Abstract. Over decadal-centennial timescales, only a few mechanisms in the carbon-climate system could cause a massive net redistribution of carbon from land and ocean systems to the atmosphere in response to climate warming. The largest such climate-vulnerable carbon pool is the old organic carbon (OC) stored in Arctic permafrost (perennially frozen) soils. Climate warming, both predicted and now observed to be the strongest globally in the Eurasian Arctic and Alaska, causes thaw-release of old permafrost carbon from local tundra sites. However, a central challenge for the assessment of the general vulnerability of this old OC pool is to deduce any signal integrating its release over larger scales. Here we examine radiocarbon measurements of molecular soil markers exported by the five Great Russian-Arctic Rivers (Ob, Yenisey, Lena, Indigirka and Kolyma), employed as natural integrators of carbon release processes in their watersheds. The signals held in estuarine surface sediments revealed that average radiocarbon ages of n-alkanes increased east-to-west from 6400 yr BP in Kolyma to 11 400 yr BP in Ob. This is consistent with westwards trends of both warmer climate and more degraded organic matter as indicated by the ratio of high molecular weight (HMW) n-alkanoic acids to HMW n-alkanes. The dynamics of Siberian permafrost can thus be probed via the molecular-radiocarbon signal as carried by Arctic rivers. Old permafrost carbon is at present vulnerable to mobilization over continental scales. Climate-induced changes in the radiocarbon fingerprint of released permafrost carbon will likely depend on changes in both permafrost coverage and Arctic soil hydraulics.


Neural mechanism underlying attention manifests itself through intertwined perceptual effects. A recent study using time-resolved behavioral measurements revealed that spatial attention mediates the processing of visual stimuli presented at precued location and uncued location in a rhythmic manner (Song et al., 2014). However, how the dynamics of spatial attention effects may interact with object/face representation is unknown. Here we combined this innovative time-resolved approach with fMRI to address this question. In each trial, an uninformative cue was presented in the left or right hemifield. Participants were asked to make speeded responses detecting whether a face or a house was presented at either the cued or uncued location. Critically, the cue-to-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) varied trial-by-trial in a small step of 20ms, from 200ms to 1080ms. Bilateral fusiform face areas (FFA) and parahippocampal place areas (PPA) were localized with separate fMRI scans. On average across SOAs, in the left FFA, right hemifield targets led to significantly increased activity than left hemifield targets for both faces and houses. By contrast, averaged activity in the right FFA was invariant to which hemifield the target was shown, but significantly modulated by which hemifield the cue was presented, suggesting effects of spatial attention for face representation in the right FFA. No such hemispheric asymmetry was found for the PPA. Moreover, both the FFA and PPA results demonstrate theta-band oscillations in the valid cue condition, complementing to results we will report in other VSS2015 abstracts that suggest similar rhythmic effects of visual attention. Together, these results show 1) hemispheric asymmetry of how spatial attention and invariant face representation may interact; 2) reliable neural correlates of the theta-band behavioral oscillation underlying attention, shedding lights on how attention mechanisms dynamically regulate the neural processing of visual stimuli. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


Regulated secretory cells have two pathways that transport secreted proteins from the Golgi complex to the cell surface. To identify carrier vesicles involved in regulated and constitutive secretion, PC12 pheochromocytoma cells were labeled with [35S]sulfate to identify markers for the two secretory pathways, then mechanically permeabilized and incubated in vitro. Small constitutive secretory vesicles, containing mostly sulfated proteoglycans, accumulated during an in vitro incubation with ATP. In the presence of GTP gamma S, the constitutive vesicles became significantly more dense, suggesting that a coated intermediate was stabilized. Larger immature regulated secretory granules, enriched in sulfated secretogranin II, also escaped from the permeabilized cells in vitro. During granule maturation, their density increased and the amount of cofractionating proteoglycans diminished. The data suggest that sorting continues during secretory granule maturation.


This authoritative resource brings into focus the many important connections among the different disciplines in the field of housing - planning, architecture, social sciences, environmental design, business law and others. The Encyclopedia of Housing assists in the conceptualization of housing problems and outlines methods for studying and resolving them. While much of the work focuses on the USA, there are also essays on housing in Western Europe and Japan, and on the World Bank and the World Health Organization. Given the inclusion of broad thematic material and subjects of relevance to housing in all industrialized countries, The Encyclopedia of Housing will be a vital resource for researchers, practitioners and students everywhere.


Abstract The design, analysis and optimization of cooperative/relaying communication systems have recently become a very active research area within both the information theory as well as communications engineering societies. It is now well understood that relaying strategies can improve the coverage of wireless networks by providing higher data rates or better transmission reliability to user terminals at the edge of a wireless cell, or terminals having faded connectivity with the base station. Relaying technologies are also becoming part of the telecommunication standards. Although we can find studies, in the academic literature, on advanced relaying schemes, which are based on user terminals cooperating to help each other while applying decentralized resource allocation strategies, the first actual deployment step which will take place within the 3GPP long-term evolution (LTE)-advanced standard is based on fixed access points to do the relaying and within a centralized scheme in which the e-nodeB (base station with backhaul connection) takes the scheduling and resource allocation decisions. One major objective in 3GPP evolution is to utilize the scarce wireless system resources efficiently because achieving the high quality of service (QoS) targets through over-provisioning is uneconomical due to the relatively high cost for transmission capacity in cellular access networks. Our objective here is to obtain the optimal (from an information theory perspective) resource allocation schemes taking into considerations the system constraints that are relevant to the LTE-advanced standard. We have been able to derive optimal resource allocation polices that are provably based on closed-form formulations which are practical for implementation. They include the policies for (i) transmission mode selection (i.e. deciding whether the user needs the assistance of a relay or not), (ii) power allocation for the base station and the relays, and (iii) criterion for user scheduling over the available air-link resource units. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed resource allocation scheme provides considerable throughput gains especially for users receiving low power through the direct link with the base station.


This study examined the psychosocial impacts and management of the CORONA virus from triple perspectives; negative
socialization, dehumanization, and de-individuation. The literature of the study was focused around the following schools of
thought; social psychology, cognitive psychology, psychodynamic theory, and behaviorism.


Summary

In summary, it has been shown that the results of the Carter paper are driven, not surprisingly, by the assumptions that were fed into the model used. In addition, it has been shown that many of the assumptions are highly questionable or unrelated to the problem, and therefore limit the applicability of the findings to any "real-world" prescriptive analysis.

The Carter study does not model a change from a single-desk selling structure to a multiple seller environment. It simply assumes:

feed barley yields increase,

U.S. demand for feed barley increases by 500,000 t and malting barley demand increases by 400,000 t,

all barley shipments to maltsters bypass the primary elevator system, and

malt selection rates are increased by 50%.

Any one of these assumptions would lead an economic model to a result of higher net producer income. Carter, however, fails to connect these assumptions to the institution of a CBM. Further, the modeling errors created in trying to "customize" the CRAM model for this use clearly invalidate the results. There are serious flaws in the structural modeling of how a competitive market for malting barley would operate in North America and they invalidate the Carter's results regarding the prices, producer returns and production of malting barley under the CBM scenario.

While it is an interesting academic exercise to examine the possible economic impacts of a policy change by "shocking" an economic model, it is quite another matter to represent the results of such an endeavor as being "an exhaustive and definitive analysis of the issues" (Carter 31 March 1993). Besides the questionable assumptions and modeling errors of this paper, the author clearly misrepresents the power and accuracy of mathematical economic modeling.


Background : Health is one of the privileges given to human being and mental health is an important part of it. It seems that religious beliefs are directly related to mental health since it increases the person's adaptive mechanisms and enhances over coming unhappy incidents. Objective : To determine the relationship between religious beliefs and mental health in students. Design : This was correlational study in which religious beliefs and mental status of one group at students were measured by means of questionnaire and correlated afterwards. Samples : For the purpose of this study 225 students in their last year of schooling were selected by stratified sampling from different colleges of Iran university of medical sciences and health services. Results : The findings indicated that majority of students were in the state of good mental health and medium range religious beliefs. There found to be a significant relationship between their religious beliefs and mental health status (p<0.001). The results also showed that the greatest percent (75.55%) of good mental health belonged to those students having strong religious beliefs. Conclusion : Strong religious beliefs affect every aspect of mental health of students and as a result they will experience less anxiety and depression and will be able to cope with, and overcome the crisis. So it is suggested to explore the effect of religious beliefs on different dimensions of mental health.


Abstract Objective. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of [18F]fluorocholine positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FCH PET/CT) in detecting lymph-node and bone involvement in comparison with conventional imaging, such as abdominal–pelvic CT and bone scan, in the initial staging of prostate cancer (PCa). Materials and methods. The study retrospectively evaluated 48 patients who had FCH PET/CT for the initial staging of PCa. At the same time, 32 of the 48 patients had a bone scan and 26 of the 48 patients had abdominal–pelvic diagnostic CT. Diagnostic performance of FCH PET/CT, i.e. sensitivity, specificity and accuracy, was evaluated on a per-patient basis for the whole population and then separately on a per-risk classification, and later in comparison with conventional imaging. Histological specimens or follow-up data were used as the standard of reference. Results. The overall accuracy of FCH PET/CT for lymph-node involvement was 83.3%. The sensitivity of FCH was higher in the high-risk subset (83.3%) than in the intermediate-risk group (33.3%), whereas FCH specificity was similar. In comparison with dedicated CT scan, FCH PET/CT showed a higher sensitivity and a similar specificity (46.2% vs 69.2% and 92.3% vs 92.3%, respectively). Moreover, the sensitivity and specificity of PET/CT were higher than those of bone scan (100% vs 90% and 86.4% vs 77.2%, respectively). In contrast with conventional imaging, PET/CT changed the staging of the PCa in 33.3% patients. Conclusions. The efficiency of FCH PET/CT in detecting both bone and lymph-node involvement of PCa at initial staging was found to be higher than that of conventional imaging. Prospective clinical trials are needed to confirm these findings.


