Undergraduate courses that focus on open-ended, project-based learning teach students how to define concrete goals, transfer conceptual understanding of algorithms to code, and evaluate/analyze/present their solution. However, AI, along with machine learning, is getting increasingly varied in terms of both the approaches and applications, making it challenging to design project courses that span a sufficiently wide spectrum of AI. For these reasons, existing AI project courses are restricted to a narrow set of approaches (e.g. only reinforcement learning) or applications (e.g. only computer vision).In this paper, we propose to use Minecraft as the platform for teaching AI via project-based learning. Minecraft is an open-world sandbox game with elements of exploration, resource gathering, crafting, construction, and combat, and is supported by the Malmo library that provides a programmatic interface to the player observations and actions at various levels of granularity. In Minecraft, students can design projects to use approaches like search-based AI, reinforcement learning, supervised learning, and constraint satisfaction, on data types like text, audio, images, and tabular data. We describe our experience with an open-ended, undergraduate AI projects course using Minecraft that includes 82 different projects, covering themes that ranged from navigation, instruction following, object detection, combat, and music/image generation.


Hittite is the oldest attested Indo-European language and therefore of paramount importance for comparative Indo-European linguistics. Although in the last few decades our knowledge of the synchronic and historical linguistics of Hittite has profoundly increased, these new insights have not been systematically applied to the whole Hittite material. This book fills this gap by, for the first time, providing an etymological dictionary of the entire Hittite lexicon of Indo-European origin in which all words are treated in a coherent way. Furthermore, it provides a thorough description of the synchronic phonological system of Hittite as well as a comprehensive study of the Hittite historical morphology and phonology. The result is a monumental handbook that will form an indispensable tool for Indo-Europeanists and Hittitologists alike.


The self-assembly of all-conjugated block copolymers is an effective way to obtain well-ordered structures at the nanoscale. Although these polymers possess an end-group and a lot of research has been done on their self-assembly, the influence of the end-groups has hardly been considered. Both the nature of the blocks as well as the degree of polymerization (DP) play a crucial role in the solubility of the different blocks in a conjugated block copolymer. Here, we hypothesize that also the end-group is of importance: bulkier end-groups increase the solubility of that particular preceding block and thus will have an influence on the self-assembly. This hypothesis is validated using three series of all-conjugated block copolymers in which the blocks are composed of the two enantiomers of a chiral monomer.


Psophocarpus tetragonolobus also known as the Asparagus pea or winged pea (Family: Fabaceae) most widely grown in hot, humid equatorial countries like Malaysia. It provides a source of vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium and iron. The antioxidant potential of 75% methanol extract, ethyl acetate and chloroform soluble fractions of P. tetragonolobu s was screened for in-vitro antioxidant activity using total phenolic content, ferric reducing power, 2, 2'-azinobis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) (ABTS) assay, Ferric Thiocyanate (FTC) and Thiobarbituric Acid (TBA) tests. It was found that ethyl acetate fraction have maximum amount of polyphenolics compounds (1.69 mg/g GAE in concentration 0.5 mg/mL) higher than methanol and chloroform fractions. Antioxidant concentration was found highest in ethyl acetate extract (27.12 mM) using FRAP method, while chloroform extract has the highest antioxidant level (4.48 mM) using ABTS assay. Ethyl acetate extract of P. tetragonolobu s was found to have highest antioxidant activity (7.27%) compared to methanol and chloroform using FTC method. While, TBA results shows no difference in antioxidant activity of all extract of P. tetragonolobus.


Irregularities plague elections in developing democracies. The international community spends hundreds of millions of dollars on election observation, with little robust evidence that it consistently improves electoral integrity. We conducted a randomized control trial to measure the effect of an intervention to detect and deter electoral irregularities employing a nation-wide sample of polling stations in Uganda using scalable information and communications technology (ICT). In treatment stations, researchers delivered letters to polling officials stating that tallies would be photographed using smartphones and compared against official results. Compared to stations with no letters, the letters increased the frequency of posted tallies by polling center managers in compliance with the law; decreased the number of sequential digits found on tallies – a fraud indicator; and decreased the vote share for the incumbent president in some specifications. Our results demonstrate that a cost-effective citizen and ICT intervention can improve electoral integrity in emerging democracies.


The use of hand gestures can be the most intuitive human-machine interaction medium. The early approaches for hand gesture recognition used device-based methods. These methods use mechanical or optical sensors attached to a glove or markers, which hinders the natural human-machine communication. On the other hand, vision-based methods are not restrictive and allow for a more spontaneous communication without the need of an intermediary between human and machine. Therefore, vision gesture recognition has been a popular area of research for the past thirty years. Hand gesture recognition finds its application in many areas, particularly the automotive industry where advanced automotive human-machine interface (HMI) designers are using gesture recognition to improve driver and vehicle safety. However, technology advances go beyond active/passive safety and into convenience and comfort. In this context, one of America's big three automakers has partnered with the Centre of Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (CPAMI) at the University of Waterloo to investigate expanding their product segment through machine learning to provide an increased driver convenience and comfort with the particular application of hand gesture recognition for autonomous car parking. In this thesis, we leverage the state-of-the-art deep learning and optimization techniques to develop a vision-based multiview dynamic hand gesture recognizer for self-parking system. We propose a 3DCNN gesture model architecture that we train on a publicly available hand gesture database. We apply transfer learning methods to fine-tune the pre-trained gesture model on a custom made data, which significantly improved the proposed system performance in real world environment. We adapt the architecture of the end-to-end solution to expand the state of the art video classifier from a single image as input (fed by monocular camera) to a multiview 360 feed, offered by a six cameras module. Finally, we optimize the proposed solution to work on a limited resources embedded platform (Nvidia Jetson TX2) that is used by automakers for vehicle based features, without sacrificing the accuracy robustness and real time functionality of the system.


The study describes innovationsgood government bureaucracy. Developing strategies and empowering bureaucracy is not aninstant process. Experience in Indonesia shows that settlement policy of government officialswith no holistic solution will generate new problems shackled. Developing strategies and empowergovernment officials to comrehend resourcesshall new organization learning process should besupported by a good learning system supported organic-adaptic structure. This process is carriedout continuously through the process of mutual learning among bureaucrats, civil society andthe market wholeheartedly with the seriousness of the bureaucracy to public service positions.


In The Medea Hypothesis, renowned paleontologist Peter Ward proposes a revolutionary and provocative vision of life's relationship with the Earth's biosphere--one that has frightening implications for our future, yet also offers hope. Using the latest discoveries from the geological record, he argues that life might be its own worst enemy. This stands in stark contrast to James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis--the idea that life sustains habitable conditions on Earth. In answer to Gaia, which draws on the idea of the "good mother" who nurtures life, Ward invokes Medea, the mythical mother who killed her own children. Could life by its very nature threaten its own existence?

 According to the Medea hypothesis, it does. Ward demonstrates that all but one of the mass extinctions that have struck Earth were caused by life itself. He looks at our planet's history in a new way, revealing an Earth that is witnessing an alarming decline of diversity and biomass--a decline brought on by life's own "biocidal" tendencies. And the Medea hypothesis applies not just to our planet--its dire prognosis extends to all potential life in the universe. Yet life on Earth doesn't have to be lethal. Ward shows why, but warns that our time is running out.

 Breathtaking in scope, The Medea Hypothesis is certain to arouse fierce debate and radically transform our worldview. It serves as an urgent challenge to all of us to think in new ways if we hope to save ourselves from ourselves.


International negotiations on climate change control are moving away from a global cooperative agreement (at least from the ambition to achieve it) to adopt a bottom-up framework composed of unilateral pledges of domestic measures and policies. This shift from cooperative to voluntary actions to control GHG emissions already started in Copenhagen at COP 15 in 2007 and became a platform formally adopted by a large number of countries in Paris at COP 21. The new architecture calls for a mechanism to review the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) of the various signatories and assess their adequacy. Most importantly, countries' voluntary pledges need to be compared to assess the fairness, and not only the effectiveness, of the resulting outcome. This assessment is crucial to support future, more ambitious, commitments to reduce GHG emissions. It is therefore important to identify criteria and quantitative indicators to assess and compare the NDCs.


