Efficient encoding of object boundaries has become increasingly prominent in areas such as content-based storage and retrieval, studio and television post-production facilities, mobile communications and other real-time multimedia applications. The way distortion between the actual and approximated shapes is measured however, has a major impact upon the quality of the shape coding algorithms. In existing shape coding methods, the distortion measure do not generate an actual distortion value, so this paper proposes a new distortion measure, called a modified distortion measure for shape coding (DMSC) which incorporates an actual perceptual distance. The performance of the Operational Rate Distortion optimal algorithm [1] incorporating DMSC has been empirically evaluated upon a number of different natural and synthetic arbitrary shapes. Both qualitative and quantitative results confirm the superior results in comparison with the ORD algorithm for all test shapes, without any increase in computational complexity.


Study Design. In vitro experiment using bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) and cells from the nucleus pulposus (NP), transitional zone (TZ), and anulus fibrosus (AF) of the human intervertebral disc (IVD). Objective. To demonstrate the differential effect of BMP-2 on DNA synthesis, proteoglycan synthesis, and osteocalcin mRNA expression in human IVD cells from the NP, TZ, and AF, respectively. Summary of Background Data. BMP-2 has been proven to be effective in stimulating proteoglycan synthesis in articular chondrocytes and IVD cells from the NP. Nevertheless, the effect of BMP-2 on cells from different regions of the IVD has not yet been thoroughly elucidated. Methods. Human IVDs were harvested from surgical disc procedures and tissue from the NP, TZ, and AF was obtained. Disc tissue was enzymatically digested, and IVD cells were cultured three-dimensionally in alginate beads. Then IVD cell cultures from the NP, TZ, and AF were exposed to BMP-2. DNA synthesis and newly synthesized proteoglycan were measured. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction for mRNA expression of bone sialoprotein, DLX5, osteocalcin, and collagen type I, was performed. Results. Cells from the AF responded to BMP-2 with mitogenesis. There was no significant increase in DNA synthesis in cultures from the NP and TZ treated with BMP-2. Only cells from the NP showed a significant increase in newly synthesized proteoglycan in response to BMP-2. IVD cells from all zones demonstrated no significant expression of bone sialoprotein, DLX5, osteocalcin mRNA after treatment with BMP-2. Conclusion. BMP-2 clearly exerted a mitogenic effect on AF cells, and stimulated proteoglycan synthesis in NP cells. However, BMP-2 did not have an osteogenic effect in any IVD region. Taken together, these results confirm that BMP-2 can be used as an anabolic agent for mitogenesis in AF cells and NP cell matrix regeneration without the possibility of osteogenesis.


Retinal-specific antigens can induce autoimmune diseases in eyes of immunized experimental animals and are thought to be involved in certain uveitic conditions in man. We have recently found that peripheral blood lymphocytes from a large proportion of healthy donors react in culture against the retinal S-antigen (S-Ag), when tested by a modified sensitive assay. The investigation of this responsiveness was extended by isolation and characterization of a cell line and clones specific to S-Ag from the blood of a healthy donor. Characterization of the cell line and clones by flow cytometry showed that these lymphocytes carried antigens specific for helper/inducer T cells (CD3 and CD4). The response of the cell line and clones to S-Ag depended completely on added antigen-presenting cells (APC), and was MHC-restricted; no response was observed in cultures with APC carrying incompatible MHC antigens. The cell line and clones reacted to S-Ag considerably more vigorously than the freshly collected blood lymphocytes from the same donor. These data thus provide additional support to the notion that lymphocytes with reactivity toward retinal specific antigens are present in the circulation of normal donors. The possibility that such cells could be involved in pathogenic autoimmune processes in the eye is discussed.


Most existing water markets combine water rights trading and water allocation trading. Offering security-differentiated water rights can make the market more efficient and allow water users to manage the risks of supply uncertainty better. We conduct a laboratory experiment which compares two designs for water rights; one with a single security level and another with two security levels. We find that a two security level system increases overall profits when transactions costs are lower on the water rights market than on the water allocation market. It also improves risk allocation by allowing subjects to trade-off profits variability against expected profits according to their risk type and this result is robust to the existence of transactions costs on either market. Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press.


The articles in this issue of Evidence Matters explore a range of strategies designed to promote affordable housing preservation at the national, state, and local levels. The lead article, "Preserving Affordable Rental Housing: A Snapshot of Growing Need, Current Threats, and Innovative Solutions," reviews the economic and demographic trends prompting increasing demand for affordable housing, the threats to the existing housing stock, and the programs and tactics used by governmental and nonprofit organizations to preserve affordable housing. "Research Spotlight: How Research Tools Are Assisting Communities To Preserve, Plan Affordable Housing" considers the efforts of New York University's Furman Center and the University of Florida's Shimberg Center to map affordable housing subsidies and availability to better target areas most in need of preservation. And "In Practice: Models for Affordable Housing Preservation" examines the role that preservation compacts and state housing trust funds play in protecting affordable housing and economic diversity.


Abstract. Beaver ponds are surface-water features that are transient through space and time. Such qualities complicate the inclusion of beaver ponds in local and regional water balances, and in hydrological models, as reliable estimates of surface-water storage are difficult to acquire without time- and labour-intensive topographic surveys. A simpler approach to overcome this challenge is needed, given the abundance of the beaver ponds in North America, Eurasia, and southern South America. We investigated whether simple morphometric characteristics derived from readily available aerial imagery or quickly measured field attributes of beaver ponds can be used to approximate surface-water storage among the range of environmental settings in which beaver ponds are found. Studied were a total of 40 beaver ponds from four different sites in North and South America. The simplified volume–area–depth (V–A–h) approach, originally developed for prairie potholes, was tested. With only two measurements of pond depth and corresponding surface area, this method estimated surface-water storage in beaver ponds within 5 % on average. Beaver pond morphometry was characterized by a median basin coefficient of 0.91, and dam length and pond surface area were strongly correlated with beaver pond storage capacity, regardless of geographic setting. These attributes provide a means for coarsely estimating surface-water storage capacity in beaver ponds. Overall, this research demonstrates that reliable estimates of surface-water storage in beaver ponds only requires simple measurements derived from aerial imagery and/or brief visits to the field. Future research efforts should be directed at incorporating these simple methods into both broader beaver-related tools and catchment-scale hydrological models.


"Mass tort litigation against the gun industry, with its practical weaknesses, successes, and goals, provides the framework for this collection of thoughtful essays by leading social scientists, lawyers, and academics. . . . These informed analyses reveal the complexities that make the debate so difficult to resolve. . . . Suing the Gun Industry masterfully reveals the many details contributing to the intractability of the gun debate."-"New York Law Journal " "Second Amendment advocate or gun-control fanatic, all Americans who care about freedom need to read "Suing the Gun Industry.""-Bob Barr, Member of Congress, 1995-2003, and Twenty-First Century Liberties Chair for Freedom and Privacy, American Conservative Union ""The" source for anyone interested in a balanced analysis of the lawsuits against the gun industry."-David Hemenway, Professor of Health Policy & Director, Harvard Injury Control Research Center Harvard School of Public Health Health Policy and Management Department, author of "Private Guns, Public Health" "Highly readable, comprehensive, well-balanced. It contains everything you need to know, and on all sides, about the wave of lawsuits against U.S. gun manufacturers."-James B. Jacobs, Warren E. Burger Professor of Law and author of "Can Gun Control Work?" "In "Suing the Gun Industry," Timothy Lytton has assembled some of the leading scholars and advocates, both pro and con, to analyze this fascinating effort to circumvent the well-known political obstacles to more effective gun control. This fine book offers a briefing on both the substance and the legal process of this wave of lawsuits, together with a better understanding of the future prospects for this type of litigation vis-a-vis other industries."-Philip J. Cook, Duke University "An interesting collection, generally representing the center of the gun-control debate, with considerable variation in focus, objectivity, and political realism."-Paul Blackman, retired pro-gun criminologist and advocate Gun litigation deserves a closer look amid the lessons learned from decades of legal action against the makers of asbestos, Agent Orange, silicone breast implants, and tobacco products, among others. "Suing the Gun Industry" collects the diverse and often conflicting opinions of an outstanding cast of specialists in law, public health, public policy, and criminology and distills them into a complete picture of the intricacies of gun litigation and its repercussions for gun control. Using multiple perspectives, "Suing the Gun Industry" scrutinizes legal action against the gun industry. Such a broad approach highlights the role of this litigation within two larger controversies: one over government efforts to reduce gun violence, and the other over the use of mass torts to regulate unpopular industries. Readers will find "Suing the Gun Industry" a timely and accessible picture of these complex and controversial issues. Contributors: Tom BakerDonald BramanBrannon P. DenningTom DiazHoward M. ErichsonThomas O. FarrishShannon FrattaroliJohn GastilDan M. KahanDon B. KatesTimothy D. LyttonJulie Samia MairRichard A. NagaredaPeter H. SchuckStephen D. SugarmanStephen TeretWendy Wagner"


The APSIM-Wheat module was used to investigate our present capacity to simulate wheat yields in a semi-arid region of eastern Australia (the Victorian Mallee), where hostile subsoils associated with salinity, sodicity, and boron toxicity are known to limit grain yield. In this study we tested whether the effects of subsoil constraints on wheat growth and production could be modelled with APSIM-Wheat by assuming that either: (a) root exploration within a particular soil layer was reduced by the presence of toxic concentrations of salts, or (b) soil water uptake from a particular soil layer was reduced by high concentration of salts through osmotic effects. After evaluating the improved predictive capacity of the model we applied it to study the interactions between subsoil constraints and seasonal conditions, and to estimate the economic effect that subsoil constraints have on wheat farming in the Victorian Mallee under different climatic scenarios. Although the soils had high levels of salinity, sodicity, and boron, the observed variability in root abundance at different soil layers was mainly related to soil salinity. We concluded that: (i) whether the effect of subsoil limitations on growth and yield of wheat in the Victorian Mallee is driven by toxic, osmotic, or both effects acting simultaneously still requires further research, (ii) at present, the performance of APSIM-Wheat in the region can be improved either by assuming increased values of lower limit for soil water extraction, or by modifying the pattern of root exploration in the soil profile, both as a function of soil salinity. The effect of subsoil constraints on wheat yield and gross margin can be expected to be higher during drier than wetter seasons. In this region the interaction between climate and soil properties makes rainfall information alone, of little use for risk management and farm planning when not integrated with cropping systems models.


