with the aim of obtaining constructs expressing a variety of fragments, to be co-expressed with the equivalent hMCM8 domains, and to test the formation of functional complexes.


Background: Recent studies present a high prevalence of multiple sclerosis (MS) in Iran. Treatment with interferon is now the first choice in management of MS . CinnoVex TM (an interferon beta 1 -a) is available in Iran, with achievement of the technology of producing beta interferon. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of CinnoVex TM in a national study named CINA study. Methods: This study was conducted from 2007 to 2008 in cities of Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad, Tabriz, and Shiraz. Patients with relapsing/remitting MS with 16-50 years of age and EDSS of <4 received CinnoVex TM ( 30 µg/week, IM ) after diagnosis by a neurologist. EDSS , drug side effects, and frequency of relapse were evaluated for one year in four 3 -month visits. Results: A total of 1050 patients entered the study. Complete data were collected from 627 (60%) patients. Mean age was 30.7±8.6 year and 514 (82%) were female. The most common onset presentations were sensory symptoms (44%) . Changes of EDSS through the study showed a significant decrease in the last 3 -month of evaluation (p <0.05 ). Drug side effects were observed in 47% , 50% , 61% , and 61.4% (p >0.05 ) and relapse was occurred in 13.4% , 15.7% , 16.9% , and 2.4% of the patients in the first, second, third, and forth evaluation visits (p =0.001 ), respectively. Conclusion: CinnoVex TM prevents progression and improves clinical course of MS . The conventional side effects of beta interferon therapy, however, are observed with CinnoVex TM . Abstract


In this study, sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax, Linnaeus, 1758), gray mullet (Chelon labrosus, Aisso, 1826), bream (Spanus aurata, L. 1785) and carp (Cyprinus carpio, L. 1758) supplied from Bafa Lake from October 2013 to February 2014, underwent a parasitological examination for helminth parasites. In total 86 fish were examined and four helminth species (Diplactanum aequans, Helicometra sp., Acanthostomum sp., Contracaecum sp.) were found. Diplactanum aequans was found as a prominent specie for sea bass and Acanthostomum sp. was found as a prominent specie in general. Contracaecum sp. was found in only one fish.


Local SGD is a communication-efficient variant of SGD for large-scale training, where multiple GPUs perform SGD independently and average the model parameters periodically. It has been recently observed that Local SGD can not only achieve the design goal of reducing the communication overhead but also lead to higher test accuracy than the corresponding SGD baseline (Lin et al., 2020b), though the training regimes for this to happen are still in debate (Ortiz et al., 2021). This paper aims to understand why (and when) Local SGD generalizes better based on Stochastic Differential Equation (SDE) approximation. The main contributions of this paper include (i) the derivation of an SDE that captures the long-term behavior of Local SGD in the small learning rate regime, showing how noise drives the iterate to drift and diffuse after it has reached close to the manifold of local minima, (ii) a comparison between the SDEs of Local SGD and SGD, showing that Local SGD induces a stronger drift term that can result in a stronger effect of regularization, e.g., a faster reduction of sharpness, and (iii) empirical evidence validating that having a small learning rate and long enough training time enables the generalization improvement over SGD but removing either of the two conditions leads to no improvement.


The study assesses the affect of medical libraries on medical education. It explains vividly, the various constituents connected with value and effectiveness of information to medical practitioners, what to do and what doing them will mean in qualitative terms. In carrying out the research, a survey was conducted through the use of a self developed 24-item questionnaire which tried to improve ways of accessing, assessing and communicating information effectively through strategic planning, statistical measurement, personnel appraisal and budgeting. The finding revealed that medical libraries are playing relevant and statutory roles in their various institutions. This is in spite of the fact that, the libraries are yet to be adequately equipped. At the end of the write-up, recommendations were made on how to improve the value of library services, increase efficiency and promote effectiveness.


Estimates suggest that by 2030, about half of the world's poor will live in contexts of fragility, conflict and violence, all of which exacerbate the difficulties faced by poor and marginalised people, particularly in influencing the policy decisions that affect their lives. This issue of the IDS Bulletin was prepared as part of Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA), an international research programme exploring social and political action in fragile, conflict, and violent settings. It identifies insights from relatively recent experiences of grass-roots struggles and related social and political change. The articles highlight key issues that are central in understanding how accountability pathways unfold in contexts of fragility, violence, and conflict. Such contexts are often ones where state institutions are weak, fragmented, and lack legitimacy; where non-state actors control territory and often provide services, and where civic space is limited and uneven. The issue emphasises the importance of distinguishing processes of accountability from those of empowerment, and recognising the complexities of the relationships between them. As pockets of fragility, conflict, and violence emerge in what have so far been relatively stable places, the initial insights discussed here will be increasingly relevant for tackling these issues globally.


