In many domains, we are interested in analyzing the structure of the underlying distribution, e.g., whether one variable is a direct parent of the other. Bayesian model-selection attempts to find the MAP model and use its structure to answer these questions. However, when the amount of available data is modest, there might be many models that have non-negligible posterior. Thus, we want compute the Bayesian posterior of a feature, i.e., the total posterior probability of all models that contain it. In this paper, we propose a new approach for this task. We first show how to efficiently compute a sum over the exponential number of networks that are consistent with a fixed ordering over network variables. This allows us to compute, for a given ordering, both the marginal probability of the data and the posterior of a feature. We then use this result as the basis for an algorithm that approximates the Bayesian posterior of a feature. Our approach uses an Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method, but over orderings rather than over network structures. The space of orderings is much smaller and more regular than the space of structures, and has a smoother posterior "landscape". We present empirical results on synthetic and real-life datasets that compare our approach to full model averaging (when possible), to MCMC over network structures, and to a non-Bayesian bootstrap approach.


This study, compiled according to commonly agreed specifications, provides an overview of the key issues and challenges that are apparent in relation to the intra-EU mobility of third-country nationals to and from Ireland. The intra-EU mobility of third-country national workers is an area that has received little policy attention in Ireland. The Irish immigration system does not actively facilitate the intra-EU mobility of third-country nationals, nor are there measures introduced specifically to restrict such mobility. Intra-EU mobility rights are provided for certain categories of third-country nationals within the EU acquis subject to the necessary conditions being met. However, Ireland has not exercised its opt-in to several EU Directives that are relevant in this regard: the Long-term Residents Directive, the Blue Card Directive and the Students Directive. A third-country national, who is resident in another Member State under the terms of one of these Directives, holds no advantage over a third-country national travelling to Ireland from outside the EU: each must meet the same immigration requirements. Most relevant data sources in Ireland are not designed to record the intra-EU mobility of third country nationals: detailed figures on visa applications by current location of applicant are not readily available; the employment permits administrative system has the potential to capture information on the place of residence of the applicant, but this field is not consistently filled. Furthermore due to measurement issues associated with sub-populations in sample surveys, data on migration flows by origin/destination, broken down by nationality, are not published by the Central Statistics Office. Sufficient data exist to indicate that intra-EU mobility to and from Ireland is low.


It is often claimed that international investment arbitration is marked by a revolving door: individuals act sequentially and even simultaneously as arbitrator, legal counsel, expert witness, or tribunal secretary. If this claim is correct, it has implications for our understanding of which individuals possess power and influence within this community; and ethical debates over conflicts of interests and transparency concerning 'double hatting'—when individuals simultaneously perform different roles across cases. In this article, we offer the first comprehensive empirical analysis of the individuals that make up the entire investment arbitration community. Drawing on our database of 1039 investment arbitration cases (including ICSID annulments) and the relationships between the 3910 known individuals that form this community, we offer the first use of social network analysis to describe the full investment arbitration community and address key sociological and normative questions in the literature. Our results partly contradict recent empirical scholarship as we identify a different configuration of central 'power brokers'. Moreover, the normative concerns with double hatting are partly substantiated. A select but significant group of individuals score highly and continually on our double hatting index.


This Article discusses how the law not only tries to discipline the body into traditional sex roles, but it also has the power to declare you to be a particular legal sex, even over your objection. The majority of jurisdictions follow the orthodoxy of sex as "genitalia-at-birth." Under this view, a male to female transgender woman (who, for example, has undergone surgery and is anatomically indistinguishable from someone born with female genitalia) is deemed in the majority of states to be legally male. In a handful of more progressive states, the law looks predominantly -- although unfortunately, not exclusively -- at an individual's gender identity to determine legal sex. As a result of these differing legal approaches, a person can be legally male in one state and female in another. Thus, the law (at least cross-jurisdictionally) acknowledges the fluidity of sex, yet it makes central life decisions tum on what sex you are.


The Impact of Physical Activity on Attention Allocation in Normal and Narrow-Based Treadmill Walking Meng Liu, M.S. University of Nebraska, 2018 Advisor: Joseph, Ka-Chun Siu, Ph.D. Regular physical activity is beneficial for cognitive function of people at different ages. As a critical component of cognitive function, how attention allocation could be affected by regular physical activity is not widely studied. It would be meaningful to start with investigating the effects of physical activity on attention allocation in young population, and further extend the research to other age populations, eg. middle aged and older adults. In this study, a validated and reliable short questionnaire was used to assess young, healthy subjects' physical activity level. Dual tasks including walking tasks on treadmill and secondary cognitive tasks were conducted to investigate subjects' performance. Different difficulty levels of walking tasks are normal-based and narrowbased walking. Gait parameters were computed and compared to assess gait performance. Modified attention allocation index (mAAI) was calculated for each gait parameter to assess attention allocation capacity. Results showed that subjects with regular physical activity had longer stride length, shorter stride time, longer step width and higher heel elevation. Furthermore, results showed higher correlation coefficient with mAAI of subjects who are more physically active in stride length and heel elevation compared with group who are less physically active. To summarize, regular physical activity improves gait performance and enhances capacity to allocate attention in young, healthy adults.


The beneficial health effects of cranberries have been attributed to their (poly)phenol content. Recent studies have investigated the absorption, metabolism and excretion of cranberry (poly)phenols; however, little is known about whether they follow a dose response in vivo at different levels of intake. An acute double-blind randomized controlled trial in 10 healthy men with cranberry juices containing 409, 787, 1238, 1534 and 1910 mg total (poly)phenols was performed. Blood and urine were analyzed by UPLC-Q-TOF-MS. Sixty metabolites were identified in plasma and urine including cinnamic acids, dihydrocinnamic, flavonols, benzoic acids, phenylacetic acids, benzaldehydes, valerolactones, hippuric acids, catechols, and pyrogallols. Total plasma, but not excreted urinary (poly)phenol metabolites, exhibited a linear dose response (r2 = 0.74, p < 0.05), driven by caffeic acid 4-O-ß-d-glucuronide, quercetin-3-O-ß-d-glucuronide, ferulic acid 4-O-ß-d-glucuronide, 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid, 2,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid, ferulic acid, caffeic acid 3-O-ß-d-glucuronide, sinapic acid, ferulic acid 4-O-sulfate, 3-hydroxybenzoic acid, syringic acid, vanillic acid-4-O-sulfate, (4R)-5-(3′-hydroxyphenyl)-γ-valerolactone-4′-O-sulfate, 4-methylgallic acid-3-O-sulfate, and isoferulic acid 3-O-sulfate (all r2 ≥ 0.89, p < 0.05). Inter-individual variability of the plasma metabolite concentration was broad and dependent on the metabolite. Herein, we show that specific plasma (poly)phenol metabolites are linearly related to the amount of (poly)phenols consumed in cranberry juice. The large inter-individual variation in metabolite profile may be due to variations in the gut microbiome.


INTRODUCTION Institutional repositories provide an opportunity to enhance the undergraduate education experience by developing student-centric collections. This article highlights five IR collections focusing on undergraduate student work at a medium size university. LITERATURE REVIEW Students benefit when they actively participate in undergraduate research activities that are tied to high-impact educational practices. However, there are limited options for undergraduate students to publish and share their work. Academic librarians are well-positioned to develop a student-centric institutional repository supporting undergraduate student research while working at instilling better information literacy standards and practices. DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT Western Oregon University's Hamersly Library developed an institutional repository with an initial collection development strategy around undergraduate student collections based on the university's strong identity and emphasis on undergraduate education. While traditional academic publishing opportunities are represented, there is also space and encouragement for publication of other types of student created material including presentations and creative works. There is an emphasis on representing student work from all grade levels. By connecting the student scholarship collections to high-impact educational practices, the library can advocate and demonstrate additional types of value that resonate with faculty and university administrators. NEXT STEPS The library will explore student publishing opportunities that originate in existing classes and new courses taught by librarians. Library faculty will continue to educate university administration and faculty on scholarly communication initiatives and their concerns of plagiarism and quality of work.


A RYLEAN REVISION TO BIOLOGICAL NATURALISM by Timothy E. Kunke This essay is a contrasting of John Searle's biological naturalist view of the mind with Gilbert Ryle's deconstruction of the problem of mind-body interaction. These two positions are most uniquely suited for this purpose since, together they constitute the best positive theory and criticism of the same problem. It will be argued that consciousness a feature of human experience which proves to be one of the most difficult to account for, from the perspective of the naturalist can be regarded as a dispositional attribute of a complex biological organism. Considered as such, it is what Searle would term a causallyemergent-system-feature. This thesis will focus on a single modification that needs to be made to make John Searle's theory consistent with his own criticism of the traditional mind-body problem and sensitive to the devastating criticism that Ryle formulated in the first half of the twentieth century. The biological naturalist's explanation for the occurrence of conscious states must assume a post-Rylean perspective on the problem of interaction and must be consistent with the notion of "conscious awareness" as a dispositional attribute.


