Manganese mineral and ore occurrences, the associated underlying ophiolitic rocks of tholeiitic composition of Aptian-Maastrichtian and the overlying sediments of Jurassic-Cretaceous age were sampled from lasbela area and their field characteristics were noted. Samples collected from Manganese mineralization zones and the associated rocks from nine localities, namely khrrarri Dhora, Gecheri Dhora, Gadani Ridge, Dadi Dhora, Bhampani Dhora, Draoari Dhora, Porat Dhora, Siro Dhora and Sanjro Dhora, representing to southern part of the Axial Belt were investigated petrologically, minerlogically and geochemically.

The above investigations of the underlying the noleitic pillow basalt was considered as the host rock of manganese ores and minerals and the overlying pelagic sediments were carried to determine the degree of correspondence in the ophiolitic rocks, mineralized zones and the overlying sediments having indications of metalliferous ore deposit developments of varying magnitudes.

The occurrence of cryptocrystalline to crystalline silica, dolomite, calcite and ferruginous constituents, serpentines etc. were considered to indicate the stages of mineralogical alterations and replacement variable elevated temperatures. The temperature distribution and pH controls in the localities during mineralization and then after have been discussed in the light of mineral assemblages identified through X-ray analyses.

The mineralogical associations classified as main, associated and accessory manganese minerals are discussed to elaborate the paragenetic sequence of the minerals available in the mineralized zones. The possible geological conditions which favoured the formation of minerals of high and low temperatures have also been anticipated.

Selected major, minor and trace elements (Si, Al, Fe, Ca, Mg, Na, K, Mn, Ti, Cr, Ni, Co, Cu, Zn, Ba, Zr, Li, Sr and Pb) in manganese ores, minerals and host rocks were quantitatively estimated to discuss and elaborate the possible degrees of geochemical correspondence among the element concentrations and the genesis of the minerals. The differential leaching and precipitation of the elements estimated were considered to facilitate the study of possible environments of mineralization together with the effects of tectonics and fumarolic actions at the sea bottom. The Si and Ti concentrations in the samples under study have been discussed to evaluate the possible variations in the geochemical parameters which gave rise to the concentrations of the manganese ores and minerals. The relationship in the characteristics of the photolytic orcks of the localities under study with that of Mid Oxceanic Ridge Basalt (MORB) and the possibilities of hydrothermal origin of the minerals identified have been described. The low concentration of Ni Co, Cu and Zn and low Si/Al ratio also appear to indicate the similarities of manganese deposits of Lasbela with that of MORB and the dominance of hydrothermal environment during mineralization. The wide range in Ti and Si concentrations in the ores and minerals have been discussed in the light of variations in temperature, hydrostatic pressure and differential leaching at the sea bottom due to interactions in pelagic sediments, fumarolic actions and the ophiolites.

The higher unexpected concentration of Li in the parent rocks and the formation of lithiophorite were considered due to possible hydrothermal solution action during mineralization.


Purpose: Nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (Nampt) regulates intracellular NAD+ pool and is highly expressed in a number of malignancies. FK866, a selective inhibitor of Nampt, depletes intracellular NAD+ levels, thereby blocking cellular metabolism and triggering sensitization to other drugs and cell death. Here we characterized the antitumor effects of Nampt inhibition in Waldenström macroglobulinemia. Experimental Design: We investigated Nampt role in MW cells using both mRNA and protein expression analyses. We have also used loss-of-function approaches to investigate the growth and survival effects of Nampt on MW cells and further tested the anti-MW activity of dual Nampt and BTK inhibition in vitro and in vivo. Results: We found that Waldenström macroglobulinemia cells exhibit high levels of Nampt compared with normal B cells. Loss of function studies suggested a potential oncogenic role of Nampt in Waldenström macroglobulinemia cells, and BTK-inhibitor ibrutinib and FK866 resulted in a significant and synergistic anti-Waldenström macroglobulinemia cell death, regardless of MYD88 and CXCR4 mutational status. Cell death was associated with: (i) activation of caspase-3, PARP and downregulation of Mcl-1, (ii) enhanced intracellular ATP and NAD+ depletion, (iii) inhibition of NF-κB signaling, and (iv) inhibition of multiple prosurvival signaling pathways. In a murine xenograft Waldenström macroglobulinemia model, low-dose combination FK866 and ibrutinib is well tolerated, significantly inhibits tumor growth, and prolongs host survival. Conclusions: Our results show intracellular NAD+ level as crucial for proliferation and survival of Waldenström macroglobulinemia cells, and provides the mechanistic preclinical rationale for targeting Nampt, either alone or with Ibrutinib, to overcome drug resistance and improve patient outcome in Waldenström macroglobulinemia. Clin Cancer Res; 22(24); 6099–109. ©2016 AACR.


Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is one of the most common viral pathogens causing clinical disease in liver transplant recipients, and contributing to substantial morbidity and occasional mortality. CMV causes febrile illness often accompanied by bone marrow suppression, and in some cases, invades tissues including the transplanted liver allograft. In addition, CMV has been significantly associated with an increased predisposition to acute and chronic allograft rejection, accelerated hepatitis C recurrence, and other opportunistic infections, as well as reduced overall patient and allograft survival. To negate the adverse effects of CMV infection on transplant outcome, its prevention, whether through antiviral prophylaxis or preemptive therapy, is an essential component to the management of liver transplant recipients. Two recently updated guidelines have suggested that antiviral prophylaxis or preemptive therapy are similarly effective in preventing CMV disease in modest-risk CMV-seropositive liver transplant recipients, while antiviral prophylaxis is the preferred strategy over preemptive therapy for the prevention of CMV disease in high-risk recipients [CMV-seronegative recipients of liver allografts from CMV-seropositive donors (D+/R-)]. However, antiviral prophylaxis has only delayed the onset of CMV disease in many CMV D+/R- liver transplant recipients, and such occurrence of late-onset CMV disease was significantly associated with increased all-cause and infection-related mortality after liver transplantation. Therefore, a search for better strategies for prevention, such as prolonged duration of antiviral prophylaxis, a hybrid approach (antiviral prophylaxis followed by preemptive therapy), or the use of immunologic measures to guide antiviral prophylaxis has been suggested to prevent late-onset CMV disease. The standard treatment of CMV disease consists of intravenous ganciclovir or oral valganciclovir, and if feasible, reduction in pharmacologic immunosuppression. In one clinical trial, oral valganciclovir was as effective as intravenous ganciclovir for the treatment of mild to moderate CMV disease in solid organ (including liver) transplant recipients. The aim of this article is to provide a state-of-the art review of the epidemiology, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of CMV infection and disease after liver transplantation.


