Action research is a term used to describe a family of related approaches that integrate theory and action with a goal of addressing important organizational, community, and social issues together with those who experience them. It focuses on the creation of areas for collaborative learning and the design, enactment and evaluation of liberating actions through combining action and research, reflection and action in an ongoing cycle of cogenerative knowledge. While the roots of these methodologies go back to the 1940s, there has been a dramatic increase in research output and adoption in university curricula over the past decade. This is now an area of high popularity among academics and researchers from various fields - especially business and organization studies, education, health care, nursing, development studies, and social and community work. The Sage Encyclopedia of Action Research brings together the many strands of action research and addresses the interplay between these disciplines by presenting a state-of-the-art overview and comprehensive breakdown of the key tenets and methods of action research as well as detailing the work of key theorists and contributors to action research. To watch a video of editor David Coghlan discuss the importance of this major reference work as well as the implications, challenges and successes of editing The Sage Encyclopedia of Action Research.


Building upon research suggesting activists enhance public involvement in technocratic policy-making processes through forms of digital intermediation, this study investigates the extent to which digital form letters address the structural and rhetorical subordination contributing to the technocratic divide. The ability of the general public to overcome this efficacy divide is assessed in the context of the FCC's 2014 network neutrality deliberations. Results suggest that even though activists helped individuals overcome impediments to public involvement, including geographic distance from policymakers, deliberations during the workweek, and access to public comment systems, the finding that many comments were submitted via form letter suggests the public's voice was largely absent. This raises questions about the ability of "slacktivist" tactics to advance public mobilization efforts and the difficult task faced by intermediaries attempting to bridge technocratic divides while avoiding principal–agent problems.


A secondary analysis of the European and World Values Surveys finds heavy television viewers are less likely than light television viewers to select an anti-acquisition national goal. Heavy viewers were also more likely than light viewers to report they are unhappy and dissatisfied both with their financial state and life overall. A nation-by-nation analysis of 'affluenza' (consumerist/materialist/acquisition values purportedly spread by heavy exposure to television) found few links to television viewing, but nations with heavier television viewing also were less happy. Television viewing, age, income and religiosity had little predictive value for pro-acquisition sentiments. The author concludes cultivation theory is too simple and inexact to explain any 'affluenza' effect. The author finds tantalizing clues of such an effect, and suggests techniques for future research.


Compressional and shear wave seismic measurements were performed in an old railway tunnel and in galleries excavated in a 250-m-thick Toarcian claystone formation in the Tournemire experimental station (France). Three component (3C) geophones and three orthogonal orientations of the vibroseismic force source were used. Additionally, vertical seismic profiling (VSP) measurements were recorded with a 3C borehole geophone, a hydrophone and a microphone in a 159 m deep borehole (ID180) in the tunnel. The seismic data show that Toarcian claystone has strong transverse isotropy (TI) with a vertical symmetry axis. The qP, SH and qSV wave propagation velocities in horizontal directions-the plane of isotropy of the TI medium-are measured as 3550, 1850 and 1290 m s-1, respectively. The zero-offset VSP reveals that only one shear wave propagates in the vertical (depth) direction and the P- and S-wave velocities are 3100 and 1375 m s-1, respectively. Four elastic moduli of the TI medium are determined from the seismic velocities and from the bulk density of 2.53 g cm-3 c11 = 31.9 GPa, c33 = 24.3 GPa, c44 = 4.5 GPa and c66 = 8.7 GPa. A walkaway VSP with the borehole geophone at 50 m depth in borehole ID180 and shot points in the galleries leads to oblique seismic ray paths which allow us to determine the fifth elastic modulus of the TI medium to c13 = 16 GPa. The tube wave recorded by a hydrophone in the water filled lower part of the borehole propagates with 1350 m s-1, which confirms the estimate of the elastic constant c66. The analysis of body wave and surface wave data from a seismic experiment in Galerie Est shows reflections from several fracture zones in the gallery floor. The thickness of the excavation damaged zone (EDZ) in the floor of Galerie Est is estimated to 0.7 m. © The Authors 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal Astronomical Society.


With the falling price of memory, an increasing number of multimedia servers and proxies are now equipped with a large memory space. Caching media objects in the memory of a proxy helps to reduce the network traffic, the disk I/O bandwidth requirement, and the data delivery latency. The running buffer approach and its alternatives are representative techniques to caching streaming data in the memory. There are two limits in the existing techniques. First, although multiple running buffers for the same media object co-exist in a given processing period, data sharing among multiple buffers is not considered. Second, user access patterns are not insightfully considered in the buffer management. In this paper, we propose two techniques based on shared running buffers in the proxy to address these limits. Considering user access patterns and characteristics of the requested media objects, our techniques adaptively allocate memory buffers to fully utilize the currently buffered data of streaming sessions, with the aim to reduce both the server load and the network traffic. Experimentally comparing with several existing techniques, we show that the proposed techniques achieve significant performance improvement by effectively using the shared running buffers.


Keywords: Perception, Reality Show

One of the electronic mass media that provide information quickly and can reach all levels of society is television. Indosiar is one private television station that provides information and entertainment needs of society. One of the entertainment which aired by Indosiar and favored by the people, especially mothers and teenage daughters home today is reality show Miss Dream. Miss Dream is a reality television show featuring a group of obese women who have a wide range of expertise for skill performance on stage.
Theoretically, perception is a process of giving meaning to stimuli either in the form of events, objects, or relationships obtained * with information and interpret the message concluded. The factors that contribute and influence the process of perception is a state of stimulus person, situation or social circumstances underlying the stimulus, and the circumstances of individuals who perceive in terms of physical, spiritual and related terms.
The method of this research is survey method with the type of study to a descriptive with quantitative approach. The study was conducted in a way that produces 80 pre-survey respondents who meet certain criteria, then the formula derived by Taro Yamane, then obtained a sample of 44 respondents. Techniques of data collection is questionnaire and observation and then analyzed with descriptive analysis rationalists.
From the research, explained that the public perception of the Miss Dream impressions are as follows: (1) People have a positive perception of the participants of Miss Dreamland, the majority of people recognize the ability of singing, acting, and dancing the participants, in terms of appearance, fashion models are used are in accordance with her body shape, but in terms of colors seems too obvious, the same rating was also given in terms of make up, people also see that the participants have the assertiveness and confidence in the spoken word, (2) Perception of the host society in terms of fashion and women considered to be too much makeup, about the appearance and style of spoken language seems so funny and able to enliven the atmosphere, the people also see the confidence in female announcer. Assessment of the host community on a very positive guy, especially his performance, both make up and fashion is used, but the style of the host language speak man less able to understand, (3) In terms of the Miss Dream program, which used the stage has no artistic value and good art of the settings and colors, in terms of events classified Miss Dream a unique event and is the original work, the selection of winners via audience polling system is an effective and fair, showing daily activities of the participants also considered the community to provide support to the participants. Miss Dream considered as impressions that cater to adults because the placement of broadcast time in the evenings, the main prize of a car considered to society as a form of the seriousness of an event. Impressions Miss Dream also has a positive effect on confidence in its viewers, especially women fat.
Based on the above results it can be concluded that the public perception of the Miss Dream is positive impressions based on the criteria outlined above.


General circulation models (GCMs) were constructed for future projections of circula- tion patterns on a global scale. IPCC emission scenarios, adopted by GCMs, suggest that climate change is due to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Application of GCMs to regional- scale studies is difficult due to the different spatial resolutions. Downscaling techniques transfer GCM results to larger scales. Rainfall-triggered landslides are a worldwide phenomenon and can cause socio-economic problems. Regional models of these geomorphic processes were linked to regionalized GCM outputs for New Zealand. Climate-model outputs from HadCM2SUL were used to produce precipitation and temperature scenarios via analog downscaling. Climate-impact studies have rarely been developed for New Zealand. For both Wellington and Hawke's Bay, climate-change scenarios were applied to 3 deterministic landslide models (the daily rainfall model, the antecedent daily rainfall model and the antecedent soil water status model). All of them relate landslide occur- rence to climate conditions. Results give a more reliable projected probability change of landslide occurrence for Wellington than for Hawke's Bay. Wellington's cold-season precipitation is mostly associated with synoptic weather systems depending on large-scale circulation features, captured using the downscaling procedure. In contrast, Hawke's Bay receives its peak precipitation from fre- quent high-magnitude storms. Common to all 3 applied landslide models for both regions is the trend of decreased landslide activity for the target period, 2070-2099.


High skirt selectivity and extended out-of-band rejection is a major challenge for the successful progress of in-line microwave filters. This thesis presents novel filter realizations with improved performance, compatible with the standard single thin all-metal insert in a split-block housing and therefore maintaining the low-cost fabrication characteristics. In addition, significant filter performance improvement is achieved. The synthesis procedure implemented for the filter concept consists of a few steps. Some preliminary steps are a rigorous characterization of a double-ridge coaxial waveguide, and the modelling of an equivalent circuit model for the parallel coupled ridge waveguide devised in the filter concept. From these elements, a full wave electromagnetic analysis shows that parallel-coupled asymmetric ridge waveguides produce strongly dispersive coupling which introduces a transmission zero. Later on this property is extended to parallel-coupled asymmetric ridge waveguide resonators, where it is demonstrated that it is possible to independently control the coupling coefficient and the frequency of the transmission zero. This allows the realization of pseudo-elliptic narrowband in-line bandpass filters in E-plane technology. A general synthesis procedure for high order filters is outlined and numerical and experimental results are presented for validation. The elements employed for the synthesis procedure of the bandpass prototypes are also applied to investigate structures suitable for different applications. In particular, stopband and dual stopband filters are presented with numerical and experimental results. Finally, the study of a microwave chemical/biochemical sensing device for the characterization and detection of cells in chemical substances and cells in solution in micro-litre volumes is also reported.