Using data from 1998, we show that the gender log wage gap in Sweden increases throughout the wage distribution and accelerates in the upper tail of the distribution, which we interpret as a glass ceiling effect. Using earlier data, we show that the same pattern held at the beginning of the 1990's but not in the prior two decades. Further, we do not find this pattern either for the log wage gap between immigrants and non-immigrants in the Swedish labor market or for the gender gap in the U.S. labor market. Our findings suggest that a gender-specific mechanism in the Swedish labor market hinders women from reaching the top of the wage distribution. Using quantile regressions, we examine whether this pattern can be ascribed primarily to gender differences in labor market characteristics or to gender differences in rewards to those characteristics. We estimate pooled quantile regressions with gender dummies, as well as separate quantile regressions by gender, and we carry out a decomposition analysis in the spirit of the Oaxaca-Blinder technique. Even after extensive controls for gender differences in age, education (both level and field), sector, industry, and occupation, we find that the glass ceiling effect we see in the raw data persists to a considerable extent.


STUDY DESIGN
Descriptive study.

OBJECTIVES
To quantify and rank the order of strain (length change in proportion to the resting length) of 3 portions of the pectoralis major (PM) muscle during various exercises.

BACKGROUND
A biomechanical foundation on which to base exercise prescriptions for patients after breast cancer surgery is lacking.

METHODS
An interactive, 3-D, computer graphic simulation system, developed to study biomechanical properties of the musculoskeletal system, was used to simulate movements of the glenohumeral, scapulothoracic, and scapuloclavicular joints of the shoulder, and to estimate strain in 3 portions of the pectoralis major (PM) muscle throughout the motions. The computed tomography scans of 2 male cadavers and literature review formed the basis for the estimations used in the model. Strains in the clavicular, midsternum, and abdominal regions of the PM were expressed as percent strain: [(change in muscle length/resting length) × 100]. Exercise motions were based on PM muscle anatomy and published breast cancer rehabilitation protocols.

RESULTS
Strains of the PM regions ranged from -21% shortening of the clavicular region during flexion to 55% lengthening of the abdominal region during the overhead stretch. Strain between adjacent regions was most uniform for the movement of abduction with external rotation, and least uniform with flexion.

CONCLUSION
PM muscle lengthening estimates were not linearly proportioned to shoulder joint motions, and varied for 3 portions of the PM. This information may help clinicians and researchers to estimate lengthening of PM portions throughout measurable shoulder motions.


Rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri) were electrically stimulated to exhausting activity and the changes in cardiac output and blood flow distribution to gills and systemic tissues resulting from the developing severe lactacidosis were repeatedly measured by the microsphere method (15 ̂ m). Determination of cardiac output by application of the Fick principle resulted in values not significantly different from cardiac output measured by the indicator dilution technique, suggesting that cutaneous respiration, oxygen consumption, and arterio-venous shunting were insignificant under these conditions. Following muscular activity, cardiac output was elevated by up to 60%. In the gills, the blood flow distribution in the gill arches showed a consistent pattern, even during lactacidosis, with a higher perfusion in gill arches II and III, and in the middle sections of individual gills. Blood flow to white and red muscle was increased much more than cardiac output (+230 and +490%, respectively) such that blood flow to other tissues was actually reduced. We conclude that the elimination of lactate from muscle cells during the recovery period from strenuous exercise is delayed, not as a result of an impaired post-exercise muscle blood flow, but probably as a result of a high diffusion resistance in the cell membrane.


In this dissertation core level electron spectroscopy has been employed to study various aspects of metal oxide films grown under ultra-high vacuum conditions. Studies on in situ ion insertion of lithium into thin TiO2 systems were performed. The electronic and geometric properties are investigated in detail, along with an estimation of charge transfer from Li to Ti. A detailed study of chemical vapour deposition of ZrO2 on Si(100)-(2x1) was performed. ZrO2 is found to be an insulator, i.e. its electronic levels are decoupled from the substrate and the Zr levels are best referenced to the local vacuum level. The alignment of the valence and conduction band has been determined. Combinatorial chemical vapour deposition of TiO2 and ZrO2 on Si(100)-(2x1) was realized. A film with graded stoichiometry consisting of pure TiO2 and ZrO2 on the opposing ends and mixed composition of both oxides in the middle was obtained. A detailed study of the electronic levels revealed that ZrO2 remains an insulator in the monolayer regime and that modification of ZrO2 with a small amount of TiO2 leads to a more symmetric alignment of the bands relative to Si. The influence of a core hole on the O 1s x-ray absorption spectrum in TiO2 and ZrO2 is elucidated. Supported by O 1s photoemission measurements and ab initio calculations it is concluded that the static final state picture as well as dynamical threshold effects must be considered in order to determine the location of the conduction band minimum within the XAS framework. Finally a Co modified Co:ZnO film was shown to display ferromagnetic properties. It could be evidenced that Co with oxygen as nearest neighbours was responsible for the magnetism and not metallic Co.


The design of fabrics for terabit packet switches and routers needs to consider the limitations imposed by electronic technologies. In particular, attention has to be paid to information density and to power consumption and dissipation, as well as to power supply and footprint requirements. Optical technologies can overcome some of these limitations. We analyze the use of optical fabrics to interconnect line cards in terabit packet switches and routers. For this purpose, single-plane and multiplane optical interconnection architectures are proposed that exploit wavelength agility at line cards to implement the required switching functionality. The physical-layer scalability and feasibility of these architectures are studied by using realistic models, mostly based on the characteristics of commercially available optoelectronic devices. As a result, the considered architectures can be characterized in terms of power budget and signal-to-noise ratio, enabling the computation of the maximum achievable port count and aggregate switching capacity. Our results show that aggregate capacities of the order of a few terabits per second are possible in very simple optical switching fabrics and that the multiplane architectures permit a complexity trade-off between the wavelength and space domains, making the overall design more feasible.


Focusing on the historical experiences of Chinese from West Kalimantan, Indonesia, whether in terms of migratory trajectories or ethnic and state violence, this book interrogates the role of history in the formation of the Chinese Diasporic subject.


Background: Quest for knowledge is a good indicator for anyone involved in academics and research. However, finding what one exactly needs is the question we need to focus on. Accessing databases for retrieving information can be tricky unless one has knowledge to sail through it. Aim: To assess knowledge of accessing PubMed (biomedical database) among faculties of a deemed university in Pondicherry with a secondary objective to determine the influence of independent variables over overall score. Materials and Methods: The questionnaire consisted of items used to obtain scores which were categorized as poor, average and good. Total 200 questionnaires were distributed to faculties of dental, medical and nursing institutes. Designation, cadre, number of publications, experience, workshop attended, accessing tutorial and work profile in institution were the independent variables considered. Participants were requested to fill the questionnaire in the presence of the investigator. Statistical test: Logistic regression was done to determine the influence of independent variables on overall scores. Chi-square test was used to compare proportions. Results: Response rate was 92 percent. None of the faculties had adequate knowledge in accessing PubMed with least participation from dental specialty. Only 23 percent had more than 10 publications and only 33 percent had accessed PubMed tutorial. Specialty (OR: 5.9; p<0.05) rank/cadre (OR: 0.23) attending workshops (OR: 0.33) and accessing tutorials [OR: 0.26] were found to influence overall scores. Conclusion: Faculties knowledge to access PubMed ranged from poor to average. There is a need to rectify this loophole and efforts directed to strengthen and/or reinforce the knowledge through workshops and hands on courses.


The mixed valence compound Fe2+5Fe3+2SiO10, informally known as "iscorite", has been investigated by high-resolution and analytical transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM & ATEM) including energy-dispersive X-ray microanalysis (EDX) and electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS). EDX and EELS measurements confirm the chemical composition of the investigated sample yielding concentration ratios of Fe/Si = 7.1 and Fe3+/ΣFe = 0.29 ± 0.03 which resemble the expected ratios of Fe:Si = 7:1 and Fe3+/ΣFe = 2:7. The lattice parameters of the monoclinic cell given by Smuts et al. (1969) and Modaressi et al. (1985) were confirmed: a = 2.1336 nm, b = 0.30679 nm, c = 0.58744 nm, β = 98.06°. However, space group I 12/ m 1 (No.12) was found instead of the published space group P 121/ m 1 (No.11).

In selected area electron diffraction (SAED) patterns in the orientation [011], streaking of the basic reflections and diffuse diffraction lines located at 1/2 (b* + c*) parallel to the aa direction are observed indicating an intense microstructural disorder. For the first time, we report the occurrence of twins on (200) in "iscorite". These structural modulations observed in SAED patterns and in Fourier-filtering analysis of the HRTEM images result from Fe3+/Si-disorder on tetrahedral sites and Fe2+/Fe3+-disorder on octahedral sites. Therefore, the crystal structure of "iscorite" has been described anew within the non-standard centrosymmetric space group I 12/ m 1 by the use of the single-crystal X-ray diffraction (XRD) data of (Modaressi et al. , 1985) in combination with our SAED and HRTEM results.


Symbiotic simulation is a paradigm that emphasizes a close association between a simulation system and a physical system, which is usually beneficial to at least one of them and not necessarily detrimental to the others. Aimed at extending previous work in symbiotic simulation, this paper proposes a framework of symbiotic simulation that can be used to improve the performance of a production system controlled by an enterprise system. A tube manufacturing shop floor has been selected as an example to demonstrate how the framework of symbiotic simulation can be implemented in a commercial off-the-shelf simulation tool. Experimentation has been carried out to evaluate the extent to which the symbiotic simulation can deal with uncertainties and disturbances in manufacturing systems. Early trials of the framework have indicated that it is capable of extending the existing applications of symbiotic simulation beyond engineering domains, especially manufacturing and shop floor control systems.