With the highest female illiteracy rate in China (2000 national census), the Dongxiang Muslim community in northwest China shows the most striking male-female gender hierarchy among all Muslim nationalities in northwest China. This paper explains how local Islamic culture–jiaopai and menhuan--and the distinction made between Dongxiang (minority) and Han (majority) identity devalue women and restrict their mobility. Specifically, Dongxiang people are divided into different Islamic sects (jiaopai and menhuan or jiaomen), such as Beizhuang, Humen, and Santai. Most of them hold to their own sects and demonstrate negative evaluation of other jiaomen, so inter-jiaomen marriages are always forbidden. Women are the symbolic carrier of the jiaomen to which they belong, as can be seen in the distinctive head scarf (gaitou) women wear which signifies a given religious membership. To prevent their women from marrying out of the jiaomen and ensure integrity of the menhuan population, Dongxiang men constrain their women's mobility. Gender also marks the ethnic boundary between Han Chinese (majority) and Dongxiang Muslim (minority) relations, legitimized by patriarchal interpretations of the holy scriptures which restrict women in the name of Allah. The paper argues that contemporary gender hierarchies in the Dongxiang community are not primarily moulded by Islam but by the cultural practices of a patriarchal society. Keywords: China, female illiteracy, gender hierarchy, identity, Islam, patriarchal society


Background to the debate: Demographic surveillance—the process of monitoring births, deaths, causes of deaths, and migration in a population over time—is one of the cornerstones of public health research, particularly in investigating and tackling health disparities. An international network of demographic surveillance systems (DSS) now operates, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Thirty-eight DSS sites are coordinated by the International Network for the Continuous Demographic Evaluation of Populations and Their Health (INDEPTH). In this debate, Daniel Chandramohan and colleagues argue that DSS data in the INDEPTH database should be made available to all researchers worldwide, not just to those within the INDEPTH Network. Basia Żaba and colleagues argue that the major obstacles to DSS sites sharing data are technical, managerial, and financial rather than proprietorial concerns about analysis and publication. This debate is further discussed in this month's Editorial.


Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) is a rare cause of acute coronary syndrome or sudden cardiac death. Initial reports on this condition were scarce as they were based on postmortem examination of fatal cases. Currently, the clinical recognition of SCAD has increased as coronary angiography is utilised frequently in the clinical evaluation of patients with acute coronary syndromes. Moreover, intracoronary imaging techniques such as intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT), which provide detailed morphological information on coronary lesions and on the location of dissection planes between the different layers of the arterial wall, have enabled a more detailed clinical assessment of SCAD. Furthermore, non-invasive coronary angiography by multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) has been used for longitudinal follow-up evaluation of patients with SCAD.

The clinical presentation of SCAD depends on the extent and the flow limiting severity of the coronary dissection, and ranges from asymptomatic to unstable angina, acute myocardial infarction, and ventricular arrhythmias to sudden cardiac death. As several diseases and conditions have been associated with SCAD it therefore probably constitutes a heterogeneous entity.

The use of coronary stents represented a breakthrough in the management of iatrogenic coronary dissections occurring during percutaneous interventions. However, in SCAD their application should be balanced against the expected outcome after a spontaneous natural course of this condition, because coronary stenting may end up in a 'full metallic jacket' covering of a long segment of the coronary artery. Current insights into the aetiology, pathogenesis, diagnostic imaging and therapeutic management of SCAD are reviewed.

Coronary artery dissection can be primary or secondary. Primary dissections occur spontaneously whereas secondary dissections occur as an extension from aortic root dissection or following an insult as a consequence of coronary angiography, coronary intervention, cardiac surgery or chest trauma.

Dissection of the coronary artery results in separation of the …


This article explores Weber's notions of status and power in societies that are increasingly organized via digital networks. It draws on a community study conducted in a former coal-mining town in the United Kingdom. The policy background is the UK's Digital by Default agenda, which seeks to make online services the primary form of service access and transaction. In the context of a digitally organized society, a person's status is created through his or her ability to provide certain status markers to authenticate who they are. Status is created through a person's file, and those lacking an online profile become thin-filed and therefore excluded from many online services. The article argues that digital authentication is a feature of the formation of status in a digitally organized society. Without online system files, individuals lack the power to access public services, banks, credit unions, and e-commerce, and they feel a lack of social honor because of their low authentication status.


Objectives: Foot and ankle problems are common complications in rheumatoid arthritis disease. Gait pattern such as normal foot and ankle rocker is impaired in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Rocker sole as an external shoe modification is commonly prescribed in this pathology. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of rocker shoe on vertical ground reaction force parameters during walking in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Methods: Sixteen female participants with rheumatoid arthritis were recruited in this study. All patients were prepared with a pair of high-top, heel-to-toe rocker shoe and were asked to wear the shoes for one month. Ground reaction force parameters including peak forces and peak force times were evaluated in the first session, and after seven days and thirty days follow up were carried on. Results: First maximal vertical force was significantly increased with rocker shoe compared to barefoot after 7 days follow up. Walking with rocker shoe reduced the minimal vertical force after 7 days. The second maximal vertical force showed to be statistically lower with rocker shoe than barefoot after 7 and 30 days. Furthermore, stance time decreased with rocker shoe after one month. Discussion: Results of this study revealed that vertical ground reaction force parameters changed in rheumatoid arthritis patients with heel-to-toe rocker shoe, both immediately and after one month follow up. This might suggest the effectiveness of rocker shoes in improving gait in rheumatoid arthritis patients.


Item-based approaches based on SLIM (Sparse LInear Methods) have demonstrated very good performance for top-N recommendation; however they only estimate a single model for all the users. This work is based on the intuition that not all users behave in the same way -- instead there exist subsets of like-minded users. By using different item-item models for these user subsets, we can capture differences in their preferences and this can lead to improved performance for top-N recommendations. In this work, we extend SLIM by combining global and local SLIM models. We present a method that computes the prediction scores as a user-specific combination of the predictions derived by a global and local item-item models. We present an approach in which the global model, the local models, their user-specific combination, and the assignment of users to the local models are jointly optimized to improve the top-N recommendation performance. Our experiments show that the proposed method improves upon the standard SLIM model and outperforms competing top-N recommendation approaches.


Trypanosomes are blood-borne parasites that can cause severe disease in both humans and animals, resulting in very large economic losses worldwide. In contrast to the wealth of information on pathogenic species such as Trypanosoma cruzi and Trypanosoma brucei, little is known of the pathogenicity, prevalence and life-cycles of trypanosomes in native Australian mammals. The aim of this thesis was to characterise trypanosomes and other protozoans from the critically endangered Gilbert's potoroo (Potorous gilbertii) and the quokka (Setonix brachyurus) from Western Australia using morphological and molecular analysis.