Topological maps represent the world as a network of nodes and arcs: the nodes are distinctive places in the environment and the arcs represent paths between places. A significant issue in building topological maps is defining distinctive places. Most previous work in topological mapping has concentrated on using sonar sensors to define distinctive places. However, sonar sensors are limited in range and angular resolution, which can make it difficult to distinguish between different distinctive places. Our approach combines a sonar-based definition of distinctive places with visual information. We use the robot's sonar sensors to determine where to capture images and use cues extracted from those images to help perform place recognition. Information from these two sensing modalities is combined using a simple Bayesian network. Results described in this paper show that our robot is able to perform place recognition without having to move through a sequence of places, as is the case with most currently implemented systems. For these reasons, topological maps have become increasingly popular in mobile robotics.


The increasing CO2 content in the atmosphere due to combustion of fossil fuels is the main cause of enhanced "global warming". Switching to renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind energy is promising for a sustainable future, but the produced electricity cannot be used easily for off-grid applications. Fuels are still required for mobile applications and can be produced for instance by electrolysis using the electricity from renewable energy sources. Hydrogen is promising in this context to be used as fuel in the future. A possible scenario is to store the hydrogen and regain the energy either by combustion or by using fuel cells. However, a suitable storage method has not yet been realized. Storage of hydrogen as atoms or ions in solid materials is interesting, because the volume is greatly reduced and it is generally safer than storage as compressed gas. Unfortunately, several drawbacks have to be overcome before solid-state hydrogen storage can be implemented. Although storage in solid materials is more compact than storage as a gas, the gravimetric density is quite low. The operation conditions for solid-state hydrogen storage materials are determined by the equilibrium and kinetic characteristics of hydrogen sorption. Due to the strong bond between the hydrogen and the storage material, high operation pressures and temperatures are often required for the charging and discharging processes. Also cycling stability is an important material property. The thesis discusses several methods to improve the hydrogen storage properties of Mg-based materials. Magnesium based materials are interesting due to the abundance and low costs of magnesium (~ 3 €/kg in 2013). However, the equilibrium temperature for hydrogen sorption in Mg(H2) is 300 oC at 1 bar H2 and both hydrogen absorption and desorption are slow at room temperature. In order to change the thermodynamic and kinetic properties, other elements were added to Mg either as catalyst or to form different Mg-compounds. One of the main challenges was to find new synthesis strategies to produce materials with particle sizes in the nanometer range. Small particle sizes are crucial to improve the kinetic properties and reversibility. A main synthesis technique to obtain nanoparticles involved using porous carbon supports in order to control the particle size. The use of a support also prevented particle growth. An important aim of the study was to relate structural properties of the carbon supported Mg-based nanomaterials to the hydrogen storage performance in order to understand the impact of particle size, composition and interaction with the carbon support.


Identification of weak buses in an electric power system is important for operational and planning purposes. In this paper, a framework that uses the standard deviation of the magnitude of voltage at load buses is used to identify weak buses. In the framework, reactive power for all load buses are generated simultaneously based on a probability distribution function. The 39-Bus New England test system is used to test the framework in DigSilent PowerFactory in conjunction with Python programming language. The result shows that weak buses can be identified with the framework


Campaign.
Available also through the Library of Congress web site in two forms: as facsimile page images and as full text in SGML.
Printed Ephemera Collection; Portfolio 24, Folder 22.


We allow for principals to self-select into delegating (or not) the allocation decision to an agent in a modified dictator game. The standard dictator game is obtained when they choose not to delegate. Nearly half the subjects choose to be a dictator and make the allocation themselves. Dictators thus obtained transfer lower amounts to receivers, relative to when the decision making is passed to an agent (or the standard dictator game). Subjects self-selecting into the role of a dictator give less relative to those that pass the allocation decision to an agent. Finally, the distributional consequences of delegating, or not, vary with less inequality obtained when the delegation decision is delegated.


I. THE CHANGING ENVIRONMENT: RULES OF ORIGIN UNDER STRESS "Rules of origin" are the rules that govern the legal assignation of a national to goods moving in international commerce. Such rules are required by laws that treat goods differently according to their national origin. Until recently, the origin of goods entering the United States was seldom either legally significant or difficult to determine. Only a few laws required that origin determinations be made. Section 304 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. [subsection] 1384) requires that all foreign articles be marked with the English name of their country of origin and goods found to originate in "column 2" countries (1) were, and still are, subject to higher rates of duty, although trade with column 2 countries was limited for many years. Moreover, to a greater extent than today, goods were processed or assembled in only one country, thus their origin was seldom difficult to determine. When difficult origin determination issues did arise, the U.S. Customs Service (Customs) decided them on a case-by-case basis, using nonstatutory criteria provided in judicial opinions by the U.S. Customs Court (2) and the U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals. (3) This environment has charged. Over the last two decades several laws have been enacted that require different treatment of goods entering the United States on the basis of their origin. The United States has made extensive use of country-specific tariff preference programs as a foreign policy "carrot" to stimulate economic growth and to encourage political stability in developing countries. The Generalized System of Preferences (4) and the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (5) are examples of such programs. The United States also uses trade regulations as a foreign policy "stick" by imposing country-specific trade sanctions on certain countries. The Trading With the Enemy Act, (6) the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, (7) and the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (8) illustrate this approach. Other country-specific laws, such as those providing for countervailing duty programs and textile quotas, are used as tools of economic policy to protect U.S.industry from unfair destabilizing competition. Also within the last twenty years, the structures of major industries have undergone changes that make determination of the origin of goods more difficult than before. Major industries such as automobile manufacturers and producers of high-tech electronic goods have increasingly adopted manufacturing structures in which goods are assembled in stages in more than one country, or in which components to be assembled in stages acquired from several different countries. Nevertheless, the laws of many countries,including the United States, persist in requiring that origin be assigned to a single country. Additionally, within the last few years, several countries have entered into special arrangements under which they grant to each other preferences that aremore extensive and generous than those available under "most-favored-nation treatment." (9) The creation of the European Economic Community and the U.S. free trade agreements with Israel and Canada, and perhaps soon with Mexico and Central and South American nations, are examples of this trend. All these developments severely strain the U.S. system of making origin determinations in case-by-case administrative ruling and compel policymakers to consider new mechanisms for making such judgments. It is important to emphasize that the mechanism for making determinations, rather than the basic principles used, is chiefly in need of repair. There is a general agreement that goods should be considered to originate in a country if they are wholly obtained or produced in the country and contain no foreign materials. (10) There is also agreement on the principle that substantial transformation of materials confers a new origin, that is, that goods comprised of foreign materials should be considered the product of the country in which they have been substantially transformed. …


Current multi- and many-core computer architectures heavily use Network-on-Chip (NoC communication in order to meet the increased bandwidth demands between the processors and for reasons of scalability. For the proper analysis of concurrency utilization, and workload distribution of parallel multi-media applications running on such NoC-based architectures, high-speed simulation techniques are required. Apart from accurate timing simulation of compute resources, it is of utmost importance also to accurately model the delays caused by the packet-based network communication in order to reliably verify performance numbers, or to identify any bottlenecks of the underlying architecture, or to study workload distribution techniques or routing algorithms. In this paper, we present a novel simulation approach for NoCs that allows to simulate such communication delays equally accurate but much faster in average than on a flit-by-flit basis. We propose novel algorithmic and analytical techniques that predict the transmission intervals dynamically based on the arrival of communication requests, actual congestion in the NoC, routing information, packet lengths, and other parameters. According to such predictions, the simulation time may in many cases be automatically advanced, thus reducing the number of events to process in the simulator to a large extent. The presented NoC simulation technique has been integrated into a system-level multi-core architecture simulator. Experiments in running parallel real-world and multi-media applications on a simulated scalable NoC architecture show that we are able to achieve speedups of three orders of magnitude compared to cycle-accurate NoC simulators, while preserving a timing accuracy of above 95%.


Cougaar (Cognitive Agent Architecture) is an open source java-based architecture for the construction of largescale distributed agent-based applications. It is the product of a multi-year DARPA research project into large scale agent systems and includes not only the core architecture but also a variety of demonstration, visualization and management components to simplify the development of complex, distributed applications.


Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, containing approximately one third of all illnesses in women. Assessment of molecular markers is valuable in predicting the outcome of disease and decision making for optimal treatment. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between estrogen and progesterone receptors with Her-2, Ki67, P53, and clinicopathological factors in breast carcinoma. Methods: 184 patients with breast cancer were chosen and immunohistochemistry was used for expression of p53 protein, Her-2, Estrogen receptor, Progesterone receptor and Ki67 in breast tissues. For statistical analysis, Pearson's Chi-square tes and Spearman's rho were used. Results: Positive staining of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, Her-2, Ki67 and p53 was found in 63%, 53.8%, 54.6%, 56.2% and 42% respectively. Also there was reverse relation between estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor with Her-2 (P<0.05), but there was no relation between estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor with p53 and Ki67 (P>0.05). Also over-expression estrogen receptor was significantly associated with decreased lymph node metastasis and malignancy grade (P<0.05). Also over-expression of progesterone receptor was significantly associated with decreased malignancy grade (P<0.05). Conclusion: Breast cancer progression is often associated with alterations in expressions of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, HER-2/neu, p53, and Ki67 and reverse association between hormones receptors and HER2 leads to lower or absent hormone receptors in women with HER2 positive breast cancers. Also positive estrogen receptor status can be associated with better survival in these patients.


Material ablation by excimer laser micromachining is a promising approach for structuring sol-gel materials as we demonstrate in the present study. Using the well-known direct etching technique, the behaviour of different hybrid organic/inorganic self-made sol-gel materials is examined with a KrF* laser. Ablated depths ranging from 0.1 to 1.5 microm are obtained with a few laser pulses at low fluence (< 1 J/cm(2)). The aim is to rapidly transfer surface relief multi-level diffractive patterns in such a substrate, without intermediate steps. The combination with the 3D profilometry technique of coherence probe microscopy permits to analyse the etching process with the aim of producing multi-level Diffractive Optical Elements (DOE). Examples of four-level DOEs with 10 microm square elementary cells are presented, as well as their laser reconstructions in the infrared.


While some have argued that absent low socioeconomic status black fathers are to blame for urban crime and poverty, others have highlighted how mass incarceration disproportionately separates low socioeconomic status black fathers from their children. Less frequently heard and acknowledged in the public conversations about low socioeconomic status black fatherhood and mass incarceration are the voices of those same fathers who have been impacted by the system. How do formerly incarcerated black fathers view their role as fathers? Based on 30 interviews of formerly incarcerated black men recruited from a prisoner reentry organization in a large northeastern city in the United States, we found that interviewees talked about fatherhood in two different ways. On the one hand, our most common finding was that interviewees talked about fatherhood as a motivation for desistance from criminal activity. In this finding they connected provider roles and being present in the lives of their children with their planned desistance from crime. On the other hand, interviewees also mentioned fatherhood as a part of explanations for past criminal activity, in what we call strain narratives. In these stories, they typically mentioned their provider roles as fathers as part of the overall economic strain that they faced. Counter to the dominant cultural impression of low socioeconomic status black fathers as absent/uncaring, both the desistance and strain narratives demonstrated a considerable amount of concern with respect to their identities as fathers, and therefore as men. We argue for the significance of masculinity in explaining the fatherhood narratives of formerly incarcerated black men. In doing so, we build on previous qualitative work on low-income fathers, crime as doing gender, and desistance narratives in prisoner reentry.


Even in relatively tolerant countries, anti-gay bias remains socially divisive, despite being widely viewed as violating social norms of tolerance. From a JustificationSuppression Model (JSM) framework, social norms may generally suppress anti-gay bias in tolerant countries, yet bias may be "released" by religious justifications among those who resist gay rights progress. I hypothesized that more frequent religious attendance would be associated with greater anti-gay bias, that this relation would be stronger in countries where anti-gay bias more strongly violates social norms of tolerance, and that the relation between religious attendance and anti-gay bias would be partially accounted for by religious justifications. In Part 1, I examined the relation between religious attendance and anti-gay bias in the US. In Part 2, I examined the relation between religious attendance and anti-gay bias across different countries. Finally, in Part 3, I examined religious justifications for anti-gay bias. Across large, nationally representative US samples and international samples (representing a total of 97 different countries), over 215,000 participants, and various indicators of anti-gay bias (e.g., dislike, moral condemnation, opposing gay rights), more frequent religious attendance was uniquely associated with greater anti-gay bias, over and above religious fundamentalism, political ideology, religious denomination, and other theoretically relevant covariates. Moreover, in 4 of 6 multilevel models, religious attendance was associated with anti-gay bias in countries with greater gay rights recognition, but was unrelated to anti-gay bias in countries with lower gay rights recognition. Google searches for a religious justification ("love the sinner hate the sin") coincided temporally with gay-rights relevant searches. In U.S. and Canadian samples, much of the association between religious attendance and Religious Attendance Anti-Gay III anti-gay bias was explained by "sinner-sin" religious justification, with religious attendance not associated with anti-gay bias when respondents reported relatively low familiarity with this justification. These findings suggest that social divisions on homosexuality in relatively tolerant social contexts may be in large part due to religious justifications for anti-gay bias (consistent with the JSM). Potential interventions building on these findings may include encouraging religious leaders to promote norms of tolerance and acceptance, increasing intergroup contact between frequent religious attenders and gays, and perspective-taking exercises.


The thesis research is concerned with change management in organisations, and specifically within a public sector organisation, a local authority (LA) in England. In particular the research first seeks to examine the utility and practical application of a selected model of good practice in workplace health that has been tested in the commercial world and secondly, the research examines the feasibility or otherwise of transferring and implementing the selected model of good practice to the LA in question.

The first step was to undertake a literature review of models of good practice in healthy workplace programmes and select the model to use. Next, the process was to review management change theories and strategies in order to identify how best to transfer and implement the selected model of good practice. After following a comprehensive research of workplace health programmes a Canadian model, Investing in Comprehensive Healthy Workplace Promotion was selected as the model of good practice.

The research utilised a constructive case study, aimed at an understanding of the phenomenon and creating a useful and theoretically grounded solution for the relevant problem. A collaborative action research programme involving participatory inquiry and reflection was considered and after reviewing alternatives it was deemed to be the most suitable framework for the purpose of the project; the intention was to develop a shared strategy whereby management and staff could provide better control over conflict resolution and work together.

The main approach was then to undertake a stress/satisfaction survey throughout the LA and consult with management and staff on how best the results from the research could be utilised to develop the project. Important empirical research material included an agreed questionnaire which was distributed to staff to broaden out the input of those actively involved in the exercise. 562 completed questionnaires from a workforce of some 800 were returned and the completed questionnaires were analysed and results fed back to management and staff in a further series of meetings. The reliability of questionnaires was tested using Cranach's alpha coefficient, giving a value of .81 and this reliability was within criteria for research of this type of research. In addition to the questionnaire a series of focus groups were held together with briefings sessions to which all staff were invited to attend. The results from the survey then formed the basis for future action. This included the call for the establishment of a healthy workplace strategy and highlighted issues to be addressed in the immediate future and longer term.

A report of the findings and recommendations was submitted to the Corporate Management Team (CMT). The report recommended that the results of the questionnaire should be noted and the CWHP be implemented by the LA with external consultancy support. The research then describes and offers analysis and debate on the actions that were subsequently taken/not taken by the Corporate Management Team CMT.


Quantitative Sociodynamics presents a general strategy for interdisciplinary model building and its application to a quantitative description of behavioural changes based on social interaction processes. Originally, the crucial methods for the modeling of complex systems (stochastic methods and nonlinear dynamics) were developed in physics but they have very often proved their explanatory power in chemistry, biology, economics and the social sciences. Quantitative Sociodynamics provides a unified and comprehensive overview of the different stochastic methods, their interrelations and properties. In addition, it introduces the most important concepts from nonlinear dynamics (synergetics, chaos theory). The applicability of these fascinating concepts to social phenomena is carefully discussed. By incorporating decision-theoretical approaches a very fundamental dynamic model is obtained which seems to open new perspectives in the social sciences. It includes many established models as special cases, e.g. the logistic equation, the gravity model, some diffusion models, the evolutionary game theory and the social field theory, but it also implies numerous new results. Examples concerning opinion formation, migration, social field theory; the self-organization of behavioural conventions as well as the behaviour of customers and voters are presented and illustrated by computer simulations. Quantitative Sociodynamics is relevant both for social scientists and natural scientists who are interested in the application of stochastic and synergetics concepts to interdisciplinary topics.


Dhaka is one of the most populated megacities in the world with a total population of over 12 million and an area of 276sqkm (DCC, 2004). The city is situated at the center of the country and is surrounded by a river system comprising Buriganga, Balu, Turag, and Shitalakhya. The city has a long history dating from the Pre-Mughal, to the Mughal, and, finally, to the Bangladesh period. The growth of Dhaka basically started from the current extreme south and along Buriganga River and then it expanded earlier to the West (Hazaribagh) and the East (Gandaria) and later to the North (Mirpur). However, in the last few decades, the city experienced huge population growth and rapid industrial, commercial, business, residential, and infrastructure development, which have significantly expanded the physical feature of Dhaka. Still many of the development activities are taking place in an informal way within the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) area, the main part of the megacity.