This paper develops inference and statistical decision for set-identified parameters from the robust Bayes perspective. When a model is set-identified, prior knowledge for model parameters is decomposed into two parts: the one that can be updated by data (revisable prior knowledge) and the one that never be updated (unrevisable prior knowledge.) We introduce a class of prior distributions that shares a single prior distribution for the revisable, but allows for arbitrary prior distributions for the unrevisable. A posterior inference procedure proposed in this paper operates on the resulting class of posteriors by focusing on the posterior lower and upper probabilities. We analyze point estimation of the set-identified parameters with applying the gamma-minimax criterion. We propose a robustified posterior credible region for the set-identified parameters by focusing on a contour set of the posterior lower probability. Our framework offers a procedure to eliminate set-identified nuisance parameters, and yields inference for the marginalized identified set. For an interval identified parameter case, we establish asymptotic equivalence of the lower probability inference to frequentist inference for the identified set.


In "Women, Development, and the UN", internationally noted development economist and activist Devaki Jain traces the ways in which women have enriched the work of the United Nations from the time of its founding in 1945. Synthesizing insights from the extensive literature on women and development and from her own broad experience, Jain reviews the evolution of the UN's programs aimed at benefiting the women of developing nations and the impact of women's ideas about rights, equality, and social justice on UN thinking and practice regarding development. Jain presents this history from the perspective of the southern hemisphere, which recognizes that development issues often look different when viewed from the standpoint of countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The book highlights the contributions of the four global women's conferences in Mexico City, Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing in raising awareness, building confidence, spreading ideas, and creating alliances. The history that Jain chronicles reveals both the achievements of committed networks of women in partnership with the UN and the urgent work remaining to bring equality and justice to the world and its women. Devaki Jain is a development economist and activist. She graduated in economic from Oxford University and taught at Delhi University for six years. Her academic research and advocacy, influenced largely by Gandhian philosophy, have focused on issues of equity, democratic decentralization, people-centered development and women's rights. She has been an active member of the local, national, and international women's movement and has held positions in national and international expert commissions and councils with a specialist focus on justice. Jain is coeditor (with Pam Rajput) of "Narratives from the Women's Studies Family: Recreating Knowledge" and (with Diana L. Eck) of "Speaking of Faith: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Women, Religion, and Social Change."


Anglo-German relations since the Second World War have been, in contrast to earlier periods of the twentieth century, generally warm and constructive. There have, however, also been periods of acute tension, showing that underlying sources of conflict remain. This volume of essays by leading historians from both countries explores the relationship first in matters of 'high politics': different approaches to European integration, common interests in security through NATO, and reactions to German unification. The second part of the volume examines broader themes, the comparative performance of the two economies, and cultural influences both at the elite and popular levels. The development of common assumptions in some areas, for instance among historians, has not been matched in others, such as in the reporting of football matches. British perceptions have remained coloured by fears of German dominance, a fear aggravated by the success of the Federal Republic compared to the relative decline of Britain in the post-war period.


Interpreting agencies are crucial in determining outcomes in community interpreting, but have been little studied. We analyze the role of agencies in the context of changing employment practices in the field, where more interpreters now work as freelancers. We identify problematic issues for both parties in agencies' relations with interpreters: agencies vary in their expectations of interpreters, their own work practices, and engagement in professional issues; interpreters vary in their own required business practices and professionalism, and the ability to see the agency as their client. Agencies also crucially set expectations of end-user clients who purchase language services. The growing prominence of agencies may lead to greater emphasis by public policy bodies in demanding codes of industry practice and ultimately accrediting agencies.


Social work has been late to engage with the environmental movement. Often working with an exclusively social understanding of environment, much of the social work profession has overlooked the importance of environmental issues. However, recently, the impact of and worldwide attention to climate change, a string of natural disasters, and increased understanding of issues around environmental justice has put the environment, sustainability, and well-being in the spotlight. Divided into three parts, this field-defining work explores what environmental social work is, and how it can be put into practice. The first section focuses on theory, discussing ecological and social justice, as well as sustainability, spirituality and human rights. The second section comprises case studies of evolving environmental social work practice. The case studies derive from a range of areas from urban gardens and community organizing to practice with those affected by climate change. The final section – relevant to students and lecturers – looks at learning about environmental issues in social work. Environmental Social Work provides an integrated theoretical and practical overview of why and how social work might respond to environmental factors affecting the societies and people they work with at international, national, local and individual levels.


Despite the typological proximity of Dutch and German, receptive multilingualism is seldom used in Dutch–German communication. This chapter explores the factors that influence the choice for receptive multilingualism as a mode of communication in German–Dutch encounters by reflecting on the relationship of the two languages and nation states. Furthermore, attention is paid to the institutional constellation and the relationships between the actual interactants in discourse. These theoretical preliminaries are examined in an analysis of receptive multilingualism as it occurs in the language teaching team of the Goethe-Institute in Amsterdam (cf. Roelands 2004) by analysing team discussions as a form of institutional communication (cf. Koole and ten Thije 1994). It is highlighted how institutional keywords are used in order to convey institutional knowledge that is not language-specific in order to enhance felicitous communication. The authors finally show how the discourse at the Goethe-Institute is structured interculturally, making use of Rehbein's (2006) concept of the 'Cultural Apparatus'.


From the Publisher:
B. E. S. T. (Basic Engineering Series and Tools) consists of modularized textbooks offering virtually every topic and specialty likely to be covered in an introductory engineering course. All the texts boast distinguished authors and the most current content. These inexpensive BEST modules are easily combined with each other to construct the ideal Intro to Engineering course. The goal of this series is to provide the educational community with material that is timely,affordable,of high quality,and flexible in how it is used.


Debit card use at the point of sale has grown dramatically in recent years in the U.S., and now exceeds the number of credit card transactions. However, many questions remain regarding patterns of debit card use, consumer preferences when using debit, and how consumers might respond to explicit pricing of card transactions. Using a new nationally representative consumer survey, this paper describes the current use of debit cards by U.S. consumers, including how demographics affect use. In addition, consumers' stated reasons for using debit cards are used to analyze how consumers substitute between debit and other payment instruments. We also examine the relationship between household financial conditions and payment choice. Finally, we use a key variable on bank-imposed transaction fees to analyze price sensitivity of card use, and find a 12 percent decline in overall use in reaction to a mean 1.8 percent fee charged on certain debit card transactions; we believe this represents the first microeconomic evidence in the United States on price sensitivity for a card payment at the point of sale.


In 1994 a couple of Indian states ventured to introduce innovative methods in medicine procurement with the primary objective of making uninterrupted availability of essential medicines in their government hospitals. It was Delhi, the national capital territory (NCT) of India which took the lead in developing a comprehensive drug policy. Delhi entrusted the responsibility to a non-governmental agency- the Delhi Society for the Promotion of Rational Use of Drugs (DSPRUD) and managed to get considerable financial support from WHO. Tamil Nadu, a major state in India started a corporation styled as Tamil Nadu Medical Service Corporation (TNMSC) registered under the Companies Act 1956 in July 1994. With the help of a well designed and scientifically planned scheme TNMSC could introduce many innovations and thereby revolutionize the public drug procurement system in the country. A team of committed and dedicated bureaucrats and technocrats made TNMSC not only a great success but a model worth emulating for the entire nation and perhaps for the world. Currently the Indian states are competing among themselves in adopting the TNMSC model.


OBJECTIVES
The cytochrome P450 (P450) and cytochrome b5 are membrane hemoproteins composing together with flavoprotein NADPH:P450 reductase a mixed function oxidase (MFO) system. The knowledge of the interaction between P450 and its redox partners within a MFO system is fundamental to understand P450 reaction mechanism, an electron transport from its redox partner and also detoxification of xenobiotics and/or metabolism of endogenous substrates with all positive or negative aspects for organisms.

METHODS
The chemical cross-linking by soluble carbodiimide (EDC) in combination with the liquid chromatography coupled with high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) has been employed to characterize the contact surface regions involved in the transient interaction between two catalytic domains of P450 2B4 and cytochrome b5.

RESULTS
The cross-linking reaction was accomplished in an equimolar catalytic complex of P450 2B4:cytochrome b5 and the covalent hetero-dimers detected on SDS-PAGE electrophoresis were analyzed (after in gel trypsin digestion) using LC-HRMS to identify cross-linked amino-acid residues. The computed in silico models of P450 2B4:cytochrome b5 complex using amino-acids participating in cross-links (Asp134, Lys139, Glu424 and Glu439 located on a proximal surface of P450 2B4) suggest interpretation that two different types of cytochrome b5 orientations are present in the studied interaction within a MFO system: the first allowing potential cytochrome b5 electron donation to P450, the second one inducing cytochrome b5 modulation of P450 structural changes.