A novel Trypanosoma species, Trypanosoma copemani was identified in Gilbert's potoroos and quokkas using molecular and morphological analysis. Further molecular characterisation of T. copemani in quokkas at both the 18S rRNA and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) loci identified multiple T. copemani genotypes revealing that the parasite is genetically variable. Given the phylogenetic grouping of T. copemani as a stercorarian (requiring faecal transmission by vector), the fact that ticks are common ectoparasites of Gilbert's potoroos and quokkas and the previous identification of trypanosomes in ticks, ticks were examined as potential vectors of T. copemani. Motile trypanosomes were detected in both the haemolymph and midgut sections of Ixodes australiensis ticks removed from quokkas and Gilbert's potoroos and stained trypanosomes were detected within a faecal smear. Morphologically, the tick trypanosomes resembled in vitro forms of T. copemani, representing epimastigotes and slender trypomastigote stages, with dividing stages detected within the midgut region. Molecular analysis of the tick isolates, showed 100% sequence identity to T. copemani at the 18S rRNA locus, suggesting that the tick is a putative vector for T. copemani.

Investigation of the life-cycle stages of native Australian trypanosomes using microscopy and in vitro culture of blood from quokkas and Gilbert's potoroos revealed that native Australian trypanosomes are highly polymorphic, with three different trypomastigote blood stream forms detected within blood films, resembling slender, medium and broad stages. In addition, promastigote, sphaeromastigote and amastigote stages were observed directly within blood films and this is the first report of these stages in the circulatory system of Australian marsupials. Three novel trypanosome life-cycle forms representing an oval form, an extremely thin form and an adherent form were also identified both in vitro and in vivo, while a novel tiny form and a novel circular form were only detected in culture. Trypanosoma vegrandis was also detected for the first time in one quokka isolate (Q1340) and confirmed using species-specific primers.

As tourists and quokkas on Rottnest Island have a close relationship, the zoonotic potential of T. copemani was investigated by determining the relative susceptibility of T. copemani to human serum using the blood incubation infectivity test. Trypanosoma copemani was observed by microscopy in all human blood cultures from day 5 to day 14 post inoculation. The mechanism for normal human serum resistance in T. copemani is not known. The results of this thesis show that at least one native Australian trypanosome species may have the potential to infect humans.

In addition to blood, quokka faecal samples were also collected to investigate the prevalence of Eimeria by PCR screening of faecal samples from three quokka populations, Two Peoples Bay, Bald Island and Rottnest Island, respectively. The PCR prevalence of Eimeria was 62.5%, 85.0% and 78.3% for these three locations respectively. Two Eimeria species were identified based on morphometric analysis from sporulated oocysts, Eimeria quokka and Eimeria setonicis, with the majority of quokkas co-infected with both species. Singular infections, however, were identified in a few individuals allowing molecular analysis to be performed using both the 18S rRNA and cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 genes. Phylogenetic analysis grouped E. quokka and E. setonicis within the Eimeria marsupial clade. This study is the first one to characterise E. quokka and E. setonicis by molecular analyses, enabling more extensive resolution of evolutionary relationships among marsupial-derived Eimeria species.

Overall this study has characterised the novel T. copemani in both the quokka and the Gilbert's potoroo and has shown T. copemani to be both morphologically and genetically variable. This is a stercorarian trypanosome, transmitted through vector faecal contamination and may potentially be infectious to humans. The findings of this thesis highlight the complexity of Australian trypanosomes and provide insights into the prevalence, potential pathogenicity and human infectivity of this novel parasite. Further research is required to assess the role of trypanosome infection on marsupial population dynamics and the implications for management and conservation.


Large-scale databases of human activity in social media have captured scientific and policy attention, producing a flood of research and discussion. This paper considers methodological and conceptual challenges for this emergent field, with special attention to the validity and representativeness of social media big data analyses. Persistent issues include the over-emphasis of a single platform, Twitter, sampling biases arising from selection by hashtags, and vague and unrepresentative sampling frames. The socio-cultural complexity of user behavior aimed at algorithmic invisibility (such as subtweeting, mock-retweeting, use of "screen captures" for text, etc.) further complicate interpretation of big data social media. Other challenges include accounting for field effects, i.e. broadly consequential events that do not diffuse only through the network under study but affect the whole society. The application of network methods from other fields to the study of human social activity may not always be appropriate. The paper concludes with a call to action on practical steps to improve our analytic capacity in this promising, rapidly-growing field.


OBJECTIVE
This study validated a brief measure of fatigue in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT) Fatigue Scale.

METHODS
The FACIT Fatigue was tested along with measures previously validated in RA: the Multidimensional Assessment of Fatigue (MAF) and Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form 36 (SF-36) Vitality. The sample included 636 patients with RA enrolled in a 24 week double blind, randomized clinical trial (RCT) of adalimumab versus placebo.

RESULTS
The FACIT Fatigue showed good internal consistency (alpha = 0.86 to 0.87), strong association with SF-36 Vitality (r = 0.73 to 0.84) and MAF (r = -0.84 to -0.88), and the ability to differentiate patients according to clinical change using the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) response criteria (ACR 20/50/70). Psychometric performance of the FACIT Fatigue scale was comparable to that of the other 2 fatigue measures. A minimally important difference in FACIT Fatigue change score of 3-4 points was confirmed in a separate sample of 271 patients with RA enrolled in a second double blind RCT of adalimumab versus placebo.

CONCLUSION
The FACIT Fatigue is a brief, valid measure for monitoring this important symptom and its effects on patients with RA.


Polystyrene (PS) is a non-polar polymer that has limited surface properties since it
lacks polar functional groups. In this project, different polar functional groups were
incorporated onto PS by various methods such as surface treatments (flame
treated and chromic acid treated), non-reactive and reactive compounding (at
different loadings of copolymers) and grafting of copolymer chains induced by UV
irradiation. These functional groups, namely carboxylic acid, hydroxyl, styrene
maleic anhydride (compounded and grafted) and poly(vinyl methyl ether) (PVME),
introduced during treatment and modification of PS, may diffuse away from the
surface into the bulk and vice versa.
The treated and modified surfaces were investigated and compared using a range
of surface analysis techniques, which include X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
(XPS), attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy (ATR-IR), atomic force
microscopy (AFM) and contact angle measurement in conjunction with chemical
derivatisation. [Continues.]


As the complexity of chip designs increase, simulation time also increases. Unit and variable delay simulation takes the most simulation time in IC design process; however, parallel processing performs inefficiently due to large amount of synchronization. In this paper, techniques to reduce the number of synchronization points in synchronous designs are proposed, and a partitioner to partition designs along flip-flop boundaries is also proposed so that these techniques can be employed on real designs.