A correct interpretation of climatic records from deep ice cores requires a thorough assessment of the ice-dynamical evolution around the drill site. This is necessary to determine the history of such crucial parameters as surface elevation, flow pattern, strain rates, origin of the ice, and others, over the total period covered by the ice core. We focus on the EPICA drill site in Dronning Maud Land, and have applied a three-dimensional thermomechanical ice-sheet model of the Antarctic ice sheet nested with a detailed higher-order ice-flow model for the area around the drill site. The large-scale model is based on the shallow ice approximation, considers coupling with an ice shelf and a variable grounding-line, and is implemented on a 20 km grid. The local model includes all stress gradients in the force balance and therefore enables to reconstruct the flow history around the bore hole in much greater detail. All prognostic calculations take place within the large-scale model. Deviations from a reference state are then superimposed and interpolated on a fine 2.5 km grid for input to the fine-scale model. The local model receives boundary conditions from the large-scale model at lateral boundaries through a transition zone to eliminate the effects of different spatial resolution, but the local model does not couple back to the 3-D model. The nested model is run through the last 4 glacial cycles. For this study, we have made use of the most up-to-date ice-thickness and accumulation data collected within the framework of the various EPICA DML pre-site surveys. The presentation will focus on the methodology of the model nesting and discuss all results relevant to the interpretation of the ice-core records, including a tentative age-depth relation.


This article describes the perceived impact of the 2011 Texas 4-H Round Up on the participants' development of life skills. Senior 4-H Members, at least 18 years of age, who attended the 2011 4-H Roundup were the accessible population. Participants Leadership and Life Skill Development Scores, based on Seevers and Dormody's (1995) YLLSDS Instrument, were reported, as well as the most frequently participated in 4-H events. Results indicated that participants perceived gains in positive self-perception, goal setting, and problem solving, while changes in the ability to express feelings and trust others ranked lowest in the study.


The aim of this study is to identify the dimensions of a healthy school in an Iranian context. The study employed a mixed method approach to address the research questions. In the qualitative part, the study population consists of a number of experts in educational sciences using a Delphi technique, and the study samples were selected based on a purposive sampling method with a sample size of 20 experts. In the quantitative part, the study population involves all primary schools in Mazandaran Province, Iran. A multi-stage quantitative sampling method was applied to select the samples. A total of 210 primary schools were participated in the quantitative study. After three Delphi rounds, the most important dimensions of a health school are educational principal, educational leadership, teacher's attitude, school culture, organizational commitment, teacher's citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, educational achievement, and students' general health. The model obtained from the qualitative validation was tested in the quantitative study. Nine questionnaires were conducted to collect data in quantitative study. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine validity and reliability. Of 19 hypotheses, the results of the structural model support 10 hypotheses. This study suggests that both general and organizational health are key factors to achieve a healthy school.


Retracting published scientific articles is increasingly common. Retraction is a self-correction mechanism of the scientific community to maintain and safeguard the integrity of scientific literature. However, a retracted article may pose a profound and long-lasting threat to the credibility of the literature. New articles may unknowingly build their work on false claims made in retracted articles. Such dependencies on retracted articles may become implicit and indirect. Consequently, it becomes increasingly important to detect implicit and indirect threats. In this article, our aim is to raise the awareness of the potential threats of retracted articles even after their retraction and demonstrate a visual analytic study of retracted articles with reference to the rest of the literature and how their citations are influenced by their retraction. The context of highly cited retracted articles is visualized in terms of a co-citation network as well as the distribution of articles that have high-order citation dependencies on retracted articles. Survival analyses of time to retraction and postretraction citation are included. Sentences that explicitly cite retracted articles are extracted from full-text articles. Transitions of topics over time are depicted in topic-flow visualizations. We recommend that new visual analytic and science mapping tools should take retracted articles into account and facilitate tasks specifically related to the detection and monitoring of retracted articles.


This thesis discusses techniques for sharing the processing load among multiple processing units within systems that act as nodes in a data communications network. Load-sharing techniques have been explored in the field of computer science for many years and their benefits are well known, including better utilization of processing capacity and enhanced system fault tolerance. We discuss deploying such methods in the specifics of the networking environment. We concentrate particularly on the data plane, or the data packet-processing tasks. After reviewing the main results in the fields of load sharing and multiprocessor networking systems architectures, we conduct a preparatory optimization study of a router system to gain better understanding of the optimization issues in a particular multiprocessor system. The main contribution of this thesis, the adaptive load-sharing method, is presented next. We first formulate the optimization problem of mapping packets to processors. The goal is to minimize the likelihood of flow reordering, while respecting certain system constraints, such as the acceptable probability of a packet loss. As we show that the task is an NP-complete problem, we propose a heuristic method that uses an adaptive hash-based mapping to assign packets to processors. We demonstrate its advantages and prove that the method adaptation policy possesses the key minimal disruption property with respect to the mapping. In other words, the adaptation results in a minimum number of flows being moved among processing units. Further on, the method is validated in an extensive set of simulations designed to imitate the networking environment. Finally, two sample applications, an architecture of a multiprotocol router and an implementation of a server load balancer on a network processor demonstrate the applicability of the method.


Background:Due to an increase in implantable device–related anesthesia pain medicine claims, the authors investigated anesthesia liability associated with these devices. Methods:After institutional review board approval, the authors identified 148 pain medicine device claims from 1990 or later in the Anesthesia Closed Claims Project Database. Device-related damaging events included medication administration events, infections, hematomas, retained catheter fragments, cerebrospinal fluid leaks, cord or cauda equina trauma, device placed at wrong level, stimulator incorrectly programmed, delay in recognition of granuloma formation, and other issues. Results:The most common devices were implantable drug delivery systems (IDDS; 64%) and spinal cord stimulators (29%). Device-related care consisted of surgical device procedures (n = 107) and IDDS maintenance (n = 41). Severity of injury was greater in IDDS maintenance claims (56% death or severe permanent injury) than in surgical device procedures (26%, P < 0.001). Death and brain damage in IDDS maintenance claims resulted from medication administration errors (n = 13; 32%); spinal cord injury resulted from delayed recognition of granuloma formation (n = 9; 22%). The most common damaging events for surgical device procedures were infections, inadequate pain relief, cord trauma, retained catheter fragments, and subcutaneous hygroma. Care was more commonly assessed as less than appropriate (78%) and payments more common (63%) in IDDS maintenance than in surgical device procedure claims (P < 0.001). Conclusions:Half of IDDS maintenance claims were associated with death or permanent severe injury, most commonly from medication errors or failure to recognize progressive neurologic deterioration. Practitioners implanting or managing devices for chronic pain should exercise caution in these areas to minimize patient harm.


This paper examines how the growth in the number of foreign students enrolled in graduate programs affects native enrollment in those programs. Although there is little evidence of a crowdout effect for the typical native student, the impact of foreign students on native educational outcomes differs dramatically across ethnic groups, and is particularly adverse for white native men. There is a strong negative correlation between increases in the number of foreign students enrolled at a particular university and the number of white native men in that university's graduate program. This crowdout effect is strongest at the most elite institutions.


Primordial black holes that survive until the present have been considered as a dark matter candidate. In this paper we argue that primordial 2-2-hole remnants provide a more promising and testable option. 2-2-holes arise in quadratic gravity as a new family of classical solutions for ultracompact matter distributions and they possess the black hole exterior without an event horizon. They may serve as the endpoint of gravitational collapse, providing a resolution for the information loss problem. Intriguing thermodynamic behavior is found for these objects when sourced by a thermal gas. A large 2-2-hole radiates with a Hawking-like temperature and exhibits an entropy-area law. At a late stage, the evaporation slows down and essentially stops as the mass asymptotically approaches a minimal value. This remnant mass is determined by a fundamental scale in quadratic gravity. We study the cosmological and astrophysical implications of having these remnants as dark matter and derive the corresponding constraints. A distinctive phenomenon associated with remnant mergers occurs, predicting fluxes of high-energy astrophysical particles due to the spectacular evaporation of the merger product. Measurements of high-energy photon and neutrino fluxes could possibly bound the remnant mass to be not far above the Planck mass. Early-universe physics, on the other hand, requires that 2-2-holes quickly evolve into the remnant state after formation, putting an upper bound on the formation mass.


Background Mass participation in recreational sport (such as cycling) is part of a healthy lifestyle, and is an important component in the primary and secondary prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCD's). However, there is a risk of acute traumatic injuries and acute medical complications during community mass participation cycling races, but this has not been well documented. Objective The objective of this study was to document the incidence of acute traumatic injuries and acute non-traumatic medical complications in a community mass participation cycling race. Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting 109 km cycling race. Participants All 34 033 race starters (males=26 835, females=7 198) to the 2014 Cape Town Cycle Tournament. Assessment Pre-race entry demographic data and race-day medical complications data (all incidents that required assessment by the medical team on race day) were collected. Main Outcome Measurements The incidence (per 1000 race starters) of all complications, acute traumatic injuries and non-traumatic medical complications and serious life threatening complications were determined for all cyclists, and male and female cyclists. Results The incidence (per 1000 starters) of all complications was 6.35, and this was significantly higher in females vs. males (male=5.78, female=8.47; p=0.014). The incidence of serious life-threatening complications was 0.5, and there was a trend toward a higher incidence in female cyclists (female=0.97, males=0.37; p=0.06). Female cyclists also had a significantly higher (p=0.027) incidence of acute traumatic injuries (females=6.53, males=4.47; p=0.027). The incidence of acute non-traumatic medical complications was 1.44 (males=1.30, females=1.94; p=0.203). Conclusions 1/157 race starters (males: 1/173; females: 1/118) at a community based cycling event were injured or developed a medical complication during the race, and the risk is significantly higher in female cyclists. These data indicate the need to develop and implement prevention strategies to reduce the risk of medical complications, specifically traumatic injuries, in female cyclists.