CONCLUSIONS
The results demonstrated the capability of the used experimental approach to map the interaction between P450 and cytochrome b5 suggesting the formation of multi-meric structures within a MFO system as interpretation of the two observed mutual orientations.


In "Continuing Cooperative Development, " a series of guided tasks helps the reader acquire specific skills of listening and responding that, in turn, help a speaker to express and articulate thoughts and plans that lie just beyond what they knew that they knew.By adopting a certain style of speaking and listening to colleagues for agreed periods of time, motivated professionals can take individual control of their own development and increase the feeling of collegiality in their workplace. "Continuing Cooperative Development" draws on Edge's experience of more than ten years using this framework worldwide and provides authentic examples to guide the reader. This interactive framework is demonstrated in the book as part of a reflective teaching approach in response to everyday classroom problems, and also as part of a more formal, action-research approach to the formulation of local educational theory.The key theme of this book is the power of non-judgmental discourse to facilitate the development of ideas and action, accessing both cognitive and emotional intelligence. The transcribed and interpreted data of authentic interactions from the Americas, Europe, and Asia serve as evidence for the argument and as guidelines for implementation.The work is set in the field of TESOL, although its relevance reaches across discipline boundaries. The teachers featured in the book have duties ranging from the instruction of young learners to the supervision of doctoral research. The common denominator is that these people are motivated educators, committed to extending their own understanding and developing their own style of being an aware professional.


SUMMARY: Penicillin blocks the assimilation of glutamic acid by Staphylococcus aureus; the effective concentration of penicillin is of the same order as that required to inhibit growth of the organism whether the culture is sensitive or resistant to penicillin. Serial subcultivation in increasing concentrations of penicillin results in the selection of resistant mutants; as resistance increases, the ability of the cells to assimilate glutamic acid decreases. The efficiency of the assimilation process in highly resistant cells is poor, but they can synthesize all their amino-acid requirements from ammonia and glucose. The decrease in assimilatory efficiency as resistance to penicillin increases is correlated with an increase in the ability of the cells to synthesize amino-acids. Reverse mutations, having decreased ability to synthesize certain amino-acids, were obtained from highly resistant strains and had increased sensitivity to penicillin. Strains of Staph, aureus requiring several amino-acids as nutrients have been 'trained', by subcultivation in media progressively more deficient in amino-acids, to dispense with the addition to the medium of all amino-acids other than cystine and histidine; the increase in synthetic ability was accompanied by a marked increase in penicillin resistance. It is suggested that penicillin interferes with the mechanism whereby certain amino-acids are taken into the cell, and that the sensitivity of the cell to penicillin is then determined by the degree to which its growth processes are dependent upon assimilation of preformed amino-acids rather than upon their synthesis.


Today we live in the era of Big Data Revolution, overwhelmed with data, information and knowledge that is spread all over the web, in social media sites, in smartphones contributing so in creating a large base of big data. In their best seller book 'Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think' (2013) Mayer-Schonberger and Cukier argue that thanks to the internet, social networking, smartphones and credit cards, more data is being collected and stored about us than ever before – and this has created an opportunity for firms and managers to easily and cheaply capture and store massive amounts of data in a way that was simply impossible before. In this scenario the winners will be those that have the abilities, the intelligence, the creativity and the tools to elaborate these data for grasping insights and knowledge from the available data and to be able to use and exploit them for continuous innovation, for improving firms performance, for creating new products and services as well as for establishing new innovative business models. According to a study realized by McKinsey  (Manyika  et al, 2011) to analyze the impact of big data analysis for  innovation, competition, and productivity they argue that there are 5 broad ways in which using data can create value: Big data can unlock significant value by making information transparent and usable at much higher frequency. As organizations create and store more transactional data in digital form, they can collect more accurate and detailed performance information on everything from product inventories to sick days, and therefore expose variability and boost performance. Big data allows ever-narrower segmentation of customers and therefore much more precisely tailored products or services. Sophisticated analytics can substantially improve decision-making. Big data can be used to improve the development of the next generation of products and services. On the other hand, the availability of big data has created a new era also for data analysis and elaboration to discover unknown patterns, to find out what customers want, what they evaluate,  to get closer to customers, to gain a wealth of information about their behaviors and preferences, as well as to identify new market trends and new opportunities to remain competitive. The ability of firms to aggregate, elaborate and analyze the data is becoming a key competitive advantage resource. Different researches have evidenced the role and the outcomes that the big data analysis could bring to firms in terms of innovation, efficiency, productivity, quality and customer satisfaction. In a survey study of more than 3,000 business executives, managers and analysts from organizations, MIT Sloan Management Review, in collaboration with the IBM Institute for Business Value found out that executives are oriented toward managing the business based on data-driven decisions and it is the use of business information and analytics that differentiates them within their industry (Lavalle et al, 2010) . Moreover, the content and information that customers create in web 2.0 platforms constitute a valuable asset for firms to directly tap into the customer's preferences and needs, as the most valuable source for attaining direct and reliable market information. In this environment, more and more firms are building their competitive advantage on their ability to collect, analyze and act on data. Therefore, the capability of firms to tap into data, to analyze and interpret them to gain insights and to ensure a more effective decision making process has become an essential ingredient towards innovative thinking and creativity. Therefore, there is a need of matching the analytical capacities with the creativity in order to interpret big data in an innovative way. It is in this aim that we have realized these special issue of the journal to publish some  research articles that use statistical and analytical models to elaborate big data for a large range of issues and sectors and for establishing new innovative insights. The issue presents four research papers that focus on providing practical cases of exploiting big data for grasping new insights and opportunities. In particular: The article on ' Big Data and Knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship: trends and opportunities in the tourism' , the authors Del Vecchio et al., focuses on the growing relevance of Big Data as valuable source of knowledge impacting on the creation and execution of knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship. The article provides a detailed description regarding the opportunities offered by Big Data by demonstrating, with practical applications from the tourism field, how the large amount of knowledge distributed in the web can support the conception and execution of an entrepreneurial process more aligned with the customers' needs and focused on the actual market's trends. Carpita and Simonetti in the article 'Big Data to Monitor Big Social Events: Analysing the mobile phone signals in the Brescia Smart City' present the implications that big data analysis  could provide for Municipal administration to plan future events, and more generally to develop policies for the 'smart city. They use the statistical methods to process and assess really high mass of data and information extracted from mobile phone signals in order to  improve the quality of the big social events that take place in the city as well as to create the conditions for developing useful reports for territorial marketing. The paper on 'Ontological analysis for dynamic data model exploration' by Hobbs et al., explores the expressive approaches to data analysis. The authors provide an aggregate model that utilizes ontological tools to create domain models in a way that it allows for a distributed and parallel implementation necessary for big data analysis. In the article 'Implementation of a Web-based Application for Predicting Best Training Recommenders for Princess Norah University Employees' the authors Mohammad and  Alhaidey propose the realization of  a recommender system that would help in the decision making process and planning of the training course offered by organizations for their employees. The recommender system is based on using data mining techniques that allows the observer to discover specific patterns and knowledge from large databases and carrying out predictions for outputs.


This paper investigates the effects of public investment in infrastructure on private output for Germany. Using a multivariate framework we explore the impact of a diverging selection of variables on the ensuing estimates and document confidence intervals computed following the bootstrap procedure. Our results suggest that the effect of public investment in infrastructure is positive on GDP and private investment while the labor market is negatively affected. However, the size of the estimated effects strongly depends on the choice of the variables. Furthermore, an investigation of a recursive estimation reveals that the estimated effects decrease over time.


Objective The risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is increased in patients with metabolic syndrome (MS), possibly related to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). As histological features of NAFLD may regress in cirrhosis, we compared steatosis versus steatohepatitis in the nontumoral liver of noncirrhotic HCC patients. Patients and methods A retrospective clinicopathological analysis was carried out in 91 noncirrhotic HCC patients. Patients were divided into three subgroups: that is, patients with: (1) MS without other risk factors for underlying liver disease, (2) no underlying risk factors, or (3) other risk factors (with or without MS). The NAFLD activity score (NAS) less than 3 was classified as no steatohepatitis, NAS 3–4 as borderline steatohepatitis, and NAS 5 or more as definite steatohepatitis. Results Eleven (12%) patients had MS without other risk factors (group 1). In the nontumoral liver, significant steatosis (≥5% of hepatocytes) was generally present (in 10/11 patients), with mild lobular inflammation and absence of ballooning in most cases. Absence of steatohepatitis, borderline steatohepatitis, and definite steatohepatitis were found in 55, 45, and 0% of cases, respectively. In groups 2 and 3, significant steatosis was frequently present (in 16/37 and 21/43 patients, respectively). Absence of steatohepatitis, borderline steatohepatitis, and definite steatohepatitis were found in 84, 16, and 0% of cases (group 2), respectively, in 77, 23, and 0% of cases (group 3). Conclusion In noncirrhotic HCC patients, histological steatosis was frequently present, whereas overt steatohepatitis did not occur. These findings may be relevant for HCC pathogenesis in NAFLD.