We argue that nonlocal effects represented by fractionary terms in the kinetic energy can be relevant to achieve a satisfactory phenomenological description of the thermal behavior of the specific heat of non-crystalline solids at very low temperature. We propose a simple model formed by the direct sum of two Hamiltonians, one of which is obtained by incorporating fractional derivatives in the kinetic energy of a conventional Hamiltonian, and the other one accounts for the presence of phonons in the system. Some experimental data are used to support the proposed description.


Abstract : Dr. Stephen Flynn argues that the U.S. emphasis on drug control in its support of Plan Colombia is misguided and akin to prescribing an antibiotic regime to combat a disease not caused by bacteria or similar micro-organisms. The illegal drug industry in Colombia is not the cause of that country's fragile socio-political system, but a symptom of and a contributor to the fragility of the Colombian state. Continuing the analogy, Flynn argues that U.S. and Colombian emphasis on combating illicit drug cultivation and trafficking leads to several undesirable side effects.


Bryde's whales Balaenoptera edeni are the only resident baleen whale species in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), where they are extremely rare, have a restricted distribution, and re present a unique evolutionary lineage. The reasons for the restricted distribution and small population size are unknown, but high levels of industrial activity in the GoM may be a major factor. We evaluated the geospatial overlap of GoM Bryde's whales with 2 industries known to impact baleen whale species: commercial shipping and commercial fisheries. We further evaluated the potential for impacts by examining the first dive behavior data collected from a kinematic tag attached to a GoM Bryde's whale for 3 d. Vessel traffic and fishery effort are low in GoM Bryde's whale habitat compared to the rest of the northern GoM, but several shipping lanes transit through the habitat, and the reef fish bottom longline fishery exerts considerable effort within the habitat. The tagged whale exhibited diel diving behavior with diurnal deep dives and foraging lunges at or near the sea floor, and shallow nocturnal diving, with 88% of its nighttime spent near the surface within the draught depths of most large commercial vessels. Given the location of commercial shipping traffic in GoM Bryde's whale habitat, ship strikes may pose a threat to this population if the whales commonly spend time near the surface, especially at night. Also, if bottom or near-bottom feeding is a normal feeding strategy for these whales, there is potential for entanglement in bottom longline gear. Managing these threats may improve population recovery.


Aim
To produce a robust, comprehensive global biome reconstruction for the Middle Pliocene (c. 3.6–2.6 Ma), which is based on an internally consistent palaeobotanical data set and a state-of-the-art coupled climate–vegetation model. The reconstruction gives a more rigorous picture of climate and environmental change during the Middle Pliocene and provides a new boundary condition for future general circulation model (GCM) studies. Location Global.
Methods
Compilation of Middle Pliocene vegetation data from 202 marine and terrestrial sites into the comprehensive GIS data base TEVIS (Tertiary Environmental Information System). Translation into an internally consistent classification scheme using 28 biomes. Comparison and synthesis of vegetation reconstruction from palaeodata with the outputs of the mechanistically based BIOME4 model forced by climatology derived from the HadAM3 GCM.
Results
The model results compare favourably with available palaeodata and highlight the importance of employing vegetation–climate feedbacks and the anomaly method in biome models. Both the vegetation reconstruction from palaeobotanical data and the BIOME4 prediction indicate a general warmer and moister climate for the Middle Pliocene. Evergreen taiga as well as temperate forest and grassland shifted northward, resulting in much reduced tundra vegetation. Warm-temperate forests (with subtropical taxa) spread in mid and eastern Europe and tropical savannas and woodland expanded in Africa and Australia at the expense of deserts. Discrepancies which occurred between data reconstruction and model simulation can be related to: (1) poor spatial model resolution and data coverage; (2) uncertainties in delimiting biomes using climate parameters; or (3) uncertainties in model physics and/or geological boundary conditions.
Main conclusions
The new global biome reconstruction combines vegetation reconstruction from palaeobotanical proxies with model simulations. It is an important contribution to the further understanding of climate and vegetation changes during the Middle Pliocene warm interval and will enhance our knowledge about how vegetation may change in the future.


Over 35 years of behavioral research have shown contingency management systems in the classroom are highly effective for treating children with behavior problems. Questions remain if such systems can be enhanced by the functional assessment process. This case study looks at a nine-year-old child with oppostional behavior who was on a contingency management program. After a though functional assessment the author determined that poor sleep patterns contributed to poor performance on the token system the following morning. This post-hoc analysis of the data conformed to a reversal design. The program showed a functional relationship between neutralizing sleep difficulty and increasing of point earned and the decreasing of episodes of response cost. Keywords: establishing operations, enhancing standard interventions, sleep. ********** Since its first use by O'Leary, and Becker, (1967), competent implementation of contingency management systems has been extremely effective in changing most behavioral challenges in the classroom (Axelrod, 1983a, b; Barbetta, 1983a, 1983b; Bongiovanni, 1979; Filcheck & McNeil, 2004; Wolery, Bailey, & Sugai, 1988). For example, Barbetta (1983a, b) used a contingency management system in the form of token reinforcement and response cost (loss of tokens) to reduce impulsivity in children with behavior disorders. MTA (Multimodal Treatment Study for Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, 1999) Cooperative Group (1999) used contingency management programs for ADHD children to contrast with medication and Pelham, Greiner, & Gnagy, (1997) used such a program in their summer camp program for ADHD children. In addition, Walker and Buckley (1972, 1974) and O'Connor, Struck, and Wyne (1979) used a similar point system with response cost in the Engineered Learning Program, which is one of the few programs empirically validated for use with children in emotional support classes. Contingency management systems have been so successful that some have question if functional analysis can add anything to this type of intervention. For example, Twernbold-Schill, Kratochwill and Elliot (1998) selected twenty preschool children in a Head Start class and randomly assigned them into two groups. They compared a standardized technological intervention package (group contingencies) to a functionally based intervention. There was no significant difference found between the two interventions with respect to outcomes. The functional assessment group achieved higher customer satisfaction rating. From such research, Branden and Kratochwill (1997) argued that prescribed interventions without a functional behavioral assessment can be more efficient under one of the following three conditions (a) assessment costs can exceed treatment costs, (b) consequences of delaying treatment are minimal, and (c) no link between selected treatment and function have been found. Such calls for parametric analysis are premature in this author's opinion because only one study demonstrates conditions under which functional behavior assessment has enhanced treatment (Hayes et. al, 1987). With all of this attention paid to functional analysis, it remains surprising that so few program have shown that functional analysis can enhance standard treatment packages. One example, of the use of functional analysis to enhance treatment outcomes is in the case of changing establishing operations (Michaels, 1993). Ray and Watson (2001) found that for one child, out-of-seat behavior occurred in only 32.5% of the measured intervals. The authors determined that both escape and access to tangible reinforcers maintained the child's behavior. More importantly, on days in which the child slept less than 5 hours the previous night, out-of-seat behavior increased to 57.5% of the intervals and only access to tangibles maintained that behavior. In this case, sleep deprivation clearly served as an EO to increase the effectiveness of tangible reinforcers. …


We investigate nonlinear propagation and self-focusing of femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser pulses in an 800-nm-thick silica nanoweb fiber. Different dispersion regimes are accessible by launching TE- or TM-polarized light. Excitation in the anomalous dispersion regime (TM) results in pulse splitting and spectral broadening, which lead to supercontinuum generation, whereas, for normal dispersion (TE, excited close to a zero dispersion wavelength), self-phase modulation causes spectral broadening, which leads at higher power to beam collapse and the creation of a damage track.