This research is a critical and reflexive inquiry into the beliefs and practices, and the identity work, of the 'intercultural teaching' of English language teachers in two Indonesian universities. It is concerned with the ways in which teacher beliefs and understandings of the English language, of culture, interculturality and of pedagogy mediate the discourses, classroom practices and professional identity of these teachers. I have undertaken this study at a time when foreign language education policy in Indonesia, like many education policies across the world, has increasingly emphasised the cultural and intercultural dimensions of language learning. At the higher education level, the 'shift of paradigm' from English language education premised on linguistic competence to communicative competence has been accompanied by the introduction of more theoretical subjects where students are expected to develop a deeper understanding of the interconnections between language and culture. Within the framework of this 'new paradigm', English language teachers are expected to assume the responsibility of facilitating intercultural learning and promoting intercultural understanding. In this study, I examine the notion of interculturality in terms of broader, inclusive notions of pedagogy (cf. Giroux, 1988, 1991, 1997), rather than as a single approach to teaching English. Much research into teacher professional identity has revealed that teacher identity and teachers' work are dynamically and inextricably interconnected with the broader social structures—their biographies, histories and experiences—in which they are situated (e.g., Duff & Uchida, 1997; Tsui, 2007; Varghese, Morgan, Johnston, & Johnson, 2005). Through the lens of sociocultural perspectives of identity, my study seeks to generate in-depth insights into how teacher identity work is mediated by and intertwines with various personal, professional, institutional and cultural factors. In connecting together these various dimensions, I have utilised a case study research design, with a particular focus on "critical incidents" (Goodson, 2003, p. 61) in the work and experiences of the teachers. This has allowed me space to delve into the complex social, cultural, linguistic and identity issues associated with that work and those experiences. In line with the sociocultural perspectives of identity that underpin the study, I have drawn on James Gee's (1999, 2011a, 2011b) approach to discourse analysis to understand and unravel the complexity of identity work. Gee's concepts of 'big D' Discourse, situated identities and cultural models were employed to highlight the connection between 'micro' (i.e., specific texts and specific details of language) and 'macro' (context) levels of analysis. This has allowed me to articulate fine-grained interpretive perspectives and to construct multi-faceted and nuanced accounts of the teachers' realities and contextualised understandings. Data for the study comes from three main sources: in-depth semi-structured interviews with six teachers in two different universities in Indonesia, classroom observation of these teachers' classroom practice and documentation (e.g., curriculum and policy documents). The interviews were conducted in three stages: before, during, and after the period during which I was observing the teachers' classroom teaching, which was undertaken over a period of one semester. The focus of my interviews shuttled between 'the personal', 'the professional', 'the institutional' and 'the cultural'. Analysis of data involved two major approaches: thematic theory-driven and case-based data-driven analyses. The former approach, drawing primarily on existing theories of ELT pedagogy, interculturalism and interculturality, was utilised in the analysis of the teachers' perceptions of the English language and their ELT classroom practices as well as in the interpretation of their conceptualisations of culture. The latter approach was used in the exploration of the teachers' individual beliefs, identity work and their subject-specific instructional practices. This approach has enabled me to discuss and analyse the data in a more reflexive way, allowing me not only to generate personalised accounts (including occasional references to my own experiences as an English language teacher in Indonesia) but also to present bigger picture understandings of the teachers' individual and collective experiences. The study overall demonstrates the complex and dynamic nature of English language teachers' identity work, pointing to the significant role the institution plays in mediating and shaping the teachers' "enacted professionalism" (Hilferty, 2008, p. 162). By unravelling this complexity and illustrating the everyday challenges and dilemmas of teaching interculturalism in Indonesian higher education institutions, I call for a fundamental rethinking of language, culture and intercultural pedagogy and for policy-makers and curriculum planners to be better engaged with teachers' voices and experiences.


In today's digital world, rapid technological advancements continue to lessen the burden of tasks for individuals. Among these tasks is communication across perceived language barriers. Indeed, increased attention has been drawn to American Sign Language (ASL) recognition in recent years. Camera-based and motion detection-based methods have been researched extensively; however, there remains a divide in communication between ASL users and non-users. Therefore, this research team proposes the use of a novel wireless sensor (Frequency-Modulated Continuous-Wave Radar) to help bridge the gap in communication. In short, this device sends out signals that detect the user's body positioning in space. These signals then reflect off the body and back to the sensor, developing thousands of cloud points per second, indicating where the body is positioned in space. These cloud points can then be examined for movement over multiple consecutive time frames using a cell division algorithm, ultimately showing how the body moves through space as it completes a single gesture or sentence. At the end of the project, 95% accuracy was achieved in one-object prediction as well as 80% accuracy on cross-object prediction with 30% other objects' data introduced on 19 commonly used gestures. There are 30 samples for each gesture per person from three persons.


This study is based on the assumption that the exposure and internalisation of social values, and behavioural expectations represent the most important influence in the formation of body boundary finiteness (Fisher & Cleveland, 1958) and the development of psychological disturbances (Rogers, 1951, 1961). Given this relationship between body boundary formation and Roger's influence on the development of body psychotherapy, this correlational study examines the use of words and changes in body boundary finiteness of twelve patients attending person-centred psychotherapy. It does this by measuring the strengths of associations between barrier imagery, as measured using the Body Type Dictionary (BTD) (Wilson, 2006), and the general semantic content, as measured using the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count text analysis program (LIWC) (Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis, 2007), as well as progressive psychotherapy sessions in the verbal behaviour of low and high barrier patients. The findings of this study might benefit body psychotherapy practitioners to obtain a deeper insight into the body boundary and its regulatory function of inter- and intra-psychic processes.


This article identifies sources of HIV / AIDS information used by residential students on the Pietermaritzburg campus of the former University of Natal (now the University of KwaZulu-Natal). A questionnaire targeted at residential students on the Pietermaritzburg campus was used to determine which sources of HIV / AIDS information they used.
The study upon which the article is based found that HIV / AIDS has become an everyday reality in the university system. There was a need for a clearer, more forceful definition of roles and responsibilities amongst all the partners in response to the epidemic. Residential students were generally satisfied with the existing sources of HIV / AIDS information but they did encounter problems in accessing some sources.
The authors argue that it is time for the university sector and its partners to take stock of a situation that might quickly outpace the institution. Provision of relevant information in an appropriate format needs to be an integral part of the University's response to HIV / AIDS. Sources that were used most frequently should be utilised by university information stakeholders to disseminate information among students.


Eco-labels and certification are one of the many environmental policy tools that have been under scrutiny in recent years. This is because the damages of environmental degradation are becoming more apparent over time. Hence there is a pressure to come up with tools that help solve even small parts of the problem. Eco-labels have been around for over 30 years. However the market, the environment and eco-labels have changed drastically during this period. Moreover, in the last 5 years there has been a sudden increase in eco-labels making them more visible in the market and to the average consumer. All this has made evident that little is known about the effectiveness of eco-labels as environmental policy tools. Hence, there is a call to find answers regarding the actual effects of eco-labels on the market and on the environment. While this work cannot address whether eco-labels have an environmental impact it addresses the effects of eco-labels on the markets. Moreover, this work aimed to find the role of law in eco-labelling. In addition, it aims to find a legal solution that would improve the performance of eco-labelling and certification.


Proteomic analyses of synaptic vesicle fraction from rat brain have been performed for the better understanding of vesicle regulation and signal transmission. Two different approaches were applied to identify proteins in synaptic vesicle fraction. First, the isolated synaptic vesicle proteins were treated with trypsin, and the resulting peptides were analyzed using a high-pressure capillary reversed phase liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (cRPLC/MS/MS). Alternatively, proteins were separated by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) and identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/MS). Total 18 and 52 proteins were identified from cRPLC/MS-MS and 2DE-MALDI-TOF-MS analysis, respectively. Among them only 2 proteins were identified by both methods. Of the proteins identified, 70% were soluble proteins and 30% were membrane proteins. They were categorized by their functions in vesicle trafficking and biogenesis, energy metabolism, signal transduction, transport and unknown functions. Among them, 27 proteins were not previously reported as synaptic proteins. The cellular functions of unknown proteins were estimated from the analysis of domain structure, expression profile and predicted interaction partners.


Voltammetric behaviors of cadmium (II) ion in the presence of a ligand with sulphur
bearing group, such as Glutathione {(COO-
)(NH3
+(CH2)2CONHCH(CH2SH)CONH(CH2)(COO-)} and Thioglycolic acid
(HSCH2COO-) were studied using mainly Osteryoung square wave voltammetry
(OSWV)and Cyclic voltammetry (CV) at a mercury electrode. The coordination
chemistry of reduced glutathione (GSH) is of great importance as it acts as excellent
model system for the binding of metal ions.
In this study, it was observed that an addition of glutathione as ligand to solution
containing Cd(II) with sulphate as supporting electrolyte caused an increase in the
reduction current of Cd(II) by several factors and also with a slight cathodic shift in the
reduction peak potential of Cd(II). Further assessment of the chemical and physical conditions that may favour optimum current enhancement was done by studying the
effect of varying pH, supporting electrolyte, concentration of ligand and metal ion,
interfering ions and scan rate. The presence of 1-3 mM glutathione, a weakly complexing
supporting electrolyte at pH 4-5 caused a 2-3 fold increase in the reduction current of
Cd(II) and a slight negative shift in peak position . The presence of 1-5mM TGA at
pH5.3 caused 1-2 fold increase in the reduction current of Cd(II) and a slight negative
shift in peak position.
The current enhancement observed in different electrolytic media varied in the following
order: sulphate >nitrate> perchlorate. The presence of other metal ion such as Cr(III) or
Co(III) appear to cause further increase in the reduction current of the Cd(II)-glutathione
peak while the presence of Ni(II) was found to suppress the enhanced peak current


This paper presents a systematic comparison of ejector performance predictions between a thermodynamic model and a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model for different operating conditions. The thermodynamic model developed by Galanis and Sorin (2016) assumes the primary flow is always choked, and irreversibilities due to viscous dissipation are taken into account through polytropic efficiencies. The CFD model developed by Croquer et al., (2016a) on a commercial software has already been validated for supersonic ejectors working with R134a, taking a standard high Reynolds number k-ω SST turbulence model coupled with the perfect gas law. The dimensions of the ejector were first determined by the thermodynamic model and then used in the CFD model. The thermodynamic model predicts higher entrainment ratios for double choking operation and somewhat different values of the critical and limiting pressure ratios. The CFD model validates the similarity solutions characteristic of ejectors using perfect gases. The present results show in particular that identical inlet pressure and temperature ratios induce the same entrainment ratio as well as the same critical and limiting pressure ratios. Both models confirm also that similar diameter ratios between the primary nozzle throat and the constant area section lead to the same values of the entrainment ratio. Thus, for double-choking operations, the entrainment ratio depends on the inlet pressure and temperature ratios rather than on the individual values of these four properties as it is the case for ejectors with real fluids. It also shows that the position of the shock varies linearly with the compression ratio in qualitative agreement with the assumption used in the thermodynamic model.