Ultrasonic testing is a non-destructive technique commonly employed for assessing indirectly some geomechanical parameters of natural building stones. Pulse wave propagation in rock materials depends not only on physical properties, e.g. density, elasticity, porosity and water content, but also on fabric elements and their arrangements, spatial distributions and preferred orientations. In contrast, ultrasonic velocity can reflect the state of conservation of stone by comparing data from fresh material with those obtained from tests made on decayed material. The 'Avorio' limestone is a valuable building and ornamental material, quarried in the Trani stone basin (Apulia, southern Italy), which is very popular in Italy and abroad where it is used in modern and historic buildings. The stone response to decay processes is not fully understood simply because this material has not yet been well studied. To better understand how durable this material is in terms of physical resistance to change with respect to salt and thermal deterioration mechanisms, selected samples of the 'Avorio' limestone were submitted to artificial ageing processes by thermal stresses and by stresses due to salt crystallization, performed independently. The artificial ageing processes involved thermal cycles at temperatures between 200 and 600°C, based on an experimental procedure, and a standardized salt crystallization test in sodium sulphate solution. Repeated measurements of pulse velocity, before, during and after every accelerated ageing cycle, were compared with mass loss and porosity changes, the latter by water imbibition and capillarity testing. Very statistically significant relationships between physical response and rates and patterns of the stone decay were illustrated. The experimental results showed that the ultrasonic pulse velocity decreases as deterioration of the stone increases under accelerated ageing: a strong negative correlation exists between P-wave velocity and porosity. This study confirmed that ultrasonic pulse velocity is a good indicator of damage for carbonate stones, particularly for varieties without clear anisotropies, in terms of structure and texture.


Configuration problems are a driving application area for declarative knowledge representation that experiences a constant increase in size and complexity of knowledge bases. Automated support of the debugging of such knowledge bases is a necessary prerequisite for effective development of configurators. We show that this task can be achieved by consistency based diagnosis techniques. Based on the formal definition of consistency based configuration we develop a framework suitable for diagnosing configuration knowledge bases. During the test phase of configurators, valid and invalid examples are used to test the correctness of the system. In case such examples lead to unintended results, debugging of the knowledge base is initiated. The examples used for testing are combined to identify faulty chunks of knowledge. Starting from a clear definition of diagnosis in the configuration domain we develop an algorithm based on conflicts and exploit the properties of positive examples to reduce consistency checks. Our framework is general enough for its straightforward adaptation to diagnosing customer requirements. Given a validated knowledge base our approach can then be used to identify unachievable conditions during configuration sessions.


In high-quality education, topics concerning the behavior and control of electrical machines and power electronics have to be taught not only theoretically but also in a practical manner. Hard- and software tools are necessary to fulfil this obligation. Nevertheless, commercial systems partially lack of functionality or full accessibility to implement custom solutions, which is obligatory in the research and education domain. Therefore, a digital signal processing system is presented, that allows full modification of every used device, both in hardware and in software.


An engineered form of interferon-α2 stimulates the antiviral response without suppressing cell proliferation or activating immunomodulatory genes. This Podcast features an interview with Gideon Schreiber, senior author of a Research Article that appears in the 27 May 2014 issue of Science Signaling, about an engineered variant of a type I interferon that elicits only antiviral responses. Interferons are major components of the innate immune response and serve as a link between the innate and adaptive immune responses. Type I interferons stimulate the expression of many genes that affect various cellular processes, including limiting the spread of viruses between cells, suppressing cell proliferation, and modulating the immune response. Levin et al. identified a variant of the type I interferon IFN-α2 that elicits antiviral responses without suppressing cell proliferation or activating immunomodulatory genes.


Abstract Lung ventilation and perfusion analyses using chest imaging methods require a correct segmentation of the lung to offer anatomical landmarks for the physiological data. An automatic segmentation approach simplifies and accelerates the analysis. However, the segmentation of the lungs has shown to be difficult if collapsed areas are present that tend to share similar gray values with surrounding non-pulmonary tissue. Our goal was to develop an automatic segmentation algorithm that is able to approximate dorsal lung boundaries even if alveolar collapse is present in the dependent lung areas adjacent to the pleura. Computed tomography data acquired in five supine pigs with injured lungs were used for this purpose. First, healthy lung tissue was segmented using a standard 3D region growing algorithm. Further, the bones in the chest wall surrounding the lungs were segmented to find the contact points of ribs and pleura. Artificial boundaries of the dorsal lung were set by spline interpolation through these contact points. Segmentation masks of the entire lung including the collapsed regions were created by combining the splines with the segmentation masks of the healthy lung tissue through multiple morphological operations. The automatically segmented images were then evaluated by comparing them to manual segmentations and determining the Dice similarity coefficients (DSC) as a similarity measure. The developed method was able to accurately segment the lungs including the collapsed regions (DSCs over 0.96).


An experimental study was conducted to investigate the feasibility of integrating the cognitive architecture Soar with a robotic system to aid in the disassembly of electronic waste (e-waste). This study was broken up into different parts, first, to examine how well the different sensors and tools that composed the system worked before finally integrating the cognitive architecture Soar to assess how it improved the systems performance. Due to the increasing amounts of e-waste and the adverse effects it has on human health, a robotic system that can aid in the disassembly of ewaste is essential. The first part in this study was to investigate the performance of three different models of the Microsoft Kinect sensor using the OpenNI driver from Primesense. The study explored the accuracy, repeatability, and resolution of the different Kinect models" abilities to determine the distance to a planar target. An ANOVA analysis was performed to establish if the model of the Kinect, the operating temperature, or their interaction were significant factors in the Kinect"s ability to calculate the distance to the target. Different sized gauge blocks were also used to test how well a Kinect could reconstruct precise objects. Machinist blocks were used to examine how accurately the Kinect could reconstruct objects set up on an angle and determine the location of the center of a hole. All the Kinect models could determine the location of a target with a low standard deviation (less than 2 mm). At close distances, the resolutions of all the Kinect models were 1 mm. Through the ANOVA analysis, the best performing Kinect at close distances was the Kinect model 1414, and at farther distances was the Kinect model 1473. The internal temperature of the Kinect sensor influenced the distance reported by the sensor. Using different correction factors, the Kinect could determine the volume of a gauge block and the angles machinist blocks were setup at, with under a 10 percent error. After the Kinect"s performance was characterized, the study continued and investigated the performance of an automated robotic system, which used a combination of vision and force sensing to remove screws from the back of laptops. This robotic system used two webcams, one that is fixed over the robot and the other mounted on the robot, as well as a sensor-equipped (SE) screwdriver. Experimental studies were conducted to test the performance of the SE screwdriver and vision system. The parameters that were varied included the internal brightness settings on the webcams, the method in which the workspace was illuminated, and color of the laptop case. A localized light source and a higher brightness setting as the laptop"s case became darker produced the best results. In this study, the SE screwdriver successfully removed 96.5% of the screws from laptops. Since a method to locate and remove screws from a laptop automatically, and guidelines to find holes based on the laptop color and camera brightness were established, the study continued and added the cognitive architecture language Soar to the system. Soar"s long term memory module, semantic memory, was used to remember pieces of information regarding laptop models and screw holes. The system was trained with multiple laptop models, and the method in which Soar was used to facilitate the removal of screw was varied to determine the best performance of the system. In all cases, Soar could determine the correct laptop model and in what orientation it was placed in the system. Remembering the locations of holes decreased all the trial times for all the different laptop models by at least 60%. The system performed the best when the amount of training trials that were used to explore circle locations was limited as this decreased the total trial time by over 10% for most laptop models and orientations.


Although grapheme-colour synaesthesia is a well-characterized phenomenon in which achromatic letters and/or digits involuntarily trigger specific colour sensations, its underlying mechanisms remain unresolved. Models diverge on a central question: whether triggered sensations reflect (i) an overdeveloped capacity in normal cross-modal processing (i.e., sharing characteristics with the general population), or rather (ii) qualitatively deviant processing (i.e., unique to a few individuals). We here address this question on several fronts: first, with adult synaesthesia-trainees and second with congenital grapheme-colour synaesthetes. In Chapter 3, we investigate whether synaesthesia-like (automatic) letter-colour associations may be learned by non- synaesthetes into adulthood. To this end, we developed a learning paradigm that aimed to implicitly train such associations while keeping participants naive as to the end-goal of the experiments (i.e., the formation of letter-colour associations), thus mimicking the learning conditions of acquired grapheme- colour synaesthesia (Hancock, 2006; Witthoft & Winawer, 2006). In two experiments, we found evidence for significant binding of colours to letters by non-synaesthetes. These learned associations showed synaesthesia-like characteristics despite an absence of conscious, colour concurrents, correlating with individual performance on synaesthetic Stroop-tasks (experiment 1), and modulated by the colour-opponency effect (experiment 2) (Nikolic, Lichti, & Singer, 2007), suggesting formation on a perceptual (rather than conceptual) level. In Chapter 4, we probed the nature of these learned, synaesthesia-like associations by investigating the brain areas involved in their formation. Using transcranial Direct Current Stimulation to interfere with two distinct brain regions, we found an enhancement of letter-colour learning in adult trainees following dlPFC-stimulation, suggesting a role for the prefrontal cortex in the release of binding processes. In Chapter 5, we attempt to integrate our results from synaesthesia-learners with the neural mechanisms of grapheme-colour synaesthesia, as assessed in six congenital synaesthetes using novel techniques in magnetoencephalography. While our results may not support the existence of a "synaesthesia continuum," we propose that they still relate to synaesthesia in a meaningful way.