This study examines the effect of Affirmative Action on the reduction of employment discrimination by race and gender, more than 20 years since the economic transition. The empirical part of the paper employs a sample that represents the labour force (excluding informal sector workers, agricultural workers, domestic workers, self-employed and employers) aged between 15 and 65 years. The study estimates probit models to examine labour force participation, employment and occupational attainment likelihoods, followed by the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, using labour survey data in 1997-2015. The decomposition results show that the unexplained component of the White-African employment probability gap reveals a slight downward trend in absolute terms in 2002-2011 but in relative terms it still accounts for more than 50% of the gap. On the other hand, the unexplained component is most dominant in the male-female employment gap decomposition. These results suggest that employment discrimination against Africans and females remains serious.


To fulfill the needs for secure and lightweight data transmission approach, we propose a new plain text transmission Technique, which uses compressed bit stream of information as a mean of communications. This technique reduces channel overhead, information loss, and high bandwidth requirement. It maximizes the data security as it nullifies information notching, and prevents the attempt of modification by unauthorized third party. The proposed scheme extends security by incorporating pattern recognition, data encryption using SDES encryption technique, and reduces extra overhead by data compression technique. To justify the efficiency of our proposed technique, we tested our proposed technique with different input text sizes. The security part, related with the proposed technique is tested by means of preventing capacity against the different security attacks. The efficiency of the proposed security part is measured by calculating the information loss during the transmission. The proposed compression technique is tested by taking standard Calgary Corpus as inputs. The compression ratio of the proposed technique has been calculated. The result shows that the proposed scheme is efficient and competent when compared to popular existing techniques.


Recently, Tsai et al. have proposed a multi-server authentication protocol. They claimed their protocol is secure and can withstand various attacks. But we found some security loopholes in the protocol. Accordingly, the current paper demonstrates that Tsai's protocol does not provide perfect forward secrecy and is susceptible to a Denning-Sacco attack and Server spoofing. We then present an enhanced protocol to isolate such problems.


Annually the transport sector consumes a quarter of global primary energy and is responsible for related greenhouse gas emissions. Presently, petroleum derived liquid fuels are the overwhelming source of energy for the transport sector. Liquid biofuels are a viable substitution for petroleum-derived fuels in the transport sector and an important option to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, especially CO2 emissions. Substituting petroleum-derived fuels with liquid biofuel is also anticipated to reduce the dependency of the transport sector on fossil fuels. Different options are available for the production liquid biofuels. However, the production of liquid biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass has certain advantages. These advantages include the high abundance, availability, low procurement cost and current under-utilization of lignocellulosic biomass. However, the potential for successful deployment of technologies to produce liquid biofuel from lignocellulosic biomass and their cost reductions are surrounded by large uncertainties. High cost of production of liquid fuels from lignocellulosic biomass and their commercial immaturity are major obstacles for the widespread application of liquid biofuels in transportation. Other obstacles include the lack of infrastructure and lack of political as well as public support. This article reviews the obstacles behind the limited production of biomass to liquid (BTL) fuels and their diffusion in the transport sector. The potential approaches to make the production of lignocellulosic-based liquid biofuels economically attractive are also discussed. An approach that focuses on integrating individual operations and processes and adequately modelling these processes evaluated on the bases of the entire pathway can help in realizing the large scale commercial production of liquid biofuels through cleaner production.


Against the backdrop of global and continental women, peace, and security discourses, this contribution analyses the gender and women-focused language of national action plans from four African countries (Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, and Uganda), which were drafted with a view to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. I argue that national action plans have the potential to transcend the soft-consensus language of Security Council resolutions because they create new spaces for feminist engagement with policy and practice. The analysis reveals three discursive themes – namely, the making of "womenandchildren," women civilising war, and making women responsible for preventing gender-based violence. The themes relate to the construction of, respectively, gender(ed) identities, security, and violence. To varying degrees, the plans reflect a combination of predominantly liberal-feminist language interspersed with some examples of critical insight. I conclude that the ambiguous nature of the messages sent out by these plans serves as a reminder that discourses are fragmented and therefore offer an opening for nuanced contextual analyses and implementation.


Over the past three decades, colleges have experienced revolutionary changes, and the enrollment revolution has had a particularly profound impact on 2-year colleges. We describe the new kinds of students who are entering college today and the ways that colleges have begun to adapt. Then, analyzing interviews with students and administrators and a survey of nearly 4,400 students in 14 two-year colleges, we examine four questions: (1) Do students have serious information problems, and are college procedures ever responsible? (2) How can college structures improve students' information and planning? (3) Do colleges with alternative structures affect student information and confidence? (4) Do alternative college structures matter, net of student attributes ? The results suggest new approaches to addressing the information needs of college students, which may have important implications for their confidence and success. The evidence in this study suggests that structured programs, structured advising, and structured peer supports should be added to the menu of college policy alternatives that deserve further consideration.


The meteorological input parameters for urban and local scale dispersion models can be evaluated by pre-processing meteorological observations, using a boundary-layer parametrization model. This study presents a sensitivity analysis of a meteorological pre-processor model (MPPFMI) that utilises readily available meteorological data as input. The sensitivity of the pre-processor to meteorological input was analysed using algorithmic differentiation (AD). The AD tool used was TAPENADE. The AD method numerically evaluates the partial derivatives of functions that are implemented in a computer program. In this study, we focus on the evaluation of vertical fluxes in the atmosphere, and in particular on the sensitivity of the predicted inverse Obukhov length and friction velocity on the model input parameters. The study shows that the estimated inverse Obukhov length and friction velocity are most sensitive to wind speed, and second most sensitive to solar irradiation. The dependency on wind speed is most pronounced at low wind speeds. The presented results have implications for improving the meteorological pre-processing models. AD is shown to be an efficient tool for studying the ranges of sensitivities of the predicted parameters on the model input values quantitatively. A wider use of such advanced sensitivity analysis methods could potentially be very useful in analysing and improving the models used in atmospheric sciences.


Emili Huguet del Villar (1871-1951) was born in Granollers (Catalonia, Spain) and died in Rabat (Morocco). Geographer, geobotanist and soil scientist, he began working in Soil Science in 1923. In 1924 he presented a communication at the Conference of Rome and was one of the pioneers of Soil Science in the Western Mediterranean. He was the first person to inform on soils of Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Algeria. He was chairman of the Mediterranean Subcomission of Soil Science from 1929 until his death. His more representative works are: El suelo (1936), Los suelos de la Peninsula Luso-Iberica, The
tirs of Morocco (1944), Methode de Classification et Analyse des Sols (1953) and Geoedafologia
(1983, ed. by Marti).
Huguet del Villar had a dynamic vision of the soils, he spoke about «soils metabolisia», and had an interesting theory on hydrohipogenesis applied to tirsification, salinization and calcification.
In 1929 he proposed the first objective soil classification of universal application, based on intrinsic characters, which was also the first one presented under the form of a
taxonomic key.
He quoted paleosols and anticipated in calling K the calcium horizon. He organized the first Soil Institute in Spain (1932), the «Institut Mediterrani de Sos», in Barcelona.


Abstract. CHBr3 (bromoform) is a short-lived atmospheric trace compound that is primarily of natural origin and is a source of reactive bromine in both the troposphere and stratosphere. Estimating the overall atmospheric impact of CHBr3 and its transport to the stratosphere requires a thorough understanding of its atmospheric loss processes, which are primarily UV photolysis and reaction with the OH radical. In this study, UV absorption cross sections, σ (λ ,T), for CHBr3 were measured at wavelengths between 300 and 345 nm at temperatures between 260 and 330 K using cavity ring-down spectroscopy. The present results are compared with currently recommended values for use in atmospheric models, and the discrepancies are discussed. A parameterization of the CHBr3 UV spectrum for use in atmospheric models is developed, and illustrative photolysis rate calculations are presented to highlight the impact of the revised σ (λ, T) values on its calculated local lifetimes. For example, the photolysis rate in the tropical region obtained with the present spectral data is 10–15% lower (longer lifetime) than obtained using currently recommended cross section values. Seasonally dependent ozone depletion potentials (ODPs) for CHBr3 emitted in the Indian sub-continent were calculated to be 0.10, 0.34, 0.72, and 0.23 (winter, spring, summer, fall) using the semi-empirical relationship of Brioude et al. (2010).