The majority of greenhouses in northern latitudes are heated, in the winter mainly for temperature control and year round to control humidity. Heating is accepted by most organic regulations in different countries; if heating efficiently and the energy source is predominantly renewable energy, heating fits well into the concept of organic production, since it is aligned with the idea of achieving maximum potential with available resources. It is a fact that energy use for humidity control is more important than for heating. Indeed, the improved thermal performance (insulation) of high-tech greenhouses has decreased heating requirements while decreasing the discharge pathways of vapour at the same time. The need to control humidity is especially important in organic greenhouses, given the limited options to fight fungal diseases once they develop. Excess vapour can be discharged in three ways: through exchange with dry outside air (ventilation), through condensation on a cold surface and through hygroscopic adsorption. Ventilation can be uncontrolled (natural) or controlled (forced), and in the latter case can be controlled by a heat exchanger, recovering sensible heat in the ventilated air. Even then, however, the latent heat contained in the vapour (the energy used for evaporation) will be lost. In those cases where the greenhouse is dehumidified by withdrawing internal moisture, the loss of latent heat via ventilation is prevented and condensation on an internal surface recovers the latent heat. Obviously, it costs energy to cool the condensation surface and/or regenerate the hygroscopic salt. Experiments with these systems have been performed during the last years. Some growers have installed these types of systems and they have been monitored for their effect on moisture control and energy saving. The results of these experiments and model calculations to compare them are presented. In case dehumidification systems are well controlled they can save significant amounts of the energy and with an increase of technology level the saving can be improved. There is no generally best possible solution for dehumidification. The optimum system and its operation is dependent on desired temperature and humidity level in the greenhouse.


Architecture is capable of increasing the energy consciousness of its occupants through the development of spaces that promote active participation with solar energy systems. Current architectural practice maximizes neither the availability of solar energy nor the potential of solar technologies, failing to recognize critical social elements of renewable energy and address an increasing disconnect between individual energy use and energy source. Through an architectural response, this thesis explores the role of active solar technologies in mediating between occupants, internal and external environments, and energy consumption patterns. The development of an inteactive, energy gathering, animated façade, challenges the perceived 'value' of energy, forcing occupants to measure consumption choices against desires for daylight, views, and the ability to generate income. A transactive environment that makes occupants' lifestyles explicit on a building's façade ensure individuals achieve a heightened sense of energy awareness requiring them to engage their architecture and question overyday energy decisions.


Performances of juveniles are a key process for the existence of species in the community. Effect of topography, crowding effect and forest regeneration cycle, and conspecific plants in the context of Janzen-Connell hypothesis on height growth rate of seven major tree species were evaluated based on measurement of juveniles for nine-year period in a 1-ha plot of a tropical rain forest in West Sumatra, Indonesia. Height growth rate was significantly smaller in Calophyllum soulattri than other six species, and the latter species had approximately equivalent height growth rate. Growth rate was positively correlated with initial height in five species, but was negatively correlated in Calophyllum soulattri. Negative effect of conspecific juvenile density was detected by regression analysis only in Calophyllum soulattri. Topography was significant in two species (Hopea dryobalanoides and Mastixia trichotoma). Negative effects of total basal area including all species was found in one species (Swintonia schwenkii). Negative effects by conspecific plants was not dominant at least for height growth rate. Calophyllum soulattri was the only exception showing different behavior from the other species studied.


Chronic stress is a contributing risk factor in the development of psychiatric illnesses, including depressive disorders. The mechanisms of their psychopathology are multifaceted and include, besides others, alterations in the brain plasticity. Previously, we investigated the effects of chronic social stress in the limbic brain structures of Wistar rats (hippocampus, HIPPO, and prefrontal cortex, PFC) and found multiple characteristics that resembled alterations described in some clinical studies of depression. We extended our investigations and followed the behavior of stressed animals by the open field test (OFT) and forced swimming test (FST), and the expression and polysialylation of synaptic plasticity markers, neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) and L1, in the HIPPO and PFC. We also determined the adrenal gland mass and plasma corticosterone (CORT) as a terminal part of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity. Our data indicated that stressed animals avoided the central zone in the OFT and displayed decreased swimming, but prolonged immobility in the FST. The animals exhibited marked hypertrophy of the adrenal gland cortex, in spite of decreased serum CORT. Simultaneously, the stressed animals exhibited an increase in NCAM mRNA expression in the HIPPO, but not in the PFC. The synaptosomal NCAM of the HIPPO was markedly polysialylated, while cortical PSA-NCAM was significantly decreased. The results showed that chronic social isolation of Wistar rats causes both anxiety-like and depression-like behavior. These alterations are parallel with molecular changes in the limbic brain, including diminished NCAM sialylation in the PFC. Together with our previous results, the current observations suggest that a chronic social isolation model may potentially be used to study molecular mechanisms that underlie depressive symptomatology.


Interference between processes executing on shared hardware can be used to mount performance-degradation attacks. However, in most cases, such attacks offer little benefit for the adversary. In this paper, we demonstrate that software-based performance-degradation attacks can be used to amplify side-channel leaks, enabling the adversary to increase both the amount and the quality of information captured. We identify a new information leak in the OpenSSL implementation of the ECDSA digital signature algorithm, albeit seemingly unexploitable due to the limited granularity of previous trace procurement techniques. To overcome this imposing hurdle, we combine the information leak with a microarchitectural performance-degradation attack that can slow victims down by a factor of over 150. We demonstrate how this combination enables the amplification of a side-channel sufficiently to exploit this new information leak. Using the combined attack, an adversary can break a private key of the secp256k1 curve, used in the Bitcoin protocol, after observing only 6 signatures---a four-fold improvement over all previously described attacks.


List of Contributors. Foreword. Preface. Introduction and how to use this book. 1. The History of Coeliac Fisease. A Chronological history of coeliac disease. Definition of coeliac disease. 2. The Characteristics of Coeliac Fisease. Structure and function of the small intestine. Pathogenesis of coeliac disease. 3. Presentation of Coeliac Disease. Classical and non-classical presentation. Clinical disorders associated with coeliac disease. 4. Diagosing Coeliac Disease. An accurate history. Serological screening antibody tests. Methods of obtaining a histological diagnosis. Pathologic analysis and diagnosis. 5. The Treatment of Coeliac Disease. The gluten free diet. Avoiding the traps - shopping, cooking and eating without gluten. 6. Long Term Support and Follow Up. Assessment of dietary compliance. Exclusion of concomitant disease . Risk of malignancy associated with coeliac disease . Support groups - the expert patient. 7. The impact of coeliac disease and vulnerable groups. Emotional impact. Adolescence. Fertility and pregnancy. The older coeliac patient. 8. Managing Poor Response or Relapse. Persistent disease. Assessment of dietary compliance. Confirmation of diagnosis. Exclusion of concomitant disease. 9. Future Developments. Chronic disease management. Future research into coeliac disease. 10. Patients' story. Alan's story. Zoe's story. Jean's story. Mrs A's story. Glossary. Index..


The objective of this study is to examine the ability of a compost material for removing {Cu}^{2+} from aqueous solutions with different parameters using continuous fixed-bed column. Compost was characterized by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy which revealed that the metal binding is mainly contributed to the ionic interaction of the metal cations with the carboxyl groups in the hemic substances. Scanning electron microscope images were utilized for morphological analysis of the adsorbent and has revealed that the changes in compost composition could be related to the mechanism of metal binding. Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy was used before and after the metal had loaded and gives a good evidence on compost adsorption of {Cu}^{2+} and the metals have its involvement in the interaction in the adsorption process. The influence of the initial {Cu}^{2+}concentration, flow rate, bed heights of the column, and ion exchange have been studied in this research. The adsorption kinetic models have revealed that the behaviour of the {Cu}^{2+\ }adsorption is dependent on rate of concentration, flow rate, and bed heights.


We investigate the dynamics of increasing the number of model parameters versus the number of labeled examples across a wide variety of tasks. Our exploration reveals that while scaling parameters consistently yields performance improvements, the contribution of additional examples highly depends on the task's format. Specifically, in open question answering tasks, enlarging the training set does not improve performance. In contrast, classification, extractive question answering, and multiple choice tasks benefit so much from additional examples that collecting a few hundred examples is often"worth"billions of parameters. We hypothesize that unlike open question answering, which involves recalling specific information, solving strategies for tasks with a more restricted output space transfer across examples, and can therefore be learned with small amounts of labeled data.