This thesis considers the cooperation and coordination of multi vehicle systems cohesively in order to keep the formation geometry and provide the string stability. We first present the modeling of aerial and road vehicles representing different motion characteristics suitable for cooperative operations. Then, a set of three dimensional cohesive motion coordination and formation control schemes for teams of autonomous vehicles is proposed. The two main components of these schemes are i) platform free high level online trajectory generation algorithms and ii) individual trajectory tracking controllers. High level algorithms generate the desired trajectories for three dimensional leader-follower structured tight formations, and then distributed controllers provide the individual control of each agent for tracking the desired trajectories. The generic goal of the control scheme is to move the agents while maintaining the formation geometry. We propose a distributed control scheme to solve this problem utilizing the notions of graph rigidity and persistence as well as techniques of virtual target tracking and smooth switching. The distributed control scheme is developed by modeling the agent kinematics as a single-velocity integrator; nevertheless, extension to the cases with simplified kinematic and dynamic models of fixed-wing autonomous aerial vehicles and quadrotors is discussed. The cohesive cooperation in three dimensions is so beneficial for surveillance and reconnaissance activities with optimal geometries, operation security in military activities, more viable with autonomous flying, and future aeronautics aspects, such as fractionated spacecraft and tethered formation flying. We then focus on motion control task modeling for three dimensional agent kinematics and considering parametric uncertainties originated from inertial measurement noise. We design an adaptive controller to perform the three dimensional motion control task, paying attention to the parametric uncertainties, and employing a recently developed immersion and invariance based scheme. Next, the cooperative driving of road vehicles in a platoon and string stability concepts in one-dimensional traffic are discussed. Collaborative driving of commercial vehicles has significant advantages while platooning on highways, including increased road-capacity and reduced traffic congestion in daily traffic. Several companies in the automotive sector have started implementing driver assistance systems and adaptive cruise control (ACC) support, which enables implementation of high level cooperative algorithms with additional softwares and simple electronic modifications. In this context, the cooperative adaptive cruise control approach are discussed for specific urban and highway platooning missions. In addition, we provide details of vehicle parameters, mathematical models of control structures, and experimental tests for the validation of our models. Moreover, the impact of vehicle to vehicle communication in the existence of static road-side units are given. Finally, we propose a set of stability guaranteed controllers for highway platooning missions. Formal problem definition of highway platooning considering constant and velocity dependent spacing strategies, and formal string stability analysis are included. Additionally, we provide the design of novel intervehicle distance based priority coefficient of feed-forward


In this contribution, we present, DELI, a new interactive tool for supporting new product development decisions. In contrast to existing market research methodologies such as conjoint analysis, our approach is able to cope with a large number of potential product features and levels. It's main advantages lie in the integration of segmentation, visualization of competitive structures, the segment specific identification of new product functionality and several interactive features which support the search for new products. Furthermore, we introduce a novel conditional segmentation, mapping and positioning approach for an improved representation of products and customers within one map, supporting interpretation and segment specific new product development. An individual level scoring model supports the evaluation of new products.


Importance Acute kidney injury (AKI) in children is associated with poor short-term and long-term health outcomes; however, the frequency of AKI in children hospitalized for diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) has not been previously examined. Objectives To determine the proportion of children hospitalized for DKA who develop AKI and to identify the associated clinical and biochemical markers of AKI. Design, Setting, and Participants This medical record review of all DKA admissions from September 1, 2008, through December 31, 2013, was conducted at British Columbia Children's Hospital, the tertiary pediatric hospital in British Columbia, Canada. Children aged 18 years or younger with type 1 diabetes and DKA and with complete medical records available for data analysis were included (n = 165). All data collection occurred between September 8, 2014, and June 26, 2015. Data analysis took place from August 25, 2015, to June 8, 2016. Main Outcomes and Measures Acute kidney injury was defined using Kidney Disease/Improving Global Outcomes serum creatinine criteria. Multinomial logistic regression was used to identify potential factors associated with AKI. Results Of the 165 children hospitalized for DKA, 106 (64.2%) developed AKI (AKI stage 1, 37 [34.9%]; AKI stage 2, 48 [45.3%]; and AKI stage 3, 21 [19.8%]). Two children required hemodialysis. In the adjusted multinomial logistic regression model, a serum bicarbonate level less than 10 mEq/L (compared with ≥10 mEq/L) was associated with a 5-fold increase in the odds of severe (stage 2 or 3) AKI (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 5.22; 95% CI, 1.35-20.22). Each increase of 5 beats/min in initial heart rate was associated with a 22% increase in the odds of severe AKI (aOR, 1.22; 95% CI, 1.07-1.39). Initial corrected sodium level of 145 mEq/L or greater (compared with 135-144 mEq/L) was associated with a 3-fold increase in the odds of mild (stage 1) AKI (aOR, 3.29; 95% CI, 1.25-8.66). There were no cases of mortality in patients with or without AKI. Conclusions and Relevance This study is the first to date to document that a high proportion of children hospitalized for DKA develop AKI. Acute kidney injury was associated with markers of volume depletion and severe acidosis. Acute kidney injury is concerning because it is associated with increased morbidity and mortality as well as increased risk of chronic renal disease, a finding that is especially relevant among children who are already at risk for diabetic nephropathy. Strategies are needed to improve the diagnosis, management, and follow-up of AKI in children with type 1 diabetes.