The ends of prestressed concrete beams under expansion joints are often exposed to moisture and chlorides. Left unprotected, the moisture and chlorides come in contact with the ends of the prestressing strands and/or the mild reinforcing, resulting in corrosion. Once deterioration begins, it progresses unless some process is employed to address it. Deterioration can lead to loss of bearing area and therefore a reduction in bridge capacity. Previous research has looked into the use of concrete coatings (silanes, epoxies, fiber-reinforced polymers, etc.) for protecting prestressed concrete beam ends but found that little to no laboratory research has been done related to the performance of these coatings in this specific type of application. The Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) currently specifies coating the ends of exposed prestressed concrete beams with Sikagard 62 (a high-build, protective, solvent-free, epoxy coating) at the precast plant prior to installation on the bridge. However, no physical testing of Sikagard 62 in this application has been completed. In addition, the Iowa DOT continues to see deterioration in the prestressed concrete beam ends, even those treated with Sikagard 62. The goals of this project were to evaluate the performance of the Iowa DOT-specified beam-end coating as well as other concrete coating alternatives based on the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) T259-80 chloride ion penetration test and to test their performance on in-service bridges throughout the duration of the project. In addition, alternative beam-end forming details were developed and evaluated for their potential to mitigate and/or eliminate the deterioration caused by corrosion of the prestressing strands on prestressed concrete beam ends used in bridges with expansion joints. The alternative beam-end details consisted of individual strand blockouts, an individual blockout for a cluster of strands, dual blockouts for two clusters of strands, and drilling out the strands after they are flush cut. The goal of all of the forming alternatives was to offset the ends of the prestressing strands from the end face of the beam and then cover them with a grout/concrete layer, thereby limiting or eliminating their exposure to moisture and chlorides.


Leon van Schaik AO, Professor of Architecture at RMIT University for 30 years and mentor to countless Australian architects, lays down his highly influential creative philosophies in his latest book, Architecture in its Continuums. The text represents a distillation of a lifetime of thinking about architecture and the ways in which it is practiced, researched and taught.

The book remediates a gap that van Schaik sees in current architecture writing. There are, he says, very few books on architecture that, I believe, concern the practice of architecture itself, as distinct from the large body of writing about the history, sociology and environmental science of architecture. Van Schaik contends that we all share a common experience of space and light. Therefore, the architects skill in the crafting of space and light has the potential to intimately connect architecture with humanity. Here he presents 21 hand-drawn ideograms that illustrate and enrich his writing.

In her introduction, Kate Heron, Professor of Architecture at University of Westminster, writes, he evokes spatial experiences and memories to act as signposts, repeatedly questioning his own thinking as he hones his position. The reader is drawn into his world.

This interweaving of philosophy and experience offers new ways of thinking about architecture learning.

As Professor Vivian Mitsogianni, Associate Dean of Architecture and Urban Design, RMIT writes, Leons analysis of what venturous and innovative designers actually do has provided useful material and frameworks that allow us to argue more broadly for the increased participation of design practitioners within design education. Leon van Schaik is a Professor of Architecture at RMIT and Innovation Professor and Innovation Chair of Design Practice Research. He studied at Architectural Association in London before commencing his position at RMIT in 1987.


In 1994 the Wisconsin Bar and Judicial Council together urged the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take two dramatic steps with the combined aim of improving access to state case law: 1) adopt a new system of neutral citation and 2) establish a digital archive of decisions directly available to all publishers and the public. The recommendations set off a storm, and the Wisconsin court deferred decision on the package. In the years since those events, the background conditions have shifted dramatically. Neutral citation has been endorsed by the AALL and ABA and formally adopted in over a dozen states, including Wisconsin. Thomson's acquisition of the West Publishing Company removed the principal source of opposition. Court Web sites, non-existent in 1994, are now a standard feature of e-government with the result that the idea of a public case archive, open to all, no longer stretches imaginations. With the environment seemingly so much more hospitable to the 1994 Wisconsin recommendations, one might expect to see them widely implemented. Yet less than a handful of states have effectively put them to work in tandem. This paper describes the factors that came together in the right way and at the right time in those states, along with the apparent results. It also explores some of the reasons why they stand today as lonely illustrations of "best practice."


Ballard's complex evocation of the spaces of Concrete Island (1974) belies the simplicity of the structures that surround them. Before the construction of the Westway in the late 1960s the huge motorway intersection was shown as a smooth plastic ribbon laid atop the grittiness of run down and densely occupied 19th century housing of North Kensington. The spaces between were not considered. But Concrete Island celebrates this disappearing domain by tracing out fragments of its history, drawing an archaeology, but also expanding the ways that architectural spaces may be understood by paying attention to their sensual qualities. This paper examines the ways that the spaces of Concrete Island can be understood in the context of Rosalind Krauss's concept of the expanded field, and suggests that considering the novel as an example of the expanded field helps us to pay attention to 'spaces between'. Situated at a very specific moment of change, in the arts and in technological advances, Ballard looks backwards and forwards in time, and questions the stability of time and place. By taking de Certeau's understanding of the detailed movements of pedestrians in the city as analogous with writing, I seek to develop a way forward to the production of drawn responses that acknowledge this expanding field . My argument focuses on Ballard's metaphorical use of tactile, material qualities, demonstrating how rapid changes in the environment may be felt through his representation of the grass that thrives in between the giant structures of the Westway and M4 motorways. By reference to historical and contemporary writing on the psychogeographic affects associated with walking through the urban environment, I reveal how Ballard tells the story of a destabilised understanding of place that is, all the same, responsive to human intervention.


Millimeter wave (mmW) communications at the 60 GHz unlicensed band is seen as a promising approach for boosting the capacity of wireless local area networks (WLANs). If properly integrated into legacy IEEE 802.11 standards, mmW communications can offer substantial gains by offloading traffic from congested sub-6 GHz unlicensed bands to the 60 GHz mmW frequency band. In this paper, a novel medium access control (MAC) is proposed to dynamically manage the WLAN traffic over the unlicensed mmW and sub-6 GHz bands. The proposed protocol leverages the capability of advanced multi-band wireless stations (STAs) to perform fast session transfers (FST) to the mmW band, while considering the intermittent channel at the 60 GHz band and the level of congestion observed over the sub-6 GHz bands. The performance of the proposed scheme is analytically studied via a new Markov chain model and the probability of transmissions over the mmW and sub-6 GHz bands, as well as the aggregated saturation throughput are derived. In addition, analytical results are validated by simulation results. Simulation results show that the proposed integrated mmW-sub 6 GHz MAC protocol yields significant performance gains, in terms of maximizing the saturation throughput and minimizing the delay experienced by the STAs. The results also shed light on the tradeoffs between the achievable gains and the overhead introduced by the FST procedure.


The pseudogrand tour (PGT) is an approximate version of the grand tour (GT), and an example of the dynamic data visualization methods that assist in exploring hyperdimensional data through a continuous sequence of lower dimensional projections. The PGT adds the time dimensionality to the visualization process which in turn increases the human interaction with the data and reveals comprehensive views of the data. The PGT has some clear advantage suitable for the dynamic data visualization—such as the fast and easy computation, can be constructed using many orthogonal bases (interpolation functions), and the flexibility to visualize the projections as a sequence of scatterplot frames changing over time or a static profile plots of interpolated projections. This article focuses on the implementations of the PGT, the use of interpolation functions, the extensions to higher dimensions, and the scalability to large data points. WIREs Comp Stat 2010 2 711–718 DOI: 10.1002/wics.133


Employing my research and practical experience in the field of educational psychology, with a specialty in instructional design and technology, I would like to reflect on the theoretical foundations of instructional design. My purpose is to show the growth of the field through theories associated with learning psychology and educational technology. Both human psychology and technology are the main foundations for instructional psychology. Evaluation and assessment continue to be integral to the field but more in the form of tools. Included is my view of the field in reference to work I and my colleagues have done in what we label as a linking theory of instructional design. That is, linking learning theory directly with research findings and practice I argue that educators need to clearly propose and define their own theoretical foundations when engaging in the design of effective learning environments.


The search for new targeted therapies to improve the quality of life of patients with pancreatic cancer has taken about 30 years. Compounds that can inhibit the K-Ras4B oncoprotein signaling pathway have been sought. Taking into account that the interaction of KRas4B with PDE6 δ is essential for its transport and subsequent activation in the plasma membrane, our working group identified and evaluated in vitro and in vivo small organic molecules that could act as molecular staples to stabilize the KRas4B/PDE6 δ heterodimeric complex. From this group of molecules, 38 compounds with high interaction energies on the structure of the crystallized molecular complex were selected, indicating that they efficiently stabilized the molecular complex. In vitro evaluation of compounds called D14, C22, and C19 showed significant specific effects on the cell viability of pancreatic cancer cells (and not on normal cells), thus inducing death by apoptosis and significantly inhibiting the activation of the pathways, signaling AKT and ERK. In addition to these experimental findings, we were also able to detect that compounds D14 and C22 showed significant tumor growth inhibitory activity in pancreatic cancer cell-induced subcutaneous xenograft models.


