The accurate study of characteristics of the flow under gravity waves has become of prime importance due to the growing demand for structural engineering designs in the coastal environment. Although many investigations have been carried out, the progress of fundamental research was slow due to the lack of an adequate velocity measuring instrument. However in recent years, the development of the Laser Doppler Velocimeter has made it possible to observe the orbital velocity very close to a bed without disturbing the flow. This technique was used in this investigation, in which observations of the oscillatory flow under gravity waves were carried out above smooth, two-dimensional and three-dimensional rough beds.

For the smooth bed case it was found that the velocity profile throughout the depth was well presented by the Stokes second order shear wave equation, except that the theoretical predictions underestimated the observed results, and a linear relationship was obtained for the velocity coefficients between the two sets of values. As for mean velocity the profile was in close agreement with the Longuet- Higgins conduction solution, and it was found to have a negative value (in opposite direction to wave progression) in the bulk of fluid and always positive values within the boundary layer.

The rough beds made little change to the flow in the bulk of fluid. As for inside the boundary layer, the laminar boundary layer was eliminated due to the large size of the rough bed, but for a small size rough bed the flow became laminar at the edge of the boundary layer, and a perturbed laminar boundary layer velocity profile was traceable. However, the two rough beds had similar influences on the flow except for the roughness size and Reynolds number values. Inside the roughness elements of the rough beds vortex formation was clearly observed and the comprehensive range of measurements of these formations are analysed and discussed.


Many people in search of homeownership in urban areas are currently facing high building and property costs. Those interested in realising ownership usually refer to housing associations, architects, or prefabricated housing manufacturers. Since the end of the 20th century, an increasing number of joint building ventures have appeared in the German housing market. Hence, they can be seen as an alternative in realising appropriate living space as well as a new instrument in urban development and design. Since municipal building areas are scarce, there is intense competition between different stakeholders. Joint building ventures compete among each other as well as among other types of housing. By means of an extensive catalogue of requirements for the allocation of building sites, municipalities manage to delegate certain responsibilities to the citizens. In order to ensure that this does not act against the general interest of joint building ventures, it is important to include the diverse interests of various partners by establishing a transparent and fair tender and award system. This study provides insights on the design of an optimised public tendering and which tendering criteria maximise the utility of potential home owners. The study adopts a choice-based conjoint analysis approach, using a web-based survey. The data were collected and analysed via the survey platform Sawtooth. The study was conducted with a sample of potential home owners in Germany, who evaluated tendering criteria. Understanding the potential home owners' preferences of tendering criteria offers several opportunities and implications for municipalities and might help to enforce an efficient and effective tendering process.


Background The Carer Support Needs Assessment Tool intervention (CSNAT-I) has been shown to improve end-of-life care support for informal caregivers. This study investigated the impact of the CSNAT-I on caregivers of patients recently enrolled in specialised palliative care (SPC) at home in Denmark. Methods A stepped-wedge cluster randomised controlled trial with nine clusters (ie, SPC teams). Outcome measures were collected using caregiver questionnaires at baseline (T0) and 2-week (T1) and 4-week (T2) follow-up. Results A total of 437 caregivers were enrolled (control group, n=255; intervention group, n=182). No intervention effect was found on the primary outcome, caregiver strain at T1 (p=0.1865). However, positive effects were found at T1 and T2 on attention to caregivers' well-being (p<0.0001), quality of information and communication (p<0.0001), amount of information (T1: p=0.0002; T2: p<0.0001), involvement (T1: p=0.0045; T2: p<0.0001), talking about greatest burdens (p<0.0001) and assistance in managing greatest burdens (p<0.0001). The effect sizes of these differences were medium or large and seemed to increase from T1 to T2. At T1, positive effects were found on distress (p=0.0178) and home care responsibility (p=0.0024). No effect was found on the remaining outcomes. Conclusion Although no effect was found on caregiver strain, the CSNAT-I showed positive effects on caregiver distress, home care responsibility and key outcomes regarding caregivers' experience of the interaction with healthcare professionals. Trial registration number NCT03466580.


Children's functioning can only reasonably be measured relative to that of other individuals of the same age. In practice, age ranges are usually used to group children for this purpose. Examples include school grades, age groups in sports, and age bands used in developmental assessments. Age grouping is associated with systematic errors, often known as relative age effects (RAEs): Within each age group, older children outperform younger ones. This type of assessment error may lead to opportunities and interventions being offered inefficiently or unfairly. This thesis comprises 5 research projects that aim to clarify underlying causes of RAEs, examine their importance in different contexts, and develop analytic methods relevant to their study. I use data drawn from two studies: A prospective cohort study including athletic performance measures (the Physical Health Activity Study Team project) and a validation study undertaken to compare measures of child development (Psychometric Assessment of the Nipissing District Developmental Screener). I develop linear models to characterize age-related variation and then use results to draw conclusions, to inform other analyses, and to generate synthetic datasets. Together, studies demonstrate a set of methods for the exploration and correction of RAEs. They also yield several concrete findings: (1) A simple mathematical interpretation of RAEs can fully explain the errors seen in real datasets, meaning that other explanations are, in at least some contexts, unnecessary. (2) RAEs have different effects in ranking and selection contexts, with ranking errors largest among average individuals but selection errors greatest when more extreme thresholds are used. (3) Age bands cause misclassification in measures of child development, and the error rate rises rapidly with the width of age bands used. (4) The use of different sets of age bands will prevent different assessments from agreeing closely. (5) Age grouping in developmental assessments will create an illusion of longitudinal instability. Finally, I demonstrate the use of alternative scoring approaches and discuss how these can reduce or eliminate errors related to RAEs.


Understanding and trouble-shooting microscopic processes involved in laboratory tests are often challenging for students in science education because of the inability to visualize the different steps and the various errors that may influence test outcome. The effectiveness of gamification or the use of game design elements and game-mechanics were explored in a year-long research project which saw the development of a web based learning tool that visualized Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assays (ELISAs) in a digital laboratory. A cohort of 30 students from the Bachelor of Medical Laboratory Science trialed the first prototype and provided feedback in a survey on their learning experience and the extent to which the learning tool enhanced their learning. This article provides additional insights into likely future trends of substituting traditional learning modes such as lecture and practical laboratory classes with gamified content.


The number of people living in towns has increased very rapidly particularly in the developing countries due to massive rural urban migration as well as natural population growth. Significant increase of urban population in a short span of time has created various problems including inequality in provision of social services, decline in farming activities, and increase number of urban poor. In countries like Sudan and Malaysia, rapid urbanization and high cost of living has pushed urban dwellers particularly the vulnerable group into deep poverty. Despite this fact, less attention is paid to the urban poor and most of international and national aid agencies are focusing on rural poverty. This paper, therefore, aims to contribute to the discussion of the issue of urban poverty in the developing countries, taking Sudan and Malaysia as examples. The objective is to highlight the current situation of urban poverty with particular emphasis on its pattern, causes, and the policies adopted by both countries to eradicate poverty. The use of the political economy approach has come out with the suggestion that urban poor in developing countries has been impoverished by ineffective economic policies developed abroad as well as at national level. Despite the effort made to eradicate poverty, there is an urgent need to address issues like food insecurity, socio-economic inequality and regional disparities.


At the spring, 1949, meeting of the National Academy of Sciences(l) a preliminary account was given of some observations of mesons produced by the 335 Mev x-ray beam from the Berkeley synchrotron. The present paper is a progress report of this work; no claim is made for completeness, but sufficient new data are available to make publication at this time worth while, especially since some of the numerical results given in the earlier report require revision. The x-ray beam, produced by the impact of 335 Mev electrons on a 20 mil thick platinum target, has a width at half maximum of 0.0135 radian (about 1 inch at 6 feet from the target). In all but the earliest experiments the beam was further defined by a 1 inch hole in a lead block, then passed through a piece of carbon which served as the meson source. The x-ray intensity at one meter from the target was about 3500 r per hour (measured behind 1/8 inch of lead) under the best running conditions; the average was about half this. The actual exposures at the carbon meson source (6 feet from the target) ranged from 500 to 2000 r in the later runs.more » Mesons were recorded on Ilford nuclear plates; the highest density of meson endings observed was about 100 per square centimeter in a 100 micron emulsion. In the following sections the experimental conditions and some of the results are described in more detail.« less


Computer simulated shopping experiments open up new opportunities for marketing research, allowing researchers to collect purchase data in a tightly controlled yet realistic environment, at relatively low cost and with a high degree of flexibility. While a number of authors have used computer simulations to generate purchase data, research on the validity of these outcomes is scarce. The present paper aims to improve insights into the validity of computer simulation experiments, by providing a replication and extension of the work by Burke et al. (1992). Experimental purchase data are generated and compared with real life scanner data to provide additional evidence for major biases examined by Burke et al., and to assess the effect of repetitive choice tasks and incomplete product assortments on the realism of purchase quantity and choice data. The results show that, overall, the experimental data correspond quite closely to actual purchase data. Consumers exhibit realistic purchase variation, and provide meaningful data throughout the experimental periods. Yet, some biases are found in category purchase quantities which are overestimated and in purchase shares of generic products which are underestimated. While promotion quantity effects appear to be slightly overestimated, more research is needed on this issue.


BACKGROUND
The role of postreperfusion lactate clearance in assessing graft function has not yet been investigated. The aim of this study was to examine whether lactate clearance, assessed in the postreperfusion phase, can predict poor graft function in liver transplant patients.