LinkedTV (linkedtv.eu) is a European research project that explores how to integrate television content with Web content in meaningful ways through the use of semantic relations for automatically generating links.
This report describes the process of design and evaluation of LinkedTV News, a second screen companion for interacting with hyperlinked television in the domain of newscasts.
Our primary goal was to obtain knowledge about potential users of LinkedTV's technology regarding their information needs and an indication of the reception that this technology could have among them.
We performed two initial studies: a focus group and a series of interviews with 19 participants. These allowed us to identify our target group, context of use and requirements with which we created the concept of the application.
The design of the application was refined through a series of design iterations and a hi-fi prototype was produced.
After creating the LinkedTV News prototype, we evaluated it with a task-based study performed with 8 participants of the initial studies who matched the target profile closely.
The main characteristics of LinkedTV News are:
• It runs on a tablet PC.
• It targets users between 25 and 45 years of age; highly-educated; who like to be up to date about the international news; watch news broadcasts regularly; and own a tablet computer or share it with someone in their household.
• It proposes the integration of two activities that are related by subject, but currently often take place through different devices and at different times namely, watching TV newscasts and consulting online newspapers and videos.
• It allows synchronous as well as asynchronous interaction with the television (interacting with the application while watching TV as well as bookmarking news and postponing their in depth exploration).
• It offers two interaction modes represented by two main screens: lean back and lean forward.
• The lean back mode presents condensed information related to the objects, places, persons, and events in the news continuously in the form of slides (a paragraph of text illustrated by an image). This mode is automatic and requires no user interaction, although interaction is possible if desired.
• The lean forward mode enables in-depth exploration of each news headline in the categories: different sources; opinions of different authors; in-depth articles; timeline; and from the point of view of geo-localized tweets.
We showed that LinkedTV News succeeds in fulfilling many of the user needs and requirements identified in the preliminary studies.
Overall, there seems to be interest from users in a hypermedia solution for the news that integrates online newspapers and video with television broadcasts.
The hi-fi prototype served as a tool for illustrating and sharing a future vision of hyperlinked broadcast news within and outside the LinkedTV project group.
We recommend testing the application with a different and larger group of users. If the study proves successful, we recommend considering the production of a service represented by LinkedTV News as a commercial application of the LinkedTV technology.


The research presented in my PhD thesis is part of a wider European project, FishPopTrace, focused on traceability of fish populations and products. My work was aimed at developing and analyzing novel genetic tools for a widely distributed marine fish species, the European hake (Merluccius merluccius), in order to investigate population genetic structure and explore potential applications to traceability scenarios.
A total of 395 SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) were discovered from a massive collection of Expressed Sequence Tags, obtained by high-throughput sequencing, and validated on 19 geographic samples from Atlantic and Mediterranean.
Genome-scan approaches were applied to identify polymorphisms on genes potentially under divergent selection (outlier SNPs), showing higher genetic differentiation among populations respect to the average observed across loci. Comparative analysis on population structure were carried out on putative neutral and outlier loci at wide (Atlantic and Mediterranean samples) and regional (samples within each basin) spatial scales, to disentangle the effects of demographic and adaptive evolutionary forces on European hake populations genetic structure. Results demonstrated the potential of outlier loci to unveil fine scale genetic structure, possibly identifying locally adapted populations, despite the weak signal showed from putative neutral SNPs.
The application of outlier SNPs within the framework of fishery resources management was also explored. A minimum panel of SNP markers showing maximum discriminatory power was selected and applied to a traceability scenario aiming at identifying the basin (and hence the stock) of origin, Atlantic or Mediterranean, of individual fish. This case study illustrates how molecular analytical technologies have operational potential in real-world contexts, and more specifically, potential to support fisheries control and enforcement and fish and fish product traceability.


BACKGROUND
Targeting immune checkpoint proteins has recently gained substantial attention due to the dramatic success of this strategy in clinical trials for some cancers. Inducible T-cell co-stimulator ligand (ICOSLG) is a member of the B7 family of immune regulatory ligands, expression of which in cancer is implicated in disease progression due to regulation of anti-tumor adaptive immunity. Although aberrant ICOSLG expression has been reported in glioma cells, the underlying mechanisms that promote glioblastoma (GBM) progression remain elusive.

METHODS
Here, we investigated a causal role for ICOSLG in GBM progression by analyzing ICOSLG expression in both human glioma tissues and patient-derived GBM sphere cells (GSCs). We further examined its immune modulatory effects and the underlying molecular mechanisms.

RESULTS
Bioinformatics analysis and GBM tissue microarray showed that upregulation of ICOSLG expression was associated with poor prognosis in patients with GBM. ICOSLG expression was upregulated preferentially in mesenchymal GSCs but not in proneural GSCs in a tumor necrosis factor-α-/NF-ĸB-dependent manner. Furthermore, ICOSLG expression by mesenchymal GSCs promoted expansion of T cells that produced interleukin-10. Knockdown of the gene encoding ICOSLG markedly reduced GBM tumor growth in immune competent mice, with a concomitant downregulation of interleukin-10 levels in the tumor microenvironment.

CONCLUSIONS
Inhibition of the ICOSLG-ICOS axis in GBM may provide a promising immunotherapeutic approach for suppressing a subset of GBM with an elevated mesenchymal signature.


The relation between disease and urine was recognized by physicians since the earliest civilization BC. Urine is considered an ideal diagnostic specimen for its noninvasive and easy method of collection. Urinalysis encompasses a wide range of tests, which includes a variety of chemical tests, urine microscopy, bacterial cultures, and molecular tests. Importantly, urine tests can diagnose patients with antibiotic-resistant urinary tract infections (UTI), directly from urine and/or bacterial culture. This chapter summarizes the most common urine tests in the infectious disease field, with a special focus on diagnosing UTI and characterizing their antibiotic resistant. In addition to describing the advantages and limitation of these tests, the chapter explores the promising emerging technologies and methods in this field. This chapter is beneficial for scientists and healthcare workers in the field.


While social robots bring new opportunities for education, they also come with moral challenges. Therefore, there is a need for moral guidelines for the responsible implementation of these robots. When developing such guidelines, it is important to include different stakeholder perspectives. Existing (qualitative) studies regarding these perspectives however mainly focus on single stakeholders. In this exploratory study, we examine and compare the attitudes of multiple stakeholders on the use of social robots in primary education, using a novel questionnaire that covers various aspects of moral issues mentioned in earlier studies. Furthermore, we also group the stakeholders based on similarities in attitudes and examine which socio-demographic characteristics influence these attitude types. Based on the results, we identify five distinct attitude profiles and show that the probability of belonging to a specific profile is affected by such characteristics as stakeholder type, age, education and income. Our results also indicate that social robots have the potential to be implemented in education in a morally responsible way that takes into account the attitudes of various stakeholders, although there are multiple moral issues that need to be addressed first. Finally, we present seven (practical) implications for a responsible application of social robots in education following from our results. These implications provide valuable insights into how social robots should be implemented.


While more and more forensic techniques have been proposed to detect the processing history of multimedia content, one starts to wonder if there exists a fundamental limit on the capability of forensics. In other words, besides keeping on searching what investigators can do, it is also important to find out the limit of their capability and what they cannot do. In this work, we explore the fundamental limit of operation forensics by proposing an information theoretical framework. Specifically, we consider a general forensic system of estimating operations' hypotheses based on extracted features from the multimedia content. In this system, forensicability is defined as the maximum forensic information that features contain about operations. Then, due to its conceptual similarity with mutual information in information theory, forensicability is measured as the mutual information between features and operations' hypotheses. Such a measurement gives the error probability lower bound of all practical estimators which use these features to detect the operations' hypotheses. Furthermore, it can determine the maximum number of hypotheses that we can theoretically detect. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed information theoretical framework, we apply this framework on a forensic example of detecting the number of JPEG compressions based on DCT coefficient histograms. We conclude that, under typical settings of forensic analysis, the maximum number of JPEG compressions that we can detect using DCT coefficient histogram features is 4. Furthermore, we obtain the optimal strategies for investigators and forgers based on the fundamental measurement of forensicability.


Local government of Jakarta issued a bylaw on air pollution controls for mobile sources, stipulates that all private car owners must get their vehicles' emission tested biennially. In consequence of non-compliance vehicle in emissions test, vehicle maintenance is essential. Vehicle owner should take an appropriate action in order to reduce pollutant level lower than standard. This study attempts to analyze economic aspect and emission level considerations come into making optimal choice of vehicle owner. First, we examine the influential factors of action taken in maintenance process of non-compliance vehicle on probability of vehicle to pass the second stage emissions test. Second, due to variation of actions taken in the maintenance process, we analyze impact on cost and explore components affects on variation of maintenance cost. Empirical analysis was done by using Inspection and Maintenance data in year 2000 which collected at several auto-mechanic shops in Jakarta city. The bivariate probit model was applied to examine impact of chosen alternatives on the probability to pass Hydrocarbon and Carbon Monoxide in second emission test. To examine variation of maintenance cost and explore components affects on cost, multilevel approach was applied. It is confirm that several actions may increase probability to pass emission test but on the same time reduce average cost. Other actions may simultaneously increase probability to pass emission test and also increase cost. It was also found some actions didn`t have impact on emission test but on the other hand rise maintenance cost. Furthermore, some actions reduce probability to pass emission test but increase maintenance cost. Vehicle owner need to properly select actions in order to maximize benefit and minimize cost.