Because habeas petitioners seek a court order for liberty rather than compensation, judges have a duty to decide habeas petitions promptly. But increasingly, the federal courts have fallen behind on their heavy habeas dockets, and many petitions — some of which are meritorious — remain undecided for years. First, this Article makes the normative and historical argument that speed must be, and always has been, central to the function of habeas. Second, it analyzes newly compiled Administrative Office of the United States Courts data on more than 200,000 habeas petitions and demonstrates empirically for the first time that there is a widespread and growing problem of delay in the resolution of habeas petitions in the federal courts. Third, this Article offers a specific and concrete remedy for the habeas delay problem, recommending that the Judicial Conference of the United States require judges to identify publicly all habeas petitions that have been pending in their chambers for more than six months, just as the Civil Justice Reform Act requires them to do for all other civil motions.


This book is the second in a series of volumes intended to provide a broad sociological analysis of the foundations of constitutional law. The first volume in this series was primarily concerned with the historical formation of constitutional law in different national societies, mainly in the early constitutional heartlands of Europe. In contrast, this book examines the constitutional form of contemporary society as a whole. It seeks sociologically to elucidate emerging constitutional norms, as society's political order expands beyond the historical limits of national jurisdictions and territorially organized public law, and as national sources of normative agency and authority lose their ability to produce legitimacy for some legal and political functions. In particular, the book is an attempt to isolate the structural pressures that have shaped the constitutional norms on which contemporary society relies, and it aims to account for the deep-lying social origins of prevailing, increasingly post-national, patterns of constitutional law. To explain the constitutional form of contemporary society, this book proceeds from the claim that, to an increasing degree, modern society is in the process of evolving a global political system. To be entirely clear, this political system is not centred around global institutions , and it surely does not take the form of a world polity based on clearly constructed centres of authority, standing above national states, which is envisioned, critically or affirmatively, by some literature on 1 terms of use, available at https:/ global politics. 1 However, in contemporary society, only few political exchanges, at any societal location, are without some global dimension, and there are few interactions in any part of society which do not raise normative questions or presuppose principles of normative order that reach beyond their immediate territorial context. As a result, national political authority is only rarely the exclusive point of regress in the justification of political decisions, in the resolution of political conflicts or in the validation of laws, and national political decisions and national legislative processes are usually circumscribed by, or proportioned to, legal norms of extra-national origin. Most decisions in society are backed, however obliquely, by legal norms whose provenance is not solely national, and most acts of legislation are supported by multiple authorities, located both inside and outside national polities. In consequence, modern society has evolved an encompassing although highly variable and diffuse political system, which incorporates both the distinct political systems of national societies and institutions, mainly …


Environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, persisting poverty, a mounting obesity epidemic, food insecurity and the use of biotechnology are all examples of wicked problems faced by agricultural and food organizations. Yet, managers and policy-makers often do not recognize that these problems are "wicked". Wicked problems have cause-effect relationships that are difficult or impossible to define, cannot be framed and solved without creating controversies among stakeholders and require collective action among societal groups with strongly held, conflicting beliefs and values. In contrast to past research, this Special Issue takes an organizational perspective by tackling three key managerial questions: what is the value of managing wicked problems and engaging with multiple stakeholders? What are the human and organizational resources and the strategic conditions needed to engage with multiple stakeholders effectively? How can multi-stakeholder engagements be undertaken? A world collection of empirical case studies conducted by business, NGO and university leaders tackle these questions. For managers, the Issue offers recent and thought-provoking insights on how to recognize and deal with wicked problems. For academics, it proposes an agenda for addressing the topic and promises to fuel a research and education debate for years to come.


UNLABELLED
BRAF mutations occur in approximately 10% of colorectal cancers. Although RAF inhibitor monotherapy is highly effective in BRAF-mutant melanoma, response rates in BRAF-mutant colorectal cancer are poor. Recent clinical trials of combined RAF/EGFR or RAF/MEK inhibition have produced improved efficacy, but patients ultimately develop resistance. To identify molecular alterations driving clinical acquired resistance, we performed whole-exome sequencing on paired pretreatment and postprogression tumor biopsies from patients with BRAF-mutant colorectal cancer treated with RAF inhibitor combinations. We identified alterations in MAPK pathway genes in resistant tumors not present in matched pretreatment tumors, including KRAS amplification, BRAF amplification, and a MEK1 mutation. These alterations conferred resistance to RAF/EGFR or RAF/MEK combinations through sustained MAPK pathway activity, but an ERK inhibitor could suppress MAPK activity and overcome resistance. Identification of MAPK pathway reactivating alterations upon clinical acquired resistance underscores the MAPK pathway as a critical target in BRAF-mutant colorectal cancer and suggests therapeutic options to overcome resistance.

SIGNIFICANCE
RAF inhibitor combinations represent promising approaches in clinical development for BRAF-mutant colorectal cancer. Initial characterization of clinical acquired resistance mechanisms to these regimens identified several MAPK pathway alterations driving resistance by reactivating MAPK signaling, highlighting the critical dependence of BRAF-mutant colorectal cancers on MAPK signaling and offering potential strategies to overcome resistance.


AIMS
Injection drug users are at high risk for chronic hepatitis C virus infection (CHC). Opioid maintenance treatment (OMT) offers a unique opportunity to screen for CHC. This study proposed the hypothesis that a general practitioner (GP) with special interest in addiction medicine can achieve CHC screening rates comparable to specialized centres and aimed to investigate determinants for a successful CHC case finding in a primary care setting.

DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS
Retrospective medical record analysis of 387 patients who received opioid maintenance therapy between 1 January 2002 and 31 May 2008 in a general practice in Zurich, Switzerland.

MEASUREMENTS
Successful CHC assessment was defined as performance of hepatitis C virus (HCV) serology with consecutive polymerase chain reaction-based RNA and genotype recordings. The association between screening success and patient characteristics was assessed using multiple logistic regression. findings: Median (interquartile range) age and duration of OMT of the 387 (268 males) patients was 38.5 (33.6-44.5) years and 34 (11.3-68.0) months, respectively. Fourteen patients (3.6%) denied HCV testing and informed consent about screening was missing in 13 patients (3.4%). In 327 of 360 patients (90.8%) with informed consent a successful CHC assessment has been performed. Screening for HCV antibodies was positive in 136 cases (41.6%) and in 86 of them (63.2%) a CHC was present. The duration of OMT was an independent determinant of a successful CHC assessment.

CONCLUSIONS
In addicted patients a high CHC assessment rate in a primary care setting in Switzerland is feasible and opioid substitution provides an optimal framework.


Abstract All offshore oil and gas platforms have finite economic life spans. One of the decommissioning options for these platforms is complete removal, requiring the use of explosives to dislodge the support structure from below the seafloor. Off California, this decommissioning option would kill large numbers of platform-associated and commercially important groundfishes that inhabit the bases of the platforms, and may potentially affect regional fish populations. Capturing and translocating fishes before removing a platform might mitigate the effects of platform removal. In this study, we acoustically tagged 79 rockfishes and lingcod from three oil platforms in the east Santa Barbara Channel and translocated them to a natural reef inside a state marine reserve at Anacapa Island to determine whether individuals would home back to their platforms of capture, or take up residency at their new location. Movements between natural and platform habitats were monitored over a two-year period. Twenty-five percent of all tagged fishes translocated to a natural reef returned to their home platforms relatively quickly, traveling distances from 11 km to ≥18 km, in 10.5 h to 17 d. Those that did not home took up residency at Anacapa Island, moved to Santa Cruz Island or out of the range of detection. Although a small proportion of fish (25%) homed back to the platforms, a higher proportion (75%) remained at their platforms of release. Those that homed back to their platform of capture did so relatively quickly (avg 15 ± 31 d). Lingcod had the highest probability of homing back to their platform of capture, typically doing so in < 1 day. These results suggest that fish translocation may be a successful, but costly mitigation strategy for platforms that require full decommissioning and that some species may be more successfully translocated than others.


The article presents performance analysis of the neuro swarm optimization algorithm applied for the detection of proportion of the component gases found in manhole gas mixture. The hybrid neuro swarm optimization technique is used for implementing an intelligent sensory system for the detection of component gases present in manhole gas mixture. The manhole gas mixture typically contains toxic gases such as Hydrogen Sulfide, Ammonia, Methane, Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxide, and Carbon Monoxide. A semiconductor based gas sensor array used for sensing the gas components consists of many sensor elements, where each sensor element is responsible for sensing particular gas component. Presence of multiple gas sensors for detecting multiple gases results in cross-sensitivity. The central theme of this article is the performance analysis of the algorithm which offers solution to multiple gas detection issue. The article also presents study on the computational cost incurred by the algorithm.