METHODS
Seventy patients undergoing liver transplantation (LT) were enrolled. Standardized anesthesia and intraoperative monitoring were applied. The lactate levels measured immediately after venous reperfusion and six hours later were used to calculate lactate clearance by the following formula: [(reperfusion lactate - 6 h post-reperfusion lactate)/reperfusion lactate] ×100. Student's t-test was performed to evaluate differences in lactate clearance between patients with good and poor graft function. Logistic regression was used to assess predictors of poor graft function.

RESULTS
Postreperfusion lactate clearance was lower in patients with poor graft function compared to those with good graft function (P=0.0007). Logistic regression showed that postreperfusion lactate clearance may represent an early predictor of poor graft function (area under receiver operating characteristic curve =0.83). A lactate clearance cut-off of 59.7% was found (90% sensitivity, 38.3% specificity).

CONCLUSIONS
Postreperfusion lactate clearance may be useful for the early identification of poor graft function after LT. In patients with lactate clearance <59.7%, it could be useful to search for the underlying cause of poor graft function.


Purpose Existing health technology assessment methods can be time-consuming and complicated to use in practice. EValuation of pharmaceutical Innovations with regard to Therapeutic Advantage (EVITA) is a recently developed drug assessment strategy that provides a detailed and clinically relevant evaluation of new agents compared to standard therapies. We therefore sought to use EVITA to evaluate eight novel agents recently introduced to clinical practice or in late-stage trials for the treatment of prostate cancer, metastatic melanoma, or systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Methods Eight agents (abiraterone, enzalutamide, sipuleucelT, Prostvac, radium 223, ipilimumab, vemurafenib, and belimumab) were selected for study using the EVITA algorithm. A comprehensive literature search was performed to find clinical trial data, which were then classified using the EVITA protocol. EVITA was also compared to results from health technology assessments (HTAs) or reimbursement decisions. Results The EVITA scores for the eight drugs ranged from 5.5 to 9: all the selected agents are therefore classed as 'recommended' and are likely to produce a therapeutic advantage. In particular, vemurafenib is likely to be highly beneficial to patients with metastatic melanoma and radium 223 to patients with metastatic prostate cancer affecting the bone. The EVITA results were generally concordant with HTAs. Conclusions All the agents show favourable EVITA scores and are therefore recommended for clinical practice. EVITA is an easy-to-use tool that provides clinical context to the assessment of newly introduced agents and can be easily used by non-specialists.


This paper provides one of the first assessments of the hypothesis that two countries are more likely to form a preferential trade agreement (PTA) if they are already major trading partners. The paper also tests a number of predictions from the political economy literature about which countries are expected to form regional agreements. The results show that countries are more likely to be preferential trading partners if they have significant bilateral trade, are similar in size, and are both democracies. Finally, the paper measures the effect of preferential agreements on trade volumes while, unlike previous studies, treating PTA formation as endogenous.


This collective case study investigated how peer interactions occurred in two racially and ethnically diverse, first year residential communities at a mid sized public research university. For each case, minority students from two or more racial or ethnic identities composed at least 40% of the floor's population. The study provides descriptions of diverse peer interactions and subsequent learning outcomes as described by residents. Characteristics and conditions which support or impede diverse peer interactions and impact learning are suggested.

 Anxious to make friends and seeking support to reach academic goals, first year students developed relationships with other residents in close proximity to them regardless of perceived differences before later branching out to form relationships outside of the floor. The strategies residents used to interact with diverse peers and included: 1) participating in neutral activities, 2) finding similarities, and 3) joking. By observing the living environments and actions of diverse others and by participating in neutral activity residents discovered hidden similarities. Residents in these diverse environments avoided serious conversations about race and ethnicity instead navigating diverse peer relationships by joking about differences. Prior diversity experiences, heightened emotions and desire for friends influenced students' initial comfort with diverse peer interaction, but over time students with and without prior diversity experience engaged in diverse peer interaction due to diverse composition of floor and expectations of sustained contact. By living in close or intimate quarters with others different from themselves, residents encountered simple cultural differences. Observations of similarities and simple differences stimulated questions and conversations. Curiosity, proximity and increased comfort allowed students to encounter new values and beliefs creating both confusion and excitement. Diverse peer observations and interactions facilitated a variety of desirable learning outcomes including increased openness to diversity, willingness to consider new ideas, reduction of prejudice and stereotyping, increased perspective taking, better listening and communication skills and an increased willingness to compromise and act with polite consideration of others. Interacting with diverse peers in a compositionally diverse residence community provided the challenges necessary to prompt new ways of seeing the world.


Problem, research strategy, and findings: The Tea Party's effects on local and regional planning efforts, given the movement's fierce support of property rights and equally fierce opposition to sustainability goals in regional planning efforts, have received little study. I wanted to understand how Tea Party and fellow property rights advocates became involved in regional planning efforts in the San Francisco Bay Area and Atlanta, GA, and how planners perceived and dealt with their objections and tactics. Interactions between the two groups were marked by philosophical differences over the role of government and the necessity and value of regional planning. However, these actors were also deeply divided on plan content and the authenticity of the public outreach process. Tea Party and property rights activists were not the only ones with substantive and procedural concerns about regional planning efforts; tactical -coalitions of unexpected allies emerged, aligning on plan viability, finance methods and funding, project costs, impacts, and process. My research shows that common ground can be negotiated between -opposing groups on matters of content and process. The concerns of the various stakeholders involved parallel questions often addressed by scholarly planning research, providing evidence of continuing challenges and flaws in planning. Takeaway for practice: The planning community should not dismiss the opposition of Tea Party and property rights advocates; these activists could catalyze new coalitions of opponents if planners do not attend to the substantive and procedural concerns of participants.


The aim of this monograph is to give impetus to research into one of the central questions in discourse studies: what makes a sequence of sentences or utterances a discourse? The theoretical framework for describing the possibilities of discourse continuation is delineated by two principles: the discursive and the dialogic principle. The 'chord' of discourse is unfolded in a tripartite 'wire': Conjunction, Adjunction and Interjunction, each containing three aspects, leading to a Connectivity Model. This new three-by-three taxonomy of discourse relations incorporates findings from several theories and approaches that have evolved over the last three decades, including Systemic Functional Linguistics and Rhetorical Structure Theory. In comparing this model to other models, this book presents a state-of-the-art of discourse relation analysis combined with detailed accounts of many examples. This monograph furthermore proposes a new way of presenting discourse structures—in 'connectivity graphs'—followed by eleven commandments for the segmentation and labeling of discourse, and three procedures for disambiguation if more labels are applicable. This study can provide a base for corpus linguistic analysis on discourse structures, computational approaches to discourse generation and cognitive experimental research of discourse competence.


In this paper, we examine high-cost methods of borrowing in the United States, such as payday loans, pawn shops, auto title loans, refund anticipation loans, and rent-to-own shops, and offer a portrait of borrowers who use these methods. Considering a representative sample of more than 26,000 respondents, we find that about one in four Americans has used one of these methods in the past five years. Moreover, many young adults engage in high-cost borrowing: 34 percent of young respondents (aged 18-34) and 43 percent of young respondents with a high school degree have used one of these methods. Using well-tested questions to measure financial literacy, we document that most high-cost borrowers display very low levels of financial literacy, i.e., they lack numeracy and do not possess knowledge of basic financial concepts. Most importantly, we find that those who are more financially literate are much less likely to have engaged in high-cost borrowing. Our empirical work shows that it is not only the shocks inflicted by the financial crisis or the structure of the financial system but that the level of financial literacy also plays a role in explaining why so many individuals have made use of high-cost borrowing methods.


Derbel H., Châari M. & Neifar L. 2011. — Redescription of Rhipidocotyle galeata (Rudolphi, 1819) (Digenea, Bucephalidae), the type species of Rhipidocotyle Diesing, 1907. Zoosystema 33 (2): 133–139. ABSTRACT Rhipidocotyle galeata (Rudolphi, 1819), the type species of the genus, is redescribed using material from Lichia amia (Linnaeus, 1758) (Actinopterygii, Perciformes) collected from the Gulf of Gabès in the Mediterranean Sea off Tunisia. Rhipidocotyle galeata is compared with other nominal species of the genus, including R. genovi, R. minima, R. triglae and R. viperae. This redescription provides additional information about the position and the distribution of the vitelline follicles, which form an arc that does not extend anteriorly past the level of the ovary, an uterus that extends almost to the posterior margin of the rhynchus and an ovary that is positioned adjacent to the anterior testis. A key to the eight Rhipidocotyle species from the Mediterranean Sea is presented.


ABSTRACT A synoptic revision of the Malagasy species of Scolopia is presented. Fourteen species are recognized, of which all are endemic and ten are threatened. One species, S. delphinensis Appleq. & G.E.Schatz, sp. nov., is newly described and illustrated. An identification key to the Malagasy species of Scolopia is provided.