Istvan Meszaros's bold new study analyzes the historical choices facing us at the outset of the new millennium. Drawing on the theoretical arguments of his monumental and widely-acclaimed work, Beyond Capital, Meszaros shows that the economic boom of the 1990s was built not only on the foundation of new, digital technologies but also on a new social and ethical basis. In the global quest for profit, capitalism has abandoned its claims to serve a larger historical cause. Even in the wealthiest capitalist economies, unemployment has become structural and conditions of life have become more onerous for most of the population. The failure of capitalism's historical mission is most evident in the end of the project of "Third World modernization" so essential to the claims of U.S. global power to represent an advance on old-style imperialism. Meszaros develops an illuminating analysis of the roots and tensions of the politics of U.S. global power from the time of Roosevelt's "Open Door" policy to the present. Against this historical background, he examines the dilemmas which will be faced in the making of U.S. foreign policy towards Chinathe largest and most rapidly-expanding national market in the global economy and the newly-emerging rival to U.S. global dominance. Meszaros shows how this process is rooted in the historical logic of contemporary capitalism, and is neither accidental nor temporary. In the process, he gives new meaning and urgency to the alternatives posed by Rosa Luxemburg at the beginning of the 20th century: socialism or barbarism.Meszaros also explores the conditions for the emergence of a radical alternative to capitalism, arguing that a critical re-examination of earlier movements and struggles is an essential task for the emergence of such an alternative. As a sequel to his essay, an extended interview deals with more reflectively with the main categories underlying his analysis and relates it to developments within the broader analysis of modern society."


Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted the health of individuals physically, mentally, and socially. This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of this impact across the pandemic from a biopsychosocial stance.
Methods: A survey created by the research team was employed between November 2020 and February 2021 across social media, relevant organizations, and networks. The survey incorporated 5-time points across the different stages of the pandemic, covering biological, psychological, and social. There were 5 items for each survey (Very Positive affect to Very Negative affect), and analysis was undertaken using SPSS version 16. Descriptive statistics and non-parametric Friedman and Wilcoxon Tests, as well as correlations between the three domains, were implemented.
Results: This study included 164 participants (77.0% female and 35.0% male) across 24 out of 38 counties in the UK. The impact of COVID-19 on biological domain was significant across the five data points χ2(4) = 63.99, p < 0.001, psychological χ2(4) = 118.939, p <0.001 and socially χ2(4) = 186.43, p <0.001. Between the 5 data points, 4 out of 5 had a negative impact, however between the first stage of lockdown and the easing of restrictions, findings for biological (Z=-2.35, p <0.05), psychological (Z=-6.61, p < 0.001), and socially (Z = -8.61, p <0.001) were positive. Negative correlations between the three domains across the pandemic are apparent, but in later stages, the biological domain had a positive correlation r = 0.52, p < 0.001.
Conclusion: The data shows a negative impact from the self-reported perception of wellbeing from a biopsychosocial stance over time, as well as perceiving the three domains to interact negatively. To address these biopsychosocial issues, the research implies a place-based integrated recovery effort is needed, addressing biological, psychological, and social issues simultaneously. Further research should investigate biopsychosocial health among a more generalizable population.


The success and evolution of video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) renewed the interest for thoracoscopic operations in awake patients. Non-intubated, or tubeless, procedures found progressive credit and uptake. In particular, non-intubated uniportal VATS represents the latest stage in its evolution. An increasing number of more complicated procedures have been successfully carried out with this combined modality.

In the early 2000s, the Awake Thoracic Surgery Research Group at the University of Rome Tor Vergata started an investigational programme of thoracic operations performed without general anaesthesia and one-lung ventilation. Since that date >1,000 operations have been successfully carried out. Initially, non-intubated anaesthesia was successfully employed in non-oncologic conditions such as pneumothorax, emphysema, pleural infection, and interstitial lung disease. Oncologic conditions such as malignant pleural effusion, peripheral lung nodules, and mediastinal tumours were successively approached. Major operations are now being performed in this way. Uniportal access was progressively adopted with significant positive outcomes in postoperative recovery, patient acceptance, and economical costs. Operations of this kind overcome many anatomical and technical challenges satisfying the patient, surgeon, physician, nurse, and economical administrator. The hindrance caused by operating with a breathing lung is that it requires a particular set of skills but experience demonstrates that the learning curve is no longer than that required for any other new endoscopic procedure.

Other investigations have involved the biological impact of the procedure, demonstrating lower concentrations of inflammatory and stress mediators with a lower degree of immune-depression. Psychological preselection of the most suitable patients for non-intubated surgery is one of our fields of investigation. Non-intubated thoracic surgery is projected towards the future and still represents a nearly unexplored and potentially fruitful field.


1. The leucocyte has been used as a model for the study of intracellular sodium, potassium and water in uraemia. The advantages of this cell are described. 2. In undialysed patients with advanced renal failure leucocyte sodium and water contents were significantly greater than normal. Leucocyte potassium content (mmol/kg of dry solids) and concentration (mmol/l of cell water) were reduced. 3. In patients receiving regular dialysis leucocyte water was significantly reduced. Leucocyte potassium content was also reduced in this group, but leucocyte potassium concentration in cell water had returned to normal. 4. In the normal subjects and also in the dialysed patients leucocyte water correlated better with potassium than with sodium content. In contrast, in the undialysed uraemic patients leucocyte water correlated better with sodium than with potassium content, indicating that the increased cell sodium was an important determinant of the increased cell water in this group.


The intermediate filament (IF) proteins vimentin, desmin and peripherin share a 9-residue sequence motif (beta-site) located near the end of their COOH-terminal tail domain. Peptide inhibition experiments have previously suggested that the beta-site is involved in interactions that limit the lateral growth of IFs and prevent inappropriate filament-filament associations. To investigate this question further, we have constructed and expressed, in Escherichia coli, hamster vimentin bearing different mutations in the beta-site. We show here that a single exchange of glycine 450 with a valine residue, or an internal deletion of amino acids 444-452, strongly interferes with the normal assembly of IFs under in vitro conditions. These mutants polymerize into irregular fibrils that have a strong tendency to anastomose and laterally aggregate under isotonic conditions. In contrast, a non-conservative substitution of arginine 448 for glutamic acid does not significantly interfere with filament structure and yields subunits that polymerize into long, smooth filaments that show a slight aberration in thickness. All mutant proteins are soluble in low salt and form oligomers similar to the ones formed by wild-type vimentin. On the basis of these findings and on related observations, we propose that the tail domain of type III IF proteins contains important structural elements involved in lateral protofilament-protofilament interactions.


To determine the association of skin color, measured by a reflectometer, with blood pressure in US blacks, we studied a community sample of 457 blacks from three US cities. Persons taking antihypertensive medications were excluded. Both systolic and diastolic blood pressure were higher in darker persons and increased by 2 mm Hg for every 1-SD increase in skin darkness. However, the association was dependent on socioeconomic status, whether measured by education or an index consisting of education, occupation, and ethnicity, being present only in person with lower levels of either indicator. Using multiple linear regression, both systolic and diastolic blood pressure remained significantly associated with darker skin color in the lower levels of socioeconomic status, independent of age, body mass index, and concentrations of blood glucose, serum urea nitrogen, serum uric acid, and urinary sodium and potassium. The association of skin color with blood pressure only in low socioeconomic strata may be due to the lesser ability of such groups to deal with the psychosocial stress associated with darker skin color. However, these findings also are consistent with an interaction between an environmental factor associated with low socioeconomic status and a susceptible gene that has a higher prevalence in persons with darker skin color.


While there are popular and academic books on servants and domestic service, as well as television dramas and documentaries, little attention has been paid to the sources family historians can use to explore the lives and careers of their servant ancestors. Michelle Higgs's accessible and authoritative handbook has been written to serve just this purpose. Covering the period from the eighteenth century through to the Second World War, her survey gives a fascinating insight into the conditions of domestic service and the experience of those who worked within it. She quotes examples from the sources to show exactly how they can be used to trace individuals. Chapters cover the historical background of domestic service; the employers; the social hierarchy within the servant class; and the recruitment and responsibilities of servants. A comprehensive account of the available sources - the census, wills, directories, household accounts, tax and union records, diaries and online sources - provides readers with all the information they need to do their own research. This short, vivid overview will be invaluable to anyone keen to gain a practical understanding of the realities of servants' lives.