In this paper, performance of providing WiMAX from High Altitude Platforms (HAPs) with multiple antenna payload will be investigated as well as considering the coexistence capability with multiple-operator terrestrial deployments. A scenario of a HAP and terrestrial WiMAX base stations deployed inside a HAP coverage area with a radius at 30 km will be proposed. HAP cellular formation with different reuse patterns will be established. Coexistence performance will be assessed in terms of HAP downlink signal interfered by terrestrial WiMAX deployment. This paper will show it is effective to deliver WiMAX via HAPs and can efficiently share the spectrum with terrestrial WiMAX systems.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to carry out a quantitative analysis of a virtual craniofacial clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic.

METHODS
The charts of 90 patients from a single institution were reviewed. Of these patients, 45 visited the virtual clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic. The other 45 patients visited the clinic in the 3 months prior to COVID-19. Demographics including the mean age at the visit, chief complaint, visit diagnosis, appointment duration, helmet usage, accuracy of the diagnosis, need for a CT scan, and the need for a follow-up appointment were assessed. Diagnostic accuracy, the frequency of follow-up appointments, and patient satisfaction (via survey), as well as additional associated factors, were analyzed to determine the efficacy and satisfaction associated with the virtual clinic approach.

RESULTS
The mean patient age at time of the visit was 5.6 and 7.3 months (p = 0.244), and the mean time from referral to appointment was 19.2 and 19 days (p = 0.934), in the in-person and virtual cohorts, respectively. There was no significant difference in the variety of chief complaints between the in-person and virtual visits, with 97.8% and 93.3% of patients' parents reporting abnormal head shape, respectively, and the remainder reporting more infrequent complaints (p = 0.435). The visit diagnosis was plagiocephaly in 93.3% of the in-person cohort and 80.0% of the virtual cohort (p = 0.118). The final diagnosis exhibited a similar pattern, with 95.6% of the in-person cohort and 88.9% of the virtual cohort observed as positional plagiocephaly; the remaining diagnoses were more infrequent (p = 0.434). The most common alternative diagnosis in the virtual visit cohort was a metopic ridge (8.4%). In the in-person visit cohort, the most common alternative diagnosis was equally a benign enlargement of the subarachnoid space in infancy, scalp mass, and skull lesion (2.2% each). None of the patients in either cohort were diagnosed with synostosis. Eighty percent of the in-person visits were 15 to 30 minutes in duration, with the remaining 20% being 31 minutes or longer; virtual visits were all 30 minutes or less, with 95.6% being 15 to 30 minutes (p = 0.002). Helmets were prescribed for 2 patients in the in-person cohort and no patients in the virtual cohort (p = 0.494). Alterations in diagnosis were made in 2.2% of in-person visits and 6.7% of virtual visits (p = 0.616). Follow-up was required in 15.6% of the in-person visits and 31.1% of the virtual visits (p = 0.134). CT was only utilized twice, once in the in-person visit cohort and once in the virtual visit cohort.

CONCLUSIONS
Virtual clinic encounters resulted in comparable diagnostic accuracy. The trend toward frequent follow-up assessments and changes in the final diagnosis in the virtual clinic cohort has indicated a level of diagnostic uncertainty via the virtual interface, which required in-person assessment for confirmation. This finding did not contribute toward diagnostic inaccuracy with respect to missed synostosis. The study results have indicated that telemedicine can be an effective modality in assessing craniofacial pathology.


With the advancement of Internet in Things (IoT) more and more "things" are connected to each other through the Internet. Due to the fact that the collected information may contain personal information of the users, it is very important to ensure the security of the devices in IoT. Diversification is a promising technique that protects the software and devices from harmful attacks and malware by making interfaces unique in each separate system. In this paper we apply diversification on the interfaces of IoT operating systems. To this aim, we introduce the diversification in post-compilation and linking phase of the software life-cycle, by shuffling the order of the linked objects while preserving the semantics of the code. This approach successfully prevents malicious exploits from producing adverse effects in the system. Besides shuffling, we also apply library symbol diversification method, and construct needed support for it e.g. into the dynamic loading phase. Besides studying and discussing memory layout shuffling and symbol diversification as a security measures for IoT operating systems, we provide practical implementations for these schemes for Thingsee OS and Raspbian operating systems and test these solutions to show the feasibility of diversification in IoT environments.


ABSTRACT Internet voting is an appealing concept to most voters, primarily for reasons of convenience ("why can't I vote in my pajamas at a convenient time"), while appealing because of the attractiveness of technology. However, Internet voting is fundamentally different from other types of online transactions such as banking or shopping. In this Article, I describe different types of Internet voting, the advantages and disadvantages from a security and privacy perspective, and provide perspective on the history and evolution of the field. Pajama voting may be convenient. It just can't ensure your vote will count. - Mitch Trachtenberg1 We don't have the technology yet to do [Internet voting] in a secure way, and we may not for a decade or more. - Ron Rivest2 A government election is something that you don't want to do over the Internet. - Ben Adida3 [T]he impetus to remove voting roadblocks is, we fear, causing some states to rush recklessly toward Internet voting despite the limits of today's security technology.4 INTRODUCTION Internet voting is so "obviously" good that the move in that direction frequently happens without consideration of the security and privacy issues. The presumption is that increased convenience of voting will increase turnout, especially among younger voters who are more comfortable with technology.5 Additionally, Internet voting is claimed to offer opportunities for improved voter turnout for overseas and military voters6 whose rights are protected under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA).7 Towards this end, the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE) requires that localities make blank ballots available via the Internet and requires forty-five days between when blank ballots become available and the deadline for receipt of marked ballots.8 Some localities have interpreted these two requirements as requiring localities to offer return of marked ballots over the Internet, although the law does not appear to have that requirement.9 In the November 2010 Congressional Election, thirty-three states allowed return of marked ballots over the Internet.10 Lost in this wholesale move is informed consideration of whether such returns are secure or private. In this Article, I explore the different types of Internet voting, and security and privacy issues associated with different approaches. Part I reviews the types of activities under the rubric of Internet voting, and the types of voting systems that follow. Part ? reviews the advantages and disadvantages of Internet voting, identifying which of the types of voting systems they apply to. Part III discusses some mitigating and aggravating factors. Part TV covers some differences between private and public elections. Part V concludes the paper. I. WHAT IS INTERNET VOTING? The term "Internet voting" is used to cover a wide range of technologies. For purposes of this Article, I exclude such activities as voter registration, checking on the status of submitted ballots, and obtaining information about races from official or campaign websites. Rather, I consider "Internet voting" to refer to actions that are used by voters to obtain and potentially return marked ballots using the Internet. In this Part, I outline three major independent factors within Internet voting technologies:11 whether the system is used for blank ballots or ballot return, whether the system is dedicated or non-dedicated for voting, and whether the system is supervised by an election officer. There are many other factors which affect the security of Internet voting, including: * The types of security analysis performed of the system, including software and hardware, who performs the analysis, and whether the analysis is public. * Whether the system uses proprietary or open source software. * The protections in the system against insider threat. …


Using in situ hybridization, we examined the distribution of the mRNA encoding for the growth-associated protein GAP-43 in the brain stem of adult rats. GAP-43 was expressed at the highest level in the nucleus raphe dorsalis (NDR), nucleus centralis superior (NCS), substantia nigra compacta (SNc), ventral tegmental area (VTA), and locus coeruleus (LC). An intermediate level of signal was detected over the periaque- ductal gray, superior colliculi, and thalamic region, and no significant signal was detected in the substantia nigra pars reticulata and red nucleus. The hybridization signals of GAP-43 mRNA and tryptophan hydroxylase mRNA completely overlapped in the NDR and NCS, and signals for GAP-43 mRNA and tyrosine hydroxylase mRNA overlapped in the SNc, VTA, and LC. The disappearance of the hybridization signal for GAP-43 mRNA after intracerebroventricular injections of the neurotoxins 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine (5,7-DHT) or 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) indicated that high levels of GAP-43 are synthesized in the serotonergic neurons of the raphe nuclei and in the catecholaminergic neurons of the SNc, VTA, and LC. In light of the role of GAP-43 in axonal outgrowth, modulation of signal transduction, and release of different neurotransmitters in the adult CNS, this phosphoprotein might be involved in the functional plasticity and synaptic transmission of monoaminergic neurons.


Confusion technique is a game like teaching tool, which is used to achieve departmental as well as specific learning objectives. The technique helps to solve all the queries with an enjoyment. The purpose of this project was to introduce confusion technique as a novel method of teaching to improve learning experience of the students during lectures. The topic phospholipids were selected for first BDS students. Actual execution of the confusion technique was carried out in the classroom. The data was analyzed by using appropriate statistical test and value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. In conclusion it is clear that, students greatly benefit from this new technique of teaching. Confusion technique stimulates students to think and write upon various aspects of a single topic taught. Students develop interest in study-matters with the use of such tools. Comfortable student-teacher rapport is developed and stress-free atmosphere is maintained in the class.


A comprehensive model for describing the characteristics of pulsed signals, generated by particle interactions in xenon detectors, is presented. An emphasis is laid on two-phase time projection chambers, but the models presented are also applicable to single phase detectors. In order to simulate the pulse shape due to primary scintillation light, the effects of the ratio of singlet and triplet dimer state populations, as well as their corresponding decay times, and the recombination time are incorporated into the model. In a two phase time projection chamber, when simulating the pulse caused by electroluminescence light, the ionization electron mean free path in gas, the drift velocity, singlet and triplet decay times, diffusion constants, and the electron trapping time, have been implemented. This modeling has been incorporated into a complete software package, which realistically simulates the expected pulse shapes for these types of detectors.