Now updatedyour expert guide to twenty-first century information securityInformation security is a rapidly evolving field. As businesses and consumers become increasingly dependent on complex multinational information systems, it is more imperative than ever to protect the confidentiality and integrity of data. Featuring a wide array of new information on the most current security issues, this fully updated and revised edition of Information Security: Principles and Practice provides the skills and knowledge readers need to tackle any information security challenge. Taking a practical approach to information security by focusing on real-world examples, this book is organized around four major themes: Cryptography: classic cryptosystems, symmetric key cryptography, public key cryptography, hash functions, random numbers, information hiding, and cryptanalysisAccess control: authentication and authorization, password-based security, ACLs and capabilities, multilevel security and compartments, covert channels and inference control, security models such as BLP and Biba's model, firewalls, and intrusion detection systemsProtocols: simple authentication protocols, session keys, perfect forward secrecy, timestamps, SSH, SSL, IPSec, Kerberos, WEP, and GSMSoftware: flaws and malware, buffer overflows, viruses and worms, malware detection, software reverse engineering, digital rights management, secure software development, and operating systems securityThis Second Edition features new discussions of relevant security topics such as the SSH and WEP protocols, practical RSA timing attacks, botnets, and security certification. New background material has been added, including a section on the Enigma cipher and coverage of the classic "orange book" view of security. Also featured are a greatly expanded and upgraded set of homework problems and many new figures, tables, and graphs to illustrate and clarify complex topics and problems. A comprehensive set of classroom-tested PowerPoint slides and a solutions manual are available to assist in course development.Minimizing theory while providing clear, accessible content, Information Security remains the premier text for students and instructors in information technology, computer science, and engineering, as well as for professionals working in these fields.


Mitochondrial stress signals released from injured motor neurons activate nearby Schwann cells, aiding recovery from neuromuscular paralysis. Motor neurons transmit impulses to muscle fibers through synapses called neuromuscular junctions (NMJs). Motor neuron degeneration is a characteristic of some peripheral neuropathies. Neurotoxins cause degeneration of the motor axon terminal, and recovery is assisted by local Schwann cells. Duregotti et al. found that injured motor neurons release danger signals that activate Schwann cells. Exposure to the black widow spider venom α-latrotoxin (α-LTX) or snake venom–derived taipoxin (TPX) induced the production of mitochondrial H2O2 in cultured primary rat motor neurons, as well as the release of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and cytochrome c (Cyt c) into the culture medium. The phosphorylation of ERK (extracellular signal–regulated kinase) was increased in Schwann cells either cocultured with toxin-treated motor neurons or treated with H2O2, mtDNA, or Cyt c or a combination thereof. Phosphorylated ERK was also increased in NMJ-associated Schwann cells in mice injected subcutaneously with sublethal doses of the toxins. Pretreating these cocultures or mice with catalase, which converts H2O2 to water and O2, inhibited the increase in phosphorylated ERK. Pretreating mice with a MEK (ERK kinase) inhibitor delayed muscle recovery from α-LTX–induced paralysis. Isolated soleus muscles pretreated with catalase had decreased markers of synaptic regeneration after exposure to α-LTX. Exosomes secreted from toxin-treated motor neurons contained mtDNA, and phagocytic markers increased in NMJ-associated Schwann cells in isolated toxin-treated muscles. The findings suggest that injured motor neurons activate nearby Schwann cells to prevent the degeneration of neuromuscular junctions. E. Duregotti, S. Negro, M. Scorzeto, I. Zornetta, B. C. Dickinson, C. J. Chang, C. Montecucco, M. Rigoni, Mitochondrial alarmins released by degenerating axon terminals activate perisynaptic Schwann cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 112, E497–E505 (2015). [Abstract] [Full Text]


We identify common hypotheses on which a large number of distinct mathematical models of WLANs employing IEEE 802.11 are founded. Using data from an experimental test bed and packet-level ns-2 simulations, we investigate the veracity of these hypotheses. We demonstrate that several of these assumptions are inaccurate and/or inappropriate. We consider hypotheses used in the modeling of saturated and unsaturated 802.11 infrastructure mode networks, saturated 802.11e networks, and saturated and unsaturated 802.11s mesh networks. In infrastructure mode networks, we find that even for small numbers of stations, common hypotheses hold true for saturated stations and also for unsaturated stations with small buffers. However, despite their widespread adoption, common assumptions used to incorporate station buffers are erroneous. This raises questions about the predictive power of all models based on these hypotheses. For saturated 802.11e models that treat differences in arbitration interframe space (AIFS), we find that the two fundamental hypotheses are reasonable. For 802.11s mesh networks, we find that assumptions are appropriate only if stations are lightly loaded and are highly inappropriate if they are saturated. In identifying these flawed suppositions, this work identifies areas where mathematical models need to be revisited and revised if they are to be used with confidence by protocol designers and WLAN network planners.


In recent years, we have witnessed a new kind of DDoS attack, the burst attack(Chai, 2013; Dahan, 2018), where the attacker launches periodic bursts of traffic overload on online targets. Recent work presents a new kind of Burst attack, the YoYo attack (Bremler-Barr et al., 2017) that operates against the auto-scaling mechanism of VMs in the cloud. The periodic bursts of traffic loads cause the auto-scaling mechanism to oscillate between scale-up and scale-down phases. The auto-scaling mechanism translates the flat DDoS attacks into Economic Denial of Sustainability attacks (EDoS), where the victim suffers from economic damage accrued by paying for extra resources required to process the traffic generated by the attacker. However, it was shown that YoYo attack also causes significant performance degradation since it takes time to scale-up VMs. In this research, we analyze the resilience of Kubernetes auto-scaling against YoYo attacks. As containerized cloud applications using Kubernetes gain popularity and replace VM-based architecture in recent years. We present experimental results on Google Cloud Platform, showing that even though the scale-up time of containers is much lower than VM, Kubernetes is still vulnerable to the YoYo attack since VMs are still involved. Finally, we evaluate ML models that can accurately detect YoYo attack on a Kubernetes cluster.


In this letter, we consider peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, where multiple peers are interested in sharing their content. In the considered P2P system, autonomous and self-interested peers use a Markov decision process (MDP) framework to determine their upload bandwidth allocations, which maximize their individual utilities. This framework enables the peers to make foresighted decisions on their bandwidth allocations, by considering the future impact of their decisions. In this letter, we focus on the impact of the peers' bounded rationality on their resource reciprocation strategies and ultimately, on their achievable utilities. Specifically, we consider peers who have only a limited ability to model the other peers' strategies for resource reciprocation, and study how this impacts their own decisions.


As science advances, its laws become fewer but of greater scope. In this respect the Periodic Law, which is the basis of the Periodic Table, represents a major step in the progress of chemistry - it affords the natural classification of the elements. The Periodic Table was developed by chemists more than one hundred years ago as a correlation for the properties of the elements. With the discovery of the internal structure of the atom, it became recognized by physicists as a natural law. When the crystalline structure of solids was studied, the nature of the chemical bonds was understood, and the theory of metals was put forward, it became an essential tool not only for chemists and physicists, but for metallurgists as well. Of the 87 naturally occurring elements, 63, i.e., about three fourth are described as metals, 16 as nonmetals, and 9 as metalloids. It is suggested that chemists abandon the old tradition of numbering the groups in the Periodic Table, and to give descriptive names instead.


The purpose of this paper is to explore possible effects for learning when a manufacturing plant takes a double role, as being both master plant and apprentice plant, in a globally distributed industrialization process. Industrialization is here understood as the process of preparing new products for volume manufacturing. Two research questions are addressed. The first is what characterizes the dual roles. The second concerns how the dual roles affect knowledge integration and learning processes, and whether this arrangement facilitates learning between master and apprentice. Based on a study of a global telecom equipment company, the paper provides insights into some of the challenges and effects of dynamic switching of roles. By separating the network function from the strategic role of the plant, the study identifies four options for learning. The case adds to the literature on learning in manufacturing networks and to previous research on how distributed processes affect innovation capability.


Measurements of the top quark-antiquark (t-tbar) spin correlations and the top quark polarization are presented for t-tbar pairs produced in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.5 inverse-femtobarns collected with the CMS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using events with two oppositely charged leptons (electrons or muons) and two or more jets, where at least one of the jets is identified as originating from a bottom quark. The spin correlations and polarization are measured from the angular distributions of the two selected leptons, both inclusively and differentially, with respect to the invariant mass, rapidity, and transverse momentum of the t-tbar system. The measurements are unfolded to the parton level and found to be in agreement with predictions of the standard model. A search for new physics in the form of anomalous top quark chromo moments is performed. No evidence of new physics is observed, and exclusion limits on the real part of the chromo-magnetic dipole moment and the imaginary part of the chromo-electric dipole moment are evaluated.


Conventional views assume a systematic intertwining between the Orthodox Church and the state, which makes Orthodox countries culturally hostile to modernity. These views have been shaped by a long history of antagonistic relationships between Western and Eastern European states and fail to grasp important long-term trends within the Orthodox religious landscape. The political culture in Orthodox countries has undergone several changes across the centuries. Under the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire, complementarity provided the blueprint for church-state relations. In later centuries, this model was modified to suit the Ottoman and Russian empires. Modernization also prompted Orthodox states to create state churches. Church-state separation was further pursued by communist and colonial regimes and was sometimes accompanied by the active persecution of clergy and the faithful. The political culture of modern Orthodox countries was decisively shaped by the nationalization of the faith, spurred by various national revivals. In the 19th century, Orthodox Christianity became a nationalized religion, whereby strong associations were established between newly constructed churches in Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania and these countries' respective nations. This version of Orthodoxy was exported into the New World through communities of East European immigrants. The communist takeover of Eastern Europe further strengthened administrative fragmentation. After 1989–1990, the fragmentation of the USSR allowed for a more open expression of the model of national religion. Orthodoxy was revitalized but also served as a cornerstone for Russian, Ukrainian, and Estonian national identities, leading to regional ecclesiastical disputes. Current institutional dilemmas have resulted from these long-term processes.


