ABSTRACT The aim of the paper is to analyse regional growth factors in Central and Eastern European Countries in the pre- and post-crisis era. The comparison is focused on core (metropolitan) and non-core (non-metropolitan) regions. The study found that the development processes of the analysed groups of regions were in many respects similar. Achieving a high level of development in the context of post-socialist transformation was possible mainly owing to exogenous factors such as the influx of foreign direct investment (FDI) and multimodal transport accessibility. In the case of endogenous factors, the number of small- and medium-sized enterprises per capita was of cardinal importance for a high level of development, but it was no guarantee of fast growth dynamics in non-core regions. The main differences between the core and non-core regions included the role of human capital and migrations as metropolitan regions represented growth poles which trained qualified specialists and served as destinations for migrants from non-core regions. However, the share of people with tertiary education played an important role in the development process of non-core regions. The crisis strengthened the role of exogenous growth factors, that is, the role of FDI inflow as well as the role of EU funds.


Background: Routine outcome monitoring (ROM) has been implemented across a range of addiction treatment services, settings and organisations. Mutual support groups are a notable exception. Innovative solutions are needed. SMART Track is a purpose built smartphone app designed to capture ROM data and provide tailored feedback to adults attending Australian SMART Recovery groups for addictive behaviour(s). Objective: Details regarding the formative stage of app development is essential, but often neglected. Improved consideration of the end-user is vital for curtailing app attrition and enhancing engagement. This paper provides a pragmatic example of how principles embedded in published frameworks can be operationalised to address these priorities during the design and development of the SMART Track app. Methods: Three published frameworks for creating digital health technologies ("Person-Based Approach," "BIT" Model and IDEAS framework) were integrated and applied across two stages of research to inform the development, design and content of SMART Track. These frameworks were chosen to ensure that SMART Track was informed by the needs and preferences of the end-user ("Person-Based"); best practise recommendations for mHealth development ("BIT" Model) and a collaborative, iterative development process between the multi-disciplinary research team, app developers and end-users (IDEAS framework). Results: Stage one of the research process generated in-depth knowledge to inform app development, including a comprehensive set of aims (clinical, research/organisation, and usage); clear articulation of the target behaviour (self-monitoring of recovery related behaviours and experiences); relevant theory (self-determination and social control); appropriate behavioural strategies (e.g., behaviour change taxonomy and process motivators) and key factors that may influence engagement (e.g., transparency, relevance and trust). These findings were synthesised into guiding principles that were applied during stage two in an iterative approach to app design, content and development. Conclusions: This paper contributes new knowledge on important person-centred and theoretical considerations that underpin a novel ROM and feedback app for people with addictive behaviour(s). Although person-centred design and best-practise recommendations were employed, further research is needed to determine whether this leads to improved usage outcomes. Clinical Trial Registration: Pilot Trial: http://anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=377336.


Isolates of saprophytic fungi (n=209) were evaluated for biological control potential against Botrytis cinerea using in vitro dual plate and necrotic grape leaf disc assays. Interrupted wetness periods were introduced during the 40-day assay to select for disease suppressive saprophytic fungi with a high tolerance to fluctuating dry and wet periods. Leaf disc assays were highly reproducible, with relative rankings of the test isolates being similar over three assays. In the absence of antagonists, B. cinerea sporulation increased during the 40-day incubation to cover over 90% of the leaf disc area in conidiophores. However, in the presence of antagonists, B. cinerea sporulation was heavily reduced, with the top seven isolates having less than 10% coverage relative to the control. Thirteen isolates representing four genera, Alternaria spp., Epicoccum spp., Trichoderma spp. and Ulocladium spp., have been identified for further laboratory testing prior to selection of a limited number of isolates for field evaluation.


We present a method of producing ultrashort pulses of circularly polarized extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light through high-harmonic generation (HHG). HHG is a powerful tool for generating bright laser-like beams of EUV and soft x-ray light with ultrashort pulse durations, which are important for many spectroscopic and imaging applications in the materials, chemical, and nano sciences. Historically HHG was restricted to linear polarization; however, recent advances are making it possible to precisely control the polarization state of the emitted light simply by adjusting the driving laser beams and geometry. In this work, we gain polarization control by combining two spatially separated and orthogonally linearly polarized HHG sources to produce a far-field beam with a uniform intensity distribution, but with a spatially varying ellipticity that ranges from linearly to fully circularly polarized. This spatially varying ellipticity was characterized using EUV magnetic circular dichroism, which demonstrates that a high degree of circularity is achieved, reaching almost 100% near the magnetic M-edge of cobalt. The spatial modulation of the polarization facilitates measurements of circular dichroism, enabling us to measure spectrally resolved magnetic circular dichroism without the use of an EUV spectrometer, thereby avoiding the associated losses in both flux and spatial resolution, which could enable hyperspectral imaging of chiral systems. Through numerical simulations, we also show the generality of this scheme, which can be applied with either the discrete harmonic orders generated by many-cycle pulses or the high-harmonic supercontinua generated by few-cycle driving laser pulses. Therefore, this technique provides a promising route for the production of bright isolated attosecond pulses with circular polarization that can probe ultrafast spin dynamics in materials.


In their Bachelor degree, Early Childhood Pre-service teachers undertake art(s)making and online journaling (blogging) to chronicle the process and thinking through the problem of themselves in relation to their world. They express and challenge their own thoughts and ideas regarding their daily lives and those of the children in their future classrooms. The article is presented as a Case Study with the outcomes of the process of the assessment task and the resulting artwork through two student experiences from different cultural backgrounds, who produced artworks using different processes and deep reflections about their lives. The sharing of the reflections through the blogs produced learning within the class as other students came to understand and see life and culture from other perspectives. Students should be given the opportunity to share their histories and experiences so that deeper understanding can occur for a more tolerant approach in the early childhood classroom.


This title details the culture, weapons, armour and training of the elite samurai warrior class in the fascinating Age of Battles period (1550-1600). This was a period of vital importance not only because of the political effects of the chaos but also due to the changes in warfare that occurred. In 1542 the Portuguese introduced the matchlock musket into Japanese warfare, and this book traces the effect that this important innovation had on the samurai. Life outside the field of battle is also examined, making this an unmissable book for those interested in this brave warrior caste.


Aquaculture is one of the most resource-efficient and sustainable ways to produce animal protein. The Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that cultivated aquatic species will provide around 53% of the world's seafood supply by 2030. Further growth of intensive farmed aquatic species may be limited by a shortage of feed resources. The aquaculture sector therefore needs to intensify its search for alternative ingredients based on renewable natural resources. A significant increase in production will require an accelerated transition in technology and production systems, better use of natural available resources, development of high-quality alternative feed resources and exploitation of available space. The present review discusses the urgent need to identify appropriate alternative ingredients for a sustainable future salmonid production. We describe and evaluate the most promising marine ingredients, including low-trophic species (mesopelagic fish, zooplankton, poly-chaetes, macroalgae and crustaceans), novel microbial ingredients (bacteria, yeast and microalgae), insects (black soldier fly, yellow meal worm and crickets), animal by-products (poultry meal, meat and bone meal, blood meal and hydrolysed feather meal) and by-products from other commercial productions (trimmings and blood). Furthermore, we discuss the available volumes and need for new processing technologies and refining methods to ensure commercial production of nutritionally healthy ingredients. The essential production steps and considerations for future development of sustainable and safe seafood production are also discussed.


In this article, we show that the risk premiums associated with key asset allocation risk factors often change significantly over varying stages of the stock market and business cycle. Their findings point out the dangers for portfolio managers setting allocation targets assuming factor risk premiums are constant over time. The findings of this article have implications for investors using stock market sector analysis or business cycle strategies. The results also suggest further research into modeling risk premiums conditioned on economic phases.


The free volatiles, as well as those released from their glycosidically bound forms by acid or enzyme hydrolysis, have been analyzed for Chardonnay juices from three successive vintages. One hundred eighty compounds were identified. Twenty-eight of these have not been previously reported as grape components. More than seventy percent of the total concentration of volatile secondary metabolites comprised thirteen-carbon norisoprenoids, and these were mainly observed in the acid- and the glycosidase enzyme-released fractions. Benzene derivatives accounted for a further twenty percent of the total volatile concentration, while monoterpenes made up only five percent of the total. Low concentrations of volatiles, apparently derived from primary metabolites or from chlorophyll degradation, were also observed. Volatiles with likely sensory significance were found mainly in the acid hydrolysates. Pathways to these compounds are discussed.


This article explores a series of hypotheses regarding environmental law scholarship based on an empirical review. The article examines over a thirty year time horizon such diverse aspects of environmental law scholarship as the sheer amount of scholarship, evolutionary trends in the topics for scholarly inquiry, number of environmental law courses and environmental law professors, proliferation of environmental law journals, relative rates of publication of environmental law scholarship in the nation's most prestigious law reviews, and the identity and relative ranking of those law reviews that published the articles widely viewed as the "best." The article concludes that important lessons about the nature of environmental law scholarship lurk within these numbers. The article offers some of those lessons by making a series of findings and then proffering deliberately provocative, albeit speculative, explanations for them. What commences as a seemingly quantitative undertaking ultimately becomes a more qualitative assessment of legal education and what may be too often missing in current environmental legal scholarship. Perhaps one of the more surprising (or at least unanticipated) finding is that certain prestigious law review, most notably the Harvard Law Review and until quite recently the University of Chicago Law Review, have historically published significantly fewer environmental law articles than have their peer law reviews or law reviews in general. The paucity of published scholarship stands in sharp contrast to environmental law's remarkable and dramatic emergence during that same time period. The final part of the article proposes a series of explanatory theories for the varied findings, including the Harvard Law Review's remarkably low rate of publication of environmental law scholarship. Interestingly, there is reason to believe that the latter phenomenon reflects the Harvard Law School's implicit signaling to its student body of scholarly value (or the lack thereof) through the law school's curricular offerings and the areas of its own faculty expertise in teaching and scholarship.