The aim of the research is to develop a methodological analysis of problems in the
area of design for manufacture in low volume high complex products found in the
writer's workplace. The majority of research in this area has been around high
volume products, such as automotive products and little consideration has been given
to designing complex products from industries like aircraft manufacture.
This research evaluates design for manufacture (DFM) information in the design lifecycle
(DLC). The author's research introduces a unique DLC process, one which
structures decisions and data transfer through the DLC. The research also looks at
current academic work and introduces industrial issues present in today's
environment.
It is crucial to the design of a product to select the appropriate design environment in
which it operates, as it will structure the way the engineering activities are established
and developed. It is also important for the organisation to decide on the environment
in which the design definition should evolve. Therefore the research reviews the
different design definition environments, these were carefully analysed by the author.
The evaluation of a design to ensure its manufacturability is a major element in the
research, a review of previous work has highlighted that within current publications
there has been little work in this area. The research has developed a methodology to
evaluate the robustness of a design. It not only looks at the engineering design but
also evaluates its adherence to customer requirements and the effect on cost for the
overall product life-cycle. It also considers industrial needs for a reduction in the
length of design life-cycle, while ensuring a reduction in manufacturing costs. There
are two main contributors to this, firstly the use of key characteristics and secondly,
the ability to control the manufacturability of a design. The author has developed a
novel software tool enabling efficient evaluation of a design.
The author discusses his contribution to existing knowledge in three main areas of the
research. The most significant being the introduction of a tool to evaluate a design
early in the design life-cycle to ensure manufacturability. To validate the research the
author introduces the reader to three experimental phases. He validates his
methodology by analysing the design of various aircraft assemblies discussing his
findings of how manufacturable the designs are. This leads to the conclusion that the
author's research adds substantial knowledge to the area of design for manufacture.


Thermal tuning of optical Fabry-Perot cavities has been proposed to reduce the parametric gain of high-frequency parametric instabilities in gravitational wave detectors. We investigate the performance achievable for such tuning obtained by thermal actuation of the mirrors (also called test masses) of the arm cavities. We show that for test mass dimensions used in advanced detectors, when circularly symmetric heating is applied to the rear side of the mirror, the steady-state tuning performance is almost independent of the heating pattern and depends only on the heating power. We derived the optimal time-dependent heating required to achieve the fastest possible actuation in sapphire and fused-silica substrates. Our simulations show that sapphire mechanical deformation response to heating is 15 times faster than that of fused silica, although sapphire requires three times more heating power to obtain the same radius of curvature change.


Peatlands play an important role in the global carbon cycle due to the high carbon storage in the substrate. Ecosystem production depends, for example, on the solar energy amount that reaches the vegetation, however the diffuse component of this flux can substantially increase ecosystem net productivity. This phenomenon is observed in different ecosystems, but the study of the atmosphere optical properties on peatland production is lacking. In this paper, the presented methodology allowed us to disentangle the diffuse radiation impact on the net ecosystem production (NEP) of Rzecin peatland, Poland. It allowed us to assess the impact of the atmospheric scattering process determined by the aerosol presence in the air mass. An application of atmospheric radiation transfer (ART) and ecosystem production (EP) models showed that the increase of aerosol optical thickness from 0.09 to 0.17 caused NEP to rise by 3.4–5.7%. An increase of the diffusion index (DI) by 0.1 resulted in an NEP increase of 6.1–42.3%, while a DI decrease of 0.1 determined an NEP reduction of −49.0 to −10.5%. These results show that low peatland vegetation responds to changes in light scattering. This phenomenon should be taken into account when calculating the global CO2 uptake estimation of such ecosystems.


This paper sought to draw lessons from long run trends in energy markets for energy and climate policy. An important lesson is that consumer responses to energy markets change with economic development. In particular, evidence suggests that income elasticities of demand for energy services have tended to follow an inverse-U shape curve. Thus, at low levels of economic development, energy service consumption tends to be quite responsive to per capita income changes; at mid-levels, consumption tends to be very responsive to changes in income per capita; and, at high levels, consumption is less responsive to income changes. The paper also highlights the risks to developing countries of locking-in to carbon intensive infrastructure or behaviours. Without guidance and incentives, rapid economic development is likely to lock consumers into high energy service prices in the long run and bind the economy onto a high energy intensity trajectory with major long run economic and environmental impacts. Thus, effective energy service policies in periods of rapid development, such as in China and India at present, are crucial for the long run prosperity of the economy.


1. To investigate the mechanisms regulating the reuptake of secretory granule membranes following regulated exocytosis, we have monitored changes in cell capacitance in single pancreatic beta‐cells. 2. Membrane retrieval (endocytosis) occurred both in a continuous manner and in abrupt steps, corresponding to the simultaneous retrieval of 50‐100 granules. The large endocytotic steps were associated with a conductance change of about 1 nS which we attribute to the formation of a fission pore with a pore radius of approximately 1 nm. 3. In some cells, we observed large amplitude capacitance fluctuations, suggesting that aggregates of granules are connected to the plasma membrane by a single pore and are subsequently retrieved as a single unit. 4. Endocytosis was evoked by elevation of cytosolic [Ca2+]i, but once initiated, a sustained increase in [Ca2+]i was not required for endocytosis to continue. 5. The [Ca2+]i dependence of exo‐ and endocytosis was studied by photorelease of Ca2+ from the 'caged' precursor Ca(2+)‐nitrophenyl‐EGTA (Ca(2+)‐NP‐EGTA). Both exo‐ and endocytosis were initiated at between 0.5 and 2 microM Cai(2+). The rate of endocytosis saturated above 2 microM Cai(2+), whereas exocytosis continued to increase up to 4 microM Cai(2+). The maximum rate of endocytosis was < 25% of that of exocytosis. 6. Unlike exocytosis, endocytosis proceeded equally well in the presence or absence of Mg‐ATP. 7. Our data indicate that in the pancreatic beta‐cell, exocytosis and endocytosis are regulated by different mechanisms.


The history of translation in Hispanic America can be segmented into specific historical periods that differ from those found in Europe, namely: encounter and conquest, the colonial period; pre-independence and emancipation; independence and republic; and an ongoing period that started in 1920 (Bastin, 2006). A great deal of work has been done regarding the first three of those periods. Later historical periods, while still receiving some scholarly attention, have not been the focus of as much research (cf. e.g., Montoya, 2014). This paper hopes to provide further insights on translation practices during the Independence and Republic Period by focusing on Jose Pedro Varela, an educational reformer in 19th century Uruguay. Varela spearheaded the charge for educational reform in his native South American country, and he initiated the reforms that would forever change the DNA of public education in Uruguay. Much has been written about him (e.g. Hentschke, 2016), but relatively little has been said of the fact that a number of his most influential writings were, at least in part, translations. In light of this, the present paper will provide a portrait of Varela, highlighting his status as a popular hero whose role as a translator has faded from the public's view. By pointing out some of his most well-known translations and the role they played in his broader reformist strategies, this paper will also provide some historical perspectives on translation, including how it was conceptualized by some of South America's key intellectuals during the second half of the 19th century.


Christoph Prescher – official newswriter and information merchant in Riga in the early 1680s

The profession of a newswriter or a news transmitter (Zeitungsschreiber in German), who collected and sold information, was born in the context of expanding and intensifying postal networks during the sixteenth century in Europe. Professional newswriters (also called Zeitunger, Novellanten, or Avisenschreiber in the German-speaking areas) were active in the market towns situated in the most important junctions of postal roads. Information became an object of trade in early modern Europe – the public sale of news or news mediums became a widespread business that proceeded, for example, in the cultural area of Germany or the Netherlands on private initiative and was a supplementary activity to the person's main profession. Countries with a strong central power, including the Swedish realm, gave the information business to certain persons who were under the control of the state.
This article observes the changes in the news market of Riga in the beginning of the 1680s. In 1680, Christoph Prescher was assigned as the official newswriter of Riga. He was an official acting under the royal privilege, and he had been granted the exclusive position for issuing a newspaper. As the official newswriter, Prescher diff ers from the average early modern newspaper merchant acting on private initiative as the latter was involved in the sale of information as a supplementary business.
This article discusses whether the royal privilege itself was enough to fulfil the task successfully and to earn a living. As the official newswriter, Prescher had to face economic difficulties which he tried to overcome by finding new readers outside Riga and Livland and by advertising his newspaper in Tallinn. However, one year aft er the first issue of the newspaper, the financial difficulties had not dissolved. To exempt himself from the restricted role of a newswriter, Prescher tried to find supplementary outputs: he offered to carry out the restructuring of the Riga postal office (which had been stripped of the right to trade with news), as both hoped to restore the normal situation in effect prior to the year 1680.
It seems that the problems of the official newswriter were solved by the end of the 1680s, when the newspaper had developed a large number of subscribers in the provinces of Estland, Livland, and Ingermanland, in addition to the readers in Riga.

KEYWORDS: Baltic history, Swedish history, early modern period, communication, newspapers, Riga, 17th century.

KAAREL VANAMOLDER (b. 1981) is a Lecturer of Estonian history at the Narva College, University of Tartu.