This paper is an overview of how insurance instruments could be used in Indonesia to improve disaster risk finance (the arrangements for managing the financial consequences of disaster). We review the policy and research literature to describe the existing arrangements in Indonesia for preparing for and responding to disasters, including the efforts of an active Indonesian community mapping movement to fill in some of the major gaps in data that hinder the assessment of disaster risks. We argue that as a large geographically diverse middle-income country, Indonesia is well placed to employ insurance instruments for fairer and more predictable sharing of the financial burden of disasters. This could be through a combination of increased private insurance for households, firms and government agencies across the country and insurance-based arrangements for allocating government disaster relief funding and, when required for the largest high impact events, accessing international resources. This will, however, require careful implementation and a sustained effort to address gaps in data, skills and institutional capacity.


"Anne Wilson: Wind/Rewind/Weave" documents an exhibition of the same title organized by the Knoxville Museum of Art and visual artist Anne Wilson to investigate the global crisis of production and skill-based textile labor. This volume includes evocative images of Wilson's pieces on display, as well as beautiful, full-color illustrations of the textiles that provide an almost tactile experience, photographs of artists at work, and diagrams of how the materials are made. Accompanying these images are essays by Glenn Adamson, Jenni Sorkin, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Philis Alvic, and Laura Y. Liu, which address the history of craft and textile production, while considering how Wilson uses craft and collaboration as potent political metaphors in art.


Nonlinear dynamics of wave packets in parity-time-symmetric optical lattices near the phase-transition point is analytically studied. A nonlinear Klein-Gordon equation is derived for the envelope of these wave packets. A variety of phenomena known to exist in this envelope equation are shown to also exist in the full equation, including wave blowup, periodic bound states, and solitary wave solutions.


In discussions of nanotechnology, it has become increasingly common to emphasise the importance of 'responsible governance'. This study focused on the issue of environmental governance and was specifically interested in critically exploring the relationship between nature and nanotechnology. It began by characterising a range of narratives commonly told about nature and nanotechnology and suggested that each of these was a story that began with particular assumptions, values and beliefs and ended in support for particular fields of research. It then took two contrasting narratives (nanotechnology threatening nature and nanotechnology treating nature) and reviewed their scientific and ideological dimensions. The article concluded by discussing some of the important policy implications of adopting these narratives and highlighted how recognising the existence of a range of different narratives and understanding their ideological underpinnings can help build transparent, reflective and therefore truly 'responsible' decision making and debate on the future of nanotechnology.


Moral duties concerning climate change mitigation are – for good reasons – conventionally construed as duties of institutional agents, usually states. Yet, in both scholarly debate and political discourse, it has occasionally been argued that the moral duties lie not only with states and institutional agents, but also with individual citizens. This argu- ment has been made with regard to mitigation efforts, especially those reducing greenhouse gases. This paper focuses on the question of whether individuals in industrialized countries have duties to reduce their individual carbon footprint. To this end it will examine three kinds of arguments that have been brought forward against individuals having such duties: the view that individual emissions cause no harm; the view that individual mitigation efforts would have no morally signi fi cant effect; and the view that lifestyle changes would be overly-demanding. The paper shows how all three arguments fail to convince. While collective endeavours may be most ef fi cient and effective in bringing about signi fi cant changes, there are still good reasons to contribute individually to reducing emission. After all, for most people the choice is between reducing one ' s individual emissions and not doing anything. The author hopes this paper shows that one should not opt for the latter. air a of a of


Mounting evidence indicates that the endocannabinoid (EC) system (ECS) plays an important role in various liver diseases including viral hepatitis, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), alcoholic liver disease, hepatic encephalopathy, and autoimmune hepatitis. The ECS also impacts on involved processes such as hepatic hemodynamics, nutrient intake and turnover, and ischemia/reperfusion (I/ R) after liver transplantation. Although this involvement is undisputed, therapeutic implications regarding the ECS are just beginning to emerge; so far, no approved drug acting specifically on the ECS is available.


Banks can deal with their liquidity risk by holding liquid assets (self-insurance), by participating in interbank markets (coinsurance), or by using flexible financing instruments, such as bank capital (risk-sharing). We use a simple model to show that undiversifiable liquidity risk, i.e. the liquidity risk that banks are unable to coinsure on interbank markets, represents an important risk factor affecting their capital structures. Banks facing higher undiversifiable liquidity risk hold more capital. We posit that empirically banks that are more exposed to undiversifiable liquidity risk are less active on interbank markets. Therefore, we test for the existence of a negative relationship between bank capital and interbank market activity and find support in a large sample of U.S. commercial banks. JEL Classification: G21.


In this paper, we present the design, fabrication, and measurements of a two-dimensional (2-D) optical scanner with electrostatic angular vertical comb (AVC) actuators. The scanner is realized by combining a foundry-based surface-micromachining process (Multi-User MEMS Processes-MUMPs) with a three-mask deep-reactive ion-etching (DRIE) postfabrication process. The surface-micromachining provides versatile mechanical design and electrical interconnect while the bulk micromachining offers high-aspect ratio structures leading to flat mirrors and high-force, large-displacement actuators. The scanner achieves dc mechanical scanning ranges of /spl plusmn/6.2/spl deg/ (at 55 Vdc) and /spl plusmn/4.1/spl deg/ (at 50 Vdc) for the inner and outer gimbals, respectively. The resonant frequencies are 315 and 144 Hz for the inner and the outer axes, respectively. The 1-mm-diameter mirror has a radius of curvature of over 50 cm. [1454].


In Part 2 of this two-part contribution made on behalf of the Innovation and Systems Change Working Group of the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua), we continue the argument for refashioning health systems in response to ageing and other pressures. Massive ageing in many countries and accompanying technological, fiscal and systems changes are causing the tectonic plates of healthcare to shift in ways not yet fully appreciated. In response, while things remain uncertain, we nevertheless have to find ways to proceed. We propose a strategy for stakeholders to pursue, of key importance and relevance to the ISQua: to harness flexible standards and external assessment in support of needed change. Depending on how they are used, healthcare standards and accreditation can promote, or hinder, the changes needed to create better healthcare for all in the future. Standards should support people's care needs across the life cycle, including prevention and health promotion. New standards that emphasise better coordination of care, those that address the entire healthcare journey and standards that reflect and predict technological changes and support new models of care can play a part. To take advantage of these opportunities, governance bodies, external assessment agencies and other authorities will need to be less prescriptive and better at developing more flexible standards that apply to the entire health journey, incorporating new definitions of excellence and acceptability. The ISQua welcomes playing a leadership role.


One of the most critical and pressing solutions needed to address global climate change is the transition to secure, affordable, and sustainable-energy systems. This transition is usually considered a technological challenge because it involves the integration of renewable energy, a trend toward decentralizing energy generation, and more demandside participation. However, involving consumers in the transition is crucial for its success. For example, sustainable-energy transitions may require consumers to adopt sustainable-energy sources, technologies, and energy-efficiency measures as well as change their direct and indirect energy use behaviors to the limited and fluctuating supply of (renewable) energy. However, such behaviors may not always be easy for consumers to adopt, as they can entail personal sacrifice and discomfort or require them to change habits or infrastructure, which can be cognitively and financially demanding. To guarantee a sustainable future for all, it is critical that we understand what motivates consumers' energy behaviors and how we can promote consumers' motivation to engage in sustainable-energy behaviors and act beyond immediate personal interests.


As debates rage over the place of faith in our national life, Tocqueville's nineteenth-century crediting of religion for shaping America is largely overlooked today. Now, in "Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America", Ellis Sandoz reveals the major role that Protestant Christianity played in the formation and early period of the American republic. Sandoz traces the rise of republican government from key sources in Protestant civilization, paying particular attention to the influence of the Bible on the Founders and the blossoming of the American mind in the eighteenth century. Sandoz analyzes the religious debt of the emergent American community and its elevation of the individual person as unique in the eyes of the Creator. He shows that the true distinction of American republicanism lies in its grounding of human dignity in spiritual individualism and an understanding of man's capacity for self-government under providential guidance. Along the way, he addresses such topics as the neglected question of the education of the Founders for their unique endeavor, common law constitutionalism, the place of Latin and Greek classics in the Founders' thought, and the texture of religious experience from the Great Awakening to the Declaration of Independence. To establish a unifying theoretical perspective for his study, Sandoz considers the philosophical underpinnings of religion and the contribution that Eric Voegelin made to our understanding of religious experience. He contributes fresh studies of the character of Voegelin's thought: its relationship to Christianity; his debate with Leo Strauss over reason, revelation, and the meaning of philosophy; and the theory of Gnosticism as basic to radical modernity. He also provides a powerful account of the spirit of Voegelin's later writings, contrasting the political scientist with the meditative spiritualist and offering new insight into volume 5 of Order and History. Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America concludes with timely reflections on the epoch now unfolding in the shadow of Islamic jihadism. Bringing a wide range of materials into a single volume, it confronts current academic concerns with religion while offering new insight into the construction of the American polity - and the heart of Americanism as we know it today.