Service discovery and selection approaches are often done using a centralized registry-based technique, which only captures common Quality of Service criteria. With more and more services offered via social networks, these approaches are not able to evaluate trust in service providers and often fail to comply with new requester's expectations. This is because theses approaches are not able (i) to take into consideration the social dimension and (ii) to capitalize on information resulting from previous experiences. To address these challenges, we propose the use of multi-agent systems as they have demonstrated the capability to use previous interactions, knowledge representation and distributed reasoning, as well as social metaphors like trust. More precisely, in this paper, we enhance service discovery and selection processes by integrating the societal view in trust modeling. Based on relationships between agents, their previous experiences and extracted information from social network, we define a trust model built upon social, expert and recommender-based components. The social-based component judges whether the provider is worthwhile pursuing before using his services (viz. trust in sociability). The expert-based component estimates whether the service behaves well and as expected (viz. trust in expertise). The recommender-based component assesses for an agent whether one's can rely on its recommendations (viz. trust in recommendation). However, when searching for a service in a social network, agents (service requester and service providers) may have no direct interactions or previous experiences. This requires a method to infer trust between them. Based on a probabilistic model, we estimate trust between non adjacent agents while taking into account roles (recommender or provider) of intermediate agents. Moreover, we propose a distributed algorithm for trustworthy service discovery and selection using referral systems in social networks. Experiments demonstrate that our approach is effective and outperforms existing ones, and can deliver more trustworthy results.


Abstract. Measuring snow water equivalent (SWE) is important for many hydrological purposes such as modelling and flood forecasting. Measurements of SWE are also crucial for agricultural production in areas where snowmelt runoff dominates spring soil water recharge. Typical methods for measuring SWE include point measurements (snow tubes) and large-scale measurements (remote sensing). We explored the potential of using the cosmic-ray soil moisture probe (CRP) to measure average SWE at a spatial scale between those provided by snow tubes and remote sensing. The CRP measures above-ground moderated neutron intensity within a radius of approximately 300 m. Using snow tubes, surveys were performed over two winters (2013/2014 and 2014/2015) in an area surrounding a CRP in an agricultural field in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. The raw moderated neutron intensity counts were corrected for atmospheric pressure, water vapour, and temporal variability of incoming cosmic-ray flux. The mean SWE from manually measured snow surveys was adjusted for differences in soil water storage before snowfall between both winters because the CRP reading appeared to be affected by soil water below the snowpack. The SWE from the snow surveys was negatively correlated with the CRP-measured moderated neutron intensity, giving Pearson correlation coefficients of −0.90 (2013/2014) and −0.87 (2014/2015). A linear regression performed on the manually measured SWE and moderated neutron intensity counts for 2013/2014 yielded an r2 of 0.81. Linear regression lines from the 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 manually measured SWE and moderated neutron counts were similar; thus differences in antecedent soil water storage did not appear to affect the slope of the SWE vs. neutron relationship. The regression equation obtained from 2013/2014 was used to model SWE using the moderated neutron intensity data for 2014/2015. The CRP-estimated SWE for 2014/2015 was similar to that of the snow survey, with an root-mean-square error of 8.8 mm. The CRP-estimated SWE also compared well to estimates made using snow depths at meteorological sites near (


Ringed seals Phoca hispida and harp seals P. groenlandica were collected for diet analysis along the ice edge in the Barents Sea to investigate possible niche overlap between these 2 seal species. The diet analysis is based on contents from stomachs and intestines. A resource availability survey was conducted concurrently based on an echo survey combined with demersal and pelagic trawling. This survey showed that the potential prey biomass was dominated by pelagic crustaceans (99% of total biomass) -principally Themisto libellula and Thyssanoessa spp. Despite the prevalence of these crustaceans both seal species showed a strong preference for fish of various species, which constituted only 1 % of the biomass in the area. The most common fish in their diet was polar cod Boreogadus saida, which had a Manly's prey preference index of 0.87 for ringed seals and 0.42 for harp seals. Pianka's niche overlap index for the 2 seal species in this area was 0.985, indicating an almost complete niche overlap. However, harp seals prey on significantly larger polar cod than ringed seals, and the larger cod were distributed in deeper water than smaller cod. Thus it appears that the 2 seal species exploit different fractions of the same resource.


In the discussion Selection Of Students For Hotel Schools: A Comparative Study by William Morgan, Professor, School of Hospitality Management at Florida International University, Morgan's initial observation is: "Standards for the selection of students into schools of hospitality management around the world vary considerably when it comes to measuring attitudes toward the industry. The author discusses current standards and recommends some changes." In addition to intellectual ability, Professor Morgan wants you to know that an intangible element such as attitude is an equally important consideration to students seeking curriculum and careers in the hospitality field. "...breaches in behavior or problems in the tourist employee encounter are often caused by attitudinal conditions which pre exist the training and which were not able to be totally corrected by the unfreezing, movement, and refreezing processes required in attitudinal change," says Morgan. "...other than for some requirements for level or grade completed or marks obtained, 26 of the 54 countries sampled (48.1 percent) had no pre-selection process at all. Of those having some form of a selection process (in addition to grades), 14 schools in 12 countries (22.2 percent) had a formal admissions examination," Professor Morgan empirically provides. "It was impossible, however, to determine the scope of this admissions examination as it might relate to attitude." The attitude intangible is a difficult one to quantify. With an apparent sameness in hotels, restaurants, and their facilities the significant distinctions are to be found in their employees. This makes the selection process for both schools and employers a high priority. Moreover, can a student, or a prospective employee, overcome stereotypes and prejudices to provide a high degree of service in the hospitality industry? This query is an important element of this article. "If utilized in the hotel, technical, or trade school or in the hiring process at the individual facility, this [hiring] process would provide an opportunity to determine if the prospective student or worker is receptive to the training to be received," advises Professor Morgan. "Such a student or worker is realistic in his aims and aspirations, ready in his ability to receive training, and responsive to the needs of the guest, often someone very different from himself in language, dress, or degree of creature comforts desired," your author further