I. INTRODUCTION The United States Sentencing Commission ("Sentencing Commission") drafted Rule 3E1.1 with an inherent ambiguity, one that concerns both the Rule's purpose and design. Rule 3E1.1 allows for a reduction in sentence if a criminal "accepts responsibility" for his offense.1 As result of the Rule's ambiguous language, prior tensions in interpretation of its meaning have spilled over into the current debate over sentence reductions. The inherent ambiguity results from the Rule's genesis. The Sentencing Commission enacted the Rule with the purpose of increasing predictability in sentencing by reducing judicial discretion.2 Before the enactment of the Rule, mitigating and aggravating circumstances allowed for a great degree of judicial discretion, and it was this lack of uniformity that the Sentencing Commission sought to lessen.3 Rule 3E1.1 also sought to ease the burden on the over-taxed criminal justice system by encouraging guilty pleas.4 The Sentencing Commission initially feared, however, that granting an automatic reduction in sentence for pleading guilty would run afoul of the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions.5 Thus, their solution was not to encourage criminal defendants to forgo their Sixth Amendment right to trial and plead guilty, but rather to reward them for general cooperation and contrition. By creating a system in which criminal defendants were merely denied a reduction for failing to cooperate with authorities, the Sentencing Commission sought to encourage criminal defendants to plead guilty, while at the same time avoiding the problem of unconstitutional conditions.6 The resulting Rule achieved both goals. It encouraged guilty pleas by reducing a defendant's sentence if he "accepted responsibility" for his criminal conduct.7 It also increased predictability by creating an objective list of criteria that district courts would use to determine whether a defendant had in fact "accepted responsibility" for his crime.8 The beauty of Rule 3E1.1 is that it has the added benefit of stressing, and perhaps even expediting, the rehabilitation of criminals. It rewards those criminals who undertake such socially redeeming measures as making post-arrest rehabilitative efforts,9 cooperating with the police, and compensating victims of crime.10 Those who fail to demonstrate the acceptable levels of contrition are not punished for their lack of remorse; rather, they simply do not receive the reduction.11 With the Rule's initial inclusion in the United States Sentencing Guidelines ("Sentencing Guidelines") came a fundamental question regarding its very purpose: Did Rule 3E1.1 seek to reward a criminal for accepting responsibility for his specific crime, or did it instead look to reward a criminal for accepting responsibility for his criminal ways in general? Indeed, the circuits were divided as to whether a defendant could earn the reduction only by admitting to every criminal wrongdoing of which he was aware, or whether the Rule allowed the reduction if he simply admitted only to the offense for which he was charged.12 Faced with the split, the Sentencing Commission sought to clarify Rule 3E1.1 in a 1992 amendment that changed the wording of the Rule.13 The Sentencing Commission altered the Rule to require that a criminal only accept responsibility for his charged offense, as opposed to his general acts of criminal conduct.14 As a resalt, this change implied that a criminal need not admit to all his crimes in order to receive the reduction.15 Despite the Sentencing Commission's attempt at clarification, the controversy surrounding the meaning of Rule 3E1.1 remains today, if in different form. Indeed, the new debate centers around the Application Notes following the Rule. One of the objective indicia of acceptance of responsibility is a criminal defendant's "voluntary termination or withdrawal from criminal conduct or associations."16 This factor focuses on whether a criminal defendant commits a crime between the time of his conviction or guilty plea and the time of his sentencing. …


Over the past few decades, Pre-service English Teacher Education (PETE) Programs have been offered in Indonesian Islamic state universities, which traditionally only provide education programs in Islamic studies. This new development became particularly evident after the transformation of several former state institutes and schools for Islamic studies into state Islamic universities. This transformation calls for an understanding of how English, Islam, and secular values are integrated into a balanced proportion in a PETE Program"s curriculum. This paper draws on findings from a case study exploring the interplay among English, Islam, and secular values in principles, content, and implementation of PETE curriculum in an Islamic state university. The findings showed that the principles underpinning PETE curriculum in the university reflect a balanced curricular representation of English, Islam, and secular values in the following terms: (1) students" and lecturers" roles in learning process, (2) theories and practice, and (3) institutional identities and professional realities. Similarly, a balanced proportion of English, Islam, and secular values was found in the curriculum content. This balanced proportion of curriculum content was reflected in (1) components of the curriculum content (language component, educational and pedagogical component, institutional component) and (2) pedagogical characteristics connecting the curriculum content (Islamic, integrated, theoretical, practical, contextual). However, the study revealed that there was inadequacy of balance in the curricular accommodation of English, Islam, and secular values—a finding that was represented by curriculum implementation that was fragmented, inadequately practical, and inadequately contextual. The above findings will be discussed based on perspectives from theoretical and empirical literature in second language and general teacher education, Indonesian education, and Islamization and secularization of education. The presentation will conclude with some curriculum and policy recommendations for sustainable 21st century Pre-service English Teacher Education in Indonesian state Islamic universities or in other similar contexts.


When dealing with Bayesian inference the choice of the prior often remains a debatable question. Empirical Bayes methods offer a data‐driven solution to this problem by estimating the prior itself from an ensemble of data. In the nonparametric case, the maximum likelihood estimate is known to overfit the data, an issue that is commonly tackled by regularization. However, the majority of regularizations are ad hoc choices which lack invariance under reparametrization of the model and result in inconsistent estimates for equivalent models. We introduce a nonparametric, transformation‐invariant estimator for the prior distribution. Being defined in terms of the missing information similar to the reference prior, it can be seen as an extension of the latter to the data‐driven setting. This implies a natural interpretation as a trade‐off between choosing the least informative prior and incorporating the information provided by the data, a symbiosis between the objective and empirical Bayes methodologies.


Measuring the effective charge of a molecule inside a conducting fluid is difficult. One of the commonly used techniques is electrophoresis in centimeter-sized gels. Here we implemented a miniaturized, electrophoresis-based method on the microscale using an optically driven photodissociation reaction. Inside a focused laser beam, oppositely charged species of different size are created which diffuse out of the beam with different velocities. This creates a local electrical field which moves charged biomolecules via electrophoresis in the diffusion-dominated regime of low Peclet numbers (Pe < 1). The steady state fluorescence in the center is used to determine the effective biomolecule charge even for large molecules with charge-independent electrophoretic mobilities. We tested the mechanism for DNA and proteins and used two different photochemical reactions to generate inward or outward pointing electrical fields. A master curve described the proton transfer from the photodissociation reaction to the buffer. The full mechanistic understanding offers many possibilities for the all-optical manipulation of molecules.


Lava flows produced during Etna flank eruptions represent severe hazards for the nearby inhabited areas, which can be protected by adopting prompt mitigation actions, such as the building of diversion barriers. Lava diversion measures were attempted recently during the 1983, 1991-93, 2001 and 2002 Etna eruptions, although with different degrees of success. In addition to the complexity of barrier construction (due to the adverse physical conditions), the time available to successfully slow the advance of a lava flow depends on the lava effusion rate, which is not easily measurable. One method to estimate the average lava effusion rate over a specified period of time is based on a volumetric approach; i.e. the measurement of the volume changes of the lava flow over that period. Here, this has been compared to an approach based on thermal image processing, as applied to estimate the average effusion rates of lava flows during the 1981 and 2001 Etna eruptions. The final volumes were measured by the comparison of pre-eruption and post-eruption photogrammetric digital elevation models and orthophotographs. Lava volume growth during these eruptions was estimated by locating the flow-front positions from analyses of scientific papers and newspapers reports, as well as from helicopter photographs. The analyses of these two eruptions contribute to the understanding of the different eruptive mechanisms, highlighting the role of the peak effusion rate, which represents a critical parameter for planning of mitigation actions and for hazard evaluation.


A sliding mode control design with the flexible parameters of the sliding surface for offshore container crane is investigated in this study. The offshore operations of handling containers are performed between a mega container ship, and a smaller ship, called the mobile harbor (MH), which is equipped with container crane. The concept of the MH is to load and unload container in the open sea, and transfer them to local harbor, thereby minimizing the port congestion and also eliminating the need of expanding outwards. The control objective during the offshore operation is to keep the payload in the desired tolerance in the presence of the MH motion. A new control strategy, which is a combination of a sliding mode control (SMC) and compensation mechanism, is proposed as well. Here, the sliding surface is design in such a way that the sway motion of the payload is incorporated into the trolley dynamics. Included in the proposed control law is the flexible control gains, obtained by a fuzzy real time inference, which automatically strengthen or weaken the positioning subsystem and the anti-swing subsystem. The control law guarantees the asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system. Simulation and experimental results are provided to prove the effectiveness of the proposed control system for offshore container cranes.


Abstract This article considers Modern Languages in the Primary School (MLPS), which have reached a crucial stage in both England and Scotland. It looks at developments in the two countries and considers these against both a historical and European background. The authors, drawing on their practical experience, put forward some of the key points to be addressed as well as making the case for certain approaches, based on their experience and the available literature. The article begins with a brief update of the situation in Scotland and England, before considering the aims and objectives of both. It also looks at the debate about whether an early start is beneficial and considers methodology. Particular aspects to be considered include Knowing about Language and the balance between the four skill areas of Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. The authors conclude the article by drawing out some issues on which there might be a consensus but at the same time identify the need for a national debate on what we are trying to achieve at a time when significant funding is being invested.


A method for efficiently planning one-dimensional pop-limited trajectories is presented, along with a direct method for synchronizing trajectories across multiple dimensions. This heuristic is designed for a double integrator utilizing acceleration commands passed through a 4th-order cascaded filter, the model for which is presented along with the system solution for an arbitrary time step and derivative limits. Examples for trajectories generated in both one and two dimensions are shown, with comparison to an iterative solver which searches for the exact optimal solution. The presented algorithm shows drastically lower computational requirements than the iterative solver, with very little cost in accuracy. Benefits and limitations of this approach are discussed.