Question Answering has been under active research for decades, but it has recently taken the spotlight following IBM Watson's success in Jeopardy! and digital assistants such as Apple's Siri, Google Now, and Microsoft Cortana through every smart-phone and browser. However, most of the research in Question Answering aims at factual questions rather than deep ones such as "How" and "Why" questions. In this dissertation, I suggest a different approach in tackling this problem. We believe that the answers of deep questions need to be formally defined before found. Because these answers must be defined based on something, it is better to be more structural in natural language text; I define Knowledge Description Graphs (KDGs), a graphical structure containing information about events, entities, and classes. We then propose formulations and algorithms to construct KDGs from a frame-based knowledge base, define the answers of various "How" and "Why" questions with respect to KDGs, and suggest how to obtain the answers from KDGs using Answer Set Programming. Moreover, I discuss how to derive missing information in constructing KDGs when the knowledge base is under-specified and how to answer many factual question types with respect to the knowledge base. After having the answers of various questions with respect to a knowledge base, I extend our research to use natural language text in specifying deep questions and knowledge base, generate natural language text from those specification. Toward these goals, I developed NL2KR, a system which helps in translating natural language to formal language. I show NL2KR's use in translating "How" and "Why" questions, and generating simple natural language sentences from natural language KDG specification. Finally, I discuss applications of the components I developed in Natural Language Understanding.


We have used chemical protein synthesis and advanced physical methods to probe dynamics-function correlations for the HIV-1 protease, an enzyme that has received considerable attention as a target for the treatment of AIDS. Chemical synthesis was used to prepare a series of unique analogues of the HIV-1 protease in which the flexibility of the "flap" structures (residues 37–61 in each monomer of the homodimeric protein molecule) was systematically varied. These analogue enzymes were further studied by X-ray crystallography, NMR relaxation, and pulse-EPR methods, in conjunction with molecular dynamics simulations. We show that conformational isomerization in the flaps is correlated with structural reorganization of residues in the active site, and that it is preorganization of the active site that is a rate-limiting factor in catalysis.


Purpose: To quantify gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) patients' preferences for reducing treatment toxicities and the likely effect of toxicities on patients' stated adherence. Methods: English-speaking members of the Life Raft Group, a GIST patient advocacy and research organization, aged 18 years and older, completed a web-enabled survey including a series of treatment-choice questions, each presenting a pair of hypothetical GIST medication toxicity profiles. Each profile was defined by common or concerning toxicities verified via pretest interviews including: severity of edema, diarrhea, nausea, fatigue, rash, hand-foot syndrome, and heart failure; and risk of serious infection. Each subject answered 13 choice-format questions based on a predetermined experimental design with known statistical properties. Subjects were asked to rate the likelihood that they would miss or skip doses of medications with different toxicity profiles. Random-parameters logit was used to estimate a relative preference weight for each level of toxicity. Results: 173 subjects completed the survey. Over the ranges of toxicity levels included in the study, heart failure was the most important toxicity. Edema was the least important. For all toxicities, reducing severity from severe to moderate was more important to subjects than reducing severity from moderate to mild. Reducing heart failure from moderate to mild and diarrhea from severe to moderate had the largest effects on subjects' evaluation of adherence. Conclusions: All toxicities included in the study are important to patients. Treating or reducing severe toxicities is much more important to patients than treating or reducing moderate toxicities. Focused reductions of certain toxicities may improve treatment adherence.


A real-time face recognition system has been implemented on an IBM compatible personal computer with a video camera, image digitizer, and custom VLSI image correlator chip. With a single frontal facial image under semicontrolled lighting conditions, the system performs (i) image preprocessing and template extraction, (ii) template correlation with a database of 173 images, and (iii) postprocessing of correlation results to identify the user. System performance issues including image preprocessing, face recognition algorithm, software development, and VLSI hardware implementation are addressed. In particular, the parallel, fully pipelined VLSI image correlator is able to perform 340 Mop/second and achieve a speed up of 20 over optimized assembly code on a 80486/66DX2. The complete system is able to identify a user from a database of 173 images of 34 persons in approximately two to three seconds. While the recognition performance of the system is difficult to quantify simply, the system achieves a very conservative 88% recognition rate using cross-validation on the moderately varied database.


Use of different pesticides in the agriculture sector, in order to boost crop yield within a short time period and low labor, has been tremendously increased since the last decade. Pesticide use has elevated crop yield but has produced a number of pronounced problems regarding environmental and health safety. The continuously deteriorating toxicological effects of these pesticides are not only hazardous to humans and land animals but also to economically important aquatic organisms such as fish. One of these extensively used pesticides is an organochlorine insecticide, endosulfan. Experiments conducted in the past have shown the deleterious effects of endosulfan on different aspects of various fish species but its genetic toxicity has not been well studied. The present study was conducted to diagnose the DNA damage induced by endosulfan in peripheral blood erythrocytes of an economically important teleost fish rohu, Labeo rohita (Hamilton, 1822) using comet assay. The fish were exposed to three different sub lethal concentrations (1, 1.5 and 2 μg L -1 ) of endosulfan for 7, 14, 21 and 28 days. Rohu showed different extents of DNA damage at different concentrations and time, in terms of genetic damage index (GDI), percentage of damaged cells (% damaged cell) and cumulative tail length (μm) of the comets. Increase in DNA damage was observed to be concentration and time-dependent. The current study revealed the severe genotoxic effects of endosulfan in rohu, Labeo rohita. Therefore its discriminate use should be avoided as it can contribute to the decline of rohu in natural habitats. Also it should be considered as a hazardous threat for human consumption.


Dynamic spectrum management (DSM) aims to increase the utilization of cable capacity by adapting the spectra of digital subscriber line (DSL) systems to the real network environment. In this paper we present a new DSM algorithm: the constrained normalized-rate iterative algorithm (C-NRIA). The C-NRIA extends the existing NRIA by ensuring predefined fixed bitrates to some of the users in the cable bundle while offering bitrates to the remaining users on a best effort basis. This reflects many business scenarios where a number of users must be guaranteed a specific service. We show that this type of the optimization problem can be solved efficiently with the C-NRIA by introducing only one balancing parameter that splits the cable capacity among the two user groups.


Watershed protection is one of the many goods and services provided by the world's fast disappearing tropical forests. Among the variety of watershed protection benefits, flood damage alleviation is crucial, particularly in upland watersheds. This study is a rare attempt to estimate flooding alleviation benefits, resulting from the protection of upland forests in Eastern Madagascar. A three stage model is used to examine the relationship between the economic concept of value and the bio-physical dimensions of the protected area. This approach combines techniques from remote sensing, soil and hydrologic sciences and economics. In stage one, the relationship between changes in land use practices and the extent of flooding in immediate downstream is established by using remotely sensed and hydrologic-runoff data. Stage two relates the impact of increased flooding to crop production by comparing the hydrologic data with the agronomic flood damage reports for the same time period. In stage three, a productivity analysis approach is adopted to evaluate flood damage in terms of lost producer surplus. The presence of the Mantadia National Park, in eastern Madagascar, is designed to prevent land conversions and changes in hydrologic patterns, thereby alleviating flood damage. This averted flood damage is a measure of the watershed protection benefits to society. Given that natural systems are subject to considerable stochastic shocks, sensitivity analysis is used to examine the uncertainty associated with the key random variables. The results of this analysis should help policy makers assess trade-offs between the costs and benefits of protecting tropical rainforest.


Chemical compounds (infochemicals or semiochemicals) play an important role both in intra-specific and inter-specific communication. For example, chemical cues appear to play a key role in the host selection process adopted by insect parasitoids. In recent years significant advances have been made in order to understand the chemical ecology of insect parasitoids. However, little information is available about the evolution of semiochemical use in the host location process of insect parasitoids. Here we investigated the strategy adopted by seven closely related parasitoid species in the genus Melittobia when foraging for four different suitable hosts. By using an integrated approach that combined olfactometer bioassays and phylogenetic investigations, we found that: 1) exploitation of host-derived semiochemicals is widespread in the Melittobia genus; 2) there is specificity of attraction towards the different host species tested; in particular, the early-branching species in the Melittobia genus are attracted to odors associated with leaf cutting bees (Megachile rotundata) whereas the most-diverged species are attracted to odors associated with solitary mud dauber wasps (Trypoxyilon politum). Regardless of the phylogenetic relationships, no Melittobia species exhibited attraction towards odors of factitious laboratory hosts (i.e. the flesh fly Sarcophaga bullata). Interestingly, five Melittobia species are also attracted by odors associated with honeybees hosts which indicate that these parasitoids could be potential pests of honeybees. Our study shed light on the host location within the Melittobia genus and represents a first attempt to understand semiochemical use in an evolutionary perspective in the context of parasitoids' foraging behavior.


Museums have been viewed as valuable education resources as well as sites of reproduction of colonialist narratives about the "other." This article, based on ethnographic field studies of school visits to museums and drawing on postcolonial critique in visual culture and critical education theory, analyzes two different museum exhibitions and the human-nonhuman animal relations they produce. Different agendas seem to be at work at the two museums; one inviting a conventional zoological gaze of "exoticism," and the other interrogating issues of power inherent in human-nonhuman animal relations. I argue that the pedagogical messages produced by particularly the natural history museum are part of a generic zoocurriculum; a species-coded hidden curriculum structuring human-animal boundary work by delimiting and separating human and animal subject positions. However, student responses to both museum displays indicate that their own interpretive framework largely operated in the opposite direction as the stuffed and dismembered animals seemed to invoke reflections on mortality that facilitated students' self-identification with them.