[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Just over one hundred years ago, classically trained African American musician and composer W. C. Handy accepted the directorship of a Knights of Pythias band in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The Knights--a fraternal organization founded during the Civil War to promote goodwill in the bitterly divided country--had convinced the Alabama native to return south after a stint as a music director in the Midwest. One night in 1903, while napping on a bench at the train depot in the Mississippi Delta hamlet of Tutwiler, Handy awoke to the sound of strange music. Looking around the platform, he saw a man playing a guitar and singing. The sad-looking guitarist used a knife to slide across the instrument's strings and repeated his lyrics several times in each verse. Though Handy did not know it at the time, he was witnessing two of the essential features of Delta blues music: the slide guitar technique and the repetitive lyrical structure, derived from old field hollers. This chance encounter with the bluesman at the Tutwiler train depot became Handy's first experience with the musical form he would later popularize to such a degree that he eventually adopted the title "Father of the Blues." (1) To commemorate the centennial of this seminal event in blues history, the U. S. Senate proclaimed 2003 the Year of the Blues. Blues musicians, scholars, and enthusiasts participated in a wide range of events: all-star concerts at New York's Radio City Music Hall, academic symposia on the blues, international competitions for emerging talents, and the debut of a documentary film series on the blues directed by Hollywood notables such as Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood. (2) The blues centennial also gave historians the occasion to reflect on encounters with and interpretations of blues music over the last one hundred years. What were the dominant narratives and interpretations of blues history and who created them? What contemporary events, guiding principles, or biases shaped this history? As blues music's loci, performers, and audiences shifted over time, how did the ideal of the masculine, acoustic Delta-based blues become enshrined in both scholarly and commercial reckonings of authentic blues? These and other questions are fundamental to blues studies as we enter the next century of the music. Bessie Smith, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and a host of other musicians--some famous, some anonymous--inherited and recreated blues music throughout the twentieth century. Joining these musicians in this effort were those who documented and interpreted the blues in the one hundred years since W. C. Handy first heard it. A century of encounters between folklorists, historians, and critics and blues music and musicians reflects several generations' attempts to answer the "race question," resulting in critics seeing blues music as essentially accommodative of or, conversely, fundamentally resistant to Jim Crow society. Furthermore, writers of blues history have over time grappled with the music's authenticity, particularly when juxtaposed with increasingly consumption-driven, modernizing Western society. For most of the time period in question, the prevailing works on blues music were framed by questions of authenticity, race, and political ideology. However, it seems that as the twentieth century came to a close and the number of publications on blues music increased, writers favored more varied and narrow subfields. Fewer authors aspired to the sweeping, definitive study of the blues, while more writers looked at the blues as part of a particular historical problem, such as violence or poverty, in the American South. THE BLIND AND THE BEDEVILED In 1961 Bob Koester, a producer with Chicago-based Delmark Records, made an amazing discovery. Sleepy John Estes, a bluesman who had achieved fame on the race record labels during the interwar years, was found to be still alive and residing on the outskirts of the small western Tennessee town of Brownsville. …


Many studies of labor force withdrawal patterns have focused on individuals who have had career jobs. This paper compares the demographic and economic characteristics of individuals who have never had a full-time career (FTC) job with those who have, and compares the timing and types of job switches that both groups make later in life. The comparison between non-FTC and FTC individuals is important because decisions by policymakers based on the existing retirement literature may have unintended consequences for individuals with only a series of short-duration jobs. We use a sample of respondents from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) who have worked since age 50, and stratify respondents according to whether an individual has ever had a job that consists of 1,600 or more hours per year and lasts for at least ten years (i.e., a full-time career job). We find that individuals without FTC jobs are a heterogeneous group, representing individuals in many wage and occupational categories. Not surprisingly, we also find that individuals without FTC jobs are less likely than those with FTC jobs to be working in subsequent survey years. However, we find that the labor force withdrawal patterns of non-FTC individuals are similar to those of FTC individuals in many respects. In particular, individuals without FTC jobs change jobs later in life just as frequently as those with FTC jobs. Switching rates between wage-and-salary employment to self-employment and between white-collar and blue-collar jobs are largely similar by FTC status, as are reductions in wages later in life. Overall, the findings reveal that the work decisions later in life of individuals who have never had career employment are diverse, just as they are for individuals with career jobs.


Estimating consumer surplus is challenging because it requires identification of the entire demand curve. We rely on Uber's "surge" pricing algorithm and the richness of its individual level data to first estimate demand elasticities at several points along the demand curve. We then use these elasticity estimates to estimate consumer surplus. Using almost 50 million individual-level observations and a regression discontinuity design, we estimate that in 2015 the UberX service generated about $2.9 billion in consumer surplus in the four U.S. cities included in our analysis. For each dollar spent by consumers, about $1.60 of consumer surplus is generated. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the overall consumer surplus generated by the UberX service in the United States in 2015 was $6.8 billion.


Tea factory waste and domestic tea waste is a potential source for antioxidants and nutraceuticals. This presentation describes total flavonoids content of hot and cold water infusions prepared from Black, White, Green, Apple, and Rooibos Tea. Hot and cold water infusions were analyzed using the aluminum chloride assays for flavonoids adapted to a microplate format. The results show that tea infusions contained 4 to 7% total flavonoids (as Quercetin equivalents per 100g dried tea). First infusions modelling tea factory wastes had higher flavonoids content compared with 2nd infusions representative of domestic tea waste.


Th is paper discusses contemporary processes of urban transformation of Banja Luka, which aff ect not only its morphology, but also the functional and social dimensions of development. Th e rich cultural heritage of Banja Luka has created strong foundation for future growth and development of this city. Certain specifi cs of socialist infl uence on the development of urban areas did not miss Banja Luka, and they signifi cantly further determined the possible ways, and speed, of development. Some of the specifi cs relate to the national self-management and centralization and domination of social ownership over private initiatives, and the absence of market mechanisms at all levels. Today Banja Luka is characterized by the dominance of private initiatives in terms of housing development, but also diff erent spatial planning regulations in the fi eld of reorganization and better utilization of public spaces. Th e privatization of socially-owned enterprises resulted in the domination of the capitalist mode of economy in which money and consumer culture are permanent values and relations between competition and market games create unique urban styles and ways of life. Among the actors who have been most intense in urban change of Banja Luka, the most dominant are political and economic interests which are in front of the real needs and interests of citizens. Th is paper will analyse the infl uence of urban transformation onto the quality of life of residents in the city. It will also monitor the relationship between the forces of domination of capitalist society that signifi cantly aff ecting the urban transformation of Banja Luka on one hand, and neglect of the civil sector initiative that seeks to create the city according to the needs of the citizen, on the other.


Veterinarian Nicholas Dodman regularly conducts seminars on pet behaviors for vets, animal trainers, and pet owners. He writes magazine columns; blogs for a dog Web site; runs another Web site on pets with his wife, also a veterinarian; and is a spokesperson for a spray that eliminates cat-litter odors. As such, it is perhaps easy to dismiss Dodman as the Oprah of the pet world. But the veterinarian balances this celebrity with innovative animal research that appears in scientific journals. Earlier this year, for example, he and colleagues reported that variations in the gene for a protein involved in central nervous system development may underlie "canine compulsive disorders" in Doberman pinschers. Moreover, Dodman contends that animal compulsions bear relevance to human obsessive-compulsive disorders and that the Alzheimer9s drug memantine may help people with OCD. A small clinical trial just completed supports his view, suggesting that the compound could be the first new OCD treatment in decades. Dodman even argues that studying aberrant animal behaviors may suggest treatments for a wide range of psychiatric conditions. It hasn9t been easy to convince other scientists, but some researchers are now at least paying attention.


How can K-16 partnerships enlist Latino parents as informed allies in support of their children's college planning? This article draws on data from 3 years of participant observation to show how a bilingual outreach program for parents at a diverse high school narrowed the information gap about college, enhanced family social networks, and challenged inequities. Latino families gained knowledge and confidence for interacting with institutions, communicating with their children, and easing pathways to college.


Current approaches of measuring vulnerability to natural hazards generally use a rather static perspective that focuses on a single point in time?often before a hazardous event occurs. In contrast, the paper argues that vulnerability assessment should also take into account the changing dynamics during and after a disaster. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the situation in Sri Lanka and Indonesia within the context of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The author presents concepts for measuring revealed vulnerabilities and methods of assessing the recovery process, and highlights the differing ways in which the tsunami affected the ongoing civil conflicts in both regions.


This paper proposes new tests of randomness for innovations of a large class of time series models. These tests are based on functionals of empirical processes constructed either from the model residuals or from their associated ranks. The asymptotic behavior of these empirical processes is determined under the null hypothesis of randomness. The limiting distributions are seen to be independent of estimation errors when appropriate regularity conditions hold. Several test statistics are derived from these processes; the classical BDS statistic and a rank-based analogue thereof are included as special cases. Since the limiting distributions of the rank-based test statistics are margin-free, their finite-sample P -values can easily be calculated by simulation. Monte Carlo experiments show that these statistics are quite powerful against several alternatives.


Although interorganisational information systems (IOIS) have existed as study object for a long time, much research into IOIS remains sector-specific. By employing a multi-sector dataset, this paper aims to contribute to the cross-sectoral analysis of IOIS. We formulate four hypotheses on IOIS maturity based on theory concerning supply chain integration and business/IT-alignment, taking both 'IT' and 'organisation', and 'supply' and 'demand' into account. This leads to the twofold research question (i) how IOIS maturity of organisations can be measured in a generic manner, and (ii) if supply chain integration and business/IT-alignment are related as similar determinants of IOIS maturity. We empirically test our hypotheses on survey data collected among a group (n=74) of Dutch organisations, diverse in terms of industry and size. Correlation analysis confirms all four hypotheses. This indicates that business/IT-alignment and supply chain integration are indeed related. (aut. ref.)