Abstract: This article assesses the language learning strategies (LLSs) used by 194 high school and 184 university English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners in Palestine, using Oxford's (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). It also explores the effect of language proficiency and gender on frequency of strategy use. The findings show that proficiency level and gender have a main effect on overall strategy use, but their effects on the use of each of the six categories of strategies and individual strategies are variable. The findings have significant implications for research on LLSs, classroom instruction, materials design, and teacher preparation. Introduction It is not uncommon to hear complaints voiced by second language (L2) teachers and educators about the "unsatisfactory" language performance of L2 learners. These complaints have motivated applied researchers in the field of L2 learning and teaching to try to diagnose the causes of this problem and recommend remedies. Until the 1970s, the majority of L2 research focused on the evaluation of competing teaching methods and instructional materials. However, since the early 1970s, great emphasis has been placed on the investigation of social, psychological, and affective variables that enhance or hamper L2 success and achievement. Among these variables are: motivation, attitudes, personality, learning styles, and learning strategies. Research, in general, has provided evidence that these variables correlate with success in L2 learning (see Dornyei, 1990; Ehrman & Oxford, 1990; Oxford & Cohen, 1992; Peng, 2001). The observations made by L2 researchers about the differences in learning among L2 learners have motivated second language acquisition (SLA) researchers to explore the sources of these differences with the objective of providing instruction that facilitates learning. These differences were identified by researchers who tried to describe the characteristics of the "good language learner." Chamot (1987), Naiman, Frohlich, Stern, and Todesco (1978), Rubin (1975), Stern (1975), and Stevick (1989) identified the strategies that successful language learners employ to facilitate learning the L2. For example, Rubin (1975) stated that the good language learner is a willing and accurate guesser, has a strong motivation to communicate, is often not inhibited, is prepared to attend to form, practices, monitors his own speech and the speech of others, and attends to meaning. On the basis of the findings of the above-mentioned studies, it was hypothesized that if less successful learners are taught how to use these types of strategies (i.e., if they learn how to learn), they become more effective and independent learners. The description of the strategies used by successful language learners provided a stimulus for further research into the establishment of taxonomies of language learning strategies (LLSs). O'Malley and Chamot (1990) divided LLSs into three major types: cognitive, metacognitive, and social-affective. Oxford (1990), on the other hand, classified LLSs into six broad categories, namely memory, cognitive, compensatory, metacognitive, affective, and social. She defined LLSs as "specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more selfdirected, more effective, and more transferable to new situations." (p. 8). Because the present study uses Oxford's taxonomy to assess LLSs used by Palestinian English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners, it will be described in more detail. The selection of this taxonomy has been made on two grounds. First, it has been used to assess strategy use by EFL/English-as-second-language (ESL) learners from a large and varied group of language and cultural backgrounds (e.g., Arabic: Touba, 1992; Chinese: Chang, 1990; Hispanic: Green, 1991; Japanese: Watanabe, 1990). Second, its reliability and validity have been widely documented (see Oxford, 1992). …


Nobel Laureates with their contributions to the development of the theory of general equilibrium have enabled this theory to be one of the most important for theoretical and practical analysis of the overall economy and the efficient use of economic resources. Results of the research showing that contributions of Nobel Laureates in the economy belong to two main frameworks of development of the general equilibrium theory: one was the mathematical model of general equilibrium developed by John R. Hicks (1939), Kenneth J.Arrow (1951) and Gerard Debreu (1954) and second frames of general equilibrium belongs to Paul A. Samuelson (1958). To highlight the contributions of these Nobel laureates in the development of the theory of general equilibrium have been selected and are presented in the paper some views, estimates and assumptions that have contributed not only in solving concrete problems, but also to the development of economic science in general. Their works represent a synthesis of theoretical and practical aspects of treatment of general equilibrium which are the starting point for further research in this field.


The stability and generalization of stochastic gradient-based
methods provide valuable insights into understanding the algorithmic performance of machine learning models. As the
main workhorse for deep learning, the stochastic gradient descent has received a considerable amount of studies. Nevertheless, the community paid little attention to its decentralized variants. In this paper, we provide a novel formulation
of the decentralized stochastic gradient descent. Leveraging
this formulation together with (non)convex optimization theory, we establish the first stability and generalization guarantees for the decentralized stochastic gradient descent. Our
theoretical results are built on top of a few common and mild
assumptions and reveal that the decentralization deteriorates
the stability of SGD for the first time. We verify our theoretical findings by using a variety of decentralized settings and
benchmark machine learning models.


We present a statistical analysis of directional discontinuities in the solar wind at 1 astronomical unit. It is the first study of this kind based on simultaneous observations at four nearby spacecraft. We use recent magnetic field and plasma data from the coordinated Cluster spacecraft flying in formation a few hundred to a few thousand kilometres apart. With four measuring platforms the ability to observe is considerably improved. For example, the simultaneous four-point measurements allow for determining the discontinuity normals by analysing the time differences between the occurrence of the discontinuity at each of the four spacecraft. The events used in our analysis are grouped in three sets according to the period of their observation, i.e., January - May of 2001, 2002 and 2003, respectively. The main distinction between these three data sets is the different spacecraft separation, from 100 km in 2002 to 5000 km in 2003, which enables us to investigate interplanetary discontinuities at different scales. Another difference between the three data sets are the different prevailing solar wind conditions. These include both slow solar winds and fast streams that map back to coronal holes on the Sun. Our analysis demonstrates that the Minimum Variance Analysis (MVA), an established and widely used single-spacecraft technique to compute normals of discontinuities, is much less reliable than previously assumed. We determine new criteria to decide whether or not MVA yields reliable normal estimates. An important parameter is the ratio of intermediate to minimum eigenvalue of the magnetic covariant matrix. Instead of using 2 as the lower limit for this ratio for applicability of MVA, as is common practice, we strongly suggest applying MVA only if the ratio is greater than 10. Furthermore, the accuracy of MVA increases with increasing spreading angle, the angle between the magnetic field vectors on the two sides of the discontinuity. We recommend MVA should not be used for angles less than 60 degree. Inaccurate MVA normal estimates have resulted in a dramatic overestimation of the number of rotational discontinuities in earlier studies. Using the relative timing technique, we do not find a single clear rotational discontinuity. A detailed error analysis of the multi-spacecraft tool puts this new result on a firm footing. Analysis of plasma data shows that many discontinuities do not satisfy the polarisation relation, a necessary condition for rotational discontinuities. Our results allow for the interpretation that the solar wind is dominated by tangential rather than rotational discontinuities which is in apparent contradiction to earlier single-spacecraft studies. This finding is particularly true for fast coronal hole streams where earlier observations claim a high abundance of rotational discontinuities. Our new results entail significant implications for the dynamics of the solar wind micro-structure and generation mechanisms for discontinuities. We also discuss possible consequences for the understanding of the source region on the Sun and for the propagation of cosmic rays through the heliosphere. We study further properties of directional discontinuities, such as their thickness, their orientation in space and their large-scale curvature. We conclude that interplanetary discontinuities are 1-D structures superposed by non-isotropic fluctuations.