White (Oxytropis sericea Nutt. in T.& G.) and Lambert (O. lambertii var. biglovii Pursh) locoweed grow adjacent to each other on the foothills of the Rocky Mountains from southeastern Wyoming to northeastern New Mexico. Lambert locoweed matures later and flowers about 3‐4 weeks after white locoweed, thus potentially increasing the critical period of poisoning when livestock graze areas infested by both species. The objective of this study was to evaluate cattle consumption of these 2 species as they progress phenologically. In 1998, 15 Hereford cows grazed a 32 ha pasture infested with both species from the time white locoweed flowered in mid June until both species were mature and senesced in August. In 1999, 4 cows were placed in a 5 ha pasture infested with both species for 4 days in each of the following periods: (1) flower stage of white locoweed, (2) flower stage of Lambert locoweed, immature pod at white locoweed, (3) immature pod stage of Lambert locoweed, mature pod while (4) mature pod and seed shatter stage respectively. Diets were estimated by bite-count. Lambert locoweed was preferred over white locoweed in the season-long grazing trial in 1998, and in each of the 4 intensive grazing trials in 1999. The cows consumed white locoweed as availability of Lambert locoweed declined in 1998, but little white locoweed was consumed in the 4 intensive grazing trials in 1999. The toxic locoweed alkaloid swainsonine ranged from 0.04 to 0.06% in white locoweed, but was not detected in Lambert locoweed in this study.


Increased market penetration of electric drive vehicles (EDVs) requires overcoming a number of hurdles, including limited vehicle range and the elevated cost in comparison to conventional vehicles. Climate control loads have a significant impact on range, cutting it by over 50% in both cooling and heating conditions. To minimize the impact of climate control on EDV range, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has partnered with Hyundai America and key industry partners to quantify the performance of thermal load reduction technologies on a Hyundai Sonata plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Technologies that impact vehicle cabin heating in cold weather conditions and cabin cooling in warm weather conditions were evaluated. Tests included thermal transient and steady-state periods for all technologies, including the development of a new test methodology to evaluate the performance of occupant thermal conditioning. Heated surfaces demonstrated significant reductions in energy use from steady-state heating, including a 29%–59% reduction from heated surfaces. Solar control glass packages demonstrated significant reductions in energy use for both transient and steady-state cooling, with up to a 42% reduction in transient and 12.8% reduction in steady-state energy use for the packages evaluated. Technologies that demonstrated significant climate control load reduction were selected for incorporation into a complete thermal load reduction package. The complete package is set to be evaluated in the second phase of the ongoing project.


A thesis submitted to the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Agronomy (Plant Breeding), 2013


After several decades of academic research on the contingent valuation (CV) method a consistent behavioral explanation of 'hypothetical bias' is still lacking. Based on evidence from economics, economic psychology and the political sciences, I propose an explanation that is based on two simple working hypotheses about respondent behaviour in contingent valuation surveys. The first hypothesis is that survey respondents are unable to form consistent preferences about unfamiliar goods unless the choice context offers reliable, informative cues that can be rationally exploited in simplified heuristics. The second hypothesis is that the probability and impact of strategic responses in dichotomous-choice questions about public goods depends on the extent to which the presented hypothetical costs differ from the actual costs. The literature on hypothetical bias is revisited in the light of these behavioral hypotheses. I find that the hypotheses are generally supported by the empirical data. Moreover, the hypotheses are able to explain several important empirical phenomena that previous research has not been able to explain. In particular, they solve the puzzle that pre-election polls, but not CV surveys, are able to predict actual referendum outcomes, and they explain why income effects on willingness to pay are lower in CV responses than in actual votes. If confirmed by further studies, the hypotheses will have important implications for future research and practice. First, the hypothetical costs presented in the dichotomous choice question should to be close enough to the actual costs to be credible to all respondents. This can be achieved by specifying the costs as a percentage (rather than absolute) change in taxes. Second, the respondents should be given the option to answer based on information about the positions of large parties and interest groups with known political orientation rather than based on the raw policy information. Theory and evidence suggest that this new survey paradigm largely eliminates the fundamental problems of the conventional stated preference methods.


Charles Reagan Wilson documents that for over half a century there existed not one, but two civil religions in the United States, the second not dedicated to honoring the American nation. Extensively researched in primary sources, Baptized in Blood is a significant and well-written study of the South's civil religion, one of two public faiths in America. In his comparison, Wilson finds the Lost Cause offered defeated Southerners a sense of meaning and purpose and special identity as a precarious but distinct culture. Southerners may have abandoned their dream of a separate political nation after Appomattox, but they preserved their cultural identity by blending Christian rhetoric and symbols with the rhetoric and imagery of Confederate tradition."Civil religion" has been defined as the religious dimension of a people that enables them to understand a historical experience in transcendent terms. In this light, Wilson explores the role of religion in postbellum southern culture and argues that the profound dislocations of Confederate defeat caused southerners to think in religious terms about the meaning of their unique and tragic experience. The defeat in a war deemed by some as religious in nature threw into question the South's relationship to God; it was interpreted in part as a God-given trial, whereby suffering and pain would lead Southerners to greater virtue and strength and even prepare them for future crusades. From this reflection upon history emerged the civil religion of the Lost Cause.While recent work in southern religious history has focused on the Old South period, Wilson's timely study adds to our developing understanding of the South after the Civil War. The Lost Cause movement was an organized effort to preserve the memory of the Confederacy. Historians have examined its political, literary, and social aspects, but Wilson uses the concepts of anthropology, sociology, and historiography to unveil the Lost Cause as an authentic expression of religion. The Lost Cause was celebrated and perpetuated with its own rituals, mythology, and theology; as key celebrants of the religion of the Lost Cause, Southern ministers forged it into a religious movement closely related to their own churches.In examining the role of civil religion in the cult of the military, in the New South ideology, and in the spirit of the Lost Cause colleges, as well as in other aspects, Wilson demonstrates effectively how the religion of the Lost Cause became the institutional embodiment of the South's tragic experience.


Background: Multi-hazards pose a serious threat to human life. It can cause considerable damages. The evaluation of the expected losses due to multi-hazards requires a risk assessment. Multi-hazards risk assessment allow the identification of the most endangered areas and suggest where further detailed studies have to be carried out. Aim: This study aims to give a new methodology for Multi-hazard risk assessment that makes easier the comparability analysis of vulnerability for different hazards and accounts for possible triggering (domino) effects. Materials and Methods: Methods used in this paper are based on theoretical approach and documentation. Two types of hazards will be assessed, namely earthquake and fire following earthquake. Statistical Analysis: Semi-quantitative and quantitative approach would assess risk rates at both regional and local levels. Result: In this study, representation of a new methodology for multi-hazards risk assessment includes determination of a model with parameters, consideration of the indicator-based pattern of vulnerability assessment that selected of all the relevant indicators and presented new classification of indicators based on comparison to different hazards and possible triggering (domino) effects. This means a potential multi-hazard indicator could be higher than the simple aggregation of single risk indicators calculation. Conclusion: The focus is on establishing a general overview of the emerging issues, and indicating how hazard relations can be considered in multi-hazard studies. The hazard relation is identified and studied by means of a new method and the overlay of hazard areas to determine overlaps in final multi-hazards map.


Convolution kernels for trees provide effective means for learning with treestructured data, such as parse trees of natural language sentences. Unfortunately, the computation time of tree kernels is quadratic in the size of the trees as all pairs of nodes need to be compared: large trees render convolution kernels inapplicable. In this paper, we propose a simple but efficient approximation technique for tree kernels. The approximate tree kernel (ATK) accelerates computation by selecting a sparse and discriminative subset of subtrees using a linear program. The kernel allows for incorporating domain knowledge and controlling the overall computation time through additional constraints. Experiments on applications of natural language processing and web spam detection demonstrate the efficiency of the approximate kernels. We observe run-time improvements of two orders of magnitude while preserving the discriminative expressiveness and classification rates of regular convolution kernels.


Purpose This study aimed to assess self-reported adherence and associated factors to isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) for latent tuberculosis among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) at health centers in Gondar town, North West Ethiopia. Patients and methods An institution-based prospective cross-sectional study was conducted from March 10 to June 11, 2016. A total of 154 eligible participants were included in the study, using the simple random sampling method, from the available four health centers and one teaching referral hospital that provided antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV/AIDS patients. Adherence was measured by self-report of isoniazid (INH) tablets taken for the preceding 7 days. Participants were recruited through in-depth interviews. The collected data were entered and analyzed using the statistical packages for social sciences (SPSS) version 20. Results The adherence level to IPT was 90.3% for the last 7 days of the study. ART was initiated for 84.4%, and all of them were on a first-line regimen. Isoniazid-related side effects were reported by 48 (31.2%) participants, of which the most commonly identified were abdominal pain, vomiting, skin rash, jaundice, and numbness. Only 3 (2%) participants discontinued from the study. In the bivariate logistic regression analysis, respondents who had received an explanation about IPT were 83% times more likely to be adherent compared to those who had not received it (95% CI, AOR: 0.266 [0.23–3.127]). Respondents who had taken IPT for ≥5 months were more likely to be adherent than those who had taken it for 1–2 months [95% CI, COR: 1.484]. On the other hand, respondents who experienced side effects were 36% less likely to be adherent compared to those who did not experience any. Conclusion The level of adherence to IPT among PLWHA was high. Among the predictors reported, carelessness and/or forgetfulness, side effects, and absence from home were the major factors identified for being nonadherent. Health professionals and the Ministry of Health should design and deliver appropriate health education tips and messages. Moreover, counseling of patients who are in their first 2 months of therapy should be strengthened further.