The work described in this thesis is divided into four sections:1. The electrochemical reduction of fluorocarbon derivatives has been investigated. A number of systems have been studied analytically (using cyclic volt amine try) ; whilst preparatively a range of compounds have been synthesised, including semi-conducting polymers and four-memberedperfluorocyclic products. 2. The use of sodium amalgam as an electromimetic medium to facilitate reduction of various fluorocarbon substrates has been studied. A series of volatile cyclic and acyclic F-dienes have been prepared from F-alkenes in good yield and conversion. The chemistry of these F-dienes is then described: 3. Both mono- and bi- functional nucleophiles have been reacted, giving a range of novel substitution products. 4. A number of free radical and cycloaddition reactions have been attempted without success. However, the complexation of decamethylferrocene as a metallocene one electron donor, with various F-alkenes of low reduction potential, has allowed a radical anion of a perfluorocyclic-diene to be stabilized and fully characterized for the first time.


Utilizing student-centered pedagogy, this case study explores an increasingly prominent and instructive addition to traditional academic coursework - the field study experience. This is particularly true in the arena of environmental education where students learn best by experiencing environmental problems first-hand and then interacting with those involved. From a teaching methods and styles perspective, then, this paper espouses a mix of experiential and active learning strategies. The central message of this essay, however, is curriculum-based, to report on an engaging two-week field trip to examine sustainable development in the Dominican Republic. From this report, the analysis highlights student feedback mechanisms, such as formal class journals, traditional course evaluations, and informal oral consultations with students, both during and after the field study as the basis to offer suggestions more broadly on how to design and implement a field study course.


Any way of making the manufacturing industry more efficient is always of great interest due to the contribution of manufacturing to the society. A major asset within manufacturing is information about manufacturing systems, as a base when making decisions. The most essential information within manufac-turing industry would be the manufacturing systems capability information. That information would include information about the resource, used process and produced product. Although important, manufacturing systems capability models are rare, and the information seems to be challenging to model. The purpose of this thesis is to model manufacturing systems capability with focus on the machining industry. In order to model manufacturing system capability, existing information standards has been used as a frame of reference. Some information standards have been evaluated on industrial cases and sometimes modified to serve a specific purpose. The information standards have been evaluated to first separately represent product, process and resource. Thereafter have the infor-mation standards been evaluated to represent all three domains together. ISO10303-214 (AP214) has been modified and evaluated to represent any process within manufacturing. The state of the product and the state of used manufacturing system are described and connected to every relevant process step. AP214 with ISO10303-224 (AP224) has been used together with a developed method, to describe manufacturing system capability within machining. Within the limitations of AP224 geometrical feature description, the capability of a manufacturing system can be defined and connected to a product description. Using similar feature based description for the capability and the product description, products manufacturability can be evaluated. Also ISO14649 and ISO10303-238, both also known as STEP-NC, are treated in this thesis as enablers to describe manufacturing system capability. STEP-NC is shown to describe manufacturing systems within machining where the product, process and resource are collectively described. In order to describe capability and evaluate products manufacturability, STEP-NC has to be extended from describing/modelling one configuration of a manufacturing system to describe a set of configurations.


Concentration and centralization of capital are also expressed in the transfer and appropriation by companies of values that were created in other organizations and social contexts. This reflects the rising power of finance capital and the imposition of a global rent regime. The paper presents the dynamics of the concentration and centralization of capital in the combined pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Oligopolistic rivalry is a key process. Despite of processes of vertical and horizontal disintegration the large oligopolistic rivals maintain or even extend their power. They are able to enforce different forms of rent income. However, the large pharmaceutical companies face some fundamental challenges. Further acquisitions are likely to happen in near future.


Integrating single molecule force spectroscopy with fluorescence-based techniques allows the manipulation of an enzyme with a periodic stretching and relaxation protocol while simultaneously monitoring its catalytic activity. After releasing the stretching force we observe a higher probability for enzymatic activity at a time of 1.7 s. A detailed theoretical analysis reveals that the relaxation from the force-induced enzyme conformation to the observed active conformation follows a cascade reaction with several steps and a free energy difference of at least 8 k(B)T. Our study clearly points out the direct influence of force on enzymatic activity and opens up a new way to study and manipulate (bio)catalytic reactions at the single molecule level.


Abstract This paper examines the utility and efficacy of Texas's legislation of victim offender mediated dialogue (VOMD) as a means of seeking justice for victims of crime. Conclusions are informed by the historical application of VOMD in cases of serious violent crime, exploration of the theoretical and value bases of such a policy, practical implementation of the policy to date, and preliminary evaluation of the resultant programs. This author recommends serious, thoughtful consideration of the transferability of Texas's VOMD legislation to other states.


ABSTRACT
 Cirripedes of the superorder Acrothoracica are normally found as epizoic borings on marine calcareous substrates. Armatoglyptes taiwanus (Utinomi, 1950) is a lithoglyptid acrothoracican barnacle reported from different parts of the Indo-Pacific. Recent studies have demonstrated phylogenetic breaks between the Indian and Pacific Oceans populations in widespread Indo-Pacific marine organisms due to isolation events during the Pleistocene glaciations. It is possible that A. taiwanus represents a cryptic species complex in the Indo-Pacific, which the previous studies have failed to identify from morphology alone. In the present study, we analyzed the morphology and the sequence divergence of the 12S rDNA of A. taiwanus from the Indo-Pacific region, including Taiwan and the Philippines in the Pacific, and Phuket Island (Thailand) and the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean, to test whether A. taiwanus is a cryptic species across its geographical range. The results showed that A. taiwanus has a homogeneous population structure in Taiwan, the Philippines, and Phuket Island (sequence divergence < 1%). Specimens from the Mozambique Channel, although morphologically similar to A. taiwanus, have a greater sequence divergence of 9.4% from A. taiwanus in the Pacific, and thus appeared to represent a new species, described herein as Armatoglyptes flexuosus n. sp. Although both species are morphologically similar, A. flexuosus n. sp. has more strongly bent/recurved posterior processes of the opercular bars and feebler armament of the orificial knob than does A. taiwanus from Taiwan (type locality). Phylogenetic analysis showed that populations of A. flexuosus n. sp. from the Mozambique Channel and A. taiwanus from the Pacific region are indeed closely related. Populations of their common ancestor may have become isolated and underwent speciation during the Pleistocene glaciations.


Background: Recent studies reported lower androgen levels in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) hospitalized patients which linked to a worse prognosis. However, these studies were conducted in patients with active disease and long-term consequences are still not yet known. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the late impact of COVID-19 pneumonia on testosterone levels in late recovered, post-hospitalized males. Methods: We enrolled 55 COVID-19 pneumonia-recovered, post-hospitalized male patients after an average of 60 days of discharge from the hospital and 40 age, body mass index (BMI), and waist-matched participants enrolled in this case-control study. The total testosterone cut-off point was set as 300 ng/dL and the cut-off point for luteinizing hormone (LH) was set as 9.4 IU/L. Results: Testosterone deficiency prevalence was 50.9%, and testosterone deficiency was mainly hypogonadotropic (60.7%). Late recovered COVID-19 pneumonia patients had significantly lower total testosterone and calculated free testosterone and higher testosterone to LH ratio and prevalence of testosterone deficiency in comparison with the control group. Testosterone-deficient COVID-19 pneumonia patients had significantly higher anthropometric parameters such as waist circumference and BMI, higher Charlson Comorbidity Index, and longer hospitalization time in comparison with testosterone-sufficient patients. Visceral obesity estimated with waist circumference was a significant predictor for total testosterone levels in COVID patients in regression analysis. Conclusion: Late recovered post-hospitalized COVID-19 pneumonia patients still have lower androgen levels and a higher prevalence of testosterone deficiency in comparison with matched control participants. Moreover, visceral obesity was the most significant predictor of low testosterone levels in recovered COVID-19 patients. J Endocrinol Metab. 2021;11(3-4):76-82 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/jem749


The emergence of compact GPS systems and the establishment of open data initiatives has resulted in widespread availability of spatial data for many urban centres. These data can be leveraged to develop data-driven intelligent resource allocation systems for urban issues such as policing, sanitation, and transportation. We employ techniques from Bayesian non-parametric statistics to develop a process which captures a common characteristic of urban spatial datasets. Specifically, our new spatial process framework models events which occur repeatedly at discrete spatial points, the number and locations of which are unknown a priori. We develop a representation of our spatial process which facilitates posterior simulation, resulting in an interpretable and computationally tractable model. The framework's superiority over both empirical grid-based models and Dirichlet process mixture models is demonstrated by fitting, interpreting, and comparing models of graffiti prevalence for both downtown Vancouver and Manhattan.


Clinicians attempting to diagnose low back pain (LBP) may use medical imaging to identify mechanical initiators such as disc bulging, protrusion and herniation leading to nerve impingement or other structural concerns. However current understanding of spinal posture is based on studies conducted in the relaxed supine position and/or with loading limited to bodyweight. However, some patients only have lower back pain during activities of daily living where significant changes in spinal posture occur and loading increases beyond that typical of imaging tests conducted in supine positions. This study investigates the differences between MRI images obtained in supine and standing positions, with or without additional loading to determine mechanical initiators which may be missed in patients who present pain during activity but not when at rest. Lumbar lordotic curvature was investigated using MRI imaging in 10 asymptomatic male subjects in three conditions: supine, standing and standing plus 12kg additional load. A number of key changes were seen in lordotic curvature between positions, 12 kg loading in a standing position resulted in a 17-42% increase in lordotic angle in the L1/L2 through L4/L5 discs when compared with the standing position (p > 0.05) and up to 71% increase compared with relaxed supine position (p = 0.05). L5/S1 lordotic angle was 21% lower in the loaded group relative to the supine baseline (p = 0.05) but was unchanged relative to the standing position. Pelvic angle between the S1 vertebrae and the horizontal plane was not significantly altered by MRI position. These results suggest that clinicians should be aware that MRI scans taken in the supine position may not indicate mechanical factors which cause low back pain during activities of daily living. Further investigation is required to determine whether loaded MRI positions are able to differentiate between degenerative changes within asymptomatic and symptomatic patients.