The East Carpathian Foothills of Poland witnessed two episodes of relief planation in the Pliocene, followed by formation of Early Pleistocene strath terraces preserved on flat-topped meander spurs in the San River valley at altitudes of 100–120 m above recent floodplains. In the following stages, intense erosion produced of a flight of strath terraces that are provisionally dated to the Narevian or Sanian-1 (Menapian or Elsterian-1; 75–80 m), Sanian-2 (Elsterian-2; 40–60 m), Odranian and Wartanian (Drenthe, Warthe; 20–30 m), and Vistulian (Weichse- lian; 8–16 m) times. During glacial stages, solifluction deposits mantled the feet of gentle slopes being coeval with fluvial deposition and accumulation of loesses and loess-like sediments on either side of the San River valley, particularly intense in the Weichselian. Interglacial warmings fostered downcutting of the pre-existing fluvial sediments as well as formation of fossil soils within loess sequences and deposition of peat in abandoned channels. In the Late Pleistocene and at the beginning of the Holocene, diversified tectonic movements took place leading to displacement of Weichselian and Holocene straths. During the Holocene, in turn, cut-and-fill terrace steps were shaped, organogenic sediments filled abandoned channels and oxbow lakes, and slopes became re-modelled by landslides and slopewash.
The pattern of different types of relief, together with spatial distribution of topolineaments and some photolineaments in the eastern portion of the Polish Outer Carpathians, has been shaped due to mutual interactions between climatic, lithologic and tectonic factors. Well-pronounced topolineaments either follow fault-related zones of weakness, are associated with dense network of extensional cross-fold joints, or indicate recent reactiva- tion of some faults and/or joint sets.


Responding to the conflicting public perspectives about pedagogical approaches to, and purposes for, language teaching and learning, the authors suggest ways to reconceptualize foreign language (FL) teaching and learning as a springboard toward multicultural citizenship and social justice. The authors propose an approach to FL teaching that aims to develop learners' information, media, and technology literacies as well as life and career skills, which are vital to succeed in a 21st-century global environment, and to empower them to become engaged citizens and agents of social change in their communities. By reframing FL and culture instruction within a social justice perspective, we devise new and creative ways to make the teaching of FL relevant to collegiate education and at the core of the university mission.


In this study, aqueous extracts of aerial parts of four common weeds (Avena fatua, Phalaris minor, Melilotus alba and Chenopodium album) found in cultivated fields of district Peshawar were tested for their allelopathic effects on wheat in seed bioassay. Extracts of each weed were applied at concentration 6, 8, 10 and 12 g/100 ml. Seeds germination and growth attributes of wheat such as radicle and plumule heights were significantly retarded under respective allelopathic aqueous extracts of all the tested weeds except M. alba which showed slight phyto-inhibition at the highest dose (12 g/100 ml) only; however, significant variation were observed among the weeds for their phyto-toxic behavior. In general, deleterious effects on germination and growth were found to be linearly correlated with concentration of extracts. Moreover, C. album was found more phyto-toxic followed by A. fatua and P. minor respectively. Least phytotoxicity was shown by the aqueous extracts of M. alba which had negative effects only at higher concentration.


AbstractOne of the main problems of Plato's unwritten doctrine has to do with whether his theory of principles has a strictly dualistic or rather a more monistic character. The thesis of this essay is that Plato combines monism and dualism in a particular fashion. Both the dialogues and the testimony of the unwritten doctrine reveal that in Plato's metaphysics the One is the genuinely absolute principle; Plato's second principle, the Many, is not a second absolute - otherwise it would dissolve the very concept of the absolute. Instead, Plato conceives the principle of multiplicity itself as a unity, therefore as in some - in any event ineffable - way as being derived or having emanated from the absolute One. The One itself is wholly transcendent and thus ineffable, knowable neither by reason nor by intellective intuition. Nonetheless, being and knowledge are constituted by the coordination of the One and the Many, for which reason the latter is a principle. Hence, Plato's metaphysics combine a monistic ascent to the absolute with a dualistic derivation of being, a combination made necessary because the One transcends not only all being, but also all knowledge.