I mage inpainting is an extensively studied problem in image processing, and various tools have been brought to serve it over the years. Recently, e ective solutions to this problem based on deep-learning have been added to this impressive list. This paper o ers a novel and unconventional solution to the image inpainting problem, still in the context of deep-learning. As opposed to a direct solution of training a CNN to ll-in missing parts in images, this work promotes a solution based on pre-trained classi cation-oriented CNN. The proposed algorithm is based on the assumption that such CNN's have memorized the visual information they operate upon, and this can be leveraged for our inpainting task. The main theme in the proposed solution is the formulation of the problem as an energy-minimization task in which the missing pixels in the input image are the unknowns. This minimization aims to reduce the distance between the true image' label and the one resulting from the network operating on the completed image. A critical observation in our work is the fact that for better inpainting performance, the pre-training of the CNN should be applied on small portions of images (patches), rather than the complete images. This ensures that the network assimilates small details in the data, which are crucial for the inpainting needs. We demonstrate the success of this algorithm on two datasets: MNIST digits and face images (Extended Yale B), showing in both the tendency of this method to operate very well.


Introduction: Obesity and overweight is a critical public health problem. Worldwide, many natural products for treatment of obesity and weight loss have been used. It seems natural supplement usage, based on traditional plants is the safest approach for obesity. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of herbal supplements containing four herbs including Origanum vulgare, Carumcarvi, Trachyspermum copticum and Ruta Graveolen,based on traditional medicine with placebo plus a weight loss diet on some biochemical parameters and anthropometric indices in obese subjects. Methods: This study is a double-blind controlled clinical on adult obese subjects with a BMI of over 30 and age range of 20 to 50 years. The study period was 8 weeks. Signing an informed testimonial, Sixty-four subjects were randomly assigned into two groups of placebo (n=33) and treated (n=31). Anthropometric indices, dietary intake and biochemical parameters were measured at baseline and after the intervention. Results: The results indicated body weight, BMI and body fat composition in treatment group was significantly lower than control (p<0,05). Moreover, there was a significant reduction in TC, LDL-c and TG in the herbal supplement group , compared to the placebo (p<0,05). Conclusion: The use of this herbal mixture effectively reduces the anthropometric indices and fat mass in adult obese subjects. It also showed potential efficiency in controlling lipid profile level in obese individuals.


Today, cyber-physical systems (CPS) exist everywhere in different sizes, with different functionalities and capabilities. CPS often support critical missions that have significant economic and societal importance. They require software systems, communications technologies, sensors/actuators, embedded technologies, and physical systems to work together seamlessly, and they are seen as a driving force behind digital transformation. This dissertation describes the research work carried out to investigate applicability of data and visual analytics for CPS to overcome three main challenges: interoperability, complexity, and sustainability. To this end, several case studies are used to effectively implement and test different data and visual analytics solutions to aid stakeholders when they make decisions on interoperability, complexity, and sustainability for CPS. These studies raised questions about issues found to be of importance for the success of data and visual analytics approaches, including accessibility, availability, quality, volume, and variety of data—issues. Moreover, additional studies are used to show the benefits of blending different approaches, such as systems thinking and design thinking, and the current data analytics readiness of the Swedish industry is assessed through a questionnaire completed by more than a hundred respondents. The data and visual analytics are positioned between digitalization and machine intelligence as a research focus. Data and visual analytics is the next step after digitalizing the information by adding analytical capabilities to the data. It is also an important phase before developing machine intelligence applications. Earlier studies clearly show that only a fraction of companies have machine intelligence applications across the enterprise. One important reason behind this is the lack of strong digital capabilities that big data and advanced data analytics technologies could bring. The findings of the work carried out as part of this thesis show the importance of this middle phase—data and visual analytics—for the success of not only the CPS but also these two concepts—digitalization and machine intelligence. This thesis concludes by highlighting that current data and visual analytics approaches in CPS are closely dependent on the availability, accessibility, quality, volume, and variety of the data. Notably, the huge amount of industrial data that exists in CPS manufacturers data repositories does not always mean that this data is useful, especially for analytical purposes. To this end, firstly, the CPS industry should concentrate its efforts to collect useful data that will benefit the industry by providing analytical insight into the environments where CPS is produced and operated. Secondly, the industry should make necessary organizational changes such as considering to employ data scientists, analysts, and business intelligence developers and make data accessible to these people for further usage. Thirdly, the data management procedures and data analytics roadmaps of companies should be created and shared with other employees, and necessary mechanisms need to be considered to improve and guarantee the quality of the data. Lastly, the variety of data needs to be addressed by the industry.


Twenty pregnant lamas from the IVITA Research Center, Maranganí, Cusco, were selected, and the rump area, thigh volume, body weight and thoracic perimeter were measured. A 2 x 2 factorial design was used, where A = Supplement (a1: with hay; a2: without hay) and B = Biometric measures (b1: high values; b 2: low values). The amount of supplemented hay was 1 kg/animal/day. The effect of biometric measures and feed supplementation on dam milk production and calf growth during the first seven weeks of lactation was evaluated. Body weight of both dams and calves was weekly recorded. Milk production was estimated (milking after 12 hours of wearing an udder protector to avoid suckling). Supplemented lamas showed higher milk yield (0.05>p<0.01) between the 3rd and 7th week of lactation. The peak of milk production occurred at the 2nd (a2) and 3rd (a1) week. Calves of supplemented lamas and those with higher biometric measures had the highest body weight gain (p<0.05). No significant interaction was found between treated groups on calf weight; however, there was a higher growth rate in calves of supplemented lamas with high biometric measures. Correlations between milk yield with calf body weight due to the effect of feed supplementation and biometric measures were significant from the 4th week onwards. The effect of feed supplementation and biometric measures, and the interaction between them did no significantly affect dams body weight during the first weeks of lactation, however, there was a slight reduction of body weight between the 1st and the 3 rd week of lactation. The average body weight at parturition and on the 7th week of lactation was 96.9 ± 8.4 and 95.3 ± 9.1 kg respectively. The results showed a significant effect of feed supplementation and biometric measures on milk production and calf body weight.


Economy is a central principle for understanding animal locomotion. Yet, compared with theoretical predictions concerning economy, animals run with compliant legs that are energetically costly. Here, we address this apparent paradox, highlighting two factors that predict benefits for compliant gaits: (i) minimizing cost of work associated with bouncing viscera; and (ii) leg control for robust stability in uneven terrain. We show that consideration of the effects of bouncing viscera predicts an energetic optimum for relatively compliant legs. To compare stability in uneven terrain, we introduce the normalized maximum drop (NMD), a measure based on simple kinematics, which predicts that compliant legs allow negotiation of relatively larger terrain perturbations without failure. Our model also suggests an inherent trade-off in control of leg retraction velocity (ω) for stability: low ω allows higher NMD, reducing fall risk, whereas high ω minimizes peak forces with terrain drops, reducing injury risk. Optimization for one of these factors explicitly limits the other; however, compliant legs relax this trade-off, allowing greater stability by both measures. Our models suggest compromises in leg control for economy and stability that might explain why animals run with compliant legs.


The freedom of expression is thriving due to the global use of the internet. The digital era has revolutionized the scope, practices, and even the definition of freedom expression. However, it also evokes a number of social concerns. Offenses such as the circulation of defamation, hate speech, misleading propaganda to the masses, and fraud, for instance, can be found in the internet. Certain limitations deriving from the conditions prescribed by the human rights principles and instruments as well as the national constitution are therefore prudent to prevent the excess of freedom. As a state that abides to the rule of law, Indonesia recognizes the freedom of expression as a manifestation of human rights that is crucial to democracy. While new laws such as the Information and Electronic Transaction Act have been enacted to answer the challenges brought by the digital era upon the freedom of expression, the question of whether the existing laws have accommodated an ideal balance between restriction and protection for the freedom of expression remains a matter worth reviewing. This paper aims to study the limits of the freedom of expression, particularly in the digital context, in the constellation of the Indonesian legal system and how they converge and correlate with one another. Finally, this study concludes that the Indonesian government must protect its citizens from the spread and use of illegal content in electronic communications by enforcing and harmonizing its criminal, private, and administrative law configurations.


The weakness of civil society in post-Soviet Russia has been widely discussed and is generally attributed to combinations of historical and cultural factors and authoritarian repression. This thesis adopts a conceptualization of civil society, drawn in part from social movement theory, which emphasizes the nature of interaction between citizens and the state. A series of three case studies traces the genesis and development of civic organizations and protest movements in Russia, involving human, housing and property rights, in order to discern how Russian citizens perceive their relationship with the state and form (or do not form) strategies for collective action. In the first case, the NGO Public Verdict finds success in defending individual citizens from law enforcement abuses but is incapable of affecting systemic change. In the second case, local protests over housing-related issues evolve into sustained movements but are unable to coalesce in the face of a state that prefers ad hoc policymaking. And lastly, spontaneous protests over proposed limits on the import of used cars from Japan grow into one of Russia's only sustained grass-roots social movements, capable of forcing the state into concessions and gaining a seat at the policy table. These studies are analyzed in the context of the political economy of Russia during the presidency of Vladimir Putin, during which the elite consolidated authoritarian rule while disengaging from the public and public policymaking. The difficulties Russians face in mobilizing, then, are seen as stemming from the privatization of power and the highly individualized nature of state-society relations. But when the state departs from its disengagement and acts in a way that allows Russian citizens to generate and maintain a perception of themselves as an aggrieved group, the latter prove capable of mounting and sustaining an organized response in defense of their rights and interests.