Attractive and repulsive guidance cues direct neuronal growth cones as they explore their environment. Ligand-receptor interactions at the cell surface transduce signals to the growth cone cytoskeleton to facilitate such pathfinding. However, the molecular details of how this occurs have not been clear. For example, secreted and transmembrane forms of semaphorins elicit a repulsive response in growth cones through a receptor called plexin. Terman et al. report that plexin may modulate actin dynamics through its association with MICAL, a cytoplasmic oxidoreductase. In developing Drosophila, MICAL is expressed in the central nervous system and is present in neuronal cell bodies, axons, and growth cones. Loss-of-function MICAL mutant flies showed axon-guidance defects similar to those seen in semaphorin and plexin mutant flies. This defect was rescued upon expression of wild-type MICAL in the MICAL mutant embryos. The NH2-terminus of MICAL resembles a flavoprotein monooxygenase that catalyzes oxidation-reduction reactions. Expression of a protein harboring a mutation within this domain also caused similar axon-guidance defects. When cultured rat neurons, which also express MICAL, were treated with a monooxygenase inhibitor, growth cone repulsion normally induced by the presence of semaphorin was inhibited. These observations suggest that plexin may signal through MICAL, stimulating a redox signaling mechanism to regulate actin or proteins that modulate actin. Relevant MICAL substrates remain to be identified. J. R. Terman, T. Mao, R. J. Pasterkamp, H.-H. Yu, A.L. Kolodkin, MICALs, a Family of Conserved Flavoprotein Oxidoreductases, Function in Plexin-Mediated Axonal Repulsion. Cell 109, 887-900 (2002). [Online Journal]


This department has been specifically created to include findings of special significance and problem areas of subtle nuances in tourism research. Insightful contributions presenting the state-of-the-art preferably from the developing societies will be appreciated. It will also encourage scholars and authors to think against the grain, probing the consistency of theoretical notions and research trends whose heuristic value is all too often taken for granted. For details contact Section Editor, Professor Julio Aramberri, Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA. e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


For web developers building rich web and mobile applications, standards-based CSS3 offers powerful advantages over traditional Flash-based approaches - and since Apple's immensely popular iPad and iPhone don't support Flash, moving to CSS3 has become even more urgent. However, most CSS3 guides focus primarily on the basics, frustrating web developers who want to do sophisticated work. Learning CSS3 Animations and Transitions is the first book focused entirely on creating production-quality rich animations and transitions with CSS3. Leading web development trainer Alexis Goldstein covers everything web developers need to know, teaching through solid examples that help web professionals build their skills one step at a time. Readers will learn how to: * Create 2D transforms that serve as the foundation for CSS3 animations * Use transitions to make changes come alive * Master essential keyframing techniques * Combine transitions, transforms, and parallax scrolling in immersive web experiences * Transform in 3D, and animate 3D transforms * Creating increasingly complex and Flash-style animations * Build powerfully effective interactive infographics with CSS3 and HTML5 * And much more...


By 1935 Adolf Hitler had silenced most politically suspect organizations and publications in Germany. Among those targeted were operations associated with political parties, labor unions, socialism, and unco-operative or undesirable ethnic groups and religions viewed as potential rivals for the German soul or as underminers of the racial and cultural purity of the German Volk. Since Nazism claimed to represent the best interests of the German nation, few groups professing differing world views-this included the Catholic Church-escaped suspicion. While the Nazis lacked the political confidence to obliterate the Catholic Church, their contempt for the Church as an ideological rival was obvious. Nazi moral and political challenges to the Church caused anguished divisions among the German clergy, some choosing to oppose Nazism as the Third Reich systematically extinguished most of the Catholic organizations and publications, others adopting a more accommodationist stance, and still others advocating collaboration.1 In this context, the survival of the Jesuit-sponsored periodical Stimmen der Zeit into 1941-under increasingly tightening government scrutiny-is instructive. Founded in 1865 as Stimmen aus MariaLaach, Stimmen der Zeit served as a forum for Catholic scholarship and a Catholic understanding of current intellectual trends, social, political, philosophical, theological, historical, and even scientific ideas. In 1915, Stimmen aus Maria-Laach had become Stimmen der Zeit, but the general format changed little.2 Even more remarkable than Stimmen der Zeit's survival at all in Nazi Germany was the fact that it regularly dared to question Nazi ideology after 1933. While the editorial staff of Stimmen der Zeit did face police harassment and ideological attacks, only once did it suffer serious official sanctions before its final termination in 1941.3 Very few overtly Catholic journals-much less those remaining defiant of the new Nazi world order-survived Hitler's Gleichschaltung. But besides Stimmen der Zeit, there were a few, most notably Hochland. Like Stimmen der Zeit, Hochland enjoyed a prestigious international reputation, employed a remarkably similar set of strategies and approaches, and survived into 1941.4 Stimmen der Zeit's editorial offices were located in Munich, and among its staff and contributors were several of the Munich Jesuits whom Hitler's police watched carefully: Father Anton Koch once faced charges for the contents of a sermon; Father Max Pribilla's book, Furchtet Euch nicht: Grundsatzliche Erwagungen zur kirchlichen Lage was seized from Munich bookstores; authorities censored Father Peter Lippert's texts from a 1937 radio Mass; and Father Erich Przywara was heckled and egged at an address he gave at the University of Munich in 1935.5 Father Alfred Delp, who was executed in 1945 for his alleged involvement in the July, 1944, bomb plot against Hitler, contributed several articles to Stimmen der Zeit during the Nazi years; he was the only regular contributor of Stimmen der Zeit to suffer Nazi execution.6 Delp was at best rather peripherally connected to the White Rose resistance group, whose activities at the University of Munich drew serious public attention in 1943. Delp also became a member of the Kreisau Circle which planned and carried out the July, 1944, bomb plot, although little evidence suggests he was involved in the plot itself or even knew of it until after the fact. In any event, Delp's activities, alleged or otherwise, had a negligible influence on the fate of Stimmen der Zeit, since his traceable involvement with both groups seems not to have predated 1942, after the journal was no longer being published.7 Stimmen der Zeit's survival as an ideological opponent to Nazism was rooted to a large extent in what it did not do. First, the Jesuit contributors to Stimmen der Zeit generally avoided direct confrontation with the Reich government, rarely openly criticizing Reich policies and practices. …


In this article, we analyze forensic warning signals that appeared in Enron's financial statements in the years 1996-2001, in which Enron's revenues increased over 1000%, from $13.3 to $138.7 billion in 4 years and 9 months. Enron's phenomenal revenue growth resulted in it achieving the number 6 rank on the Fortune Global 500, surpassing the world's largest companies, including General Electric, Royal Dutch/Shell, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota and ChevronTexaco. Such growth attracted the attention of Wall Street, the media and heads of state, propelling Enron into the class of Fortune's most innovative and admired companies. Inexplicably, when analysts and business writers started digging deeper into Enron's remarkable ascendancy and its financial statements, the realization that Enron's profitability was microscopic compared to its revenues meant that the quality of its earnings was non-existent. As Enron raced ahead in revenues through perilous waters without the requisite number of lifeboats in the form of adequate corporate controls and a compensation system that rewarded dealmakers and executives lavishly with cash upfront for ill-conceived business ventures and phantom cash flow. CEO Jeff Skilling's abrupt resignation in August, 2001 accelerated the decline of Enron's stock price, resulting in bankruptcy at the end of the 3rd quarter of 2001. Indeed, since executive compensation is strongly correlated to company revenue size, Lay's and Skilling's obsessive compensation driven culture without appropriate governance and controls was a determinative factor in Enron's ultimate collapse.


Significance Refractory organic matter found in volatile-rich asteroidal materials essentially comprise the elements C, H, O, N, and S, which are thought to be important building blocks for life. Characterizing the origin(s) of these organics thus constitutes a key step to constrain the origin of life on Earth and appraise the habitability potential of other worlds. However, how and where these organics formed are still highly debated. In this study, we have determined the oxygen isotope composition of refractory organics from two families of carbonaceous chondrites. These data suggest that these organics formed in the nascent Solar System, possibly through chemical reactions occurring in the disk surrounding the young Sun. Dust grains of organic matter were the main reservoir of C and N in the forming Solar System and are thus considered to be an essential ingredient for the emergence of life. However, the physical environment and the chemical mechanisms at the origin of these organic grains are still highly debated. In this study, we report high-precision triple oxygen isotope composition for insoluble organic matter isolated from three emblematic carbonaceous chondrites, Orgueil, Murchison, and Cold Bokkeveld. These results suggest that the O isotope composition of carbonaceous chondrite insoluble organic matter falls on a slope 1 correlation line in the triple oxygen isotope diagram. The lack of detectable mass-dependent O isotopic fractionation, indicated by the slope 1 line, suggests that the bulk of carbonaceous chondrite organics did not form on asteroidal parent bodies during low-temperature hydrothermal events. On the other hand, these O isotope data, together with the H and N isotope characteristics of insoluble organic matter, may indicate that parent bodies of different carbonaceous chondrite types largely accreted organics formed locally in the protosolar nebula, possibly by photochemical dissociation of C-rich precursors.