The internet consists of a range of different undesired information. Besides advertising or spam there is also other content, which specific users do not want to read about. While some do not want to see spoilers about the last episode of Game of Thrones, others may watch the finals of the European Championship one day later and therefore do not want to be informed about the result. Apart from that, there is a lot of annoying and uninteresting information as well, for example news about the private life of some celebrities. We introduce a web filter that takes undesired topics of the user as input and finds related terms using Wikidata. After applying our filtering algorithm, unwanted content is hidden and the user can decide to unhide it, if he wants to see it anyway. Our system managed to hide nearly 90% of chosen undesired topics of different types on 200 web pages. By only considering topics of specific types the system was able to filter 97% of the unwanted content.


Abstract:The life and works of the beguine Marguerite Porete were transformed by fire. In 1310 Marguerite was burned alive in Paris as the first recorded "mystical heretic" of the French Inquisition. A few years earlier her book, The Mirror of Simple Souls, had also been burned in Valenciennes, with Marguerite as a witness. Her use of fire as a metaphor to describe union with God foreshadows her death. Furthermore, The Mirror's emphasis on the insufficiency of language to describe the divine echoes Marguerite's silence during her inquisitorial trial. However, these complaints against language in her book and Marguerite's own refusal to speak should not be seen as an absolute rejection of text, body, and oral expression as vehicles of divine and human encounter. Instead, they reveal a theory of performance in which life and reading cannot be easily separated into different realms of experience.


CaO and MgO bearing fluxes are widely used in sinters and pellet to improve their basicity and other
properties viz. strength and physico-chemical properties especially, for lowering reduction degradation
index of high alumina ore agglomerate. Limestone (CaCO3 mineral) is presently used as CaO input in
agglomeration. Endothermic calcination of CaCO3 at elevated temperature is energy consuming and
kinetic driven process. Grinding to powder also consumes energy. In contrary, calcined lime is relatively
softer and disintegrates on hydration. Calcined and hydrated lime both has very good green bonding property
also. Though, calcined/hydrated lime is used in sintering replacing limestone, it is hardly used in pelletization.
This is because of facing problems viz. crack formation in pellet, loss in bonding efficiency of
bentonite, handling of hydrated lime etc. However, suitable adjustment of flux composition and process
parameters can make the calcined lime usable in pelletization as advantage. This study is concentrated on
optimization of MgO (olivine) flux addition and basicity and finally used calcined lime in place of limestone
in developing good quality iron ore pellets with combined flux. It is found that calcined lime fluxed pellet
without bentonite and limestone shows very good dry compressive strength (3.5 kg/pellet) and improved
green compressive strength (1.5 kg/pellet), drop numbers (12 Nos ), cold crushing strength (310 kg/pellet)
and reduction properties. The complete replacement of limestone and bentonite is found with better pellet
properties. The bentonite elimination will help minimizing alumina and silica input in pellet and reduce
the cost in pelletization.


We are developing an alternative therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) using antisense oligonucleotides (AO) to displace factors involved in the normal splicing of the dystrophin exons during pre-mRNA processing. Masking selected motifs involved in splicing prevents normal splicesome assembly so that specific exons are omitted from the mature mRNA along with the flanking introns. In this manner, an exon containing a nonsense mutation could be by-passed as long as the reading frame was not disrupted. The most common type of mutations in the dystrophin gene are genomic deletions of one or more exons which disrupt the reading frame. Specific removal of one or more exons flanking the genomic deletions could restore the reading frame.

The dystrophin gene should be a most amenable target for this type of AO approach as it has been well established that the complete dystrophin protein is not required for near normal activity. A milder allelic version of DMD, Becker Muscular Dystrophy, arises from in-frame deletions in the dystrophin gene, which allows synthesis of a shorter but still functional protein. Furthermore, dystrophin-positive revertant fibres, which arise from some naturally occurring exon skipping mechanism, have been detected in dystrophic tissue of many DMD patients and animal models of the disease.

 The mdx mouse model of muscular dystrophy carries a nonsense mutation in exon 23 of the dystrophin gene. AO-induced removal of this exon will by-pass the premature termination codon without disrupting the reading frame so that a dystrophin protein missing only 71 amino acids can be produced. Refinement of AO design and targeting has resulted in high levels of induced exon 23 skipping in the induced dystrophin mRNA, thereby restoring dystrophin synthesis in transfected cultured cells. In vivo administration through intramuscular injection of AOs into the tibialis anterior of mdx mice has resulted in strong and sustained dystrophin expression with correct sub-sarcolemmal localization. AO treated muscle shows significant improvement in muscle strength over untreated dystrophic mdx muscle after as few as a two injections of 1 ug AO:liposome complex.

Other AO chemistries (morpholino and peptide nucleic acids) can also be used to displace splicing factors. These have uncharged backbones and, although very resistant to nuclease degradation, have been limited by poor cellular/nuclear uptake. We have annealed sense-strand oligonucleotide leashes to the uncharged AO to allow complex formation with cationic liposomes. Although the PNA:leash:liposome complex was unable to induce any exon skipping, the morpholino AO:leash:liposome complex induced exon skipping at concentrations more than three orders of magnitude lower than other groups have demonstrated antisense effects with uncomplexed morpholino AOs in cultured cells.


The sophisticated and intricate connection between bat morphology and flight capabilities makes it challenging to employ conventional flying robots to replicate the aerial locomotion of these creatures. In recent work, a bat inspired soft Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) called Bat Bot (B2) with five Degrees of Actuation (DoA) has been constructed to mimic the flight behavior of a biological bat. Major differences in structural topology resulted from this simpler kinematic complexity, and thus it is necessary to find the dimensions of B2's structure and the behavior of its actuators such that the wingbeat cycle of B2 closely mimics that of a biological bat. The current work assumes the previously designed structure of B2 and presents a synergistic design approach to imitate the kinematic synergies of a biological bat. Recent findings have unveiled that the most dominant synergies in a biological bat could be combined to accurately represent the original kinematic movement, therefore simplifying its dimensional complexity. In this work, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) has been employed in order to extract dominant principal components of biological bat flight kinematics. Thereafter, first and second principal components are chosen to shape the parametric kinematics and actuator trajectories of B2 through finite state nonlinear constrained optimization. The method yields a robot mechanism that despite having a few DoAs, it possesses several biologically meaningful morphing specializations.


Background: Responses to COVID-19 have invested heavily in science. How this science was used is therefore important. Our work extends existing knowledge on the use of science in the pandemic by capturing scientific advisers' experiences in real time.Aims and objectives: Our aim was to present generalisable messages on key qualifications or difficulties involved in speaking of 'following the science'.Methods: Ninety-three interviews with UK scientific advisors and government officials captured their activities and perceptions during the pandemic in real time. We also examined Parliamentary Select Committee transcripts and government documents. This material was analysed for thematic content.Findings and discussion: (1) Many scientists sought guidance from policymakers about their goals, yet the COVID-19 response demonstrated the absence of a clear steer, and a tendency to change course quickly; (2) many scientists did not want to offer policy advice, but rather to provide evidence; and (3) a range of knowledge informed the UK's pandemic response: we examine which kinds were privileged, and demonstrate the absence of clarity on how government synthesised the different forms of evidence being used.Conclusions: Understanding the reasons for a lack of clarity about policy goals would help us better understand the use of science in policy. Realisation that policy goals sometimes alter rapidly would help us better understand the logistics of scientific advice. Many scientists want their evidence to inform policy rather than determine the options selected. Since the process by which evidence leads to decisions is obscure, policy cannot be said to be evidence-based.Key messagesScientific advisors need to know policy goals, but these can be obscure and changeable.Many scientists want their evidence to inform policy rather than determine the policy selected.Evidence feeds into decisions in obscure ways, so policy cannot be said to be evidence-based.'Evidence-informed' policy is a more feasible aim than 'evidence-based' policy.


This article traces the evolution of international environmental law and dialogue in the four decades from Stockholm, 1972, to Rio 20, 2012, with a focus on the changing dynamics of the discourse between developed and developing countries, and the corresponding interpretational shifts in the application of differential treatment in international environmental law — climate change law in particular. This article argues that in the first three decades of environmental diplomacy, from 1972 to 2002, the international community witnessed an exponential growth in the number and range of multilateral environmental agreements, an array of tools, techniques and practices, and a rapid expansion of differential treatment in favour of developing countries. Differential treatment in central obligations, albeit disputed from its inception, found pride of place in the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in 1997. The decade that followed, 2002 to 2012, witnessed heightened popular and political mobilization around the climate change issue. But, in response to seemingly intractable difficulties across the North-South and North-North spectrum, it was accompanied by a retreat from differential treatment in central obligations. The battle over the future (or lack thereof) of the Kyoto Protocol, and the recent developments in the climate regime — in particular the 2011 Durban Platform Decision — testify to this retreat from certain variants of differential treatment, and interpretations of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities. An analysis of these developments and the politics that gave rise to them, reveal that while the international regime can survive the erosion of certain limited forms of differential treatment, a wholesale rejection of differential treatment, and of the 'equity' concerns that animate it, would destabilize the normative core of the regime as well as render the climate regime unattractive to key players like India.