PURPOSE
Whether tissue resident or infiltrating antigen-presenting cells (APCs) are involved in modulating immune responses in the retina and initiating inflammation is controversial. In this histologic study, the authors examine the retinas of mice strains with different susceptibility to experimental autoimmune uveoretinitis (EAU) for tissue resident APC.

METHODS
Retinal wholemounts from normal and inflamed eyes of B10R III, C57BL/6, BALB/c, and ABH Biozii mice were immunostained for APC markers (33D1, CD11c, CD11b, major histocompatibility complex [MHC] class II, F4/80, CD80, CD86, CD205, mPDCA, B220, and GR1) and analyzed by confocal fluorescence microscopy using emission fingerprinting and three-dimensional reconstruction techniques. Hematoxylin and eosin-stained histologic sections were used to evaluate EAU disease scores and to assess outer blood retina barrier (retinal pigment epithelium [RPE]) structures.

RESULTS
A population of 33D1(+) cells was identified exclusively in the peripheral margins and juxtapapillary areas of the retina in normal, nonimmunized C57BL/6 adult mice. These cells were also MHC class II(high), and their location corresponded to sites of earliest inflammation in EAU. Numbers in the papillary area were very low (less than 10), but this region marked the predominant anatomic site for initiation of inflammation in this moderately susceptible strain. The distribution and phenotype of these cells within the retinas differed between mouse strains exhibiting different disease susceptibility. In EAU-resistant BALB/c mice, many more 33D1(+) dendritic cells were present in the normal retina but were MHC class II(low/-). Conversely, no 33D1(+) or MHC class II (+) dendriform cells could be found in the normal retinas of highly EAU-susceptible B10.RIII mice.

CONCLUSIONS
A novel population of 33D1(+) DCs was identified in normal mouse retina. The function of these cells remains to be defined, but increased numbers correlate positively with structural abnormalities in the RPE and increased resistance of the strain to EAU.


This paper examines the economy-wide impacts of a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) on the Philippine economy. In particular, it uses an applied general equilibrium model to determine the effects of alternative scenarios on aggregate and sectoral outputs, consumption, and international trade. The paper also compares the FTAAP to reforms which are confined to the ASEAN plus 3 and to a broader set of tariff changes that covers all the trading partners of the Philippines. The findings of the paper are as follows. First, the FTAAP is likely to benefit the Philippines in the form of higher aggregate output and employment. However, such gains are not projected for all industries as the simulation results indicate declines in the outputs of activities related to rice and corn. Second, the benefits from the FTAAP are likely to come more from the removal of tariffs on nonagriculture products. Finally, the aggregate gains from the FTAAP are larger than an arrangement which is limited to ASEAN plus 3 countries. However, the differences in the impacts do not appear to be very large.


Synchrotron radiation has evolved tremendously in recent decades in sources, instrumentation, and applications in materials studies. This article provides background and an introduction to the state of the art of synchrotron research as it relates to materials research, including an overview of the articles in this MRS Bulletin issue, which focus on Laue microdiffraction, high-energy x-ray diffraction on battery materials, synchrotron radiation in high-pressure research, x-ray dark-field microscopy, and x-ray absorption spectroscopy applied to energy research. The modern approach of displaying diffraction data in reciprocal-space units and the distinction between spectroscopy and diffraction are summarized. Applications and technologies are continuously developing toward technical and optical limits, combining multiple methods for an even brighter future for this field. It is now time for expert groups to begin applying multiple and different kinds of quantum beams, such as neutrons, muons, electrons, and ions, complementary to synchrotron radiation for more efficient and effective characterization of materials.


The ability to visualize student engagement and experience data provides valuable opportunities for learning support and curriculum design. With the rise of the use of learning analytics to provide "actionable intelligence" [1] on students' learning, the challenge is to create visualisations of the data which are clear and useful to the intended audience. This process of finding the best way to visually represent data is often iterative, with many different designs being trialled before the final design is settled upon. This paper presents a case study of the process of refining a visualization of students' learning experience data. In this case the aim was to create a visual representation of the continuity of care students were exposed to during a longitudinal placement as part of a medical degree. The process of visualization refinement is outlined as well as the lessons learnt along the way.


The enourmous size of configuration spaces in highly configurable softwares pose challenges to testing. Typically exhaustive testing is neither an option nor a way. Combinatorial interaction techiques are a systematic way to test such enourmous configuration spaces by a systematic way of sampling the space, employed through covering arrays. A t-way covering array is a sampled subset of configurations which contains all t-way option setting combinations. Testing through t-way covering arrays is proven to be highly e ective at revealing failures caused by interaction of t or fewer options. Although, traditional covering arrays are e ective however, we've observed that they su er in the presence of complex interactions among configuration options, referred as tangled options. A tangled configuration option is described as either a configuration option with complex structure and/or nested in hierarchy of configuration options. In this thesis, we conjecture the e ectiveness of CIT in the presence of tangled options can greatly be improved, by analyzing the system's source code. The analysis of source code reveals the interaction of configuration options with each other, this information can be used to determine which additional option setting combinations and the conditions under which these combinations must be tested. Gray-box testing methods rely on partial structural information of the system during testing. We've statically analyzed the source code of subject applications to extract the structure and hierachy of configuration options. Each configuration option has been structurally tested according to a test criterion against a t-way covering array and subsequently their t-way interactions. The criterion revealed the missing coverage of options which were employed to drive the additional testcase generation phase to acheive complete coverage. We present a number of novel CIT coverage criteria for t-wise interaction testing of configuration options. In this thesis, we've conducted a series of large scale experiments on 18 di erent real-world highly configurable software applications from di erent application domains to evaluate the proposed approach. We've observed that traditional t-way CAs can provide above 80% coverage for configuration options testing. However, they significantly su er to provide interaction coverage under high t and tangling e ects where coverage is dropped to less than 50%. Our work address these issues and propose a technique to acheive complete coverage.


Context
Pheochromocytomas and paragangliomas (PPGLs) in children are often hereditary and may present with different characteristics compared with adults. Hereditary PPGLs can be separated into cluster 1 and cluster 2 tumors due to mutations impacting hypoxia and kinase receptor signaling pathways, respectively.

Objective
To identify differences in presentation of PPGLs between children and adults.

Design
A retrospective cross-sectional clinical study.

Setting
Seven tertiary medical centers.

Patients
The study included 748 patients with PPGLs, including 95 with a first presentation during childhood. Genetic testing was available in 611 patients. Other data included locations of primary tumors, presence of recurrent or metastatic disease, and plasma concentrations of metanephrines and 3-methoxytyramine.

Results
Children showed higher (P < 0.0001) prevalence than adults of hereditary (80.4% vs 52.6%), extra-adrenal (66.3% vs 35.1%), multifocal (32.6% vs 13.5%), metastatic (49.5% vs 29.1%), and recurrent (29.5% vs 14.2%) PPGLs. Tumors due to cluster 1 mutations were more prevalent among children than adults (76.1% vs 39.3%; P < 0.0001), and this paralleled a higher prevalence of noradrenergic tumors, characterized by relative lack of increased plasma metanephrine, in children than in adults (93.2% vs 57.3%; P < 0.0001).

Conclusions
The higher prevalence of hereditary, extra-adrenal, multifocal, and metastatic PPGLs in children than adults represents interrelated features that, in part, reflect the lower age of disease presentation of noradrenergic cluster 1 than adrenergic cluster 2 tumors. The differences in disease presentation are important to consider in children at risk for PPGLs due to a known mutation or previous history of tumor.


We have specifically examined warm and cool sensitivities in 60 diabetic and 43 nondiabetic individuals. Diabetic patients tended to have less warm and cool sensitivity than the control subjects (P < .001 for age <50 yr and P <.05 for age ≥50 yr). Both patients asymptomatic for neuropathy and patients with symptoms had impairment of warm and cool sensitivity (P < .05 for comparisons with control subjects). These differences persisted (P < .05) in covariance analyses with age included as a covariate. There was a nonlinear association between warm sensitivity and hemoglobin A1c. Warm-sensitivity values in the lowest and middle tertiles of the hemoglobin A1c distribution were similar; however, warm-sensitivity values of patientsin the highest tertile were markedly increased (P < .05 for the comparison of the highest tertile with the lowest and middle tertiles combined)There tended to be more warm insensitivity than cool insensitivity among the diabetic patients, and this difference increased with worsening glycemia. These data indicate that both warm and cool sensations are markedly impaired in asymptomatic adult diabetic patients. They also suggest that warm sensitivity is more impaired than cool sensitivity, and that this is the result of a stronger association between warm sensitivity and metabolic factors.


It is possible to accept return or removal over calculated or collected customs duties through repayment and remission in accordance with the articles 211 and the rest article of the Customs Code. In this respect, repayment and remissionare both an administrative remedy and a key that ends disputes. Import-turn over Tax, Stamp Duty and TRT Banderol fees are taken into consideration, in terms of the scope of repayment and remission. Repayment and remission remedies are problematic in practice due to the surveillance practice in imports. Declarations on surveillance reference price based upon unacceptable surveillance certificate and then apply the return and remedies on the basis of the calculation of the tax on the lower sales price cannot be considered as a remedy reason in view of European Union Law. Remedies of repayment and remission may be made within three years from the date of the notification of the tax that has been accrued or paid. There are hesitations about how to calculate the three-year period for the compensatory customs duty under Article 194 of the Customs Code. The decision given as a result of a remedy of repayment and remission is an administrative decision within the meaning of the Customs Code. If the administration does not implement the decision to repayment within three months, it is required to pay the interest on tax refunds, which will be calculated on deferment interest from the expiry of this period. However, there is no need for a special arrangement for the interest payment of the administration; within the frame of the liability law, it is possible to eliminate to the taxpayers' loss arising from contra legem (unlawfully collected) taxes, by full remedy action.