In the Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP) a test method for identifying D-cracking susceptible aggregates in approximately eight days was developed to replace the widely used but time-consuming rapid freezing-and-thawing test using ASTM C 666 test methods. The basic assumption in this new method is that the hydraulic pressure expected in concrete aggregates during freezing and thawing can be simulated by subjecting aggregates, submerged in water, to high pressures and the extreme rapid release of the pressure. The percent fracture, percent mass loss, and hydraulic fracture index are the parameters calculated as a result of the test, which is commonly called the Washington Hydraulic Fracture Test (WHFT). A number of states have conducted tests using this apparatus on the same aggregate source and have found a scatter in the results. These reports prompted research on a newer modified apparatus that accounts for this variability by allowing for a larger specimen and/or sample size and also introducing a computer interface. The WHFT 97 is completely automated in terms of controlling the testing procedure for each respective ten cycles of operation, and requires minimal manual labor. Twenty-one different aggregate sources, with different degrees of freezing and thawing susceptibility, were tested according to the WHFT test procedure on both machines (the original WHFT 94 and the WHFT 97) to establish a correlation, if possible, between the results of the proposed WHFT test and those reported for the ASTM C 666 Method B as modified by the Illinois Department of Transportation (ILDOT). In addition, a petrographic analysis was conducted on each aggregate source in order to determine its percentage of air voids, pore size, and pore size distribution. A direct correlation was not established; hence, the test data were compared using the pass/fail criteria to establish the potential of the UIC Modified WHFT 97 as a screening test. The failure criteria presented by the percent fracture (2%) from the WHFT 97 test and 0.060% maximum allowable expansion from the ILDOT freezing and thawing test were used. This comparison indicated that 67% of the test results on the WHFT 94 and 76% on the WHFT 97 were identified correctly based on the ILDOT criteria. All the aggregate types (dolomite, gravel, ACBF slag) were successfully classified using these failure modes with the exception of one aggregate type, limestone. It appears, based on this comparison, that the WHFT 97 test may have the potential to be used as a screening test prior to the ASTM freezing and thawing test. In addition, the petrographic investigation showed potential in rating limestone aggregate as well as determining if other testing is required to identify D-cracking susceptible aggregate.


OBJECTIVE
Our goals were to determine how often family physicians incorporate smoking cessation efforts into routine office visits and to examine the effect of patient, physician, and office characteristics on the frequency of these efforts.

STUDY DESIGN
Data was gathered using direct observation of physician-patient encounters, a survey of physicians, and an on-site examination of office systems for supporting smoking cessation.

POPULATION
We included patients seen for routine office visits in 38 primary care physician practices.

OUTCOMES MEASURED
The frequency of tobacco discussions among all patients, the extent of these discussions among smokers, and the presence of tobacco-related systems and policies in physicians' offices were measured.

RESULTS
Tobacco was discussed during 633 of 2963 encounters (21%; range among practices = 0%-90%). Discussion of tobacco was more common in the 58% of practices that had standard forms for recording smoking status (26% vs 16%; P=.01). Tobacco discussions were more common during new patient visits but occurred less often with older patients and among physicians in practice more than 10 years. Of 244 smokers identified, physicians provided assistance with smoking cessation for 38% (range among practices = 0%-100%). Bupropion and nicotine-replacement therapy were discussed with smokers in 31% and 17% of encounters, respectively. Although 68% of offices had smoking cessation materials for patients, few recorded tobacco use in the "vital signs" section of the patient history or assigned smoking-related tasks to nonphysician personnel.

CONCLUSIONS
Smoking cessation practices vary widely in primary care offices. Strategies are needed to assist physicians with incorporating systematic approaches to maximize smoking cessation rates.


Database administrators construct secondary indexes on data tables to accelerate query processing in relational database management systems (RDBMSs). These indexes are built on top of the most frequently queried columns according to the data statistics. Unfortunately, maintaining multiple secondary indexes in the same database can be extremely space consuming, causing significant performance degradation due to the potential exhaustion of memory space. However, we find that there indeed exist many opportunities to save storage space by exploiting column correlations. We recently introduced HERMIT, a succinct secondary indexing mechanism for modern RDBMSs. HERMIT judiciously leverages the rich soft functional dependencies hidden among columns to prune out redundant structures for indexed key access. Instead of building a complete index that stores every single entry in the key columns, HERMIT navigates any incoming key access queries to an existing index built on the correlated columns. This is achieved through the Tiered Regression Search Tree (TRS-TREE), a succinct, ML-enhanced data structure that performs fast curve fitting to adaptively and dynamically capture both column correlations and outliers. In this demonstration, we showcase HERMIT's appealing characteristics. we not only demonstrate that HERMIT can significantly reduce space consumption with limited performance overhead in terms of query response time and index maintenance time, but also explain in detail the rationale behind HERMIT's high efficiency using interactive online query processing examples. PVLDB Reference Format: Yingjun Wu, Jia Yu, Yuanyuan Tian, Richard Sidle, Ronald Barber. HERMIT in Action: Succinct Secondary Indexing Mechanism via Correlation Exploration. PVLDB, 12(12): 1882-1885, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14778/3352063.3352090


In THE URBAN BESTIARY, acclaimed nature writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt journeys into the heart of the everyday wild, where coyotes, raccoons, chickens, hawks, and humans live in closer proximity than ever before. Haupt's observations bring compelling new questions to light: Whose "home" is this? Where does the wild end and the city begin? And what difference does it make to us as humans living our everyday lives? In this wholly original blend of science, story, myth and memoir, Haupt draws us into the secret world of the wild creatures that dwell among us in our urban neighborhoods, whether we are aware of them or not. With beautiful illustrations and practical sidebars on everything from animal tracking to opossum removal, THE URBAN BESTIARY is a lyrical book that awakens wonder, delight, and respect for the urban wild, and our place within it.


In this paper, we characterize an inductively coupled plasma time-of-flight mass spectrometry (ICP-TOFMS) instrument (icpTOF, TOFWERK AG, Thun, Switzerland) in combination with laser-ablation sample introduction. Three sample introduction approaches for LA-based ICP-TOFMS analysis are described: (1) steady-state LA with a conventional high-dispersion LA cell, (2) single-pulse analysis with large spot sizes (44 μm diameter) using a low-dispersion LA cell, and (3) pulse-resolved, high-speed, high-resolution (5 μm spot sizes) elemental imaging with the same low-dispersion LA cell. These sample-introduction schemes span the range of approaches most interesting for users of LA-ICP-TOFMS, from routine bulk quantification, to low-sample-consumption trace-element analysis, to demanding elemental imaging applications. From steady-state signal intensities, element concentrations in NIST SRM 612 and USGS BCR-2G were quantified within the uncertainty range of the preferred values when NIST SRM 610 was used as the external reference material. Relative deviations were less than 10% in most cases. When using a 44 μm diameter spot and a laser repetition rate of 10 Hz, limits of detection (LODs) were in the single digit ng g−1 range for the most sensitive isotopes. Isotope-ratio precision was in the sub per mill regime and governed by counting statistics. Similar accuracies were also achieved in low-dispersion LA-ICP-TOFMS experiments, when NIST SRM 612 and USGS BCR-2G element concentrations were quantified using signal intensities from single 44 μm diameter laser pulses. LODs were in the tens of ng g−1 range for most sensitive isotopes resulting in absolute LODs in the tens of attograms. Capabilities of the icpTOF for elemental imaging are demonstrated with pulse-resolved multi-elemental imaging of a multi-phase geological thin section. With the low-dispersion LA cell and a spot diameter of 5 μm, aerosol plumes were confined to less than 10 ms, which allowed elemental imaging at a laser repetition rate of 100 Hz with minimized pulse-to-pulse mixing and an adjacent-pixel dynamic range of greater than 102. Quantitative results for elements of major, minor and trace concentrations were in agreement with bulk composition of individual regions, which had been determined via petrographic microscopy and high-dispersion laser ablation inductively coupled plasma quadrupole mass spectrometry (LA-ICPQMS). LODs were in the single digit μg g−1 range for most sensitive isotopes.


In this paper the claim that Zeno's paradoxes have been solved is contested. Although "no one has ever touched Zeno without refuting him" (Whitehead), it will be our aim to show that, whatever it was that was refuted, it was certainly not Zeno. The paper is organised in two parts. In the first part we will demonstrate that upon direct analysis of the Greek sources, an underlying structure common to both the Paradoxes of Plurality and the Paradoxes of Motion can be exposed. This structure bears on a correct - Zenonian - interpretation of the concept of "division through and through". The key feature, generally overlooked but essential to a correct understanding of all his arguments, is that they do not presuppose time. Division takes place simultaneously. This holds true for both PP and PM. In the second part a mathematical representation will be set up that catches this common structure, hence the essence of all Zeno's arguments, however without refuting them. Its central tenet is an aequivalence proof for Zeno's procedure and Cantor's Continuum Hypothesis. Some number theoretic and geometric implications will be shortly discussed. Furthermore, it will be shown how the "Received View" on the motion-arguments can easely be derived by the introduction of time as a (non-Zenonian) premiss, thus causing their collapse into arguments which can be approached and refuted by Aristotle's limit-like concept of the "potentially infinite", which remained — though in different disguises - at the core of the refutational strategies that have been in use up to the present. Finally, an interesting link to Newtonian mechanics via Cremona geometry can be established.