Correspondence: Narva College, University of Tartu, Raekoja plats 2, Narva 20307, Estonia. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


Structures in Atholl nappe Grampian Division rocks in the Tayside Region can be traced NW into the supposedly older Central Highland Division in Speyside and Strath Nairn where they are the earliest fabrics present. Grampian Division/Central Highland Division contrasts appear to involve a gradational metamorphic change, and the existence of the Grampian slide supposed, by previous workers to separate the two units has not been confirmed. Atholl nappe fabrics have been shown to be coeval with those of Grampian orogenesis in the Tay nappe where their age is constrained by the 590 ± 2 Ma Ben Vuirich granite. Grampian orogenic structures can thus be traced, as the earliest structures present, as far as the Great Glen fault, a conclusion which may have a bearing on the significance of the fault as a terrane boundary. Central Highlands. The metamorphic rocks of the Scottish Central Highlands (Fig. 1) comprise units referred to the Southern Highland (youngest), Argyll, Appin and Grampian (oldest) groups. While Harris et al. 1978 regarded the Grampian Group as the oldest Dalradian group, it is broadly equivalent to the Grampian Division (Moine) (GD) of Piasecki (1980) who also identified the Central Highland Division (Moine) (CHD) which occupies several hundred square kilometres of Inverness-shire east and south of Inverness and which forms three other small inliers in Speyside, not distinguished on Fig. 1. Working largely in Speyside and adjacent areas, Piasecki & van Breemen (1983) regarded the CHD as lithostratigraphically broadly equivalent to Moine rocks of the N Highlands and


Atomic layer deposited hafnium oxide is shown to provide good surface passivation of low resistivity, n-type crystalline Si wafers after a low temperature anneal. The surface passivation is related to a fixed negative charge, as well as an excellent interface with the crystalline Si wafer. In this paper, the influence of four deposition parameters on the HfO2 passivation properties, namely precleaning, precursors, deposition temperature, and postannealing temperature, is discussed. Minority carrier lifetimes of 1.9 ms (surface recombination velocity (SRV) 7.7 cm/s) on float zone n-type wafers and 1.7 ms (SRV 11 cm/s) on Czochralski n-type wafers, under optimized deposition conditions and a postannealing process, have been measured. A significant improvement of the surface passivation is observed after 100 h light soaking, resulting in a carrier lifetime of 2.5 ms. Fitting of the results by a two-defect charge trapping/detrapping model indicates that additional light-induced negative charges enhance the field effect passivation, which is also consistent with the experimental results. Due to its high refractive index and the obtained good surface passivation of Si wafers, HfO2 has a great potential as a surface passivation material, e.g., in the fabrication of high-efficiency Si solar cells.


The Publications Committee of IEEE Computer Society and the Publication Board of ACM have agreed that Computing Reviews should expand its coverage to provide reviews of considerably more material (books, technical papers, symposia proceedings and the like) of prime interest to members of IEEE, particularly of its Computer Society. These will be critical evaluations as characteristic of Computing Reviews, and not abstracts. It is hoped this step will enhance the usefulness of Computing Reviews to a wider range of computer professionals. Much of the additional material will fall in the Computing Reviews category for Hardware, but the sections on Electrical and Electronic Engineering, on computer systems, real-time, telecommunications, and related categories will also grow.


This article draws attention to a cultural shift in the formation of families that has been and is taking place in this country and in the developed world. Part I uses recent government data to trace the decline of marriage and the rise of cohabitation in the United States. Between 2000 and 2010, the population grew by 9.71%, but the husband and wife households only grew by 3.7%, while the unmarried couple households grew by 41.4%. A counter-intuitive finding is that the early 21st century data show little correlation between the marriage rate and economic conditions. Because of the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), same-sex marriage is now universally available to same-sex couples. Part I considers the impact of same-sex marriage on the marriage rate. Part I then describes the benefits and obligations of marriage and closes by noting the demographic characteristics of cohabiting couples. The article points out that cohabitation is a temporary or short-term state in most cases: The parties either break up or get married fairly quickly. Nevertheless, a small percentage of cohabiting couples continue to cohabit for much longer or for life. Because more are added every year, these cohabitations accumulate in the population. Part II discusses how the case law has addressed the rights and obligations of cohabiting couples when they break up. Titled From Contract to Status, this Part starts with the enforcement of contracts between the parties, then moves to the right of plaintiffs when they do not allege or cannot prove a contract. One route to recovery would be common-law marriage, but that concept was abolished by late-19th century statutes in almost every American jurisdiction. Nevertheless, in states that have abolished common-law marriage, cases exist in which the court awarded damages to the plaintiff based on status, i.e., in which the court described the couple's relationship as a marriage in all but name. Part III argues the case for treating cohabiting couples whose relationship shows that they are (or were) deeply committed to one another as married in fact. The article finds that a consensus of sorts has quietly emerged in legislation to this effect that has been enacted or introduced in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. In this country, the American Law Institute (ALI) has recognized that longer-term cohabitants have rights similar to married couples upon dissolution of the relationship. Drawing on the UK and Commonwealth statutes, the ALI proposal, and the case law described in Part II, the article presents for discussion a draft De Facto Marriage Act. The Draft Act, however, along with the Commonwealth statutes and the ALI proposal, does not, and probably should not, provide a mechanism for automatically declaring a couple as married in fact. Couples who deliberately decline to marry should not have their decision overridden. Consequently, the Draft Act is not set up to be self-executing. A court judgment is required. The article concludes by pointing out that a de facto marriage judgment would qualify a couple for all federal as well as state benefits and obligations of marriage.


There is an ongoing project to develop an interaction framework for creating animatronics creatures – therapeutic animatrons – which can elicit desired emotional states in humans. The acute need for such therapeutic devices stems from the growing aging population and increasing work and social stress. A real-time facial expression detection and gesture recognition system will assess the emotional state of a user. The assessed emotional state is used to derive an animatron (e.g. a cute teddy bear) controlled by servo motors. The system chooses one of the behaviours of Snow White's seven dwarfs characters to adjust the emotional state of the user to the desired state. The best behaviour is selected using a Support Vector Machine classifier. There is massive potential for the incorporation of these sophisticated interaction frameworks within child education and psychiatry, as well as in relation to a number of other stress-related disorders in medicine more generally.


Abstract The CRISPR–Cas9 system is widely used for target-specific genome engineering. CRISPR–Cas12a (Cpf1) is one of the CRISPR effectors that controls target genes by recognizing thymine-rich protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) sequences. Cas12a has a higher sensitivity to mismatches in the guide RNA than does Cas9; therefore, off-target sequence recognition and cleavage are lower. However, it tolerates mismatches in regions distant from the PAM sequence (TTTN or TTN) in the protospacer, and off-target cleavage issues may become more problematic when Cas12a activity is improved for therapeutic purposes. Therefore, we investigated off-target cleavage by Cas12a and modified the Cas12a (cr)RNA to address the off-target cleavage issue. We developed a CRISPR–Cas12a that can induce mutations in target DNA sequences in a highly specific and effective manner by partially substituting the (cr)RNA with DNA to change the energy potential of base pairing to the target DNA. A model to explain how chimeric (cr)RNA guided CRISPR–Cas12a and SpCas9 nickase effectively work in the intracellular genome is suggested. Chimeric guide-based CRISPR- Cas12a genome editing with reduced off-target cleavage, and the resultant, increased safety has potential for therapeutic applications in incurable diseases caused by genetic mutations.


Six topics in incompressible, inviscid fluid flow involving
vortex motion are presented. The stability of the unsteady flow field
due to the vortex filament expanding under the influence of an axial
compression is examined in the first chapter as a possible model of
the vortex bursting observed in aircraft contrails. The filament with
a stagnant core is found to be unstable to axisymmetric disturbances.
For initial disturbances with the form of axisymmetric Kelvin waves,
the filament with a uniformly rotating core is neutrally stable, but
the compression causes the disturbance to undergo a rapid increase in
amplitude. The time at which the increase occurs is, however, later
than the observed bursting times, indicating the bursting phenomenon
is not caused by this type of instability. In the second and third chapters the stability of a steady vortex
filament deformed by two-dimensional strain and shear flows, respectively,
is examined. The steady deformations are in the plane of the
vortex cross-section. Disturbances which deform the filament centerline
into a wave which does not propagate along the filament are shown
to be unstable and a method is described to calculate the wave number
and corresponding growth rate of the amplified waves for a general distribution
of vorticity in the vortex core. In Chapter Four exact solutions are constructed for two-dimensional
potential flow over a wing with a free ideal vortex standing
over the wing. The loci of positions of the free vortex are found and
the lift is calculated. It is found that the lift on the wing can be
significantly increased by the free vortex. The two-dimensional trajectories of an ideal vortex pair near an
orifice are calculated in Chapter Five. Three geometries are examined,
and the criteria for the vortices to travel away from the orifice are
determined. Finally, Chapter Six reproduces completely the paper, "Structure
of a linear array of hollow vortices of finite cross-section," co-authored
with G. R. Baker and P. G. Saffman. Free streamline theory is employed
to construct an exact steady solution for a linear array of hollow, or
stagnant cored vortices. If each vortex has area A and the separation
is L, then there are two possible shapes if A^(1/2)/L is less than 0.38
and none if it is larger. The stability of the shapes to two-dimensional,
periodic and symmetric disturbances is considered for hollow
vortices. The more deformed of the two possible shapes is found to be
unstable, while the less deformed shape is stable.