We present a test of Coasean theories of efficient separations. We study a cohort of jobs from the introduction through the repeal of a large age- and region-specific unemployment benefit extension in Austria. In the treatment group, 18.5% fewer jobs survive the program period. According to the Coasean view, the destroyed marginal jobs had low joint surplus. Hence, after the repeal, the treatment survivors should be more resilient than the ineligible control group survivors. Strikingly, the two groups instead exhibit identical post-repeal separation behavior. We provide, and find suggestive evidence consistent with, an alternative model in which wage rigidity drives the inefficient separation dynamics.


Water resources
 development and management acquired new dimensions in Pakistan.
 Recently, the Government of Pakistan has taken strategic initiatives
 and primarily focused on governance, decentralization and
 participation of the farmers by transforming the Provincial
 Irrigation Department (PID) to the Frontier Irrigation and Drainage
 Authority (FIDA). Management responsibilities are decentralized at
 canal command level to Area Water Boards (AWBs) and most of the
 existing functions at distributary level are performed by the
 farmer organizations (FOs). Recently six distributaries have been
 handed over to the farmer organizations under the irrigation
 management transfer (IMT) programme in Swat Canal Area Water Board (SCAWB).
 The study was conducted to analyse the operational performance using
 hydraulic simulation modeling. To assess the impact of IMT on the
 performance of the irrigation system a database oriented irrigation
 management information system (IMIS) technique has been developed
 and utilized. The Simulation of Irrigation Canal (SIC) hydrodynamic
 model was used to analyse the improved operational scenarios for the
 irrigation systems operation at distributary level, to provide the
 system managers and farmers organizations to update the managerial
 control and plan operational activities through improved
 understanding of the system. Results of the study revealed that
 irrigation supplies are in excess of the crop water requirements.
 The relative water supply (RWS) index varies from 1.66 to 2.02
 during summer, whereas in winter it varies from 2.22 to 2.55. The
 delivery performance ratio (DPR) during summer varies from 0.78 to
 0.83 and in
 winter from 0.63 to 0.73. Irrigation supplies were reliable over the
 whole growing season. Due to modernization of the irrigation systems
 and enhanced water allowance, the annual cropping intensity and
 yield have increased significantly. There is a prominent increase in
 yield of maize (40 percent), sugarcane (55 percent) and wheat (43
 percent) while the cropping intensity has increased by 25 percent.
 The Irrigation service fee (ISF) collection analysis indicated that
 all the FOs performed well during the first year (2004-05) of IMT
 and recovered 60 percent of the assessed ISF; whereas during the
 2005-06 and 2006-07, ISF collected was very low. From these results
 it is evident that chances of successful cost recovery do not seem
 to be high.
 Operational and regulation aspects of the main system also play a
 pivotal role in overall irrigation water management aspects. The SIC
 model was used to evaluate the effectiveness of physical
 infrastructures of the Chowki Distributary. Open flume outlets along
 the distributary behave as hyper-proportional irrespective of their
 position. The head bifurcator outlets are behaving
 hyper-proportional, whereas middle ones as perfect proportional and
 tail end as sub-proportional. The trifurcator outlets are behaving
 as hyper-proportional. The major causes are construction
 inaccuracies in setting the crest level, which lead the outlets to
 draw more or less than the design discharge.
 To improve the manual operation of the Chowki Distributary
 irrigation system, different operational strategies were
 investigated and quantified. From the results of this study, it is
 suggested to operate the distributary head regulator manually based
 on fixed frequency operation. It is recommended that from May to
 July, the distributary should be operated at 90-80 percent of design
 discharge, 90-75 percent of design discharge from August to October
 and 75-85 percent of design discharge from December to April to
 adjust the over delivery due to high water allowance. Hydraulic
 committees at each of the distributary should be established to
 operate the distributary according to crop demand. Awareness among
 the farmers should be created regarding the farm irrigation
 application methods to avoid over-irrigation and wastage of water.


Background It is accepted that high risk human papilloma virus (HPV) types are the carcinogens for cancer of the cervix. Cervical carcinogenesis is a slow process where cellular changes occur after integration of HPV DNA into the host genome. This dysplasia may revert to normal or may increase in severity over time and in a minority of patients may ultimately progress to invasive cervical carcinoma. For most patients caught in the process of cervical carcinogenesis the status will be that of noninvasive cancer and the diagnosis will be Cervical Intra-epithelial Neoplasia (CIN). This diagnosis creates a window of opportunity to manage the premalignant lesion and thus prevent further malignant progression.


On September 12, Pope Benedict XVI delivered an astonishing speech at the University of Regensburg. Entitled "Faith, Reason, and the University," it has been widely discussed, but far less widely understood. The New York Times, for example, headlined its article on the Regensburg address, "The Pope Assails Secularism, with a Note on Jihad." The word "secularism" does not appear in the speech, nor does the pope assail or attack modernity or the Enlightenment. He states quite clearly that he is attempting "a critique of modem reason from within," and he notes that this project "has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modem age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly." Benedict, in short, is not issuing a contemporary Syllabus of Errors. Instead, he is asking those in the West who "share the responsibility for the right use of reason" to return to the kind of self-critical examination of their own beliefs Lhat was the hallmark of ancient Greek thought at its best. The spirit that animates Benedict's address is not the spirit of Pius IX; it is the spirit of Socrates. Benedict is inviting all of us to ask ourselves, Do we really know what we are talking about when we talk about faith, reason, God, and community? For many, it will seem paradoxical that the Roman pontiff has invoked the critical spirit of Socrates. The pope, after all, is the embodiment of the traditional authority of the Church, and the Church is supposed to have all the answers. Yet Socrates was famous as the man who had all the questions. Far from making any claims to infallibility, Socrates argued that the unexamined life was not worth living, and he was prepared to die rather than cease the process of critical self-examination. Socrates even refused to call himself wise, arguing instead that he only deserved to be called a "lover of wisdom."


Gene regulatory network (GRN)-based morphogenetic systems have recently attracted an increasing attention in artificial life and morphogenetic engineering research. However, the relationship between microscopic properties of intracellular GRNs and collective properties of morphogenetic systems has not been fully explored yet. Thus, we propose a new GRN-based framework to elucidate how critical dynamics of GRNs in individual cells affect cell fates such as proliferation, apoptosis, and differentiation in resulting morphogenetic systems. Our model represents an aggregation of cells, where each cell has a GRN in it. We used Kauffman's NK Boolean networks for GRNs. Specifically, we randomly assigned three cell fates to the attractors. Varying the properties of GRNs from ordered, through critical, to chaotic regimes, we observed the process that cells are aggregated. We found that the criticality of a GRN made an optimal partition of basins of attraction, which led to a maximum balance between cell fates. Based on the result, we can conclude that the criticality of a GRN is an important controller to determine the frequencies of cell fates in morphogenetic systems.


This thesis is about inter-generational relationships and the reproduction of culture in
the family lives of Hong Kong Chinese people in Scotland. It is based on fifteen
months of ethnographic fieldwork and informal interviews in family homes, Chinese
language schools and community organizations in Edinburgh. A central question is
that of ethnicity and how people learn to "be ethnic" while living in a Western,
multicultural society.
The first part asks what Scottish-born Chinese children learn about ethnicity
through growing up in families who work in the ethnic catering trade. Chapter 1
introduces the themes of ambition and achievement, and the mixed emotions
associated with this sometimes-stigmatized occupation. Chapter 2 focuses on ideas
about the duties of parents, drawing on life stories of three generations of Chinese
Scots to describe their decisions concerning childcare and schooling.
The second section concerns the learning of specific cultural practices –
language and handicrafts – in the institutional context of Chinese complementary
schools. Chapters 3 and 4 show that these are important spaces where people feel
part of a group with shared moral responsibility for the maintenance and
transmission of culture. The question of "authenticity" in both cultural practice and
interpersonal relationships is discussed.
Chapters 5 and 6 explore how Hong Kong Chinese Scots are responding to
the rise of China as a global economic and cultural power. Ethnographic data from
Chinese New Year celebrations in Edinburgh, and Mandarin language classes for
Cantonese-speaking children suggest that people may engage in "inauthentic"
cultural practices for strategic economic or political reasons. However, these
articulations of ethnic identity are also important for the nurture of inter-generational
relationships.
The thesis concludes with the argument that Chinese Scots take a futureorientated approach to family and community life, drawing selectively on the
resources of inter-ethnic ties and language to prepare their children for a changing
economic and social environment


One of the unconventional features of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is its use of an elaborated and detailed numbering system. Recently, Bazzocchi, Hacker und Kuusela have argued that the numbering system means that the Tractatus must be read and interpreted not as a sequentially ordered book, but as a text with a two-dimensional, tree-like structure. Apart from being able to explain how the Tractatus was composed, the tree reading allegedly solves exegetical issues both on the local (e. g. how 4.02 fits into the series of remarks surrounding it) and the global level (e. g. relation between ontology and picture theory, solipsism and the eye analogy, resolute and irresolute readings). This paper defends the sequential reading against the tree reading. After presenting the challenges generated by the numbering system and the two accounts as attempts to solve them, it is argued that Wittgenstein's own explanation of the numbering system, anaphoric references within the Tractatus and the exegetical issues mentioned above do not favour the tree reading, but a version of the sequential reading. This reading maintains that the remarks of the Tractatus form a sequential chain: The role of the numbers is to indicate how remarks on different levels are interconnected to form a concise, surveyable and unified whole.