Rape is a crime that is defined as an unwanted sexual act that results in oral, vaginal, or anal penetration. Generally speaking, there are 2 major types of rape. Forcible rape involves unwanted sexual penetration obtained by the use of force or threat of force. Drug- or alcohol-facilitated rape occurs when the victim is passed out or highly intoxicated because of voluntary or involuntary consumption of alcohol or drugs. Rape can happen to boys and men as well as to girls and women but this article will focus primarily on women.


Natural, agricultural and human populations are structured, with a proportion of interactions occurring locally or within social groups rather than at random. This within-population spatial and social structure is important to the evolution of parasites but little attention has been paid to how spatial structure affects the evolution of host resistance, and as a consequence the coevolutionary outcome. We examine the evolution of resistance across a range of mixing patterns using an approximate mathematical model and stochastic simulations. As reproduction becomes increasingly local, hosts are always selected to increase resistance. More localized transmission also selects for higher resistance, but only if reproduction is also predominantly local. If the hosts disperse, lower resistance evolves as transmission becomes more local. These effects can be understood as a combination of genetic (kin) and ecological structuring on individual fitness. When hosts and parasites coevolve, local interactions select for hosts with high defence and parasites with low transmissibility and virulence. Crucially, this means that more population mixing may lead to the evolution of both fast-transmitting highly virulent parasites and reduced resistance in the host.


This is the first case report in the literature describing the long term prognosis of liver necrosis caused by TPN extravasation in an extremely preterm infant. A 26 weeks gestation preterm boy was born spontaneously with a birth weight of 1.0 kg. He had a UVC inserted soon after birth and it was used to infuse TPN from day 2. The tip of the UVC was at the junction of the left portal vein. On day 6 of life the baby deteriorated with abdominal distension, renal impairment and abnormal liver function. An ultrasound scan showed moderate ascites and a cystic lesion overlying the liver. Chemical analysis and the physical appearance of the ascetic fluid confirmed TPN leak. The manufacturer confirmed the UVC was not faulty. However and given the position of the UVC tip on x rays, the possible explanation was of chemical erosion of the liver by TPN with subsequent rupture of the liver capsule and leak inside the peritoneal cavity. Acute rupture of the portal vessels by the tip of UVC was unlikely because of the insidious onset of symptoms over days and lack of clinical signs of acute blood loss. The baby was managed conservatively and he made quick recovery. Regular liver ultrasound scans showed cyst calcification and then regression in size. It disappeared by the age of 2 years. There was no portal hypertension. Conclusion TPN related liver necrosis can follow the following pattern: cystic changes then calcification and later regression in size and disappearance.


Concrete rheology is important because it affects the workability and uniformity of fresh concrete as well as the properties of the hardened concrete. In this dissertation, new models for predicting mortar and concrete rheological properties were developed. The present study includes both experimental and modeling work. In the experimental study, mortar and concrete specimens were prepared with consideration of three factors: paste or mortar rheology, aggregate properties, and aggregate content. The aggregate properties were characterized with the uncompacted void content and friction angle. Effects of these aggregate properties on mortar and concrete rheology were studied using a Brookfield and portable IBB rheometer, respectively. Using the artificial neural network as a tool to analyze the test data, the relative degree of importance of the factors that influence mortar and concrete rheological behavior were evaluated, and the important factors were then considered in the proposed models. The experimental results indicated that aggregate with low uncompacted void content generally provided the concrete with low yield stress and viscosity, while aggregate with high friction angle generally resulted in high yield stress and viscosity. In the modeling study, concrete was considered as a two-phase material, consisting of mortar and coarse aggregate. Mortar and concrete rheological behavior was assumed mainly controlled by (1) the excess paste/mortar thickness of fine/coarse aggregate, and (2) the friction between the aggregate particles. The excess paste/mortar thickness and aggregate friction were calculated and used to develop functions that relate to mortar and concrete rheology. Statistical analyses were performed on the test data to obtain specific relationships between the concrete rheology parameters and the paste/mortar properties as well as the excess paste/mortar thickness in the concrete. The modeling results demonstrated that the predicted concrete rheological parameters had very good correlations with the measured results. It is expected that the developed models can be used not only for concrete rheology prediction but also for designing concrete mixtures with improved rheology.


Abstract This article investigates empirical connections between agriculture and child nutrition in Nepal. We augment the standard approach to explaining child nutrition outcomes by including information about household level agricultural production characteristics, including indicators of agricultural diversity. Data from the 2010/2011 Nepal Living Standards Survey (NLSS) are used in a series of regression models to explain stunting outcomes and variation in height-for-age Z-scores among 1,769 children 0–59 months of age. Results highlight the relative importance of overall agricultural yields, specific crop groups, and the consumption of own-production as factors correlated with long-term nutrition among children of different age groups. We find a small positive association between the degree of commercial market-orientation of households and child HAZ, but only among children under 24 months of age.


Hard anodized coatings of aluminum have performed their parts most effectively in the fields for instance automobiles, precision machines, textile machines or sports, leisure industries. But in order to correspond to the propulsion of omission and available use of energy, hard anodized coatings will be demanded hardness and wear resistance further. On the background we have developed on aluminum anodized coating with excellent hardness and wear resistance. This coating is made by cathode electrolytic process in 0.1 N KMnO4 aqueous solution before anodizing in sulfuric acid solution. The layer made by cathode electrolytic process is constituted of complex oxide with Mn, Al and O elements. We think that the chemical solution of porous anodic oxide film in sulfuric solution is controlled with existence of this complex oxide on porous layer of anodized coating. The results of this research will settle surely that it is very difficult to anodize for some aluminum alloy castings and aluminum alloys die castings with low coating ratio on anodized coating.


Multiple analytical and numerical models of the laser metal deposition process have been presented, but most rely on sequential solution of the energy and mass balance equations or discretization of the problem domain. Laser direct metal deposition is a complex process involving multiple interdependent processes which can be best simulated using a fully coupled mass-energy balance solution. In this work a coupled analytical–numerical solution is presented. Sub-models of the powder stream, quasi-stationary conduction in the substrate and powder assimilation into the area of the substrate above the liquidus temperature are combined. An iterative feedback loop is used to ensure mass and energy balances are maintained at the melt pool. The model is verified using Ti–6Al–4V single track deposition, produced with a coaxial nozzle and a diode laser. The model predictions of local temperature history, the track profile and microstructure scale show good agreement with the experimental results. The model is a useful industrial aid and alternative to finite element methods for selecting the parameters to use for laser direct metal deposition when separate geometric and microstructural outcomes are required.


A genetic mouse model of the bone disease myelofibrosis indicates that excessive retinoic acid signaling may be responsible. Primary myelofibrosis is a chronic disorder characterized by scarring of the bone marrow, ectopic hematopoiesis in the spleen, and anemia caused by the differentiation of abnormal blood cells. Current treatments include blood transfusions, bone marrow transplants, and pharmacological inhibition of the Jak (Janus kinase) pathway. Because this disease involves the bone marrow, which is the site for both hematopoietic and bone progenitor cells, retinoic acid (RA) signaling, a key regulator of both bone and blood cell proliferation and differentiation, may be involved. Hong et al. found that a "knock-in" mouse (SMRTmRID) with mutations in the transcriptional repressor SMRT (silencing mediator of retinoid and thyroid hormone receptor) that disrupt its ability to bind to the RA receptor (RAR) developed symptoms similar to human myelofibrosis. At 6 weeks old, the bones of SMRTmRID mice had decreased radial growth despite normal bone density and length and were more prone to fracture. Serum concentrations of osteoclast markers, the numbers of bone marrow osteoclasts, and the potential of progenitor cells to differentiate into osteoclasts in culture were also increased in these mice. By 8 months old, SMRTmRID mice exhibited a loss of bone marrow hematopoetic stem cells and an increase in hematopoiesis in the spleen and had increased bone marrow fibrotic collagen and numbers of megakaryocytes and reticular cells in their bone cavities. Co-culture of wild-type mononuclear cells with bone marrow stroma from SMRTmRID mice induced megakaryocyte differentiation, and transplanting bone marrow from SMRTmRID mice into irradiated wild-type mice was sufficient to induce fibrosis. The gene encoding the cytokine thrombopoetin (TPO), a hormone that stimulates the differentiation of megakaryocytes, contained RAR response elements in its promoter and bound directly to RAR as determined by gel-shift assays and chromatin immunoprecipitation. TPO abundance was increased in the serum and bone marrow of SMRTmRID mice, and pharmacological inhibition of RAR with an orally available drug reduced Tpo expression and reversed bone defects, suggesting that derepression of endogenous RA signaling in the bone marrow microenvironment promotes cytokine production that leads to fibrosis. S.-H. Hong, M. Dvorak-Ewell, H. Y. Stevens, G. D. Barish, G. L. Castro, R. Nofsinger, J. A. Frangos, D. Shoback, R. M. Evans, Rescue of a primary myelofibrosis model by retinoid-antagonist therapy. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 110, 18820–18825 (2013). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The vast majority of comic book publishers are not enforcing their copyrights against those that infringe by copying and distributing their comic books illegitimately. There are only three significant motivations for a copyright holder to enforce their copyrights against infringers: economic gain, distortion control and metacopyright influence. Comic book publishers have none of those motivations when it comes to their comic books. This conclusion is reached based on a finding that comic book publishers are not primarily in the business of selling comic books. While they do sell comic books, a study of their finances shows that the majority of funds are made through licensing their works for consumer products and derivative entertainment programs. Therefore, it is the illegitimate copying and distribution of these additional products that comic book publishers are incentivized to prevent. In addition, the wholesale copying of comic books runs no risk of distortion. In discussing the motivations of the comic book publishing industry, this paper also compares their motivations to the motivations of the book and music industries, thereby contrasting the comic book industry to other industries with similar levels of infringement. It clarifies who holds the rights in the comic book industry: the comic book publishers, not the creative talent that generates comic books, hold the copyrights to comic books and comic book characters. Finally, this paper suggests that despite lacking enforcement motivations, comic book publishers should create alternatives to infringement in order to guide infringers back to legitimate uses, and also to profit thereby.