Grid system is a networked system that enables one to perform high throughput computation by sharing geographically distributed resources. Job scheduling mechanism is an important factor for improving performance of Grid system such as resource utilization and response time. This paper presents a hierarchical job scheduling mechanism for the purpose of addressing the performance improvement of Grid system. It is based on multiple-queue management with respect to both a super-scheduling scheme for distributing jobs to overall nodes and a local scheduling scheme for assigning jobs within a node. Several experiments show that the proposed mechanism achieves higher resource utilization by improving the backfilling ratio and using idle nodes in a Grid system.


Background:

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests are tests sold directly to consumers, normally without the involvement of healthcare professionals, which aim to provide consumers with their relative genetic risk for various complex diseases. Providers claim that this information will enable and encourage consumers to improve their health behaviour in order to reduce their likelihood of contracting diseases for which they are at an increased genetic risk. However, there are many criticisms and concerns about DTC genetic tests in the literature. Two common concerns are the lack of positive effects, and possible negative effects, that the information generated by the tests may have on consumers health behaviour and health anxiety, and the identified poor quality of information provision on the websites of providers of DTC genetic tests. Although the literature contains some research in these areas it is noticeably limited and occasionally contradictory.

Aim and Methods:

The aim of the research was to investigate the informational aspects of direct-to-consumer genetic tests, including the provision of information by the companies, consumers information needs and information-seeking behaviour and the effect of the information generated by the tests on health behaviour and health anxiety. The research consisted of three studies: a survey of 275 consumers and potential consumers of DTC genetic tests, in-depth email interviews with 36 consumers of DTC genetic tests and a content analysis of the information provided on all identified providers websites.

Results:

Positive or neutral changes in health behaviour were identified in a large minority of respondents who had been exposed to genetic risk information, along with the mechanisms by which the information prompted or contributed to change. A minority reported a change in health anxiety, mainly but not exclusively a decrease, with mechanisms again identified. Consumers reported a wide variety of information needs, the most common of which were information to do with the coverage and accuracy of the tests. The provision of information on providers websites varied considerably, both between and within providers, but was generally poor. However, most consumers used other sources alongside these websites, the most common of which was blogs.
Conclusions:

The results suggest that concerns about possible negative effects of the information generated by the tests are unfounded and that a large minority of consumers have improved health behaviour and decreased health anxiety after purchase. The results also suggest that concern about information provision on providers websites is justified; although this is mitigated by consumers general use of other sources alongside the websites, it is likely that a substantial number of consumers do not have access to enough information to give fully informed consent to the test.


A variety of optical coatings are discussed in the context of solar energy utilization. Well-known coatings such as transparent conductors (heat mirrors), selective absorbers, and reflective films are surveyed briefly. Emphasis is placed on the materials' limitations and on use of lesser-known optical coatings and materials. Physical and optical properties are detailed for protective antireflection films, cold mirrors, fluorescent concentrator materials, radiative cooling surfaces, and optical switching films including electrochromic, thermochromic, photochromic, and liquid crystal types. For many of these materials, research has only recently been considered, so various design and durability issues need to be addressed.


Abstract In this paper the authors set out to date-stamp periods of US housing price explosivity for the period 1830–2013. They make use of several robust techniques that allow them to identify such periods by determining when prices start to exhibit explosivity with respect to its past behaviour and when it recedes to long term stable prices. The first technique used is the Generalized supADF (GSADF) test procedure developed by Phillips et al. (Testing for multiple bubbles: Historical episodes of exuberance and collapse in the S&P 500, 2011a), which allows the recursive identification of multiple periods of price explosivity. The second approach makes use of Robinson's test statistic (Efficient tests of nonstationary hypotheses, 1994), comparing the null of a unit root process against the alternative of specified orders of fractional integration. The analysis date-stamps several periods of US house price explosivity, allowing the authors to contextualize its historic relevance.


— In this paper, a novel solution is developed to solve blind source separation of post-nonlinear convolutive mixtures. The proposed model extends the conventional linear instantaneous mixture model to include both convolutive mixing and post-nonlinear distortion. The Maximum Likelihood (ML) approach solution based on the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm is developed to estimate the source signals and the parameters in the proposed nonlinear model. In the proposed solution, the sufficient statistics associated with the source signals are estimated in the E-step while the model parameters are optimized through these statistics in the M-step. However, the complication resulted from the post-nonlinear function associated with the mixture renders these statistics difficult to be formulated in a closed form and hence causes intractability in the parameter optimization. A computationally efficient algorithm is proposed which uses the Extended Kalman Smoother (EKS) to facilitate the E-step tractable and a set of self-updated polynomials is used as the nonlinearity estimator to facilitate closed form estimations of the parameters in the M-step. The theoretical foundation of the proposed solution has been rigorously developed and discussed in details. Both simulations and recorded speech signals have been carried out to verify the success and efficacy of the proposed algorithm. Remarkable improvement has been obtained when compared with the existing algorithms.


This article seeks to begin a conversation on how we teach the problem of beneficiary accountability in the representation of organizations with social justice missions: How do we guide students towards a fuller understanding of the moral responsibility to engage and respect the voices of the communities most directly affected by the non-profit organization's mission? We look at the issue through the pedagogical lens of our experience supervising clinic students, deconstructing the problems of beneficiary accountability that students faced in the representation of two social justice organizations, surveying relevant legal scholarship on organizational representation and community lawyering, and considering alternative teaching methods to better prepare students to meet these challenges. We then explore how other fields—public health, international development, and urban planning—have approached beneficiary accountability in practice and in pedagogy. The experiences of these fields are useful because they have similar tripartite relationship structures (akin to lawyer-organizationbeneficiary), explicit ethical obligations towards beneficiary accountability, and a history of critical pedagogy on accountability practices. Moreover, the efforts within these professions to create models of, and solutions to,


Advertisements from 'Lonely Hearts' columns in four US newspapers are used to test hypotheses about mate preferences by male and female humans. We first confirm conventional findings that, in general, men prefer young women whose reproductive value is high while women prefer men who are slightly older than themselves, that women seek resources while men seek physical attractiveness and that women are more choosy than men. We then go on to test a series of predictions derived from the hypothesis that an individual's preferences in these respects are likely to be contingent on what he/she has to offer. We show that women tend to become less demanding as they age (probably because reproductive value declines with age), whereas males become more demanding (probably because resources increase with age), that women (but not men) offering cues of physical attractiveness make higher demands than those that do not, that men (but not women) offering resources make higher demands than those that do not, that men with few resources to offer attempt to offset this disadvantage by offering cues of family commitment, that men and women with dependent offspring make lower demands than those without and that individuals from higher socio-economic groups (who are likely to have more resources to offer) make more demands than those from lower socio-economic groups.


Tetracycline (TC) is a widely-used antibiotic, which can transport into aqueous and soil systems. The coexistence of copper (Cu) may change the characteristics of TC adsorption onto soils. This study investigated the effects of Cu existence on the adsorption of TC onto loess soil, which is ubiquitous in the northwest of China. The kinetic and isotherm experiments were carried out in the single and binary systems. The results showed that the kinetic data of TC could be well fitted by the pseudo-second-order model in the single or binary system. The coexistence of Cu could increase the adsorption rate of TC. On the other hand, the isotherm data were well fitted by the Langmuir model in the single or binary system, which indicated that the TC adsorption onto loess soil is mainly monolayer adsorption. The presence of Cu could enhance the adsorption of TC from pH 3.0 to 10.0. Hence, it is suggested that the migration of TC within loess soil may be slowed down because of the coexistence of Cu.


In this paper we focus on design experimentation and prototyping within a hospital design lab. We describe how things designed within this environment act as socio-technical entities that support the work of the hospital. In this research, healthcare is viewed as a socio-material assemblage, and the hospital as a complex, heterogeneous community needing to deal constructively with problems brought into its orbit by the public. User issues, such as how to become a 'patient', how to find experts, toilets or food; how long to expect to wait for treatment even how to leave the building are barriers to building 'patient– centeredness' and developing a 'culture of care'. They become matters of concern for administrators, who are keen to make hospitals more friendly and approachable. Drawing on new materialist approaches and using ethnographic research methods we show how the prototyping work in the DHW Lab builds a platform for collaboration between healthcare experts and users, through the material agency of 'prototyped things'. We argue that the prototypes act as participants in experimental assemblages that bring together user and expert mindsets and help move healthcare design from 'what is' to 'what could be'.