Block-structured adaptively refined meshes are an efficient means of discretizing a domain characterized by a large spectrum of spatiotemporal scales. Further, they allow the use of simple data structures (multidimensional arrays) which considerably assist the task of using them in conjunction with sophisticated numerical algorithms. In this work, we show how such meshes may be used with high order (i.e. greater than 2nd order) discretization to achieve greater accuracies at significantly less computational expense, as compared to conventional second order approaches. Our study explores how these high order discretizations are coupled with high-order interpolations and filters to achieve high order convergence on such meshes. One of the side-effects of using high order discretizations is that one now obtains shallow grid hierarchies, which are easier to load balance. As a part of this work, we introduce the concept of bi-level (grid) partitioning and motivate, via an analytical model, how it holds the potential to significantly reduce load-imbalances while incurring a minimal communication cost.


Abstract Objective: To assess the efficacy of current Myco-bacterium tuberculosis control measures. Design: Voluntary questionnaire to members of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. Results: Healthcare worker (HCW) tuberculin skin-test (TST) conversion rates were significantly higher in larger hospitals ( ≥ 437 beds) (0.9% versus 0.6%; P < 0.05), or in hospitals reporting ≥ 6 TB patients in 1992 (1.2% versus 0.6%; P < 0.05). Among larger hospitals or those hospitals surveyed reporting ≥ 6 TB patients, those without at least three of the four criteria suggested in the 1990 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) TB guidelines for acid-fast bacilli (AFB) isolation (specifically, a single-patient room; negative pressure; and air exhausted directly outside) had significantly higher annual TST conversion rates than those with these criteria (1.8% versus 0.6%; P < 0.05). Respiratory therapist or bronchoscopist TST conversion rates were significantly lower in hospitals compliant with the exhaust criteria (1.2% versus 2.8%; P < 0.05). Regardless of hospital characteristic, HCW TST conversion rates did not differ between hospitals in which HCWs used surgical masks or used disposable particulate respirators. Conclusion: Among larger hospitals or hospitals reporting ≥ 6 TB patients per year, failure to comply with the 1990 CDC TB recommendations for AFB isolation room guidelines was associated with higher HCW TST conversion rates. These data suggest that complete implementation of the 1990 CDC TB guidelines would decrease HCWs' risk of nosocomial transmission of TB in larger hospitals or those reporting more TB patients. However, in nonoutbreak situations, disposable particulate respirators or submicron surgical masks may not offer significantly greater protection to HCWs than surgical masks.


Fertilizers application plays a pivotal role in the production of vegetables and fruits. Too low or high fertilizers levels can reduce the growth and development process of plants which may affect the crop yield. To investigate the fact, a field experiment was carried out to check the growth and yield of radish on a sandy soil, under desert climatic conditions by using drip irrigation system. The field study was carried out on a randomized complete block design (RCBD) having nine different rates of water soluble NPK(20-20-20) fertilizer, i.e. (T1 = control, T2 = 0.25, T3 = 0.50, T4 = 0.75,  T5 = 1.00, T6 = 1.25, T7 = 1.50, T8 = 1.75, and T9 = 2.00) grams plant-1 fertigation-1 respectively. The results revealed that NPK(20-20-20) fertilizers with different rates brought a positive effect in radish cultivation. Amongst all the treatments, T6 was observed to be more suitable and economical dose as it took the tallest radish plants (38.83 cm), highest number of leaves (20.74), highest leaves weight (260.12 g), highest root length (32.62 cm), maximum root diameter (11.06 cm), highest root weight (198.80 g), maximum total biomass (458.91 g) and maximum root yield (76.23 t/ha) respectively. However, control plots showed inadequate results regarding all the parameters. The application of NPK(20-20-20) (T6 = 1.25 grams plant-1 fertigation-1) was found suitable for the best possible growth and yield of radish under desert conditions. Application of fertilizers beyond this level seems to be an un-economical and wasteful practice.


A novel approach for the integration of evolution programs and constraint-solving techniques over finite domains is presented. This integration provides a problem-independent optimization strategy for large-scale constrained optimization problems over finite domains. In this approach, genetic operators are based on an arc-consistency algorithm, and chromosomes are arc-consistent portions of the search space of the problem. The paper describes the main issues arising in this integration: chromosome representation and evaluation, selection and replacement strategies, and the design of genetic operators. We also present a parallel execution model for a distributed memory architecture of the previous integration. We have adopted a global parallelization approach that preserves the properties, behavior, and fundamentals of the sequential algorithm. Linear speedup is achieved since genetic operators are coarse grained as they perform a search in a discrete space carrying out arc consistency. The implementation has been tested on a GRAY T3E multiprocessor using a complex constrained optimization problem.


Previous work at Salford involved the deprotonation of meso epoxide (Ha) with
chiral lithium amide bases, to produce the crural allylic alcohol (Ilia) and the
enantioselective deprotonation of meso ketone (I) to provide chiral silyl enol ether (V).
In this thesis the potential utility of highly functionalised [3.3.0]bicyclooctane systems
(Illb) and (VI) as flexible precursors to biologically active natural products is
investigated.

Meso epoxide (lib), was prepared stereoselectively in the exo form. Conditions were
explored for transforming the epoxide to allylic alcohol (Illb), using a variety of chiral
lithium amide bases to provide optically active material. The e.e. of the product was
determined by conversion of the alcohol (Illb) to the corresponding benzoate ester and
then analysis by HPLC on chiral phase. The highest e.e. (54%) was achieved when (-)-
sparteine^BuLi complex (IV) was used for deprotonation.
In the first part of the thesis the construction of the linear triquinane skeleton
was investigated. Allylic alcohol (Illb) was converted to aldehyde (VII) via a 1,4-
conjugate addition. Cyclisation of the third cyclopentane ring provided (IS*, 8R*)-cis-anti-cis-10,10-dimethyltricyclo[22.214.171.124]undec-3-one (VIII). This constitutes a formal
synthesis of the target triquinane hirsutene (IX).

The triethylsilyl enol ether (V) was employed in the synthesis of the intermediate (VI).
Several methods were attempted to generate intermediate (X) as a potential precursor to
a range Corynanthe alkaloids via condensation with tryptamine.
The ester (VI) was converted to the piperidone ring systems (Xlla) and (Xllb) by
a Beckmann rearrangement of the corresponding tosylates (XI). The highly
functionalised piperidone (Xlla) has potential utility for the construction of a great
number of Corynanthe type monoterpenoid alkaloids.%3B&utm


What does it take to consider a planet potentially habitable? If a planet is suitable for life, could life be present? Is life on other planets inevitable? Searching for Habitable Worlds answers these questions and provides both the general public and astronomy enthusiasts with a richly illustrated discussion of the most current knowledge regarding the search for extrasolar planets. Nearly everyone wants to know if we are alone in the universe. This book might not have the answers, but shows where we should look. This book is a fun and accessible book for everyone from middle schoolers to amateur astronomers of all ages. The use of non-technical language and abundant illustrations make this a quick read to inform everyone about the latest movement in the search for other planets that we might be able to inhabit. After a brief discussion on why humans are hard-wired to be curious, and to explore the unknown, the book describes what extrasolar planets are, how to detect them, and how to pin down potential targets. In addition, a data-driven list of the best candidates for habitability is profiled and the next generation of exoplanet-hunting scientific instruments and probes are identified.


Economic Review of World Tourism, 1980 Edition. World Tourism Organization, Capitan Haya, 42, Madrid 20, Spain. 1980. 70p. Chapter I discusses tourism in the context of the international economy, covering development of the world economy, development of tourism, and tourism and energy consumption. Chapter II covers tourist demand-international, interregional and intraregional, main generating countries, regional analysis, and factors which have influenced international tourist demand. The development of the accommodation sector is described in Chapter III, covering such topics as capacity of accommodations, trends in the supply of accommodations, rates of occupancy, problems encountered by the accommodation sector, and employment. Rail, road, and air transport are discussed in Chapter IV. The contribution of tourism to the balance of payments is given in Chapter V, while Chapter VI shows the contribution of tourism to the economy. The final chapter discusses the place of tourism in the economy.


Gravity field reconstruction via the analysis of kinematic orbit positions has  been proven to provide essential information for Earth system research  purposes. For this aim, various approaches have been developed and applied to  exploit kinematic orbits. In addition to those existing methods, in this paper we present a new technique. By means of a series of simulation studies we  demonstrate that the novel method is comparable with the hitherto proposed  techniques. As the main difference with existing methods, our approach is based on the  so-called Lagrange coefficients, i.e., a semi-analytical description of the  satellite motion. For this reason, we denote the technique to as the Lagrange  formalism. The low sensitivity to the priori information about the gravity field, and less influence of the polar gap are of its characteristics. The investigations demonstrate that the idea of the Lagrange method in determining the Earth's gravity field could represent comparable results in term of quality with other approaches.