A potential means of mitigating the impact that development has on animals is to move affected individuals to new areas where development will not occur or to release individuals back to a site after activities have ceased. In the case of translocation, the desired outcome is that the majority of the translocated individuals will survive and reproduce in a new, uninhabited and protected site, such that there is no net loss of endangered animals. Because of project displace- ment, we moved 144 Tipton kangaroo rats Dipodomys nitratoides nitratoides, a state and federally listed endangered species, to a preserve north of Bakersfield, California, USA, in December 2006 that had no Tipton kangaroo rats, but was known habitat. To help determine short-term survivor- ship, we radio-tracked 22 individuals for 30 d post-release. We placed 14 radio-collared kangaroo rats in cages with artificial burrows (soft release) on site and 8 radio-collared individuals in artifi- cial burrows without cages (hard release). We placed all other kangaroo rats in artificial burrows with (n = 86) or without (n = 36) cages. The percentage survivorship of radio-tagged kangaroo rats that were soft-released (58.3%) was greater than that of radio-tagged animals hard-released (37.5%), but the differences were not significant. Trapping over 3 yr showed a small, but persist- ent, population of Tipton kangaroo rats. We caught 38 new Tipton kangaroo rats in these 3 yr. Based on an AMOVA of genotypic data from 2 microsatellite loci of Tipton kangaroo rats translo- cated to the site, unmarked young caught on site are consistent with being offspring of the translo- cated animals. Future research should address the value of caging kangaroo rats on sites prior to release, the relative merit of short-term removal of competing species, and appropriate habitat management strategies.


"It's important to expose not only the social-political mechanisms, but also the theatrical ones. Especially in the theatre when the past and memory are expressed though fiction, which always wants to be seen as reality. Can the stage – a space of fictional characters, events and illusions, which we want to believe in – become the place where we can explore the mechanisms of memory and our complicated relationship with the past?"

What's the connection between the individual and collective memory? Can collective memory suppress an individual one? Who tells us what to remember and what to forget? What makes history?

Within the context of theatre and its fictional nature 5 actors from different regions of the Ukraine and Poland explore their personal and shared pasts and memories through their individual experiences and histories of their countries.

This performance is a result of the project "Maps of fear/Maps of identity" which involved Polish theatre practitioners, theoreticians and nearly 40 artists from different regions of Ukraine (Zaporizhia, Lviv, Kherson, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Khmelnytskyi, Poltava, Odesa).

The project was implemented by Stowarzyszenie Praktykow Kultury (The Culture Practitioners Association/ Warsaw) together with Ukrainian organizations from Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and Kherson.

Co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.

Supported by the East European Performing Arts Platform (EEPAP).

"My Granddad was digging, My Dad was digging and I will not" premiered on the 24th of September 2016 during the GogolFEST in Kiev, Ukraine. Ukrainian tour included performances in Lviv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Odessa.


Mycosis fungoides is the most common form of a type of blood cancer called cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Cutaneous T-cell lymphomas occur when certain white blood cells, called T cells, become cancerous; these cancers characteristically affect the skin, causing different types of skin lesions. Although the skin is involved, the skin cells themselves are not cancerous. Mycosis fungoides usually occurs in adults over age 50, although affected children have been identified.


Using big datasets from four diverse sources, of both suppliers and facilitators or recipients of digital payment platforms, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of the impact of unexpected demonetization in India on payment digitization. The drying-up of cash due to demonetization leads to a significant increase in the level of payment digitization and the rise applies to both traditional and non-traditional digital payment modes, including card and e-wallet. The usage pattern persists even during the re-monetization period when cash makes a comeback in the economy, indicating the success of demonetization in enabling new digitization technologies to make inroads into consumer payment habits. Heterogeneity tests reveals that regions that are underdeveloped economically, lag in financial inclusion and technology infrastructure and have a population with more conservative demographic characteristics experience a weaker digitization response.


Background: Infectious dermatoses are common in many countries in Africa. These skin conditions mostly caused by bacterial, fungal, viral, and parasitic agents are frequent in primary health care setting. These are favored by poverty that deprives individual of the freedom to satisfy basic needs and rights: this includes freedom to enjoy clean water or sanitary facilities, and good accommodations or remedies for illnesses. Objective: This study was conducted to show the frequency of infectious dermatoses in a primary health center in Côte d'Ivoire. Methods: It was retrospective and descriptive study conducted in the community health care center in Yopougon Attié from 2006 to 2010. Results: About 3.392 patients out of 22.609 (15% of cases) were admitted for dermatoses during a period of 5 years. Only 203 patients got accurate diagnosis for dermatoses. Sixty three patients were males (32.7%) and 135 were females (67.5%). The sex ratio was 2.08 in favor to females. Patients' age ranged from 6 months to 59 years with average age of 27 years ±2.2. Patients from age group between 15 and 29 years were the most concerned (46.4%), followed by the age group under 14 years (25.8%). Illiterate or primary and secondary education patients (79.9%) were mostly observed. Adverse socio-cultural practices were performed in 56.7% of cases. We observed infectious dermatoses in 92.12% of cases (194/203) infections due to bacterial agents were most observed in 42.6% of cases, followed by viral agents in 31.95% of cases. We found HIV positive patients in 5.7% of cases. Conclusion: Infectious dermatoses are common in primary health care setting in Côte d-Ivoire and can be treated by any physician. But, a dermatological training is needed to improve primary health care practitioners' dermatological skills for clear diagnosis and appropriate treatment in order to reduce their incidence and prescription costs.