Historical videogames offer the promise of a new relationship between the reader of history and the account of an historical event, potentially transforming the "reader" of history into the active "user" or even "maker" of history. Indeed, the concept of historical videogames suggests that the user may play an active part in the construction of historical narratives and, thereby, in the implications of these historical events for the present. In this paper, I examine the appropriation of indexical archival documents into two instances of what I call "digital historicism" – the videogame Call of Duty: World at War (Activision, 2008) and the database narrative Tracing the Decay of Fiction: Encounters with a Film by Pat O'Neill (Pat O'Neill, Rosemary Comella, and Kristy H.A. Kang, 2002) – and their respective historiographic effects. I argue that the appropriations of indexical archival footage in each of these two digital media works produce in the user a phenomenological experience of the documentary "real," but at the same time shape and limit the meanings that may be attributed to this footage. Indeed, I suggest that Call of Duty, while at the cutting edge of game design, imports and reinforces a conservative and even reactionary historiographic model into the emergent genre of digital history. Moreover, I argue that although Tracing the Decay of Fiction offers a less teleological and more open-ended encounter with the historical past, it is precisely its lack of a singular narrative that may ultimately (and paradoxically) undermine the user's sense of historiographic agency as she is confronted with the unruly indexical traces of the past.


Silence as state conduct plays a significant role in various contexts in the relationships among states and has important practical application in the settlement of disputes by international tribunals. This article examines silence as an element of state behaviour having legal effects in the relationships among states. The question this article seeks to answer concerns the stand international tribunals have taken in the voluntarism/objectivism debate regarding the legal value of state silence. To answer this question, this article analyses the conditions under which silence may acquire legal significance, especially related to the materialisation of the legal concept of acquiescence, according to the jurisprudence of the ICJ and arbitral tribunals. Despite the fact that, as has been suggested elsewhere, the circumstances for the interpretation of silence are a matter of fact and not of law, the ICJ and arbitral tribunals have been consistent in the use of specific conditions on the basis of which silence may be deemed to have legal significance. Conclusions drawn from the utilisation of these criteria may provide some answers to the question whether it is the intention of the silent state or the impact of silence upon other states which gives silence legal value.


Abstract Context: The number of physician-researchers in the United States is in decline. Osteopathic medical schools must examine strategies for increasing the number of trained clinical researchers. Objectives: To assess the interest of first- and second-year osteopathic medical students in taking an elective research course during their third and fourth years of medical school; and to examine the relationship among students' personal characteristics, previous research experience, and elective research courses. Design: Fifteen-question, self-administered, cross-sectional survey. Setting: Edward Via Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Blacksburg in September 2004. Participants: First- and second-year osteopathic medical students. Main Outcome Measures: Personal characteristics, previous research experience, and research elective interest (8-week vs 12-week course; and clinical/population vs basic science focus). Results: The response rate was 83.9% (N=255 [149 first-year students; 106 second-year students]), with 51% women responding. Approximately 72% of students had worked on a research project at some time during undergraduate or medical training, and 42% had completed an undergraduate, data-based thesis. Students reported greater interest in a 12-week elective (34%) than an 8-week elective (23%), and two thirds preferred a clinical and/or population to a basic science focus. Conclusions: Colleges of osteopathic medicine must develop research training and mentoring programs to foster such interests in their students, and innovative recruitment approaches need to be developed for DO/PhD degree programs. These strategies will help provide meaningful research education and experiences to osteopathic medical students.


Interspecies differences in phenytoin (PHT) metabolism to 5-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-5-phenylhydantoin (HPPH) were examined in human, cat and rat hepatic microsomes in vitro. Rat liver microsomes were 25 and 650 times more efficient at the conversion of PHT to HPPH than human and cat liver microsomes, respectively. Sulphaphenazole (83%) and tolbutamide (TOL) (64%) were the most potent inhibitors of HPPH formation in human liver microsomes, while ciprofloxacin (27%), enoxacin (27%) and TOL (26%) produced the greatest inhibition in cat liver microsomes. TOL was tested for its effect on HPPH formation and gingival overgrowth in cats in vivo. Eight cats received PHT sodium (4 mg/kg/d) and another 8 cats received PHT sodium together with TOL (20 mg/kg/d) for 10 wk. Six cats (75%) in the PHT group and 4 cats (50%) in the PHT & TOL group developed significant gingival overgrowth by the end of the study. However, the extent and incidence of the overgrowth were similar in the 2 groups. There were no significant differences in mean AUC 0-10 weeks for plasma PHT (552.90 +/- 29.6 micrograms.d/mL [PHT alone] vs. 582.41 +/- 24.49 micrograms.d/mL [PHT & TOL]) and unconjugated HPPH (1016.4 +/- 295.5 ng.d/mL [PHT alone] vs. 1174.5 +/- 397.2 ng.d/mL [PHT & TOL]) concentrations between the 2 groups of cats. Neither PHT nor HPPH were detectable in the plasma of 8 rats which received PHT (4 mg/kg/d) over a 10-wk period. The rats showed no sign of gingival inflammation (mean gingival index = 0) or gingival overgrowth (mean gingival overgrowth index = 0). Thirty-six adult epileptic patients on chronic PHT therapy were examined; 17 (47%) of the patients demonstrated clinically significant overgrowth. The mean steady-state plasma PHT concentration was comparable to, and the mean plasma unconjugated HPPH concentration 5-fold greater than, that observed in the cats. The results suggest that the rapid metabolism and elimination of PHT and HPPH in the rat may enable it to become more resistant towards developing gingival overgrowth, compared to the cat and man.


As organizations embrace the global business world, the exploitation of the recent advance technologies to communicate between various business partners and customers in different geographical locations worldwide and across countries become eminent. The objective of this paper is to advance our understanding on how e-commerce is being adopted in two different countries rarely studied; Malaysia and Algeria, and how one of the Hofstede's cultural dimensions, uncertainty avoidance, makes a difference on this adoption. This paper also aims to provide new empirical evidence in the field of cross-cultural e-commerce adoption. This was done by investigating the relationship between perceived usefulness, attitude, and subjective norm in order to assess the differences of behavioral intentions to use e-commerce in the two countries. Results show that uncertainty avoidance still plays an important role across culture in the e-commerce adoption.


Free-space optical communications (FSO) propagated over a clear atmosphere suffers from irradiance fluctuation caused by small but random atmospheric temperature fluctuations. This results in decreased signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and consequently impaired performance. In this paper, the error performance of the FSO using a subcarrier intensity modulation (SIM) based on a binary phase shift keying (BPSK) scheme in a clear but turbulent atmosphere is presented. To evaluate the system error performance in turbulence regimes from weak to strong, the probability density function (pdf) of the received irradiance after traversing the atmosphere is modelled using the gamma-gamma distribution while the negative exponential distribution is used to model turbulence in the saturation region and beyond. The effect of turbulence induced irradiance fluctuation is mitigated using spatial diversity at the receiver. With reference to the single photodetector case, up to 12 dB gain in the electrical SNR is predicted with two direct detection PIN photodetectors in strong atmospheric turbulence.


Many palaeontological studies rely heavily on characteristics of the preserved phenotype, i.e. the morphology of skeletal hard parts. Although the potential for environmental influences on the phenotype is expected, rarely is the magnitude of the effects quantifiable relative to genetic factors. The clonal/colonial body plan of Bryozoa allows for the partitioning of morphological variance into its genetic and environmental factors addressing the question of, 'how much phenotypic variation is induced in a population by changing a single environmental factor?' The effects of variation of food concentration on whole-colony growth rate and on zooid size/morphology can be profound in bryozoans. Here we test experimentally food effects on the skeletal phenotype of the bryozoan Electra pilosa (Linnaeus, 1767), an encrusting sheet-like bryozoan. A threshold effect was observed for the relationship between zooecium size and food concentration. Very low concentrations resulted in stunted colonies with small zooecia, but at low to intermediate concentrations a close relationship existed with zooecium size. Maximum zooecium size occurred at submaximal food concentration and submaximum zooecium size occurred at higher food concentrations. Previous studies that have reported no effect of food availability on zooecium size assessed food concentration effects at higher concentrations than were effective in the present study. In the absence of other factors, variation in zooecium size is minimal and unchanging at moderate to high food concentrations. Greater variation in zooecium size is expected at and below threshold food concentrations. We show that the preservable phenotype of these specimens subjected to controlled and induced environmental variation also records information with genetic significance.


Numerical abstract domains are a fundamental component in modern static program analysis and are used in a wide range of scenarios (e.g. computing array bounds, disjointness, etc). However, analysis with these domains can be very expensive, deeply affecting the scalability and practical applicability of the static analysis. Hence, it is critical to ensure that these domains are made highly efficient. In this work, we present a complete approach for optimizing the performance of the Octagon numerical abstract domain, a domain shown to be particularly effective in practice. Our optimization approach is based on two key insights: i) the ability to perform online decomposition of the octagons leading to a massive reduction in operation counts, and ii) leveraging classic performance optimizations from linear algebra such as vectorization, locality of reference, scalar replacement and others, for improving the key bottlenecks of the domain. Applying these ideas, we designed new algorithms for the core Octagon operators with better asymptotic runtime than prior work and combined them with the optimization techniques to achieve high actual performance. We implemented our approach in the Octagon operators exported by the popular APRON C library, thus enabling existing static analyzers using APRON to immediately benefit from our work. To demonstrate the performance benefits of our approach, we evaluated our framework on three published static analyzers showing massive speed-ups for the time spent in Octagon analysis (e.g., up to 146x) as well as significant end-to-end program analysis speed-ups (up to 18.7x). Based on these results, we believe that our framework can serve as a new basis for static analysis with the Octagon numerical domain.