The modern translation workplace is characterized by intensive human-computer interaction and heavy use of language technology. In such settings, translators are subject to temporal and spatial constraints that can be mitigated or accentuated by good and poor ergonomic design, respectively. In the research reported here, an ergonomic framework encompassing physical, cognitive, and organizational aspects of the workplace has been used to gain insights into the situated activity of translation. The multi-method approach includes screen and video recordings, interviews, and ergonomic assessments at the workplace. The results of the case study reported here suggest that apparently minor disturbances can have a negative effect on the efficiency of the translation process and potentially impact job satisfaction and even health.


It has been known for some time that graph isomorphism reduces to the hidden subgroup problem (HSP). What is more, most exponential speedups in quantum computation are obtained by solving instances of the HSP. A common feature of the resulting algorithms is the use of quantum coset states, which encode the hidden subgroup. An open question has been how hard it is to use these states to solve graph isomorphism. It was recently shown by Moore et al. [2005] that only an exponentially small amount of information is available from one, or a pair of coset states. A potential source of power to exploit are entangled quantum measurements that act jointly on many states at once.
 We show that entangled quantum measurements on at least Ω(n log n) coset states are necessary to get useful information for the case of graph isomorphism, matching an information theoretic upper bound. This may be viewed as a negative result because in general it seems hard to implement a given highly entangled measurement. Our main theorem is very general and also rules out using joint measurements on few coset states for some other groups, such as GL(n,Fpm) and Gn where G is finite and satisfies a suitable property.


Previous studies have shown that, during search flight in bats, wingbeat, respiration and echolocation are synchronised in a 1:1 relationship. An efficiently integrated locomotor-respiratory system enables bats to produce intense echolocation signals at little or no cost above that required for flight. In this study, we investigated the coupling of wingbeat with echolocation in the laboratory during approach flight in soprano pipistrelles (Pipistrellus pygmaeus) using high-speed digital video at 250 and 500 frames s(-)(1). We found that soprano pipistrelles most commonly produce single or double pulses per wingbeat. Single pulses per wingbeat occurred in two alternative positions: immediately before the end of the upstroke or after the start of the downstroke. Double pulses per wingbeat were emitted in the same wingbeat positions on the upstroke and the downstroke, as in single pulses per wingbeat. We suggest that, during approach flight, the coupling of more than one echolocation signal with a single wingbeat and expiratory cycle allows echolocation to remain energetically economic. When soprano pipistrelles approached a Perspex disc target, an increase in mean repetition rate was achieved by producing an extra pulse per wingbeat. Finally, we hypothesise that the bat's approach to potentially interesting targets in the same horizontal plane as it's flight path, i.e. during flapping flight, may be characterised by the production of double pulses per wingbeat, resulting in a unique pattern of echolocation pulse intervals.


Software reuse approaches are known to enable considerable effort and cost savings during the development of a group of software systems with a significant overlap in functionality. In practice, however, the need for systematic reuse often becomes apparent only after a number of product variants have already been delivered. The existing literature and an industry survey performed in the context of this dissertation indicate that in practice, new product variants are often created by cloning the code of an existing product and changing it according to the new requirements. In a long-term perspective, this practice often leads to significant maintenance problems. To counteract such maintenance problems, a systematic reuse approach can be introduced afterwards by transforming the implementation of the cloned product variants. However, successful transformation is a challenging task because it requires precise and detailed information about the distribution of implementation similarity between the product variants. This information is usually not available, as the product variants were modified independent of each other. The motivation for this dissertation is hence to provide the needed similarity information and thus support the migration of existing system variants towards software reuse. The main contribution of this dissertation is a reverse engineering approach for obtaining information about the source code similarity of existing product variants. Compared to existing approaches, it delivers more detailed similarity information, reduces the analysis effort, and allows for improved correctness of similarity information understanding. The approach models the variant products as hierarchical, intersecting sets of uniquely identifiable elements, and expresses the similarity of the variants using set algebra. The resulting similarity information is available on any abstraction level, from a single code line to a whole product. The approach proposes a generic analysis framework, which can be used for diverse system representations, diverse similarity detection algorithms, and diverse definitions of element similarity. Hence, the approach can be instantiated in various contexts and adapted to a specific analysis goal. The contributed approach supports simultaneous analysis of multiple source code variants and proposes visualization concepts that enable easy interpretation of the analysis results even for large systems and a high number of variants. The benefits of the approach are evaluated empirically by means of a controlled experiment and an industrial case study, and analytically on a reference set of cloned system variants. Furthermore, practical applications of the approach in an industrial context are briefly presented.