The historiography on protection in the nineteenth-century British Empire often assumes that British humanitarians were the progenitors of protection schemes. In contrast, this article argues that the position of Protector or Guardian for slaves and Indigenous peoples in the British Empire drew on Spanish, Dutch, and French legal precedents. The legal protections and slave codes operative in these European colonies are compared to British colonial territories, where there was no imperial slave code and no clear status of slaves at common law. Drawing on debates in the House of Commons, Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry, and the published work of abolitionists and anti-slavery societies, the article examines how the pressure for amelioration in the British Empire coincided with the acquisition of new colonies that offered ready-made models for slave protection. British reformers combined their calls for greater protection for slaves with their extant knowledge of European protective regimes.


Smart cities will need collections of buildings that are responsive to the variation in renewable energy generation. However, an unprecedented level of renewable energy being added to the power grid compounds the level of uncertainties in making decisions for reliable grid operation. Making autonomous decisions regarding demand management requires consideration of uncertainty in the information available for planning and executing operations. Thus, this paper aims to quantitatively analyze the performances of supervisory controllers for multiple grid-integrative buildings with thermal energy storage depending on the quality of information available. Day-ahead planning and real-time model predictive controllers were developed and compared across 50 validation scenarios when given perfect information, deterministic forecasts, and stochastic forecasts. Despite the relatively large uncertainty in the stochastic forecasts, marked improvements were observed when a stochastic optimization was solved for both the day-ahead and real-time problems. This observation underscores the need for continued development in the area of stochastic control and decision-making for future grid-interactive buildings and improved energy management of smart cities.


Summary.  Experimentation is a powerful methodology that enables scientists to establish causal claims empirically. However, one important criticism is that experiments merely provide a black box view of causality and fail to identify causal mechanisms. Specifically, critics argue that, although experiments can identify average causal effects, they cannot explain the process through which such effects come about. If true, this represents a serious limitation of experimentation, especially for social and medical science research that strives to identify causal mechanisms. We consider several experimental designs that help to identify average natural indirect effects. Some of these designs require the perfect manipulation of an intermediate variable, whereas others can be used even when only imperfect manipulation is possible. We use recent social science experiments to illustrate the key ideas that underlie each of the designs proposed.


In 1944 Henry Tillotson brings his new wife, Margaret, home to his farmhouse in the English countryside. Margaret is a strange, unpleasant woman, determined, it seems, to make Henry's life miserable. 'Poor Henry!' say his friends, as they visit at weekends and holidays. 'What an awful life he has!' But Henry is not at all the sad and disappointed man we might expect him to be. He manages to enjoy life, and indeed, has quite a lot of fun, one way and another ...Mary Wesley's story takes a sharp but light-hearted look at love, sex, and marriage - and the things people will do to get what they want.


We describe the preparation of mixed metal oxide nanoparticles of a desirable composition and their transformation to the crystalline solids ZrxTi1−xO2 (0.0 ≤ x ≤ 1.0) after heat treatment. The correlation analysis between the size of the nucleus, the crystalline phase and the elemental composition of the solid is presented. Mixed metal oxide zirconium–titanium-oxo-alkoxy (ZTOA) nanoparticles of different elemental compositions 0 ≤ x = CZr/(CZr + CTi) ≤ 1 were prepared via the sol–gel method in a reactor by rapid micromixing of n-propanol fluids containing the precursors and water. The structural transformation of the nanoparticles takes place in two temperature ranges, 210–250 °C and 380–680 °C, which sensitively depends on the elemental composition. In the range 0.3 ≤ x ≤ 0.6, stable ZTOA nanoparticles with a radius of 2.1 ± 0.05 nm appeared at the hydrolysis ratio H ≤ 1.5. The heat treatment results in a single orthorhombic ZrxTi1−xO2 phase. The crystallisation onset temperature was the highest in this range of x, attaining 680 °C at x = 0.5. In the range 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.2, the particle radius decreased to 1.6 nm for pure titanium-oxo-alkoxy nuclei (TOA, x = 0); their heat treatment resulted in a single TiO2 anatase phase. In the range 0.7 ≤ x ≤ 1, the particle radius decreased to 1.8 nm for pure zirconium-oxo-alkoxy nuclei (ZOA, x = 1); their heat treatment resulted in mixed monoclinic and tetragonal ZrO2 phases. The crystalline cell parameters of the observed phases underwent a continuous variation with x. TEM images evidenced the nanoporous structure of submicronic orthorhombic ZrxTi1−xO2 monocrystals with a mean pore size of about that of the ZTOA nanoparticles.


A new system for the detection and tracking of moving objects is presented. The system can be used to analyze image sequences taken either by a static camera or by a camera mounted on a moving vehicle. The system provides information about obstacles and relative motions for the assisted or autonomous navigation, and is based on a fast image motion estimation performed with a multi-scale/multiwindow algorithm able to compute a reliable optical flow even for large displacements between successive frames. When the image motion has been obtained, regions of motion discontinuity can be identified. This technique allows a fast but sufficiently precise detection and localization of moving objects. The detected objects are tracked by using "moving snakes", i.e. elastic contours initialized at the boundaries of the detected regions and driven in the successive frames by the first order approximation of the region motion, by a force generated by intensity edges and by an elastic force. A series of tests on different kinds of image sequences is presented, and the results obtained show that this approach provides a good segmentation of moving objects in different conditions.


The about 400 million individuals worldwide suffering from a hereditary deficiency of the enzyme glucose‐6‐phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) may experience different degrees of haemolytic anaemia. Haemoglobin is present in very high concentrations in the erythrocyte cytoplasm, at risk of falling out of solution if the internal environment or the haemoglobin itself is changed. G6PD is a crucial enzyme producing reduced glutathione in the erythrocyte cytoplasm for the purpose of protecting haemoglobin against oxidative damage. The presence of unopposed oxidizing agents leading to oxidation of the sulfhydryl bridges between parts of the haemoglobin molecule decrease the solubility of haemoglobin, leading to precipitations called Heinz bodies. The laboratory investigation of G6PD deficiency is commonly done by a quantitative spectrophotometric analysis or by a rapid fluorescent spot test detecting the generation of NADPH from NADP. Genetic tests based on polymerase chain reaction detect specific mutations and may be used for population screening, family studies, or prenatal diagnosis.


Rigidity in wages has long been thought to impede the functioning of labor markets. One recent strand of the research on wage flexibility in the United States and elsewhere has focused on the possibility of downward nominal wage rigidity and what implications such rigidity might have for the macroeconomy at low levels of inflation. The Great Recession of 2008-09, during which the unemployment rate topped 10 percent and price deflation was at times seen as a distinct possibility, along with the subsequent slow recovery and persistently low inflation, has added to the relevance of this line of inquiry. In this paper, we use establishment-level data from a nationally representative establishment-based compensation survey collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to investigate the extent to which downward nominal wage rigidity is present in U.S. labor markets. We use several distinct methods proposed in the literature to test for downward nominal wage rigidity, and to assess whether such rigidity is more severe at low rates of inflation and in the presence of negative economic shocks than in more normal economic times. Like earlier studies, we find evidence of a significant amount of downward nominal wage rigidity in the United States. We find no evidence that the high degree of labor market distress during the Great Recession reduced the amount of downward nominal wage rigidity and some evidence that operative rigidity may have increased during that period.


Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of compounds consisting of metal ions or clusters coordinated to organic ligands in porous structure forms. MOFs have been proposed in use for gas adsorption, purification, and separation applications. This work combines MOFs with 3D printing technologies, in which 3D printed plastics serve as a mechanical structural support for MOFs powder, in order to realize a component design for gas adsorption. The objective of the thesis is to understand the gas adsorption behavior of MIL-101 (Cr) MOF coated on 3D printed PETG, a glycol modified version of polyethylene terephthalate, through a combined experimental and modeling study. The specific goals are: (1) synthesis of MIL-101 (Cr) MOFs; (2) nitrogen gas adsorption measurements and microstructure and phase characterization of the MOFs; (3) design and 3D printing of porous PETG substrate structures; (4) deposition of MOFs coating on the PETG substrates; and (5) Monte Carlo (MC) modeling of sorption isotherms of nitrogen and carbon dioxide in the MOFs.The results show that pure MIL-101 (Cr) MOFs were successfully synthesized, as confirmed by the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images and X-ray diffrac- tion (XRD), which are consistent with literature data. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area measurement shows that the MOFs samples have a high cover- age of nitrogen. The specific surface area of a typical MIL-101 (Cr) MOFs sample is 2716.83 m2/g. MIL-101 (Cr) also shows good uptake at low pressures in experimental tests for nitrogen adsorption. For the PETG substrate, disk-shape plastic samples with a controlled pore morphology were designed and fabricated using the fused de- position modeling (FDM) process. MOFs were coated on the PETG substrates using a layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly approach, up to 30 layers. The MOFs coating layer thicknesses increase with the number of deposition layers. The computational model illustrates that the MOFs show increased outputs in adsorption of nitrogen as pres- sure increases, similar to the trend observed in the adsorption experiment. The model also shows promising results for carbon dioxide uptake at low pressures, and hence the developed MOFs based components would serve as a viable candidate in gas adsorption applications.