Ages retrieved from accessory minerals in high-grade metamorphic rocks place important constraints on the timing of events and the rates of tectonometamorphic processes operating in the deep crust. In suprasolidus rocks, the dissolution and growth of zircon and monazite are strongly dependent on the P–T conditions of metamorphism and the chemistry and quantity of anatectic melt present. Along a clockwise P–T path, prograde heating above the solidus leads to episodic melt loss and changes in melt chemistry that have important implications for the dissolution and growth of zircon and monazite. In this study, phase equilibria modelling of open-system melting is coupled with experimental data on zircon and monazite solubility to evaluate the stability of these minerals at suprasolidus conditions along several schematic clockwise P–T paths. In migmatite melanosomes and residual granulites, some zircon is expected to survive heating to peak temperature and subsequent isothermal decompression, whereas monazite may be completely consumed, consistent with the observation that inherited cores are less common in monazite than in zircon. After decompression, during cooling to the solidus, new zircon and monazite growth from melt trapped along grain boundaries in melanosomes and residual granulites is expected to be limited. By contrast, leucosomes in migmatites and anatectic granites are predicted to contain mostly newly formed zircon and monazite with minimal inherited components, unless significant entrainment of these minerals from the source occurs. The preservation of cores inside newly formed zircon, as observed in many anatectic granites, demonstrates that segregation, ascent and emplacement is commonly fast enough to limit dissolution of these inherited grains.


In this paper we introduce the application of a new statistical modeling algorithm called rule ensembles to the problem of yield-loss characterization. Yield loss modeling is viewed as a regression or classification problem, and a model is constructed as a linear combination of simple rules derived from the data. These rule ensembles have been shown to produce predictive models competitive with the best methods. In addition to their high accuracy, however, these rules are easy to understand. Similarly, the degree of relevance of each rule, and its respective variables, can be assessed. The algorithm also provides methodology for automatically identifying those variables that are involved in interactions with other variables, and the strength and degrees of those interactions. To illustrate the interpretation advantages of the method, an analysis on semiconductor manufacturing data is provided.


TAE Technologies' research is devoted to producing high temperature, stable, long-lived field-reversed configuration (FRC) plasmas by neutral-beam injection (NBI) and edge biasing/control. The newly constructed C-2W experimental device (also called 'Norman') is the world's largest compact-toroid (CT) device, which has several key upgrades from the preceding C-2U device such as higher input power and longer pulse duration of the NBI system as well as installation of inner divertors with upgraded electrode biasing systems. Initial C-2W experiments have successfully demonstrated a robust FRC formation and its translation into the confinement vessel through the newly installed inner divertor with adequate guide magnetic field. They also produced dramatically improved initial FRC states with higher plasma temperatures (Te ~ 250  +  eV; total electron and ion temperature  >1.5 keV, based on pressure balance) and more trapped flux (up to ~15 mWb, based on rigid-rotor model) inside the FRC immediately after the merger of collided two CTs in the confinement section. As for effective edge control on FRC stabilization, a number of edge biasing schemes have been tried via open field-lines, in which concentric electrodes located in both inner and outer divertors as well as end-on plasma guns are electrically biased independently. As a result of effective outer-divertor electrode biasing alone, FRC plasma is well stabilized and diamagnetism duration has reached up to ~9 ms which is equivalent to C-2U plasma duration. Magnetic field flaring/expansion in both inner and outer divertors plays an important role in creating a thermal insulation on open field-lines to reduce a loss rate of electrons, which leads to improvement of the edge and core FRC confinement properties. An experimental campaign with inner-divertor magnetic-field flaring has just commenced and early result indicates that electron temperature of the merged FRC stays relatively high and increases for a short period of time, presumably by NBI and E  ×  B heating.


The main objective of this Master Thesis is to design and implement a high level synthesis tool for high speed packet processing. For a given network packet, determining the destination and performing the required alterations to the packet are the key parts of Packet Processing. The idea is to provide customers a customized Ethernet switch which is reliable and flexible. As a requirement for this, a high level packet processing language (PPL) is designed instead of any hardware descriptive language because of the regularity of packet processing. The packet processing is described in a powerful way based on the PPL. In this thesis, a design of Ethernet switch based on the PPL is proposed. Hardware implementation is done for the design and MyHDL is used as the hardware description language. Using Python, the compiled PPL program is translated into an hardware model. A tool has been developed which consists of a hardware generator and certain hardware infrastructures. Another part in the thesis is optimization of the initial design. For instance, optimization is done to run as much code as possible in parallel or for removal of unused hardware in the generated switch. Verification is done and synthesis results have been listed comparing the two designs. Hence, we conclude that the initial design is more flexible and has more redundancy while the optimized design is more friendly to hardware cost and power consumption.


This paper presents the innovative possibilities of graphic technology for use in visual scenic activities. The individual values of costumes and scenography in the ultraviolet, visible and infrared spectrum are reproduced with new graphic technologies.
Each element of the costumes becomes visible when illuminated with different values of wavelengths of light observed through modified cameras.
With the addition of black light in the lighting design, the viewer sees only the ultraviolet element. In the absence of black light the costumes reveal only the design created in the area visible to the bare eye. The set-design elements created in infrared values, invisible to the bare eye are shown with a projection, simultaneously.
The presented technique represents a new means of expression in all forms of visual art.


Plant diseases, caused by pathogens, significantly reduce food production particularly in the developing world where farmers have little knowledge of these pests. In sericulture, mulberry is an economical plant because silk production depends on the nutritive quality of the leaves which is hampered by various pathogen attacks like nematodes, fungus, virus, bacteria and insects etc. Recently, synthetic- and chemical- pesticides are the most effective means of control, but they are both expensive and environmentally unfriendly. The "evils" of synthetic- and chemical- pesticides has been a major concern to environmentalists. The use of chemical pesticides may achieve a measure of control of those mulberry diseases but there remains the problem of residual toxicity in the treated plants and this toxicity results in reduced palatability of the leaves to the feeding silkworm larvae, reduction in growth of the larvae and also in silk production. These are serious issues which directly cause crises of financial losses, food productions, and climatic changes, but in combination, their impact could be catastrophic for the global economy. To move forward will require new and more efficient solutions, technologies and products. Climate change and resource productive economies are now universally recognized as a significant global environmental challenge. To meet the challenge of the problems, a number of plant bio-nematicides though effective and easily biodegradable are not easily available in large quantities from natural sources and isolation of only a small quantity of an effective metabolites requires huge quantities of plant materials. This would result in rapid depletion of natural resources, particularly in tropical regions. Indiscriminate use of plant resources have already created problem of biodiversity conservation in the world. Bio-nematicides from animal origin (like nematode extract) reduce nematodes infestation in different plants and root callous by using their defense- response against nematode infection. But it remains as a problem.
To conquer this situation, the only 'Homeopathy' can solve all the above mentioned problems. Here, Homeopathic medicines; Cina, prepared from the flowering meristems of Artemisia nilagirica (Clarke) pamp and Aakashmoni, prepared from the funicles of Acacia auriculiformis A. Cunn, mixed with distilled water @ 7.2 mg/ml, were applied by foliar spray once daily for 15 days @ 10ml/plant on mulberry (Morus alba L., cv. S1) are highly effective in ameliorating mulberry diseases; root-knot [Meloidogyne incognita (Kofoid and White) Chitwood], leaf spot [Cercosporam moricola (Cooke)], powdery mildew [Phyllactinia corylea (Pers.) Karst], mosaic disease (mosaic virus) and tukra disease [Maconellicoccus hirsutus (Green)]. Both the drugs also improve the plant growth effectively which directly increase photosynthesis rate and significantly reduce CO2 in the environment. Both the drugs also improve the growth of silkworms, shell weight, sex ratio percentage [SR%] and egg laying capacity of mother moth and also increase silk production and effective rate of silkworms rearing [ERR] commercially which directly enriches sericulture industry as well as agriculture sector. These cost-effective homeopathic medicines are easily available, biodegradable, non-phytotoxic and non-pollutant as well as conserve our biodiversity which will contribute towards "Sustainable Environment, Health and Development


During 2013-2016 in Sevastopol Bay, seasonal and interannual dynamics of the population density, age and sex composition, fecundity, and mortality of males and females of Oithona davisae were studied. A maximum population number (up to 554 ind × 103 m−3) was registered at the end of summer?end of autumn. In this period, the nauplii and early copepodite stages constituted up to 95% of the Oithona davisae population. During 1-2.5 cold winter?spring months, the population consisted only of females, who were not numerous. The phase of latent population development was recorded from April until July-August, with a high share of ovigerous females, maximum clutch size, and high egg production rate but low population density, which may be due to predator pressure from lobate ctenophores. The average share of adult males amounted to 32% at the end of spring and 27% at the beginning of winter, while the share of dead males reached maximum values (20.7%) during the winter degradation period for the population. On the basis of the studied successions of the population's developmental stages, from ovigerous females through nauplii and early copepodites to adults, the number of generations produced by Oithona davisae during the reproductive period (10-11) was determined.


Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism is intended as a source book on the origins, workings, and consequences of modern general-purpose foundations. The text encompasses the activities of foundations-prinicpally Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford-in the production of culture and the formation of public policy. Particular attention is given to the policies of the big foundations in the fields of education and social science research. The authors write from the perspectives of history, sociology, comparative education, and educational policy studies. Their chapters are based on original research. While the contributors do not share a uniform ideological framework, they do have in common a structural point of view-they examine foundations with regard to their functioning in society. They analyze the implications of foundations' organizational characteristics, modus operandi, and substantive decisions for social control or social change. A distinguishing feature of Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism is its systematic, critical analysis of the sociopolitical consequences of these powerful institutions. A central thesis is that foundations like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford have a corrosive influence on a democratic society; they represent relatively unregulated and unaccountable concentrations of power and wealth which buy talent, promote causes, and, in effect, establish an agenda of what merits society's attention.


We study the importance of time-varying volatility in modelling hourly electricity prices when fundamental drivers are included in the estimation. This allows us to contribute to the literature of large Bayesian VARs by using well-known time series models in a huge dimension for the matrix of coefficients. Based on novel Bayesian techniques, we exploit the importance of both Gaussian and non-Gaussian error terms in stochastic volatility. We find that by using regressors as fuels prices, forecasted demand and forecasted renewable energy is essential in order to properly capture the volatility of these prices. Moreover, we show that the time-varying volatility models outperform the constant volatility models in both the in-sample model- fit and the out-of-sample forecasting performance.


Though the period after independence was prosperous in Côte d'Ivoire, economic stagnation started in the 1980s and has continued. Growing population pressure, increased by heaving immigration from its northern neighbors produced severe competition for ever-scarcer land and jobs. Southern political elites then disenfranchised northerners. This explains why military rebels were able to keep control of the north after a failed coup attempt in 2002. Unless the material causes of the intensifying ethnic and regional hostilities are properly addressed, the civil war cannot be settled democratically.


Research suggests opposite epidemiological forces in religion and health: (1). Faith seems to move mountains in the sense that religion is associated with positive health outcomes. (2). Mountains of bad health seem to move faith. We reflected on these forces in a population of 3000 young Danish twins in which all religiosity measures were associated with severe disease. We believe the reason for this novel finding is that the sample presents as a particularly secular population-based study and that the second epidemiological force has gained the upper hand in this sample. We suggest that all cross-sectional research on religion and health should be interpreted in light of such opposite epidemiological forces potentially diluting each other.


Science and technology has a major impact on many societal domains such as communication, medicine, food, transportation, etc. However, this dominance of modern technology can have a negative unintended impact on indigenous systems, and in particular on indigenous foods. This problem serves as a motivation to this study whose aim is to examine the perceptions of learners on the usefulness of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for learning about indigenous foods. This aim will be subdivided into two types of research objectives. The design and identification of theories and models will be achieved using literature content analysis. The objective on the empirical testing of such theories and models will be achieved through the survey of Hospitality studies learners from different schools in the iLembe and Umgungundlovu Districts of the South African Kwazulu-Natal province. SPSS is used to quantitatively analyze the data collected by the questionnaire of this survey using descriptive statistics and Pearson correlations after the assessment of the validity and the reliability of the data. The main hypothesis behind this study is that there is a connection between the demographics of learners, their perceptions on the usefulness of ICTs for learning about indigenous foods, and the following personality and eLearning related theories constructs: Computer self-efficacy, Trust in ICT systems, and Conscientiousness; as suggested by existing studies on learning theories. This hypothesis was fully confirmed by the survey conducted by this study except for the demographic factors where gender and age were not found to be determinant factors of learners' perceptions on the usefulness of ICTs for learning about indigenous foods. Keywords—E-learning, Indigenous Foods, Information and Communication Technologies, Learning Theories, Personality.


This thesis investigates how macroeconomic news announcements affect jumps and cojumps in foreign exchange markets, especially under different business cycles. We use 5-min interval from high frequency data on Euro/Dollar, Pound/Dollar and Yen/Dollar from Nov. 1, 2004 to Feb. 28, 2015. The jump detection method was proposed by Andersen et al. (2007c), Lee & Mykland (2008) and then modified by Boudt et al. (2011a) for robustness. Then we apply the two-regime smooth transition regression model of Terasvirta (1994) to explore news effects under different business cycles. We find that scheduled news related to employment, real activity, forward expectations, monetary policy, current account, price and consumption influences forex jumps, but only FOMC Rate Decisions has consistent effects on cojumps. Speeches given by major central bank officials near a crisis also significantly affect jumps and cojumps. However, the impacts of some macroeconomic news are not the same under different economic


Mutations at the Werner helicase locus (WRN) are responsible for the Werner syndrome (WS). WS patients prematurely develop an aged appearance and various age-related disorders. We have generated transgenic mice expressing human WRN with a putative dominant-negative mutation (K577M-WRN). Primary tail fibroblast cultures from K577M-WRN mice showed three characteristics of WS cells: hypersensitivity to 4-nitroquinoline-1-oxide (4NQO), reduced replicative potential, and reduced expression of the endogenous WRN protein. These data suggest that K577M-WRN mice may provide a novel mouse model for the WS.


The demise of left and right wing authoritarian regimes during the last two decades and subsequent rise of free market and pluralist-oriented philosophies have enveloped the globe in a sea change of political, social and economic reform. The most remarkable of these is the appearance of a nearly feral form of entreprenuership in which black marketers, drug barons, arms merchants, rackets bosses, Mafiosi, and other profiteers are emerging as the economic and political leaders of the social transformations underway in their respective societies. Their achievements have been praised, however inadvertently, by some1, and damned by others (most from the left2, but including neo-conservative moralists like William Bennett and George Will in the United States, to say nothing of television evangelists the world over). Regardless of perspective, this has become a time in which Lumpenproletarians have become legitimate social leaders, warts and all. Think about the common denominator among Ivan Bosky, Tupac Shakur, George Soros, Notorious B.I.G., Rupert Murdoch, Snoop Doggy Dawg, Donald Trump, Don King, John McEnroe, Anna Kornikova, Dennis Rodman, Howard Stern, Coolio, Silvio Berlusconi, Dodi Al-Fayed, Rio favela gang leaders, Chilean arms merchants, Russian disco magnates, Hong Kong real estate barons, the children, grand-- and great-grandchildren of European nobility and self-- made Internet entrepreneurs alike, second and third generation Arab royalty, a cross-national section of narcotics kings, and all the other noveau riche prancing around the globe in their Lear Jets, Ultra Yachts and limousines (to say nothing of the wannabes). Their affinity is vulgarity, greed and ostentatious lifestyles. They are neither high cultured, traditional old rich or new innovators, but instead are backbiters and syndicators, currency and stock speculators, arms merchants, hustlers, money launderers, tycoons, spoiled children, carneys for prurient material and intellectual pabulum to the masses.3 Defined by consumption rather than productivity (remember the advertising slogan "image is everything"), and layered in cynicism ("image is nothing") these are the champions of the New World order. There are always exceptions. Perhaps Bill Gates, Richard Branson, the Nike founders, and a host of new Internet entrepreneurs contribute material gains to human existence (even if they exploit labor and resources in equal measure). Technological innovation and productivity in the hands of many business elites certainly contributes to rises in consumption, material standards and income-for at least the privileged classes worldwide. But even here they are the exception that proves the rule. And the question begs: whither the privilege? For their part, the rapidly expanding ranks of subordinate groups (in many countries including former members of the middle classes displaced by the structural dislocations of the last decade) remain divided, materially debased, and individually consumed to varying degrees by immediate "survivalist" interests. This has given rise to a range of informal economic activities, from street merchants, sidewalk entertainers, buskers and "facilitators" to criminal gangs, all operating in an environment of declining civility and cultural degeneration. New forms of ideological extremism and nihilism have entered public discourse. These are in equal part a product of historical amnesia and post-materialist angst, in which the return to primary group identification takes on immediatist, self-absorbed, atomizing, and social Darwinian characteristics in a context of increasing globalization of production. This is a vulgar form of capitalist social organization, one that is highly efficient, highly stratified, utterly competitive and often brutish in its cultural and political dimensions. What is offered here is not the heroic vision of subaltern groups offered by some cultural theorists. Neither is it a nostalgic paean to classical Marxism or the possibilities of socialism, whose failures are too obvious to recount. …


The role of the time factor in management is increasing. Change directs attention to the time factor from the point of view of the organisation, and management does the same from that of the person. I examined the time management practice of managers of organisations related to agribusiness, and the reaction time characterising the adaption ability of the organisations through a questionnaire survey. I analysed the collected data with scientifically established statistical methods. During studying resources, managing tasks, change, reaction time and effect I explored the features of time as resource, the significance of the time factor, the improvability of time efficiency in the different managing functions, the factors supporting and hindering the quick reaction of organisations, and what rearrangements can be seen in management work nowadays.


Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, Rudolf Clausius, and Leon Brillouin considered certain "values" as key quantities in their descriptions of market competition, natural selection, thermodynamic processes, and information exchange, respectively. None of those values can be computed from elementary properties of the particular object they are attributed to, but rather values represent emergent, irreducible properties. In this paper, such values are jointly understood as information values in certain contexts. For this aim, structural information is distinguished from symbolic information. While the first can be associated with arbitrary physical processes or structures, the latter requires conventions which govern encoding and decoding of the symbols which form a message. As a value of energy, Clausius' entropy is a universal measure of the structural information contained in a thermodynamic system. The structural information of a message, in contrast to its meaning, can be evaluated by Shannon's entropy of communication. Symbolic information is found only in the realm of life, such as in animal behavior, human sociology, science, or technology, and is often cooperatively valuated by competition. Ritualization is described here as a universal scenario for the self-organization of symbols by which symbolic information emerges from structural information in the course of evolution processes. Emergent symbolic information exhibits the novel fundamental code symmetry which prevents the meaning of a message from being reducible to the physical structure of its carrier. While symbols turn arbitrary during the ritualization transition, their structures preserve information about their evolution history.