DESIGN OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL AXON STRETCH GROWTH DEVICE by Fayekah Assanah Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) causes destruction and degeneration of axons in the white matter of the spinal cord, resulting in functional loss and paralysis. A successful treatment of SCI requires axons to regenerate across damaged regions. Current studies focus on identifying mechanisms to promote axon regeneration in lesions and have yet to be successful in preventing nerve degeneration due to scar tissue formation. Establishing axonal bridges over long distances of SCI lesions remains a challenge, resulting in poor functional recovery. Instead of relying on promoting axon regeneration into lesions, Pfister et al. has developed a transplantable nervous tissue construct spanned by stretch grown axon tracts. These tracts of living axons are intended to act as a bridge to facilitate axon outgrowth from the nerve construct to the host nerves over long SCI lesions. While axon stretch growth is fast and efficient, the current approach uses a two-dimensional (2D) culture system, posing a challenge for uniform distribution of DRG explants throughout the culture. This yields in a less than optimal number of axon tracts being stretched. The research objective of this thesis is to increase the number/density of axons that are stretched grown by using three-dimensional (3D) cultures. This thesis work involves modification of the existing 2D axon stretch growth device to achieve axon growth in 3D cultures. The design includes separating two 3D hydrogel cell cultures using a porous nylon mesh to constrain each half of the culture. Optimal mechanical properties of the collagen hydrogel and nylon mesh pore sizes are tested for mechanical support, best axon outgrowth, and the number of axons available for stretch growth. Phase contrast and fluorescent microscopy are used to determine axon outgrowth in the hydrogel and through the nylon mesh. Live staining with fluorescent intracellular dyes and confocal microscopy are used to quantify the cross sectional areas of axon bundles stretched using the 2D device. This provides insight into developing a quantification method for axons grown in the 3D setup to determine the efficiency and the growth mechanism of axons in 3D cultures. DESIGN OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL AXON STRETCH GROWTH DEVICE


The editorial by Bolonna & Kerwin (2005) is both timely and important. The authors succinctly present the case for the use of partial agonists of dopamine receptors, concluding that 'the reviewed evidence suggests a promising future for dopamine receptor partial agonists'. While this is arguably true on the basis of the evidence presented, theoretical and empirical concerns regarding the use of these medications remain. The introduction of aripiprazole on an individual patient level may prove problematic (DeQuardo, 2004; Ramaswamy et al, 2004). Although effective switching strategies from atypical agents to aripiprazole have been described, a number of reports of worsening psychosis following the introduction of aripiprazole (DeQuardo, 2004; Ramaswamy et al, 2004) have been published. While these cases may be accounted for by unrelated illness relapse, other theoretical explanations should be considered. Up-regulation of dopamine receptors is well recognised during treatment with neuroleptics, and results in supersensitivity to dopamine at the sites of receptor blockage. This has led to the concept of a neuroleptic-induced supersensitivity psychosis (Steiner et al, 1990) wherein up-regulation effectively outstrips receptor blockade with emergent psychosis resistant to treatment. Supersensitivity could explain cases of psychosis developing with aripiprazole. Cessation of an antagonist with subsequent introduction of a partial agonist could result in a net excess of neurotransmission due to over-stimulation of a supersensitive system (despite the partial agonist demonstrating sub-maximal stimulation in normal systems). The high receptor affinity of partial agonists may make such symptoms difficult to treat, as few drugs are likely to be able to displace these agents from receptor complexes. Drugs that can displace partial agonists run the risk of negating the therapeutic effects of stabilisation of the dopaminergic system in schizophrenia, perhaps most importantly at times of relapse when patients are likely to receive 'as required' doses of potent D2 antagonists. While empirical evidence largely supports the primary efficacy of these agents (DeLeon et al, 2004), clinical experience of partial agonists is in its infancy. Goodquality data from naturalistic studies are required to establish the effectiveness of these drugs, but in the meantime we call for post-marketing surveillance to quantify the scale of the problem of cross-titration.


This unique Handbook provides a solid foundation for essential study in the nascent field of entrepreneurship policy research. This foundation is initially developed via the exploration of two significant propositions underpinning the nature of entrepreneurship policy research. The first is that entrepreneurship has emerged as a bona fide focus of public policy, particularly with respect to economic growth and employment creation. The second is that neither scholars nor policy makers are presently equipped to understand the public policy role for entrepreneurship.


The law is shaped by cultural shifts, and the lawyer is well positioned to play the role of architect. Yet, the legal profession is the least diverse and inclusive profession of all. Despite numerous attempts to create diversity and inclusion within the profession, the legal profession remains today much as it was at its inception. Although sanctions against lawyers who engage in discrimination in employment practices are suggested by diversity groups, those attempts would be costly and duplicative. The author discusses a cross-section of available rules that are less costly, more manageable alternatives. The Article proposes that the goal of diversity and inclusion within the profession cannot be forced, but must be realized through consistent measures aimed at creating accountability, educational awareness, and building supporting connections at each level of the professional hierarchy.Section I introduces the topic. Section II briefly examines the development of the legal profession in the United States along with its long history of exclusion of groups that remain underrepresented in the profession today. It then examines some recent diversity initiatives and explores the reasons why these initiatives have largely failed to achieve the goal of increasing diversity. Section III evaluates the need for additional regulation to achieve diversity and examines alternatives to regulation that have had some success in promoting an understanding of the values of diversity within the profession. The conclusion in Section IV offers recommendations for action to promote diversity.


In coordination with the Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is promoting the establishment of an agency-based Government Information Locator Service (GILS) to help the public locate and access information throughout the Federal Government. This report presents a vision of how GILS will be implemented. Working primarily with OMB and the Locator Subgroup of the Interagency Working Group on Public Access, Eliot Christian of the US Geological Survey prepared this report under the auspices of the IITF Committee on Information Policy. This vision of GILS has also received extensive review by various Federal agencies and other interested parties, including some non-Federal organizations and by the general public through notices in both the Federal Register and the Commerce Business Daily and at a public meeting held in December, 1993. As part of the Federal role in the National Information Infrastructure, GILS will identify and describe information re sources throughout the Federal government, and provide assistance in obtaining the information. It will be decentralized and will supplement other agency and commercial information dissemination mechanisms. The public will use GILS directly or through intermediaries, such as the Government Printing Office, the National Techni cal Information Service, the Federal depository libraries, other public libraries, and private sector information services. Direct users will have access to a GILS Core accessible on the Internet without charge. Intermediate access may include kiosks, "800 numbers", electronic mail, bulletin boards, fax, and off-line media such as floppy disks, CD-ROM, and printed works. GILS will use standard network technology and the American National Standards Institute Z39.50 standard for information search and retrieval so that information can be retrieved in a variety of ways. Direct users will eventually have access to many other Federal and non-Federal information resources, linkages to data systems, and electronic delivery of information products. Development of this report proceeded in tandem with a GILS Profile development project that produced an Implementors Agreement in the voluntary standards process. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is now establishing a Federal Information Processing Standard referencing the GILS Profile Implementors Agreement and making mandatory its application for Federal agencies establishing locators for government information. Existing law and policy, as articulated in OMB Circular A-130, the Records Disposal Act, and the Freedom of Information Act, require agencies to create and maintain an inventory of their information systems and information dissemination products. Although compliance with these requirements varies greatly, the incremental cost of making those inventories accessible through GILS is expected to be minimal. Accordingly, participation in establishing and maintaining GILS may be accomplished as a collective effort executed within existing funds and authorities. OMB will publish in 1994 a Bulletin following on Circular A-130 that will specify agency responsibilities in GILS and set implementation schedules. A process for ongoing evaluation will also be established to evaluate the degree to which GILS meets the information needs of the public.


In the last ten years, there has been significant progress towards the prevention, control
and elimination of podoconiosis as a health problem. There are however gaps in our
understanding of the epidemiology and geography of podoconiosis that hinder the
planning and scale-up of intervention activities. Therefore, this PhD project aimed to define
the current geographical distribution and disease burden of podoconiosis in Ethiopia and
investigate underlying risk factors.
This thesis adopted two main approaches to understanding distribution: first, historical
data were compiled and analysed; second, a nationwide mapping survey was conducted.
These data were contextualised through a systematic review of the literature on neglected
tropical diseases (NTDs) in Ethiopia. The data were also used to develop elimination
targets and endemicity classifications in a Delphi exercise involving a range of international
NTD experts.


Objective: To investigate the correlation of single-nucleotide polymorphisms of the Multidrug Resistance Gene (MDR) 1C3435T and the human Endothelin Converting Enzyme (ECE-1) gene with the efficacy of irbesartan in primary hypertension.
Methods: A total of 186 patients with primary hypertension in our hospital from May 2015 to December 2016 received irbesartan oral medication. The 1C3435T and ECE-1 gene polymorphic sites were detected. Meanwhile, the plasma concentration was measured every hour after taking medicine for 8 h, and the plasma concentration peak was recorded. The systolic and diastolic blood pressures of the patients were recorded before and after treatment. The relationships between the different genotypes and plasma concentrations, as well as the drop of blood pressure, were compared. The antihypertensive effects of different genotypes were also investigated.
Results: The distribution frequencies of the 1C3435T CT, TT, and CC genotypes were 37.63%, 34.95%, and 27.42%, respectively, whereas those of the C-338A CA, AA, and CC genotypes were 32.80%, 30.65%, and 36.56%, respectively. The plasma concentration peak, drop of blood pressure, and total effective rate of the 1C3435T TT genotype were significantly higher than those of CT and CC (P<0.05). The corresponding data of CT were significantly also higher than those of CC (P<0.05). Moreover, the plasma drug concentration, drop of blood pressure, and total effective rate of the C-338A CC genotype were significantly higher than those of CA and AA (P<0.05), and the corresponding data of CA were significantly higher than those of AA (P<0.05).
Conclusion: During the oral treatment of primary hypertension by irbesartan tablets, the MDR1 1C3435T TT and ECE-1 C-338A CC genotypes can significantly increase the plasma concentration peak and significantly improve the curative effect.