Reproducible research is a foundational component for scientific advancements, yet little is known regarding the extent of reproducible research within the dermatology literature.

 This study aimed to determine the quality and transparency of the literature in dermatology journals by evaluating for the presence of 8 indicators of reproducible and transparent research practices.

 By implementing a cross-sectional study design, we conducted an advanced search of publications in dermatology journals from the National Library of Medicine catalog. Our search included articles published between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2018. After generating a list of eligible dermatology publications, we then searched for full text PDF versions by using Open Access Button, Google Scholar, and PubMed. Publications were analyzed for 8 indicators of reproducibility and transparency—availability of materials, data, analysis scripts, protocol, preregistration, conflict of interest statement, funding statement, and open access—using a pilot-tested Google Form.

 After exclusion, 127 studies with empirical data were included in our analysis. Certain indicators were more poorly reported than others. We found that most publications (113, 88.9%) did not provide unmodified, raw data used to make computations, 124 (97.6%) failed to make the complete protocol available, and 126 (99.2%) did not include step-by-step analysis scripts.

 Our sample of studies published in dermatology journals do not appear to include sufficient detail to be accurately and successfully reproduced in their entirety. Solutions to increase the quality, reproducibility, and transparency of dermatology research are warranted. More robust reporting of key methodological details, open data sharing, and stricter standards journals impose on authors regarding disclosure of study materials might help to better the climate of reproducible research in dermatology.


This article shows a methodology and the results obtained from a multidisciplinary project between the University and Enterprise which encourages innovation. The University participated with its faculty members and students enrolled in the programs of industrial engineering and electronic engineering, and the Enterprise was a group of organic coffee farmers (called by its founders ACOC Association) located in the center of the Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Two hypotheses were formulated for the project. The first, multidisciplinary work produces better results in solving problems of small businesses because it considers the problem in a systemic way. The second, independent work from each field of study, once the technical problem has been identified, provides satisfactory results for the whole problem. The first hypothesis was verified and the second one, partially verified. We conclude that UniversityEnterprise relationships, with a multidisciplinary technological contribution, significantly improve the work of small businesses; the company must be actively involved so that the results endure over time and the systemic view of the problems strengthens the work of small businesses.


Through a case study, this article explores a number of theoretical issues related to the often taken for granted relationship between simulator fidelity and the quality and transferability of training in complex, dynamic, safety-critical settings. A counterexample based on mid-fidelity simulation is presented and the assumed coincidence of fidelity and validity is tested, that is the study tests the equation of constructed photorealism (built to mimic reality) and effective development of the competence that operators require to manage situations that involve underspecified problems, time pressure constraints and complex group interaction. The article concludes that such competence development cannot rely only on highly context-specific (photorealistic) environments. Further, it will be argued that lower-fidelity simulation, when appropriately designed, can provide competence development with pedagogical and economic advantages.


Since the Internet-of-Things (IoT) has been introduced, it is considered as one of the emerging technologies providing great opportunities to many vertical industries. One of the major IoT application areas that gets significant attention is smart city. Since it is unrealistic to expect full convergence toward a single IoT platform in the near future, it is mandatory to enable interworking between different platforms based on multiple standards, coexisting in the emerging smart cities. In this paper, we take the example of two global IoT standards, FIWARE and oneM2M, which are actively used in many smart city projects, and analyze them to show the feasibility of IoT platforms interworking. Based on the analysis, we design and implement a novel IoT interworking architecture providing a semantic driven integration framework suitable for smart city. The core idea behind our approach is to introduce interworking proxies that: 1) conduct a static mapping of sensor information between IoT platforms and 2) perform semantic interoperability using semantically annotated resources via a semantic interworking proxy that dynamically discovers new kinds of information and adapts itself to enable automatic translation of semantic data between given source and target IoT platforms while it is running. We present the system based on these proxies and evaluate it in Santander smart city. The results demonstrate that it is able to discover and manage IoT sensors connected to both oneM2M and FIWARE. It appears that the semantic approach provides the flexibility and dynamic adaptivity needed for fast growing and rapidly changing urban environments.


Excessive co-channel interference (CCI) occurs in overloaded wireless environments where the number of transmitted signals exceeds the number of available receive antennas. We present a list-based multiuser detection scheme that effectively mitigates CCI in overloaded receivers with a circular array. The algorithm is named parallel symbol detection with reduced complexity interference estimation (PSD-RCIE). It employs an iterative parallel detector with list feedback of the best symbol estimates. Simulations show that our algorithm achieves near joint-maximum likelihood detection at a fraction of the complexity. Its good complexity-performance trade-off together with its parallel structure make PSD-RCIE well suited for practical implementation.


Large tufa mounds (>3 m tall, with a basal circumference of 5 m) have been discovered on the margin of Big Soda Lake, Nevada, USA. These tufa mounds are rooted at a maximum of 4 m below the current lake surface and are actively forming from groundwater seepage, which can be seen emanating from the top of the tufa mounds. Big Soda Lake is a volcanic crater lake whose water level is maintained exclusively by groundwater. The age of the tufa mounds is well constrained because prior to the development of the Newlands Irrigation Project in 1907, the water level was ∼18 m lower than the current lake level. The vertical columnar nature of the tufa mounds indicates that they formed under the lake and not subaerially. Thus, the tufa mounds are <100 yr old and have grown at a rate ≥30 mm/yr. Stable oxygen and carbon isotope analyses of tufa carbonate compared to isotopic analyses of groundwater and lake water and hydrochemical data indicate that the fluids responsible for their precipitation are a simple mixture of modern groundwater and lake water and do not reflect a recent climate signature. The exceptionally fast growth of the tufa mounds indicates that large tufa deposits may form almost instantaneously in geologic time. Given this potential for rapid growth and the fact that variations in isotopic compositions of tufa deposits have been interpreted in terms of changes in paleoclimate and changes in the composition of recharge water over thousands of years, care should be taken when trying to determine the significance of variations in isotopic or chemical compositions of tufas that may have been caused by mixing with groundwater.


Commercial pure titanium (cpTi) has been the material of choice in several disciplines of dentistry due to its biocompatibility, resistance to corrosion and mechanical properties. Despite a number of favorable characteristics, cpTi as a reconstruction and oral implant material has several shortcomings. This paper highlights current knowledge on material properties, passive oxidation film formation, corrosion, surface activation, cell interactions, biofilm development, allergy, casting and machining properties of cpTi for better understanding and potential improvement of this material for its clinical applications.


Breast cancer (BC) is a heterogeneous disease of which its definite cure had yet to be discovered. Tumour Necrosis Factor-related Apoptosis-inducing Ligand (TRAIL) is one potential anti-cancer protein with its selective killing on cancerous cells while largely evading the healthy cells. Nonetheless, many cancer cells have built TRAIL resistance, including breast cancer. In this study, the addition of two epigenetic drugs, Trichostatin A (TSA) and Zebularine (Zeb) combined prior to TRAIL treatment (TZT) was shown to induce significant increase in G0/G1 cell cycle arrest in MDA-MB-231 (57.78%). With E-cadherin expression, the G0/G1-arrested population increased to 74.2% (231-EGFP) and 83.15% (MCF-7). Moreover, TZT had also significantly reduced cell viability of 231-EGFP to 62.12%. The observed cell inhibitory effects might be due to suppression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) mRNA expression. The TZT-induced cell cycle arrest had also driven apoptosis occurrence and it was supported by the up-regulation of p21 and p-p53 (S392) proteins in MDA-MB-231 by TZT. With the in vitro re-expression of E-cadherin in 231-EGFP, down-regulation of anti-apoptotic PON2, Catalase, Clusterin, IAPs as well as cell stress proteins had validated the notion that E-cadherin expression enhances the TZT anti-cancer efficacy. Similarly, in E-cadherin-positive MCF-7, TZT treatment had down-regulated the anti-apoptotic proteins, increased the pro-apoptotic SMAC, HTRA2 as well as both the TRAIL receptors, TRAIL-R1 and -R2. On the other hand, the TZT treatment regime had negligible effect on reducing the cell migration rate of the invasive MDAMB-231 and 231-EGFP cell lines. This was supported by the lack of pro-invasive matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9) down-regulation by the TZT treatment. Therefore, our study showed that TSA and Zeb are potential sensitizers of breast cancer towards TRAIL-induced cell inhibition, cell cycle arrest leading towards apoptosis while having no tangible anti-invasive potential. Nonetheless, from our ex vivo findings, TRAIL-R2, TRAIL and E-cadherin markers' anti-cancer functions had been hijacked by BC cells to facilitate their survival (TRAIL) and metastatic potential (TRAIL-R2, E-cadherin). Thus, these markers' over-expression and localization can potentially serve as markers for BC prognosis and treatment regime selection.


Since the advent of social media, human-internet interaction has changed dramatically towards greater
individual characteristic-based services. Since personality traits are the most stable behavioral dispositions
of an individual, it is surprising that the digital service industry has not focused its attention on
personality-based services. Consequently the value creation potential of personality-based services is
currently largely ignored. That is why in this paper I demonstrate that social media data contains fruitful
information about a user's personality which in turn can be used for novel personality-based services, e.g.
in marketing and recruiting.