The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is the largest federal antipoverty program in the United States and garners almost universal bipartisan support from politicians, legal scholars, and other commentators. However, assessments of the EITC missed an imperative perspective: that of EITC recipients themselves. Past work relies on largely unconfirmed assumptions about the behaviors and needs of low-income families. This Article provides a novel assessment of the EITC based on original data obtained directly from 194 EITC recipients through in-depth qualitative interviews. The findings are troubling: They show that while the EITC has important advantages over welfare, which it has largely replaced, it fails as a safety net for low-income families. The problem is that the EITC provides a large windfall to families only once per year, during tax refund season. However, low-income families are particularly vulnerable to financial shocks and instability. Not surprisingly, such events rarely coincide with tax refund season. Without a fix, the EITC leaves many families on the brink of financial collapse. In the years to come, many more low-income families may file for bankruptcy or become homeless. Despite this grim outlook, this Article suggests a straightforward and promising new way to distribute the EITC that maintains the program's advantages while also providing a more secure safety net for low-income families in times of financial shock and instability.


The technology for the Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) of pure diamond coatings on rotating cutting tools has developed rapidly during the past several years. Tungsten Carbide round tools are regularly being coated with continuous, well adherent, diamond films that improve machining performance and increase tool lifetimes in composite materials by 15 to 30 times over uncoated tools. This paper reveals the process methods involved in CVD diamond film growth on tungsten carbide tool surfaces and the unique properties of diamond thin films. The surface of the diamond films can be controlled to create a faceted cutting edge that is ideally suited to machining abrasive composite materials and produces superior surface finishes. Application materials for diamond coated tools include carbon fiber reinforced composites, fiber reinforced plastics, green ceramics, advanced fiberglass structures and aluminum metal matrix composites.


This article examines what it means to be an academic in the knowledge
economy, using auto-ethnographic writing or storytelling as its
starting point. Although academic mobility has been researched for
about a decade, deep listening and deep reading in the context of ethnography
have not been utilised in analysing what it means to move in
this global space. To conduct this exercise, fellows from the European
Union-funded Universities in the Knowledge Economy project who
were all mobile academics, were invited to participate in ethnographic
writing workshops and explore the personal, subjective elements of
narrating their experiences of being mobile and being migrants. I aim
to not only present the narratives of colleagues who populate the
global knowledge economy but also analyse them and ask if certain
ideal forms of narrative habitus support academic mobility.


The efficiency of water soluble crosslinked cationic polymers (CCP) in the fixation of dissolved and colloidal substances (DCS) onto fibers was investigated. Two different types of CCP were synthesized by dispersion polymerization of acrylamide (AAm) and diallyldimethylammonium chloride (DADMAC), with N,N'-methylene-bis-acrylamide (MBA) as a crosslinker. Relative turbidity, zeta potential and average diameter of the colloidal particles were determined to monitor their performance in DCS fixation. The results indicated that both polymers were able to fix a maximum amount of DCS particles onto fibers around a zero zeta potential, most probably clue to a patch-type flocculation mechanism. The conclusion reached was that flocculation was significant while the particles still had a negative zeta potential. The aggregation mechanism of a fiber-free DCS suspension occurred as Charge neutralisation, changed, by the addition of 10 mM NaCl to a patch-type mechanism. The CCPI consumption necessary to attain a maximum DCS removal was lower than the CCP2 consumption, as ascribed to the higher charge density and higher molecular mass of this polymer. The experiments performed on a quartz crystal microbalance equipment with dissipation (QCM-D) showed that the adsorbed charge and layer thickness of the polymers significantly affected fixation of the DCS particles onto the pre-adsorbed polymer layers on the SiO2 surface.


The overarching objective of the original article was to apply a well-defined set of measures in a systematic and objective way to evaluate the extent of scientific progress within a given research program. The measures chosen were identified and defined by major philosophers of science. These measures were then applied to the empirical studies on the diffusion of war. Starr and Siverson claim to find problems in my analysis that undermined the conclusions I reach. This reply argues that each of their claims is unfounded. Moreover, they fail to refute the conclusion that the marginal progressiveness of their program is a significant reason for reduced interest in this topic.


In a dynamic labor market worker-firm matches dissolve frequently causing workers to separate and firms to look for replacements. A separation may be initiated by the worker (a quit) or the firm (a layoff), or may result from a joint decision. A dissolution of a worker-firm match may be inefficient if it can be prevented by wage renegotiation. In this paper we study worker separations in the Dutch labor market. From an analysis of matched worker-firm data we conclude that both quits and layoffs are less likely to occur in high quality matches. We also find that workers with a high propensity to quit are offered higher wages to prevent them to quit. Similarly, workers with a high layoff probability give up some of their wage to prevent them from being laid-off. Despite these wage renegotiations some inefficiency in separations remains. However, there is a clear difference between quits and layoffs. Whereas inefficient quits are rare, inefficient layoffs occur frequently. These phenomena may be related to downward wage rigidity. While it is easy to renegotiate higher wages to prevent quits, it is much more difficult to renegotiate lower wages to prevent layoffs even if that would overall be beneficial to the workers involved.


ABSTRACT Few studies have compared the cobas HPV test to the Aptima HPV assay (AHPV) and the Aptima HPV 16 18/45 genotype assay (AHPV GT) for high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) detection, clinical performance in detecting cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 (CIN2) or more severe (CIN2+) diagnoses, and risk stratification by partial HPV genotyping. The cobas HPV test is a DNA test that separately and concurrently detects HPV16, HPV18, and a pool of 12 other hrHPV types. AHPV is an RNA test for a pool of 14 hrHPV genotypes, and AHPV GT is an RNA test run on AHPV-positive results to detect HPV16 separately from HPV18 and HPV45, which are detected together. In a population of patients (n = 988) referred for colposcopy because of a cervical Pap cytology result of atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US), a cervical scrape specimen was taken, placed into a ThinPrep Pap test vial containing PreservCyt liquid cytology medium, and tested in a blinded fashion with cobas and AHPV and with AHPV GT for AHPV-positive results. The final diagnoses were based on a consensus panel review of the biopsy specimen histology. AHPV and cobas were equally sensitive for CIN2+ diagnoses (89.4% each; P = 1.000), and AHPV was more specific than cobas (63.1% versus 59.3%; P ≤ 0.001). The percent total agreement, percent positive agreement, and kappa value were 90.9%, 81.1%, and 0.815, respectively. Risk stratification using partial HPV genotyping was similar for the two assays. AHPV and AHPV GT had similar sensitivity and risk stratification to cobas HPV, but they were more specific than cobas HPV.


Iran's rapid industrialization progress has necessitated the development of cities and townships adjacent to the industrial complexes. The source of energy for these townships is similar to the rest of the country, and it is basically oil and natural gas.

Iran is a country rich in oil, natural gas, and solar energy, and the life style of its people -- especially the majority of those drawn to these industrial towns -- is not highly energy dependent. To save on fossil fuel consumption, the country has already launched the programs to utilize other sources of energy, namely nuclear, geothermal, and solar.

Development of a solar town whose total energy requirements for heating, cooling, cooking, communication, local transportation, etc., are met by solar energy, sky radiation, and other similar sources, is suggested for the first time and is a plan which can have a long-range fuel saving and ecological significance. In this solar community no hydrocarbon fuels, except for those produced through sewage and agricultural waste conversions, are to be used.


Investigating potential dependencies in data and their effect on future business developments can help experts to prevent misestimations of risks and chances. This makes correlation a highly important factor in risk analysis tasks. Previous research on correlation in uncertain data management addressed foremost the handling of dependencies between discrete rather than continuous distributions. Also, none of the existing approaches provides a clear method for extracting correlation structures from data and introducing assumptions about correlation to independently represented data. To enable risk analysis under correlation assumptions, we use an approximation technique based on copula functions. This technique enables analysts to introduce arbitrary correlation structures between arbitrary distributions and calculate relevant measures over thus correlated data. The correlation information can either be extracted at runtime from historic data or be accessed from a parametrically precomputed structure. We discuss the construction, application and querying of approximate correlation representations for different analysis tasks. Our experiments demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed approach, and point out several possibilities for optimization.


The study estimates technical, allocative and economic inefficiencies in carrot production by employing the stochastic production frontier approach and the duality theory. The impact of determinants of technical, al locative and economic inefficiencies has also been addressed. Carrot production is concentrated in two districts, Sheikhupura and Kasur in Pakistan's Punjab, and this study is based on data collected from these two districts. Farmers are, respectively 54, 2I and 63 per cent technically, allocatively and economically inefficient. Our results reveal that a large potential exists that can be explored to increase the income of vegetal* farmers in the study area. The elimination of technical and economic inefficiencies will generate an amount of 409.9 and 594.5 million rupees per year, respectively, in the province. Education, farming experience and average distance from input-output markets are found to be highly significant in order to improve technical, allocative and economic efficiency, indicating that investment on education and improve-ment of physical infrastructure (i.e., construction of roads) are the most critical areas that can help to eliminate inefficiencies in carrot production. This implies that investment in these sectors could play a critical role in expanding the production of carrots and to improve farm income by improving resource use efficiency in carrot production.