Animals readily execute learned motor behaviors in a consistent manner over long periods of time, yet similarly stable neural correlates remained elusive up to now. How does the cortex achieve this stable control? Using the sensorimotor system as a model of cortical processing, we investigated the hypothesis that the dynamics of neural latent activity, which capture the dominant co-variation patterns within the neural population, are preserved across time. We recorded from populations of neurons in premotor, primary motor, and somatosensory cortices for up to two years as monkeys performed a reaching task. Intriguingly, despite steady turnover in the recorded neurons, the low-dimensional latent dynamics remained stable. Such stability allowed reliable decoding of behavioral features for the entire timespan, while fixed decoders based on the recorded neural activity degraded substantially. We posit that latent cortical dynamics within the manifold are the fundamental and stable building blocks underlying consistent behavioral execution.


An influential paper by Caughey and Sekhon (2011a) suggests that the outcomes of very close US House elections in the postwar era may not be as-if random, thus calling into question this application of regression discontinuity for causal inference. We show that while incumbent party candidates are more likely to win close House elections, those who win are no different on observable characteristics from those who lose. Further, all differences in observable characteristics between barely winning Democrats and barely winning Republicans vanish conditional on which party is the incumbent. Any source of a special incumbent party advantage in close elections must be due to variables that cannot be observed. This finding supports the conclusion of Eggers et al. (2015) that Caughey and Sekhon's discovery of lopsided wins by incumbents in close races is a mere statistical fluke.


In a discussion paper entitled "Philanthropy in a Liberal Education," Payton [1991] described the functions of advocacy as articulating the failures of the government and the marketplace, as well as pointing out the inconstancies, inefficiencies, and other weaknesses of philanthropy itself. Advocacy, according to Payton, endows philanthropy with a social conscience. Those who study the activist role of philanthropy thus have an opportunity to explore what Geertz [1983: 36-54] called "the social history of the moral imagination."Yet it is precisely this historical perspective that is overlooked by those who seek to understand advocacy. The emergence and development of advocacy has usually been described as a byproduct of the social activism of the 1960s, especially of the civil rights movement [Jenkins 1987]. This article suggests that advocacy has a longer and more interesting history, taking as its starting point the premise that an examination of that history can tell us much about the current effectiveness and impact of advocates on children's welfare.This work is part of a larger study that traces the evolution of child advocacy within the context of the post-1945 welfare state. It focuses on the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York, Inc. (CCC), which, soon after its incorporation in 1945, emerged as the most influential group concerned with New York City's children [Kahn et al. 1972]. A small, elite, nonprofit organization, CCC functioned as what we might today call a policy advocacy group, pursuing investigatory fact-finding and research, publishing reports and bulletins, establishing guidelines, and making policy and program recommendations. Most of this work was carried out by volunteer members, both lay and professional, and a small core staff. From its very beginning, CCC defined itself as an "advocate for children," although the term had not yet come into common use.By the mid-1960s, changes in the broader currents of child welfare reform, as well as the emergence of a nascent child advocacy movement, challenged CCC's predominant position, and forced the group to reevaluate its advocacy program, strategies, and goals. Although it could be argued that the rise and fall of groups like CCC is simply a fact of organizational life--that groups unable to adapt to new political and social circumstances and attract new blood will inevitably ossify--CCC's history raises other important advocacy issues.As advocates themselves have admitted, "precious little energy has been expended documenting and analyzing the experiences of child advocates" [Bing & Richart 1987]. Child advocacy has little recorded institutional memory on which to rely. This article seeks to correct that imbalance by exploring the changing content and meaning of child advocacy through the postwar decades. It assesses CCC's impact on the child, as well as the strategies it used, and suggests reasons for its influence. Finally, it examines briefly the changes in nonprofit child advocacy brought about by the different social, racial, and political realities of the 1960s. By documenting CCC's advocacy efforts and identifying the ingredients of its success, as well as its shortfalls, it is hoped that this article will provide instruction and inspiration to others trying to correct government inaction or indifference toward children.Advocacy within the Postwar ContextSince at least the early nineteenth century, various individuals and groups have tried to improve the lot of poor children, particularly child laborers. In England in 1802, Sir Robert Peel obtained the passage of a bill in Parliament restricting the employment of apprentices to 12 hours a day [de Schweinitz 1943]. Seventeen years later, Peel and Robert Owen succeeded in passing a law forbidding the employment of children under nine years of age and restricting the work of children under age 16 to 12 hours a day [de Schweinitz 1943].In this country, too, social activists have long articulated the interests of children. …


Holm oak (Quercus ilex) is the most important and representative species of the Mediterranean forest and of the Spanish agrosilvo-pastoral "dehesa" ecosystem. Despite its environmental and economic interest, Holm oak is an orphan species whose biology is very little known, especially at the molecular level. In order to increase the knowledge on the chemical composition and metabolism of this tree species, the employment of a holistic and multi-omics approach, in the Systems Biology direction would be necessary. However, for orphan and recalcitrant plant species, specific analytical and bioinformatics tools have to be developed in order to obtain adequate quality and data-density before to coping with the study of its biology. By using a plant sample consisting of a pool generated by mixing equal amounts of homogenized tissue from acorn embryo, leaves, and roots, protocols for transcriptome (NGS-Illumina), proteome (shotgun LC-MS/MS), and metabolome (GC-MS) studies have been optimized. These analyses resulted in the identification of around 62629 transcripts, 2380 protein species, and 62 metabolites. Data are compared with those reported for model plant species, whose genome has been sequenced and is well annotated, including Arabidopsis, japonica rice, poplar, and eucalyptus. RNA and protein sequencing favored each other, increasing the number and confidence of the proteins identified and correcting erroneous RNA sequences. The integration of the large amount of data reported using bioinformatics tools allows the Holm oak metabolic network to be partially reconstructed: from the 127 metabolic pathways reported in KEGG pathway database, 123 metabolic pathways can be visualized when using the described methodology. They included: carbohydrate and energy metabolism, amino acid metabolism, lipid metabolism, nucleotide metabolism, and biosynthesis of secondary metabolites. The TCA cycle was the pathway most represented with 5 out of 10 metabolites, 6 out of 8 protein enzymes, and 8 out of 8 enzyme transcripts. On the other hand, gaps, missed pathways, included metabolism of terpenoids and polyketides and lipid metabolism. The multi-omics resource generated in this work will set the basis for ongoing and future studies, bringing the Holm oak closer to model species, to obtain a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying phenotypes of interest (productive, tolerant to environmental cues, nutraceutical value) and to select elite genotypes to be used in restoration and reforestation programs, especially in a future climate change scenario.


Recent studies on the humoral immune response to Trypanosoma cruzi have shown that antibodies which are able to bind living parasites and lyse them in conjunction with complement are associated with host protection. Antibodies which support complement-mediated lysis (CML) of trypomastigotes are elicited as a result of an active infection and not after immunization with killed parasites. In spite of the requirement for immune antibodies, lysis proceeds mainly via the alternative complement pathway. We have purified a 160-kilodalton (kDa) glycoprotein from T. cruzi metacyclic trypomastigotes which appears to be a specific target for lytic antibodies. Rabbit antiserum to the purified 160-kDa protein was prepared, and we have determined that these antibodies will support CML of tissue-culture-derived trypomastigotes. The percentage of killing (65 to 70%) was consistent among three different T. cruzi strains tested. In order to examine the specificity of antibody-dependent CML, antibodies to T. cruzi neuraminidase, an unrelated trypomastigote membrane glycoprotein, were tested in the CML, assays and were not found lytic. Viable trypomastigotes bound anti-160-kDa antibodies uniformly as demonstrated by immunofluorescence, whereas antineuraminidase antibodies were extensively capped. The 160-kDa glycoprotein is specifically produced in infectious trypomastigotes (tissue culture derived and metacyclic) and was not detected in epimastigotes or amastigotes. The identification of the 160-kDa glycoprotein as a specific target for lytic antibodies, as well as its expression only in the infectious stage of the parasite, suggests an important role for this protein in eliciting host immunity.


Citizen science projects face a dilemma in relying on contributions from volunteers to achieve their scientific goals: providing volunteers with explicit training might increase the quality of contributions, but at the cost of losing the work done by newcomers during the training period, which for many is the only work they will contribute to the project. Based on research in cognitive science on how humans learn to classify images, we have designed an approach to use machine learning to guide the presentation of tasks to newcomers that help them more quickly learn how to do the image classification task while still contributing to the work of the project. A Bayesian model for tracking volunteer learning is presented.


Lindenmayer (L) systems form a class of interesting computational formalisms due to their parallel nature, the various circumstances under which they operate, the restrictions imposed on language acceptance, and other attributes. These systems have been extensively studied in the Formal Languages literature. In the past decade a new type of Lindenmayer system had been proposed: Watson-Crick Lindenmayer Systems. These systems are essentially a marriage between Developmental systems and DNA Computing. At their heart they are Lindenmayer systems augmented with a complementary relation amongst elements in the system just as the base pairs of DNA strands can be complementary with respect to one another. When conditions and a mechanism for 'switching' the state of a computation to its complementary version are provided then these systems can become surprisingly more powerful than the L systems which form their backbone. This dissertation explores the computational power of new variants of Watson-Crick L systems. It is found that many of these systems are Computationally-Complete. These investigations differ from prior ones in that the systems under consideration have extended alphabets and usually Regular Triggers for complementation are considered as opposed to Context-Free Triggers investigated in previous works.