We give a model for the description of an urban transportation network and we consider the related optimization problem which consists in finding the design of the network which has the best transportation performances. This will be done by introducing, for every admissible network, a suitable metric space with a distance that inserted into the Monge-Kantorovich cost functional provides the criterion to be optimized. Together with the optimal design of an urban transportation network, other kinds of optimization problems related to mass transportation can be considered. In particular we will illustrate some models for the optimal design of a city, and for the optimal pricing policy on a given transportation network.


A vast sequence of quartz-rich sandstone was deposited over North Africa and Arabia during Early Palaeozoic times, in the aftermath of Neoproterozoic Pan-African orogeny and the amalgamation of Gondwana. This rock sequence forms a relatively thin sheet (1–3 km thick) that was transported over a very gentle slope and deposited over a huge area. The sense of transport indicates unroofing of Gondwana terranes but the exact provenance of the siliciclastic deposit remains unclear. Detrital zircons from Cambrian arkoses that immediately overlie the Neoproterozoic Arabian–Nubian Shield in Israel and Jordan yielded Neoproterozoic U–Pb ages (900–530 Ma), suggesting derivation from a proximal source such as the Arabian–Nubian Shield. A minor fraction of earliest Neoproterozoic and older age zircons was also detected. Upward in the section, the proportion of old zircons increases and reaches a maximum (40%) in the Ordovician strata of Jordan. The major earliest Neoproterozoic and older age groups detected are 0.95–1.1, 1.8–1.9 and 2.65–2.7 Ga, among which the 0.95–1.1 Ga group is ubiquitous and makes up as much as 27% in the Ordovician of Jordan, indicating it is a prominent component of the detrital zircon age spectra of northeast Gondwana. The pattern of zircon ages obtained in the present work reflects progressive blanketing of the northern Arabian–Nubian Shield by Cambrian–Ordovician sediments and an increasing contribution from a more distal source, possibly south of the Arabian–Nubian Shield. The significant changes in the zircon age signal reflect many hundreds of kilometres of southward migration of the provenance.


We examine the effect of interpretive accounting guidance on a direct and observable cost of financial reporting: audit fees. Many contend that U.S. GAAP has too much interpretive guidance, making it complex and difficult to assimilate. This effect would lead to higher audit effort and higher fees. However, specific guidance could both lower litigation risk and increase audit efficiency by reducing the need for auditors to continually deliberate complicated accounting issues across engagements. These effects would lead to lower audit fees. Overall, using both levels and changes regressions, we find that interpretive accounting guidance is associated with higher audit fees. However, this effect is smallest for firms facing the highest ex-ante litigation risk. Finally, we examine whether increased audit fees persist and find that the audit fee effect disappears by the third year after the interpretive guidance becomes effective. Overall, we find no evidence that interpretive guidance decreases audit costs.


In the presence of galactose, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae transports the sugar into its cytoplasm, where the galactose binds the Gal3 protein, which in turn sequesters the Gal80 repressor away from the transcriptional activator Gal4, resulting in the induction of galactose-metabolizing enzymes. The induction is so rapid that it has been suggested that another unknown factor must somehow be involved in this "galactose regulon." Kumar et al. have identified this factor as nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and its phosphate (NADP). In the Gal4:Gal80 complex, NAD is sandwiched between the two proteins. NADP, on the other hand, inhibits the interaction between Gal4 and Gal80. Mutations that have the potential to affect the NAD-binding site in Gal80 result in even faster induction, which suggests that Gal80 is sensing the balance between NAD and NADP and thus the metabolic state of the cell. P. R. Kumar, Y. Yu, R. Sternglanz, S. A. Johnston, L. Joshua-Tor, NADP regulates the yeast GAL induction system. Science 319, 1090-1092 (2008). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Immigration law both screens migrants and regulates the behavior of migrants after they have arrived. Both activities are information-intensive because the migrant's "type" and the migrant's post-arrival activity are often forms of private information that are not immediately accessible to government agents. To overcome this information problem, the national government can delegate the screening and regulation functions. American immigration law, for example, delegates extensive authority to both private entities - paradigmatically, employers and families - and to the fifty states. From the government's perspective, delegation carries with it benefits and costs. On the benefit side, agents frequently have easy access to information about the types and activities of migrants, and can cheaply monitor and control them. On the cost side, agents' preferences are not always aligned with those of the national government. The national government can ameliorate these costs by giving agents incentives to act consistently with the government's interests. Understanding these virtues and vices of delegation sheds light on longstanding debates about the roles that employers, families, and states play in American immigration law.


Denial of Service (DoS) is a common and severe security issue in computer networks. Typical DoS attacks overload servers with bogus requests, induce them to worthlessly commit resources, and even make them unable to serve legitimate clients. This is especially relevant in Internet of Things scenarios, where servers are particularly exposed and often equipped with limited resources. Although most countermeasures focus on detection and mitigation, they do not react to dynamically adapt victims' behavior, while at the same time preserving service availability. This paper presents SARDOS, a reactive security service that leverages detection mechanisms from different communication layers, and adaptively changes the operative behavior of victim servers while preserving service availability. We experimentally evaluated SARDOS with a prototype implementation running on an underclocked Raspberry Pi server. Our results show that, when running SARDOS, a server under attack displays considerably lower memory and CPU usage, while still ensuring (best-effort) fulfillment of legitimate requests.


Objectives
To systematically identify, compile, and harmonize national and sub-national individual-level dietary data around the world using a common food classification and description system (FCDS); promote collaboration with data owners worldwide; and publicly disseminate methods and datasets to the global nutrition community.

Methods
The Global Dietary Database (GDD) and the FAO/WHO Global Individual Food consumption data Tool (FAO/WHO GIFT) initiative, in collaboration with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), developed a framework to standardize the characterization of 24-hour recall and food record survey data at their finest level, using FoodEx2 (Figure). FoodEx2 is a comprehensive FCDS developed by EFSA, adapted for international high-quality food characterization and methodologically superior to prior international FCDS. Single food items are characterized through a classification system (hierarchical nested food groups) and 32 description elements (facets), such as cooking process. Standardized criteria, procedures, and templates were developed to: (1) identify and (2) prioritize eligible surveys for FoodEx2 mapping; (3) efficiently contact data owners and obtain approval for public dissemination; (4) allocate financial assistance as appropriate; (5) obtain survey information and assess survey and diet tool quality; (6) train data owners on dataset preparation and FoodEx2 mapping; (7) collect harmonized microdata, including structure, sociodemographics, diet metrics, units of measure, and food characterization; and (8) publicly disseminate methods and datasets via the GDD and FAO/WHO GIFT platforms.

Results
A total of 151 surveys have been identified as high priority. Harmonization has been completed for 24 European surveys by EFSA, which will be incorporated in the GDD and FAO/WHO GIFT platforms upon approval of data owners; 8 surveys by FAO/WHO GIFT; and is ongoing for another 4. Thus far, the data owners of 53 surveys from 41 countries, including Brazil, India, and Iran, confirmed interest in joining; all surveys either used none or a local FCDS.

Conclusions
These new methods developed will provide the most comprehensive and standardized databases of dietary intakes worldwide. Such global dietary data harmonization is imperative for global diet monitoring and informed priority setting.

Funding Sources
Gates Foundation.

Supporting Tables Images and/or Graphs


In this paper, we propose an ultrathin THz plasmonic metallic strip based on graded grating structure with thermo-optic material, which exhibits a strong engineering of trapping and releasing electromagnetic waves in terahertz regimes. The dispersion properties of the ultrathin spoof slow-wave plasmonic graded grating waveguide are characterized using the finite element method, and the propagation characteristics of the grating structures are thoroughly analyzed by the dispersion curves, electric field magnitude distribution, and electric field vertical distribution. The gradient grating waveguide is demonstrated to be an ideal slow-wave system for trapping and releasing surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) waves through tuning the refractive index of the thermo-optic material. The reflected location for the SPPs waves on the graded corrugated metal strip at 1.1 THz at different temperatures are compared. It is proved that such ultrathin gradient grating waveguide provides an excellent performance for trapping and releasing surface waves at THz, which permits applications for future optical communications.


3D printing or additive manufacturing is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital file. The creation of a 3D printed object is achieved using additive processes. In an additive process an object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the object is created. Each of these layers can be seen as a thinly sliced horizontal cross-section of the eventual object (Figure 1).