We recently introduced the Genome Taxonomy Database (GTDB), a phylogenetically consistent, genome-based taxonomy providing rank normalized classifications for nearly 150,000 genomes from domain to genus. However, nearly 40% of the genomes used to infer the GTDB reference tree lack a species name, reflecting the large number of genomes in public repositories without complete taxonomic assignments. Here we address this limitation by proposing 24,706 species clusters which encompass all publicly available bacterial and archaeal genomes when using commonly accepted average nucleotide identity (ANI) criteria for circumscribing species. In contrast to previous ANI studies, we selected a single representative genome to serve as the nomenclatural type for circumscribing each species with type strains used where available. We complemented the 8,792 species clusters with validly or effectively published names with 15,914 de novo species clusters in order to assign placeholder names to the growing number of genomes from uncultivated species. This provides the first complete domain to species taxonomic framework which will improve communication of scientific results.


Enormous changes have recently swept through the organization and delivery of medical care. Scholars and students of the health care system and its politics try to make sense of the shift in power to identify and allocate needed resources away from physicians and toward corporate firms. I suggest that we cannot understand managed care unless we understand its power as at least substantially due to its reliance on a claim to be better science. In this way, managed care needs to be placed within an analytic historical tradition that is concerned with how accounts of scientific objectivity become convincing and support (and are confirmed as scientific by) social and political objectives. In this way, managed care reflects what I call the technocratic wish: an appeal to objective measures to resolve contentious issues and/or clothe their resolution as scientifically logical and natural.


A novel distributed fibre sensing technique is described and experimentally validated, based on birefringence measurements using coherent Rayleigh scattering. It natively provides distributed measurements of temperature and strain with more than an order of magnitude higher sensitivity than Brillouin sensing, and requiring access to a single fibre-end. Unlike the traditional Rayleigh-based coherent optical time-domain reflectometry, this new method provides absolute measurements of the measurand and may lead to a robust discrimination between temperature and strain in combination with another technique. Since birefringence is purposely induced in the fibre by design, large degrees of freedom are offered to optimize and scale the sensitivity to a given quantity. The technique has been validated in 2 radically different types of birefringent fibres – elliptical-core and Panda polarization-maintaining fibres – with a good repeatability.

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/218705/files/Novel technique for distributed fibre sensing based on coherent Rayleigh scattering measurements of birefringence.pdf


Manuscript type: Research paper Research aims: This paper aims to examine the relationship between Islamic religiosity and preferences towards Islamic tourism products and services. This paper also compares Islamic tourism product and service preferences between Iranian and Malay university students. Design/Methodology/Approach: Using the online survey method, this study collects data from 422 Malay and Iranian university students. The collected data are then analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). Research findings: The findings indicate that Islamic religiosity plays a significant role in determining Islamic travel preferences. While Malays reported higher levels of Islamic religiosity, the Iranians are more influenced by their religiosity when deciding on travel preferences. Theoretical contributions/Originality: Despite literature indicating that there is an interaction between religion and tourism, the effect of Islamic attributes on destination choices remains fragmented. Aiming to close this gap, this study examines and compares the influence of Islamic religiosity on Muslim travel preferences by comparing the Malay and Iranian students. Practitioner/Policy implications: The findings imply that service providers should be mindful of the different levels and influences of Islamic religiosity on Islamic travel preferences when designing tourism products and offering services to both markets. Research limitation/Implications: This study limits the comparison to only Iranian and Malay students, thereby suggesting that future research could include more diverse samples of Muslim students including those from non-Muslim countries. Keywords: Islamic Religiosity, Islamic Beliefs, Islamic Practices, Islamic Travel Preferences, Structural Equation ModellingJEL Classification: M3


The DHCPv6 protocol, defined in RFC 3315, allows for multiple servers
to operate on a single network; however, it does not define any way
the servers could share information about currently active clients and
their leases. Some sites are interested in running multiple servers in
such a way as to provide increased availability in case of server
failure. In order for this to work reliably, the cooperating primary
and secondary servers must maintain a consistent database of the lease
information. RFC 3315 allows for, but does not define, any redundancy
or failover mechanisms. This document outlines requirements for DHCPv6
failover, enumerates related problems, and discusses the proposed
scope of work to be conducted. This document does not define a DHCPv6
failover protocol.


James Anderson has been a singular force in the research on tariffs versus quotas. In this book he demonstrates that in most reasonable circumstances, quotas are an inferior trade policy relative to import tariffs. He presents substantive new work on tariffs and quotas in imperfect competition and provides a better understanding of quotas and protection policies generally. In the current debate about protectionism, free trade, and "fair trade," Anderson's conclusions fly in the face of congressional approval of import quotas as a strategy to improve American life. While he does not advocate protectionism, he shows that import quotas and tariffs are far from equivalent, illustrating the efficiency of tariffs with case studies of specific commodities and products such as cheese and other milk products, and textiles. Anderson makes an original contribution to the treatments of tariffs and quotas by creating a general presumption in favor of tariffs when protection is unavoidable, and provides a useful integrated perspective on the large tariffs versus quotas literature.


Background and Aims: This study was carried out to evaluate the difference in efficacy, safety, and complications of performing brachial plexus nerve blocks by using a nerve locator when compared to ultrasound (US) guidance. Material and Methods: A total of 102 patients undergoing upper limb surgery under supraclavicular brachial plexus blocks were randomly divided into two groups, one with US and the other with nerve stimulator (NS). In Group US, "Titan" Portable US Machine, Sonosite, Inc. Kensington, UK with a 9.0 MHz probe was used to visualize the brachial plexus and 40 ml of 0.25% bupivacaine solution was deposited around the brachial plexus in a graded manner. In Group (NS), the needle was inserted 1-1.5 cm above mid-point of clavicle. Once hand or wrist motion was detected at a current intensity of less than 0.4 mA 40 ml of 0.25% bupivacaine was administered. Onset of sensory and motor block of radial, ulnar and median nerves was recorded at 5-min intervals for 30-min. Block execution time, duration of block (time to first analgesic), inadvertent vascular puncture, and neurological complications were taken as the secondary outcome variables. Results: About 90% patients in US group and 73.1% in NS group, had successful blocks P = 0.028. The onset of block was faster in the Group US as compared to Group NS and this difference was significant (P 0.007) only in the radial nerve territory. The mean duration of the block was longer in Group US, 286.22 ± 42.339 compared to 204.37 ± 28.54-min in Group NS (P < 0.05). Accidental vascular punctures occurred in 7 patients in the NS group and only 1 patient in the US group. Conclusion: Ultrasound guidance for supraclavicular brachial plexus blockade provides a block that is faster in onset, has a better quality and lasts longer when compared with an equal dose delivered by conventional means.


Lakes are active processors and collectors of carbon (C) and thus recognized as quantitatively important within the terrestrial C cycle. Better integration of palaeolimnology (lake sediment core analyses) with limnological C budgeting approaches has the potential to enhance understanding of lacustrine C processing and sequestration. Palaeolimnology simultaneously assimilates materials from across lake habitats, terrestrial watersheds, and airsheds to provide a uniquely broad overview of the terrestrial‐atmospheric‐aquatic linkages across different spatial scales. The examination of past changes over decadal–millennial timescales via palaeolimnology can inform understanding and prediction of future changes in C cycling. With a particular, but not exclusive, focus on northern latitudes we examine the methodological approaches of palaeolimnology, focusing on how relatively standard and well‐tested techniques might be applied to address questions of relevance to the C cycle. We consider how palaeolimnology, limnology, and sedimentation studies might be linked to provide more quantitative and holistic estimates of lake C cycling and budgets. Finally, we use palaeolimnological examples to consider how changes such as terrestrial vegetation shifts, permafrost thaw, the formation of new lakes and reservoirs, hydrological modification of inorganic C processing, land use change, soil erosion and disruption to global nitrogen and phosphorus cycles might influence lake C cycling. WIREs Water 2016, 3:211–234. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1130


The experimental fact that fused silica undergoes densification upon prolonged exposure to high-energy radiation is well documented. About 25 years ago, Primak
 Kampwirth
 [J. Appl. Phys.39, 5651 (1968)] reported extensive densification results in SiO2 obtained with neutron, electron, and γ-ray exposures. More recently, results from experiments with pulsed deep-ultraviolet exposures have been reported. We report here our experimental results and analysis of the densification of Corning HPFS™ materials under 193-nm exposure. The densification δρ/ρ induced by the radiation was obtained from interferometric and birefringence measurements with the aid of a finite-element analysis. The use of such analysis is necessary to obtain the laser-induced densification independent of sample size, geometry, irradiation pattern, and intensity profile of the exposure beam. In our case the sample was 10 mm × 15 mm × 20 mm irradiated across the 10-mm face with a 5-mm apertured Gaussian beam in the 15-mm direction. The birefringence and wave-front distortion were measured off line as a function of number of pulses for distinct values of fluence per pulse. We found that the derived densification follows a universal function of the dose, defined as the product of the number of pulses and the square of the fluence per pulse. In fact, it follows the same functional form as that previously determined by Primak in his high-energy-exposure study. This strongly suggests that the laser-induced densification mechanism involves the optically induced weakening of bonds and subsequent relaxation.


Policy gradient methods have been widely applied in reinforcement learning. For reasons of safety and cost, learning is often conducted using a simulator. However, learning in simulation does not traditionally utilise the opportunity to improve learning by adjusting certain environment variables – state features that are randomly determined by the environment in a physical setting but controllable in a simulator. Exploiting environment variables is crucial in domains containing significant rare events (SREs), e.g., unusual wind conditions that can crash a helicopter, which are rarely observed under random sampling but have a considerable impact on expected return. We propose off environment reinforcement learning (OFFER), which addresses such cases by simultaneously optimising the policy and a proposal distribution over environment variables. We prove that OFFER converges to a locally optimal policy and show experimentally that it learns better and faster than a policy gradient baseline.