The impact of psychosocial problems on the development of psychopathology (depression/anxiety) among university students is an area that greatly remains unexplored leading to insufficient assessment of the mental health status of the students. Consequently, students' psychosocial problems and psychopathology if left untreated and unchecked, they may severely interfere in their everyday functioning and manifest compromised social cohesion, mental health and wellbeing, with the increased likelihood of future instability and conflict. The aim of the study was to address a broader understanding of a multidimensional aspect of psychosocial problems to the development of psychopathology (anxiety, depression) for university students in Uganda. It was hypothesized that there is no relationship between exposure to psychosocial problems and the development of psychopathology. This cross-sectional study was a secondary analysis of data from the PhD study on development and validation of an instrument to measure psychosocial problems of university students. The University Students Evaluation of Psychosocial Problems (USEPP) instrument was used to evaluate psychosocial problems. The two symptoms of psychopathology denoting common mental disorders were measured using the Hopkins Symptom Checklist 10 (HSCL-10). Regression analysis was performed to establish the relationship between psychosocial problems and psychopathology. The findings of this study revealed that students having psychosocial problems were significantly related to the development of psychopathology. The findings highlight to the need to put intervention measures to address the students' psychosocial problems and mental health disorders by putting counselling infrastructure in institutions of learning to address the mental health needs of the students.


Background: The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) includes key components of public speaking and public performance on an arithmetic test that produce significant subjective stress. Biochemical and hormonal correlates of stress include measures of salivary cortisol which reflects activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and changes in immunoglobulin (IgA) response. However, stress studies suggest variability in the IgA. The studies presented compared these responses using the TSST and a computer multitasking exercise to contrast mental stress with physical work.
Methods: The first study evaluated the effects of the TSST in a before and after design contrasting Spielberger state anxiety levels against salivary cortisol (ELISA: Immunodiagnostic Systems)
and IgA (Immunoturbidometric assay: DAKO) measured before and after the social stress procedure. The second utilised a similar before and after design and the same measures with the addition of the NASA TLX workload index to compare mental and physical workload, in a balanced order on different days, when undertaking a computer based multitasking procedure involving an arithmetic component, together with continuous monitoring of 3 other tasks including auditory tone discrimination, continuous visual monitoring, and memory: DISS). Physical exercise utilised a cycle ergometer monitoring heart rate to achieve 65-75% of aerobic threshold. These 2 tests were undertaken in private test rooms. The 2 studies involved 12 (TSST) or 13 (multitasking/exercise) student participants (both males and females age range 19-37 years) who were paid £10 on completion.
Results: Analyses based on Non parametric ANOVA followed by paired comparisons indicated that the most dramatic effects were seen with TSST including significant elevations in state anxiety on test completion relative to pre-test state scores and trait anxiety. Significant increases in salivary cortisol were also seen post-test as were significant decreases in IgA levels. Increases in state anxiety were also seen with the DISS multitasking test that contrasted with a trend for reduced state anxiety after exercise in comparison to pre-test levels. A slight suppression in both cortisol and IgA levels were seen after both DISS and exercise, achieving significance with DISS but not after exercise. NASA TLX clearly distinguished DISS multitasking from exercise with mental and physical workload contrasts.
Conclusions: A comparison of the social stress (TSST) with the privately undertaken multitasking procedure indicates that the social stress had a larger impact on subjective stress and reflected in elevated HPA activity (cortisol) as well as a suppression in immune response (IgA). However, although the privately undertaken multitasking procedure was perceived as stressful this was not reflected in the level of HPA activation, but produced some supression for cortisol and IgA. Physical stress was associates with mild anticipatory anxiety amongst student volunteers and a small, but expected stress reduction/relaxation response post exercise. However, this was not directly reflected in either cortisol or IgA levels.


"Security Access in Wireless Local Area Networks - From Architecture and Protocols to Realization" deals with the method and technology of the WLAN security architecture, design and analysis of security protocols for WLAN, and WLAN security management. The book is intended for researchers in wireless communication, electrical and computer engineering, and for graduate students. The authors are with Xidian University, P. R. China, where Dr. Jianfeng Ma is a professor of computer science and the director of the Key Laboratory of Computer Networks and Information Security (Ministry of Education).


The political/administrative regime in Turkey has been radically transformed with the Constitutional Referendum held on 16 April, 2017. The new initiative nominalized a parliamentarian system which has been developed since 1876 with ups and downs, a constitutional legal order which came into being and developed with the Republic and the principle of the separation of powers brought by the 1961 Constitution. The system foreseen by the new Constitution was even beyond this: extreme concentration of power within the execution itself. In the Presidential Government System, the role of ministers turned into ordinarily appointed civil servants and they have lost their ability to assemble regularly, make decisions, prepare draft laws and submit them to the Parliament as a council. The administrative mentality in Presidential Government System does not rely on the principle of merit, instead, the relations in Presidential Government System are characterized with clientelism, nepotism and ideological affinities. The primary aim of this paper is to draw a framework for the transformation in public economic/public finance administration model and to do a critical analyze of the extent to which a monocratic model of administration can be a functional and to what extent it can remain outside of intra institutional conflicts. The main conclusion of this paper will be to state that Turkey's priority is nothing other than to change this third world presidency regime and its administrative structure.


In this paper, a DFIG power conversion system is simulated and vector controlled for improving power quality of the grid while injecting the required active power of the system. The system model proposed in this paper is developed in the dedicated power electronics and system simulation tool, PSCAD/EMTDC. The model also includes dynamic wind speed fluctuations and control of a soft starter, enabling simulation of the power quality characteristics of the wind turbine. Based on the simulation results, it is proved that the proposed DFIG is capable of simultaneous capturing maximum power of wind energy with fluctuating wind speed and improving power quality, that are achieved by cancelling the most significant and troublesome harmonics of the utility grid. Dynamic power factor correction and reactive power control are the other two significant features of this technology.


As the very first session proclaimed, the Star Athletica case has not been a model of total clarity on the Supreme Court's part. I'm going to explore that proposition. I will go through some basic elements of the copyright statute, and will then apply those rules to several examples. The Copyright Act sets out the category of pictorial, graphic, and sculptural ("PGS") works, whose statutory definition includes applied art. That was the subject matter at issue in Star Athletica. The statute also provides that PGS works "shall include works of artistic craftsmanship insofar as their form but not their mechanical or utilitarian aspects are concerned." "Works of artistic craftsmanship" has been a somewhat overlooked category, but I think, as a result of Star Athletica and also the pending amendments of the Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices, that this category will receive a lot more attention. It does not, however, necessarily follow that the meaning of that category will be any clearer than the standard for what is a PGS work.


Carpal tunnel syndrome comprises potentially disabling sensory and/or motor symptoms in the hand. Around 1 in 10 people develop carpal tunnel syndrome at some point, and it is particularly common in women (Hughes 2007), with one study in the UK indicating an incidence of 139.4 cases per 100,000 women per year and 67.2 cases per 100,000 men (Bland 2003). The condition carries considerable implications for employment and healthcare costs (Bland 2007).


The agricultural sector accounts for two thirds of nitrogen losses in Flanders, Belgium. Since 1991 both the government and the farmers have been taking measures to reduce the nitrogen surplus. Initially, the manure policy was aimed at distributing the manure surplus equally across Flanders. At the same time, the growth of livestock was stopped by a strict licensing policy, which required "command and control" measures. In recent years, the policy has switched to the use of individual target commitments by farmers. The Flemish manure policy will be tightened even more as a result of international pressures. An ex ante evaluation of possible policy options was carried out using three different scenarios spread out until 2010 (Business As Usual, Additional Measures, and Sustainable Development). To do this, a sector-economic, regionalized, environmental, comparative static, partial equilibrium, mathematical programming model of the Flemish agriculture was developed. The nitrogen emission into the agricultural soil was calculated by means of a regional soil balance. European targets can only be reached with manure processing, reduced fertilizer usage, and a strong reduction of intensive livestock breeding activities. The atmospheric deposition of nitrogen compounds will strongly decrease in 2010 if additional measures are taken. This will also result in a strong reduction of nitrous oxide emissions.


Sampling inference methods are computationally difficult to scale for many models in part because global dependencies can reduce opportunities for parallel computation. Without strict conditional independence structure among variables, standard Gibbs sampling theory requires sample updates to be performed sequentially, even if dependence between most variables is not strong. Empirical work has shown that some models can be sampled effectively by going "Hogwild" and simply running Gibbs updates in parallel with only periodic global communication, but the successes and limitations of such a strategy are not well understood.

As a step towards such an understanding, we study the Hogwild Gibbs sampling strategy in the context of Gaussian distributions. We develop a framework which provides convergence conditions and error bounds along with simple proofs and connections to methods in numerical linear algebra. In particular, we show that if the Gaussian precision matrix is generalized diagonally dominant, then any Hogwild Gibbs sampler, with any update schedule or allocation of variables to processors, yields a stable sampling process with the correct sample mean.