Bolboforma is a microfossil of uncertain origin with affinities to protophytic algae. It generally occurs at high latitudes and/or in cool and temperate waters and has a high stratigraphic potential especially for the Miocene. Calcareous cysts of dinoflagellates represent the 'benthic cyst stage' of unicellular organisms belonging to the marine phytoplankton. The occurrence of Bolboforma, Bachmayerella is documented here and, for the first time, some calcareous cysts of dinoflagellates tentatively attributed to Alasphaera and Pithonella from Badenian (Langhian–Middle Miocene) sediments in Austrian and Moravian localities. Alasphaera and Pithonella were previously described from Cretaceous and Danian sediments only, therefore, their range has been extended into the Paratethyan Middle Miocene. Correlation of Bolboforma bioevents with standard geological time-scales allows confirmation, and in some cases refinement, of age assignments based on other microfossil groups, such as foraminifera and calcareous nannofossils, in Paratethyan areas. In particular, this paper presents a case study of the biostratigraphy of the Grund Formation outcropping at its type locality in Lower Austria. Age attribution of the Grund Formation has been uncertain for some time. The recovery of Praeorbulina glomerosa circularis and Uvigerina macrocarinata, associated with Bolboforma reticulata, allows the correlation of the Grund Formation with the Early Badenian (Middle Miocene). As planktonic foraminifera are generally very rare or absent in shelf deposits of many other Austrian and Moravian Middle Miocene sedimentary sequences, Bolboforma, and in particular B. reticulata, remains an important biomarker to identify lower Badenian sediments. Additionally, the new species Bolboforma gneixendorfensis Spezzaferri & Rögl is described. It is generally double-chambered with a weakly reticulate wall texture and is associated with Bolboforma reticulata, B. bireticulata and/or B. moravica.


Network data structures have been used extensively in recent years for modeling entities and their ties, across diverse disciplines. Analyzing networks involves understanding the complex relationships between entities, as well as any attributes, statistics, or groupings associated with them. A widely used class of visualizations called sociograms excel at showing the network topology, attributes, and groupings simultaneously. However, many sociograms are not easily readable or difficult to extract meaning from because of the inherent complexity of the relationships and the number of items designers try to render in limited space. This paper introduces a technique called motif simplification that leverages the repeating motifs in networks to reduce visualization complexity and increase readability. We propose replacing motifs in the network with easily understandable glyphs that (1) require less screen space, (2) are easier to understand in the context of the network, (3) can reveal otherwise hidden relationships, and (4) result in minimal loss of fidelity. We tackle two frequently occurring and high-payoff motifs: a fan motif consisting of a fan of nodes with only a single neighbor connecting them to the network, and a parallel motif of functionally equivalent nodes that span two or more other nodes together. We contribute the design of representative glyphs for these motifs, algorithms for detecting them, a publicly available reference implementation, and initial case studies and user feedback that support the motif simplification approach.


Abstract. The surface temperature of the Greenland ice sheet is among the most important climate variables for assessing how climate change may impact human societies due to its association with sea level rise. However, the causes of multidecadal-to-centennial temperature changes in Greenland temperatures are not well understood, largely owing to short observational records. To examine these, we calculated the Greenland temperature anomalies (GTA[G-NH]) over the past 800 yr by subtracting the standardized northern hemispheric (NH) temperature from the standardized Greenland temperature. This decomposes the Greenland temperature variation into background climate (NH); polar amplification; and regional variability (GTA[G-NH]). The central Greenland polar amplification factor as expressed by the variance ratio Greenland/NH is 2.6 over the past 161 yr, and 3.3–4.2 over the past 800 yr. The GTA[G-NH] explains 31–35% of the variation of Greenland temperature in the multidecadal-to-centennial time scale over the past 800 yr. We found that the GTA[G-NH] has been influenced by solar-induced changes in atmospheric circulation patterns such as those produced by the North Atlantic Oscillation/Arctic Oscillation (NAO/AO). Climate modeling and proxy temperature records indicate that the anomaly is also likely linked to solar-paced changes in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) and associated changes in northward oceanic heat transport.


The peak accelerations recorded on alluvial sites during the Northridge earthquake were about 50% larger than the median value predicted by current empirical attenuation relations at distances less than about 30 km. This raises the question of whether the ground motions from the Northridge earthquake are anomalous for thrust events or are representative of ground motions expected in future thrust earthquakes. Since the empirical data base contains few strong-motion records close to large-thrust earthquakes, it is difficult to assess whether the Northridge ground motions are anomalous based on recorded data alone. For this reason, we have used a broadband strong-motion simulation procedure to help assess whether the ground motions were anomalous. The simulation procedure has been validated against a large body of strong-motion data from California earthquakes, and so we expect it to produce accurate estimates of ground motions for any given rupture scenario, including blind-thrust events for which no good precedent existed in the strong-motion data base until the occurrence of the Northridge earthquake. The ground motions from the Northridge earthquake and our simulations of these ground motions have a similar pattern of departure from empirical attenuation relations for thrust earthquakes: the peak accelerations are at about the 84th percentile level for distances within 20 to 30 km and follow the median level for larger distances. This same pattern of departure from empirical attenuation relations was obtained in our simulations of the peak accelerations of an Elysian Park blind-thrust event prior to the occurrence of the Northridge earthquake. Since we are able to model this pattern with broadband simulations, and had done so before the Northridge earthquake occurred, this suggests that the Northridge strong-motion records are not anomalous and are representative of ground motions close to thrust faults. Accordingly, it seems appropriate to include these recordings in strong-motion data sets that are used to develop empirical ground-motion attenuation relations for thrust faults and to use this augmented data set as the basis for evaluating the need for modifications in design coefficients in the seismic provisions of building codes.


This essay examines, what, if anything, differentiates Enron's questionable use of off-balance-sheet special purpose entries, or SPEs, from the trillions of dollars of supposedly "legitimate" securitization and other structured finance transactions that use SPEs. The inquiry is important because the absence of meaningful differences would call all these transactions into question, whereas the presence of meaningful differences may inform regulatory schemes by providing a basis to distinguish which structured finance transactions should be allowed. This Essay also introduces the dilemma that some structured finance transactions are so complex that disclosure to investors in the sponsoring company is necessarily imperfect -- either oversimplifying the transactions or providing detail and sophistication beyond the level of most investors. The Essay argues that the company's investors must rely, to some extent, on the business judgment of management in setting up these structures for the company's benefit.


The thesis on hand has been carried out at Philips Consumer Lifestyle Drachten that, together with Delft University of Technology, aims to develop a computed tool that determines the performance and efficiency curve of any centrifugal fan operating in the Philips Airfryer. The Airfryer is a Philips kitchen appliance that, thanks to the use of Rapid Air Technology, enables to fry food with a reduction of unhealthy fat up to 80%.
Philips aims at reducing the total cost of the cooking fan and the electric engine as a whole by keeping the operating performance of the system constant. That means improving the performance of the centrifugal fan and at the same time reducing the specifications of the electric motor. Hence, the fan's manufacturing price will rise although the motors will decrease in a higher range leading to an optimized total cost. Nonetheless, the aim of this thesis is to develop such tool that Philips will finally use in order to optimize the Airfryer's fan and provide feasible optimization cases.
The research has been divided into two main sections, the experimental and the theoretical:
The experimental approach leads to determining the operating window of the system as well as validating the flow cycle inside the appliance known beforehand. One will realize that not only the centrifugal fan has a strong interaction with the flow behaviour but also the starfish.
In order to come to an understanding of the fan's performance it is considered to do a literature research on centrifugal fan losses. This theoretical research provides the basis of the developed tool. To start, the performance of the centrifugal fan at full efficiency is calculated from Euler's Turbomachinery Equation. Afterwards, several pressure and leakage losses are quantified enabling to plot the final performance curve. This last performance curve is comparable to the experimental. Finally, the efficiency of the final curve is calculated since the losses along the performance curve are determined


This chapter examines how environmental issues have become increasingly prominent on the international agenda over the last five decades. It considers whether globalization and development must come at the expense of the physical environment, whether state governments can cooperate to protect the planet, and whether climate justice is possible. The chapter first provides a brief history of the development of an international environmental agenda before discussing the functions of international environmental cooperation. It then explores efforts to addres the problem of climate change through the establishment of an international climate regime and highlights the neglect of environmental issues in traditional and realist international relations theory. Two case studies are presented, one dealing with the concept of 'common but differentiated responsibilities' and the other with the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and its influence on international climate politics.


N-(4-acetylphenyl)maleimide (APMI) was homopolymerized and copolymerized with acrylic acid (AA) at 60-70 C in tetrahydrofuran (THF) solution with azoisobutyronitrile (AIBN) as an initiator. Metal composites were also synthesized with various metal such as, Fe, Co, Ni Cu. The structure of monomer, homopolymer and copolymer, metal composites were elucidated by FT-IR, H-NMR and elemental analysis. The nine copolymer samples were synthesized from different feed ratio of comonomer. The monomer reactivity ratio rNAPMI and rAA were determined by Finemann Ross method. The investigated homo and copolymers showed solubility in polar solvents. Thermal behavior of homopolymer and copolymer were evaluated by TGA and DSC.The molecular weights were determined by GPC. The antimicrobial activity of synthesized homopolymer, copolymer and were screen against various bacteria and fungi and they showed excellent antimicrobial activity.