: The construction industry suffers from declining productivity and lack of trust between stakeholders and among the public. Increasing technical, regulatory, environmental and ethical challenges face the sector and necessitate a new type of leader. Authentic leadership is a relatively new construct that focuses on a leader demonstrating self-awareness, relational transparency, an internalized ethical and moral perspective and balanced processing. This study uses the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire to measure construction superintendent's levels of authentic leadership and compares them to effectiveness ratings. There is a correlation between higher authentic leadership scores and effectiveness and this study concludes that authentic leaders are more effective superintendents.


The historical simultaneity of cinema's emergence as a mass medium and the Bolshevik revolution virtually determined that the new regime would appropriate film as a key weapon of mass persuasion. Lenin's famous dictum that "for us the most important of all arts is the cinema" captures the ambition to appropriate all means available, especially modern ones, to effect a programme of sociopolitical engineering. It does not, however, ipso facto mean that Bolshevism played a pioneering and unique role in manipulation of the moving picture. Lenin made rather a confession of faith, by itself entirely derivative and unexceptional, in the power of film to inform and persuade. His statement actually betrayed Russia's relative backwardness, for he projected for Bolshevism what had already been demonstrated under capitalism. Equally noteworthy is that he, no less than Stalin, who later intervened systematically in film production, had almost no appreciation of cinema as art, that is, as a medium of creative expression. Both viewed it in purely utilitarian terms, the former having scant sensibility for the fictional feature film and the latter preoccupied with word more than image and increasingly unwilling or unable to distinguish fictional constructions from reality. Their belief in cinema's enormous public power was expressed primarily, especially in the latter case, through mania for control.(1) Since Soviet cinema, even more than that of Nazi Germany, arguably provides a case sui generis for state domination of the medium, its historiography has been periodized and heavily contoured by political developments. The relative ideological and economic freedom of the 1920s supported a pluralistic film culture, remembered for the avant-garde and revolutionary classics of Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Dovzhenko et al. After the first Party Conference on Cinema in 1928 the film industry suffered progressive economic and artistic decline, being consigned by the tenets of Socialist Realism (reality envisioned in terms of its "revolutionary development") and the Stalin-cult of servility and artistic banality until the 1950s. A quantitative and qualitative revival began under Khrushchev and continued through the late 1960s. The conservatism of the Brezhnev era, while not as suffocating as Stalinism, meant general stagnation as the state prevented release of the more enterprising artistic projects. Only with glasnost in the 1980s did cinema again enjoy freedom comparable to that of the 1920s. The institutional and aesthetic form of Soviet cinema, as well as its ideological thrust, cannot be understood without reference to politics, especially the ambitions of Lenin and Stalin. Yet the medium also respected other dictates, some artistic and theoretical, some economic and some technical. It is in exploration of these that the recent spate of publications on Soviet cinema proves most illuminating and challenges aspects of the conventional historiography. Even before the dramatic changes leading to the dissolution of the former Soviet Union stimulated rethinking of the Soviet experience, new methodologies in social and cultural history prompted revisionism. Interdisciplinary interest in film, drawing attention to marketing strategies, popular as well as critical reception, international trade patterns, motion picture financing, the paradigms of genre cinema and the studio system, began to chip away at traditional interpretations. In conjunction with the recent opening of archives and unprecedented dialogue between former Soviet scholars and the west, these approaches are generating fresh perspectives on Soviet cinema. Three of the five books considered here, two of which belong to a new series from Routledge, bring together papers read to international and interdisciplinary conferences at which former Soviet scholars were represented. Historians, political scientists, art historians, filmmakers, and scholars of literature and film theory present topics ranging from detailed formal analyses of specific motion pictures to interpretive readings of periods and genres. …


During the 19 th to early 20 th centuries, when "Egyptomania" swept the western world, swathes of travelers and tourists ventured to Egypt to indulge their obsessive interest in the land of the Nile. These early travelers enjoyed access to Egypt's ancient past to an extent unimaginable today, and many returned with mummy souvenirs that now fill museum collections around the globe. An examination of the many personal travelogues published in this period provides insight into Victorian "mummymania" and the lengths to which early travelers often went to procure a mummy as a memento of their time spent in the land of the Nile. DOI:10.2458/azu_jaei_v09i1_baber


This case study will give an example of how to work together in the building process with a joint ambition. The role of the architect will be in focus and will be described in the perspective of developing the future role. In this project a housing area with 200 apartments was planned to be built near Helsingborg in the south of Sweden by Helsingborgshem, the municipal housing firm. The actors involved started up the process with several meetings and with a precise goal concerning the costs of producing each square meter. The involved actors such as: The local authorities, the architects, the caretaker, the construction firm and representatives for the future tenants worked together in the early stages at workshops and meetings. In these early discussions the knowledge and experience from each part were used in favour for the planning process. The role of the architect in this process is interesting because of the possibilities to develop the future role. When involving the user in the building process several skills are required. The pedagogical role as well as good communication skills can be useful. Interpretation is also needed when the experts are using all the difficult terms when formulating the plans for the product. To be more responsible of the economical frames as well as keeping up the collaborative work is a challenge. More time and efforts in the early stages can be an investment with good results. Using the knowledge from the group in a safe atmosphere may also have a positive effect on the final product. The chance to create the "right product" with a higher constructability can also give good economical effects. The winners are the actors involved, the end-users and future tenants because of the possibilities to lower the rent. This case study will describe the actors involved, their common goal and their way of working together. It will also discuss the role of the architect and the possibilities to learn from this case study. The attitudes towards the different roles are shaped during the time of education. In which direction is the Swedish architectural education going? Does it support the collaborative process found in this case study?


This thesis is about the acquisition and diffusion of imported technology. Writers in the field of technology development in developing countries have always recognised that technical progress depends on the diffusion of imported technology and its applications to the provision of products and processes (Rosemberg, 1982). Despite the massive importation of technology by Malaysian companies, little effort has been made to study and understand the diffusion system in local companies. This study analyses: The problems associated with the acquisition of technology, highlighting the technology strategies adopted by the suppliers of technology; the diffusion pattern and key characteristics of the diffusion process; and major factors affecting the diffusion of technology. The policy implications are examined and the framework to manage the diffusion process within the enterprises is suggested. The findings indicated that the diffusion process is not one of passive acceptance but involves systematic efforts to acquire and diffuse the imported technology. A strong system of diffusion in companies had enabled a rapid diffusion of imported technology resulting in higher levels of technical capability. On the other hand, weakness in the company's diffusion system led to limited diffusion and slow technical progress. Characteristics of diffusion system are analysed and discussed extensively. The thesis attempts to develop the idea of `in-house system of diffusion' associated with the acquisition and development of imported technology. It argues for the development ofa stronger theoretical framework on the diffusion and development of technology particularly in countries like Malaysia which relies extensively on the importation of foreign technology.


AbstractThe human microbiome is an intriguing potentially modifiable risk factor in our arsenal against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the leading infectious disease killer globally. Previous studies have shown associations between the human microbiome and pulmonary disease states; however, etiological links between the microbiome and tuberculosis (TB) infection or disease remain unclear. Immunomodulatory roles of the microbiome may prove to be a critical asset in the host response against TB, including in preventing TB infection, reducing progression from latency, mitigating disease severity, and lowering the incidence of drug resistance and coinfections. This review examined the associations between TB and the gut and lung microbiome. Eight studies were identified through a PubMed database search, including one animal study (N = 1), case report (N = 1), and case-control studies (N = 6). TB infection and disease were associated with reduced gastrointestinal microbial diversity in a murine model and human case report. Sputum microbial diversity differed by TB status in case-control studies, although some reported heterogeneous findings. Current evidence suggests that the gut and lung microbiome are associated with TB infection and disease. However, as studies are limited, etiological and longitudinal research is needed to determine clinical relevance.


The elderly abuse in a family is one of the most challenging problems in a society. The present study aims to assess the prevalence of elderly abuse in the family environment of JureliTole of Bakaiya Rural Municipality. The study also presents various risk factors that influence the prevalence of Elderly abuse. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out among 103 elders taken from household survey by using census method. The data were collected through a face-to-face structured interview schedule. The descriptive and regression analysis of the collected data showed that the prevalence of elderly abuse was 46.6% in the study population. This study measured significant association (p<0.05) of overall abuse against the elder with only two socio-demographic variables (literacy status and health status) among the variables (gender, age groups, living with or without spouse, literacy status, health status, dependency status, and income level). The results showed that the elders with/without spouse had the highest odds ratio to be abused (2.19 times) followed by gender (1.64 times), and health status (1.25 times). Although this study found lower prevalence than many previous studies, it is still significant and needs to be prevented. Based on the study, it can be said that living without a spouse, with poor health, and being female are the major predictive descriptors for elderly abuse.The policies and programs are needed for the prevention of elderly abuse which may require collective action from social, health and justice