In today's world, one of the cities' major challenges is the crisis of the built environment quality. As the urban design group discussed, urban management (local authorities) actors are kind of urban designers who unconsciously affect the quality of urban environment by their decisions. Non-formal Education and in-service training programs are effective methods to qualify staff for making decisions about the built environment. However, observations have proven that, on the contrary to our expectation, the consequences of these programs do not have impressive results on Tehran's built environment. In other words, the quality of urban places is getting worse, in spite of the increase in number of urban design training programs. So, in order to find the roots of the problem, this research has been done in three main parts: (1) Recognizing the local authorities' influences on quality of built environment, (2) Identifying the factors which local authorities' staff consider in decision- taking/making in regards to the built environment, (3) Pathology of non-formal training system of urban design skills. The type of research that has been used in this study is survey under a qualitative research method. The purpose of using this method is achieving an in-depth understanding of the role of Tehran municipality as a local authority in the quality of built environment. This research investigates the "why" and "how" of decisionmaking; besides, the phenomenon of urban design skills training has been examined through observation as well as some interviews and questionnaires. The survey population is the people who are involved in training programs, including learners, educators, educational managers, officers and top managers at architecture and urban planning departments. To obtain more accurate results, the research sampling method that has been used in this study is systematic and targeted sampling. The results show that the municipality staffs do not believe in their impact on the planning and development process, as well as the quality of public realm and building design outcomes. According to the results, a fundamental review is needed in urban design training programs in terms of procedure, content and curriculum.


Diesel engines are the predominant power source in trucking industry. Heavy duty trucks move more than 70% of all goods transported around the United States. The atmospheric conditions vary with altitude but are vital to diesel engine performance, efficiency, and emissions. Existing studies reported reduced thermal efficiency and increased emissions when truck engines were operated at high altitude. As the heat loss is a key parameter related to engine efficiency, the goal of this paper was to investigate the altitude impacts on in-cylinder heat transfer characteristics. A single cylinder four-stroke heavy duty diesel engine was performed at constant speed and load but different intake pressure to simulate the varying atmospheric conditions at different altitude. The engine raised the amount of diesel mass injected to the cylinder per cycle to maintain the identical power output under decreased atmospheric pressure and to compensate the combustion deterioration happened inside the cylinder. The experimental results indicated a higher bulk temperature at high altitude due to a smaller amount of mixture mass trapped inside the cylinder. Such a larger temperature difference between the hot products and the cold walls increased in-cylinder heat transfer to the coolant, especially during the combustion period. Specifically, a rise in 2000m altitude resulted in up to ∼2% increment in heat loss to the atmosphere per fired cycle. As a result, applying thermal coating to improve fuel economy is more necessary in high altitude states, such as Colorado and Wyoming.


In addition to the widely used polymeric hydrogels, molecular hydrogels are also emerging as promising biomaterials. However, molecular hydrogels typically suffer from poor mechanical properties and relatively low in vivo stability. Here we report on the preparation of two hybrid hydrogels (Hgel I and Hgel II) by the combination of two molecular hydrogelators and alginate, respectively. First, the molecular hydrogelator and sodium alginate were dissolved in water, and then a hydrogel was formed upon triggering by enzymes or reductants. Afterward the resulting hydrogel was soaked in calcium ion solution to form the hybrid hydrogel. The preparation process was easy and mild which allowed the resulting hybrid hydrogels to act as carriers for biomacromolecules such as enzymes. Both Hgel I and Hgel II had better stabilities and mechanical properties than the calcium alginate gel (CAgel) alone. Hgel I had exceptional stability compared with Hgel II and CAgel. The reason we propose is that molecular hydrogelators in Hgel I interacted with alginate more strongly than molecular hydrogelators in Hgel II according to the fluorescence results of these gels. Unlike the porous microstructure of molecular hydrogels, the microstructure of two hybrid hydrogels was almost the same as that of CAgel (film-like morphology) except with some nanofibers embedded. We found that Hgel I was an ideal carrier for enzyme immobilization with high recyclable properties and excellent preservation of enzyme activities due to its good mechanical strength. However, Hgel II was not suitable as a carrier for immobilized lactase probably due to poor affinity between Hgel II and the substrate. Combining the advantages of molecular hydrogels and polymeric hydrogels would broaden the applications of both kinds of hydrogels in the future.


The present study is an attempt to understand the factors that cause labour migration. It purports to inquire into pull and push factors of migration of semi-skilled and unskilled migrant workers in Tirunelveli district. Primary data collected from the field through a structured questionnaire has been used in this study. A number of variables causing migration have been identified by the researcher. The reliability of the variables is tested through reliability analysis applying Cronbach's alpha. Exploratory Factor Analysis is employed using SPSS 19 to reduce the variables, identified as the causes of migration, into handsome number of factors. Confirmatory Factor Analysis has also been applied to confirm the factors causing migration developed through Exploratory Factor Analysis using AMOS 18. Structural Equation Models have been developed for this purpose.


Land use is a pervasive form of disturbance affecting natural systems on Earth. My dissertation research is set within the context of a large scale project referred to as Land-use Effects on Amphibian Populations (LEAP), where researchers in Maine, Missouri, and South Carolina are determining the effects of timber harvest on the persistence of amphibian populations. The purpose of my dissertation research was to define adult wood frog nonbreeding habitat in continuous oak-hickory forest and in response to timber harvest. I asked research questions that address the two components of habitat selection: 1) the behavioral choice, and 2) the demographic consequences of that choice. To document behavioral choice, I allowed adults to move freely throughout the circular experimental timber harvest arrays (164 m radius) by using standard radiotelemetry techniques. Prior to timber harvest, I found that wood frogs were not distributed equally throughout oak-hickory forest. Adults used drainages as non-breeding habitat. In addition, the number of frogs that migrated to a specific drainage correlated with the distance between the pond and the drainage. Following timber harvest wood frogs avoided clearcuts and increased movement rates in response to timber harvest. Further, I confirmed the consistency of this behavioral response by conducting experimental displacements and found that adults exhibit site fidelity to non-breeding habitat. Frogs displaced to the center of clearcuts evacuated the clearcuts in one night of rain and 20 of 22 frogs displaced back to the pond returned to the same drainage. To determine demographic consequences, I estimated survival of frogs constrained within microhabitats. Desiccation risks for frogs located on forested ridgetops or in exposed areas within clearcuts were severe. Brushpiles within clearcuts provided microhabitats with similar desiccation risks as microhabitats within forested drainages. I also determined survival of transmittered frogs that moved freely among microhabitats by radio-tracking 117 frogs over 3 years. I documented 29 predation events, 13 desiccation events, and 8 mortalities of unknown cause. Using Coxproportional hazard models, I found that survival within the timber harvest array was 1.7 times lower than survival within continuous forest. Survival was lowest during the drought year of 2005 when all desiccation events occurred. My results indicated that predation and desiccation risks near the breeding ponds are ecological pressures that explain why adult amphibians migrate away from breeding habitat during the nonbreeding season.


We present detailed visualizations of the micro-jet forming inside an aspherically collapsing cavitation bubble near a free surface. The high-quality visualizations of large and strongly deformed bubbles disclose so far unseen features of the dynamics inside the bubble, such as a mushroom-like flattened jet-tip, crown formation and micro-droplets. We also find that jetting near a free surface reduces the collapse time relative to the Rayleigh time.


SUMMARY Predictions of glaciation-induced changes in the Earth's rotation vector exhibit sensitivities to Earth structure that are unique within the suite of long-wavelength observables associated with glacial isostatic adjustment (henceforth GIA), and, despite nearly a quarter of a century of research, these sensitivities remain enigmatic. Previous predictions of present-day true polar wander (TPW) speed driven by GIA have indicated, for example, a strong sensitivity to variations in the thickness of the elastic lithosphere and the treatment (phase or chemical?) of the density discontinuity at 670-km depth. Nakada recently presented results that suggest that the predictions are also sensitive to the adopted rheology of the lithosphere; however, his results have introduced an intriguing paradox. In particular, predictions generated using a model with an extremely high-viscosity lithospheric lid do not converge to results for a purely elastic lithosphere of the same thickness. Mitrovica (as cited by Nakada) has suggested that the paradox originates from an inaccuracy in the traditional rotation theory (e.g. Wu & Peltier) associated with the treatment of the background equilibrium rotating form upon which any load- and rotation-induced perturbations are superimposed. We revisit these issues using a new treatment of the linearized Euler equations governing load-induced rotation perturbations on viscoelastic earth models. We demonstrate that our revised theory, in which the background form of the planet combines a hydrostatic component and an observationally inferred excess ellipticity, resolves the apparent paradox. Calculations using the revised theory indicate that earlier predictions based on earth models with purely elastic lithospheric lids are subject to large errors; indeed, previously noted sensitivities of TPW speed predictions to the thickness and rheology (elastic versus viscous) of the lithosphere largely disappear in the application of the new theory. Significant errors are also incurred by neglecting the stabilizing influence of the Earth's excess ellipticity. Finally, we demonstrate that the contribution from rotational feedback on predictions of present-day rates of change of the geoid (sea surface) and crustal velocities are overestimated by the traditional rotation theory, and this has implications for analyses of ongoing satellite (e.g. GRACE) missions and geodetic GPS surveys.


This thesis elaborates the Model-Driven Software Modernization (MDSM), that has been identified by us, and is defined as a group of approaches toward modernization of legacy code. MDSM approaches are based on models, tools and processes known from the Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) that aims in automation of modernization process. This thesis describes identified MDSM approaches and related standards. Additionally, it suggests that certain kinds of modernization can be implemented in a more efficient way, when a new approach, that has been proposed by the authors, is used. An exemplary modernization, that solves selected industry problem, is implemented to demonstrate that the alternative approach is feasible. In addition, the availability of tools for MDA, which can be adopted in MDSM process, is discussed and guidelines for implementing MDSM are proposed.