A fuzzy rule-based decision system for assisting coaches in the configuration of an athletics team is presented. The knowledge base of this system combines the experience of the trainer with genetically mined information from training sessions and competitions. The novelty of our approach comes from the fact that these sources of data have low quality: they include subjective perceptions of mistakes of the athletes, different measurements taken by different observers, and interval-valued attributes. We will use a possibilistic representation of these categories of information, in combination with an extension principle-based reasoning method, and show that the predictive power of a genetic fuzzy system which is based in these principles improves other systems that discard the vagueness of the training data.


Consumers always use the different product cues for the selection of different product categories and these cues are developed with the passage of time and experience. This study is totally based on this concept; we tried to explain the usage of these product categories. From different articles we shortlisted the six most important product cues. We studied the impact of these product cues in the sale of FMCG product categories. To conduct the research, we defined the six products of FMCG product categories; these six product categories were selected through a focus group. A quantitative research was conducted in this study and questionnaires were used to collect the feedback of respondent's. These respondents were selected by using the convenient sampling approach and spss was used to analyze the data. On the basis of findings we can say that the taste/ performance cue is the most important cue in the sale of FMCG product categories. We concluded this research by giving the suggestions to the retailers and manufacturer that how they can increase the profit in the respective product category.


Much work has been done on learning from failure in search to boost solving of combinatorial problems, such as clause-learning in boolean satisfiability (SAT), nogood and explanation-based learning, and constraint weighting in constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs), etc. Many of the top solvers in SAT use clause learning to good effect. A similar approach (nogood learning) has not had as large an impact in CSPs. Constraint weighting is a less fine grained approach where the information learnt gives an approximation as to which variables may be the sources of greatest contention. In this paper we present a method for learning from search using restarts, in order to identify these critical variables in a given constraint satisfaction problem, prior to solving. Our method is based on the conflict-directed heuristic (weighted-degree heuristic) introduced by Boussemart et al. and is aimed at producing a better-informed version of the heuristic by gathering information through restarting and probing of the search space prior to solving, while minimising the overhead of these restarts/probes. We show that random probing of the search space can boost the heuristics power by improving early decisions in search. We also provide an in-depth analysis of the effects of constraint weighting.


Reconfigurable Video Coding (RVC) aims to provide a framework allowing a dynamic development, implementation and adoption of standardized video coding solutions with features of higher flexibility and re-usability. RVC-CAL is a dataflow oriented language which is used for describing modules in the RVC framework. In this paper, an RVC-CAL description of an AVC intra prediction, module is presented. This module is integrated with inter prediction and entropy coding modules to form an AVC baseline encoder. Development using RVC-CAL is found to be more productive than other traditional approaches. This is due to the abstract and encapsulated representation that is made feasible by RVC- CAL. The module presented is part of an RVC encoding tools library that will be used to generate a BSDL and FND to test the conformance of RVC decoders. It is more convenient to use components from this library than to use reference software or other implementations due to the advantages of RVC-CAL.


Against the background of a digitalizing industry (industry 4.0) the question of how companies and future staff are prepared for these changes is becoming increasingly important. That is why the focus of this empirical-experimental study was put on the investigation of the choice of job of Millennials and their requirements on the ideal workplace. The perspective of high potentials within the group of Millennials was collected by means of two focus groups (n=8) which were carried out prior to the main study, a quantitative conjoint study (n = 165). By applying conjoint analysis, the study empirically investigated the relationship between the attributes job tasks, flexibility, familyfriendliness, and salary.


Workplace learning (WPL) of students constitutes an integral part of the engineering curriculum at the Department of Electronic Engineering Technological Educational Institute of Crete (DoEE/TEIoC). More specifically, the six months' workplace learning duration of our students is carried out through internships between the DoEE/TEIoC and enterprises/ organizations. In our economic recession times, such collaborative internships are confronted with various challenges related to pedagogical, labour market, organizational, etc. issues. The aim of the paper is to provide insights to our experience as it concerns the exploitation of practices we adopted in a social web context towards the achievement of an effective workplace learning for all parties (students, enterprises/organizations, DoE/ TEIoC) involved. Emphasis will be given to students' weblogs and podcasts in order to guarantee quality outcomes for the overall workplace learning process. Furthermore, based on data available from questionnaires filled by our students as well as by the corresponding enterprise/organization and academic supervisors, a series of internship related implications and prospects are identified and discussed.


We introduce a method to determine intermetallic crystal phases by creating topological fingerprints using coordination polyhedra. Many intermetallic crystal phases have complex structures that cannot be determined from the information of their nearest neighbour environment alone, but need information from a further reaching local environment. We obtain the coordination polyhedra of each atom in the structure and use this information in a topological fingerprint to determine the crystal phases in the structure as locally as possible. This allows us to analyse complex crystal phases like the topologically close-packed phases and multi-phase structures. With the information extracted from the coordination polyhedra and topological fingerprint, it is also possible to find and identify point and extended defects. Therefore, our method is able to track interface regions in multi-phase structures, and follow structural changes during phase transformations.


1. S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAMe) had no effect on cytochrome C reduction by superoxide generated from xanthine oxidase except at high concentrations. This was due to direct inhibition of the enzyme. 2. SAMe inhibited the neutrophil respiratory burst , measured by luminol enhanced chemiluminescence, to FMLP and zymosan A but not to PMA. 3. Adenosine and methylthioadenosine (MTA) inhibited the respiratory burst elicited by FMLP. 4. SAMe inhibited the phagocytosis of latex particles by neutrophils at high concentrations but methionine and S-adenosyl L-homocysteine had no effect. 5. Treatment with SAMe had no effect on cell infiltration or PGE2 production in 6-day air pouches. 6. Treatment with SAMe at the optimum dose of 50mg/kg inhibited the early phases of carrageenan induced rat hind paw inflammation but had a lesser effect on the secondary response. The antiinflammatory effect was sustained after inhibiton of polyamine synthesis. 7. SAMe increased liver putrescine levels in the presence and absence of inflammation Spermidine levels were increased in the presence of inflammation but spermine levels were unaffected by any of the treatments. 8. MT A and adenosine increased liver putrescine and spermidine levels 9. Treatment with SAMe had no effect on the polyamine status of blood. lO.Treatment with SAMe had no effect on the levels of glutathione in liver or blood. 11.SAMe and MTA inhibited histamine and platelet-activating factor (PAF) induced hind paw inflammation but had no effect on inflammation induced by dextran, zymosan, compound 48/80, 5-hydroxytryptamine, arachidonic acid or glucose oxidase. MTA was more effective than SAMe. 12. PAP-induced rat hind paw inflammation was inhibited by isoprenaline and verapamil. Combinations of these drugs with SAMe or MT A had no further enhancement of effect. 13. Incubation of rat PMNLs with [14c ] SAMe increased the intracellular levels of S-adenosyl-L-homocysteine in a dose dependent manner, but had no effect on the intracellular levels of SAMe, adenosine or MT A. 14. Pharmacokinetic studies of plasma SAMe following a single dose of the drug (50mg/kg) i.p. demonstrated that SAMe is rapidly absorbed and metabolised


To explicitly simulate the soil thermal state effects on hydrological response, the soil thermal regime, frozen soil, and permafrost simulation capability in the Geophysical Institute Permafrost Laboratory (GIPL) model have been included into the physically based, distributed watershed model Gridded Surface Subsurface Hydrologic Analysis (GSSHA). The GIPL model is used to compute a vertical soil temperature profile in every lateral two-dimensional GSSHA computational ele-ment using the soil moisture information from hydrologic simulations in GSSHA; GSSHA, in turn, uses this temperature and phase, ice content, and information to adjust hydraulic conductivities for both the vertical unsaturated soil flow and lateral saturated groundwater flow. This two-way coupling increases computational accuracy in both models by providing additional information and processes not previously included in either. The soil moisture physical state is defined by the Richards Equation, and the soil thermal state is defined by the numerical model of phase change based on quasi-linear heat conduction equation. Results from the demon-stration site, a head water sub-catchment at the peak of the Caribou-Poker Creeks Research Watershed, representing Alaskan woodland and tundra ecosystem in permafrost-active region, indicated that freezing temperatures reduce soil thermal conductivity and soil storage capacity, thereby increasing overland flow and peak discharges.


In this paper, we study pattern-avoidance in the set of words over the alphabet $[k]$. We say that a word $w\in[k]^n$ contains a pattern $\tau\in[\ell]^m$, if $w$ contains a subsequence order-isomorphic to $\tau$. This notion generalizes pattern-avoidance in permutations. We determine all the Wilf-equivalence classes of word patterns of length at most six. We also consider analogous problems within the set of integer compositions and the set of parking functions, which may both be regarded as special types of words, and which contain all permutations. In both these restricted settings, we determine the equivalence classes of all patterns of length at most five. As it turns out, the full classification of these short patterns can be obtained with only a few general bijective arguments, which are applicable to patterns of arbitrary size.