Urmia Lake is a large-scale hypersaline lake that experienced a drastic water-level fall due to natural and anthropogenic forces during the last two decades. Construction of a causeway in the central part of the lake after 1989 has divided the lake into northern and southern parts and caused an extreme change of the lake hydrochemical system. Precipitation of evaporite minerals as crust on the lake floor was caused by the combination of lake level fall and increasing water salinity. However, some parameters controlling rates of salt deposition and dissolution and temporal and spatial variation in salt thickness in Lake Urmia are poorly understood. This study reviews 90 sediment cores from various parts of the lake to put forward a better understanding of the salt depositional system and salt thickness variations in the basin for the last 40 years (1977–2017). Our results indicate that the sedimentary system of Urmia Lake changed rapidly during the last two decades from a permanent hypersaline lake with predominantly fast terrigenous–biochemical sedimentation to a seasonally changing playa sedimentary environment with predominance of evaporite minerals. These changes are responsible for rapid salt deposition that generated a salt-crust with a maximum thickness of 2.95 m overlying Holocene terrigenous sediments. The salt-crust thickness and the water depth have a positive correlation for water depth greater than 1 meter, which means that salt-crust thickness increases where water depth increases. While the thickness of shallow deposits are affected by fresh-water dissolution. In addition, the average salt precipitation rate in the northern and the southern parts of the lake is 466 and 266 times higher, respectively, than the average (0.3 mm/y) sedimentation rate before the lake shrinkage. Similar to other large hypersaline lakes such as the Great Salt Lake (USA) and the Aral Sea (Central Asia), the manmade intervention at Urmia Lake (damming of the catchment, extension of agricultural fields, and causeway construction in the middle part of the lake) threatens its further hydrologic existence.


In this paper we address the problem of state encoding for synchronous finite state machines. The primary goal is the reduction of switching activity in the state register. At the beginning the state transition graph is transformed into an undirected graph where the edges are labeled with the state transition probabilities. Next a maximum spanning tree of the undirected graph is constructed and we formulate the state encoding problem as an embedding of the spanning tree into a Boolean hypercube of unknown dimension. At this point a modification of Prim's maximum spanning tree algorithm is presented to limit the dimension of the hypercube for area constraints. Then we propose a polynomial time embedding heuristic, which removes the restriction of previous works, where the number of state bits used for encoding of a k-state FSM was generally limited to [log/sub 2/ k]. Next a more sophisticated embedding algorithm is presented, which takes into account the state transition probabilities not covered by the spanning tree. The resulting encodings of both algorithms often exhibit a lower switching activity and power dissipation in comparison with a known heuristic for low power state encoding.


Following the deaths of hundreds of Russians during a school siege in the city of Beslan, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled on September 20, 2002, two major political reforms ostensibly designed to help Moscow combat terrorism. The proposals mandate presidential selection of regional governors and revoke the right of citizens to elect district parliamentary representatives. Many observers, including former heads of state Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, vilified Putin as using a national tragedy as an opportunity to further erode Russian democracy. Indeed, while the announcement does represent an extension of previous reforms of Russian federalism over the last four years, they are also consistent with an effort by Putin to consolidate power within the United Russia Party in possible anticipation of the end of his second term in 2008. Reforming the relationship between the federal and regional governments has been a priority since the first days of Putin's administration. As a former director of Yeltsin's Main Oversight Department, a bureau responsible for monitoring legal violations within the republics, Putin acquired firsthand knowledge of the failings in center-regional relations. In May 2000, Putin undertook as one of his first major initiatives the organization of Russia's 89 regions into seven federal administrative districts, with a presidential representative appointed to monitor each district. In addition, regional heads no longer serve in the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament, although they continue to consult with the president through the newly created State Council. Putin also reclaimed the right to dismiss individual governors--a power Yeltsin surrendered in 1996. While many institutional changes were completed prior to Beslan, the newest round of reforms seeks to modify the selection process of individuals to those institutions. The two recent plans seem to be motivated not by current necessity or conflict but rather by an anticipation of future utility. Essentially, the 2004 reform initiative targeted regional officials who had earned a general reputation for compliance and loyalty to Putin and placed them into the positions of highest authority at the expense of the people's autonomy. Yet even prior to the announcement, however, Putin found ways to interfere with the electoral process in Chechnya, Russia's most troubled republic. In the months preceding the October 2003 regional presidential election, the Kremlin orchestrated the victory of Putin favorite Akhmad Kadyrov by offering one challenger a Moscow post and charging another with petition fraud. …


BACKGROUND
Antibiotic prescribing decisions for respiratory tract infection (RTI) in primary care could be improved if clinicians could target bacterial infections. However, there are currently no evidence-based diagnostic rules to identify microbial aetiology in children presenting with acute RTIs.

AIM
To analyse evidence of associations between clinical symptoms or signs and detection of microbes from the upper respiratory tract (URT) of children with acute cough.

DESIGN AND SETTING
Systematic review and meta-analysis.

METHOD
A literature search identified articles reporting relationships between individual symptoms and/or signs, and microbes detected from URT samples. Associations between pathogens and symptoms or signs were summarised, and meta-analysis conducted where possible.

RESULTS
There were 9984 articles identified, of which 28 met inclusion criteria. Studies identified 30 symptoms and 41 signs for 23 microbes, yielding 1704 potential associations, of which only 226 (13%) have presently been investigated. Of these, relevant statistical analyses were presented for 175 associations, of which 25% were significant. Meta-analysis demonstrated significant relationships between respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) detection and chest retractions (pooled odds ratio [OR] 1.9, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.6 to 2.3), wheeze (pooled OR 1.7, 95% CI = 1.5 to 2.0), and crepitations/crackles (pooled OR 1.7, 95% CI = 1.3 to 2.2).

CONCLUSIONS
There was an absence of evidence for URT pathogens other than RSV. The meta-analysis identified clinical signs associated with RSV detection, suggesting clinical presentation may offer some, albeit poor, diagnostic value. Further research is urgently needed to establish the value of symptoms and signs in determining microbiological aetiology and improve targeting of antibiotics in primary care.


Dryad is a general-purpose distributed execution engine for coarse-grain data-parallel applications. A Dryad application combines computational "vertices" with communication "channels" to form a dataflow graph. Dryad runs the application by executing the vertices of this graph on a set of available computers, communicating as appropriate through flies, TCP pipes, and shared-memory FIFOs.
 The vertices provided by the application developer are quite simple and are usually written as sequential programs with no thread creation or locking. Concurrency arises from Dryad scheduling vertices to run simultaneously on multiple computers, or on multiple CPU cores within a computer. The application can discover the size and placement of data at run time, and modify the graph as the computation progresses to make efficient use of the available resources.
 Dryad is designed to scale from powerful multi-core single computers, through small clusters of computers, to data centers with thousands of computers. The Dryad execution engine handles all the difficult problems of creating a large distributed, concurrent application: scheduling the use of computers and their CPUs, recovering from communication or computer failures, and transporting data between vertices.


The financing of the research project by Keeling and Walker Ltd. resulted from a need for a greater knowledge of the properties of metastannic acid and also for an understanding of the reaction parameters controlling the manufacture of the material. Once these criteria had been defined it was hoped that it would be possible to design a full sized manufacturing plant for the production of metastannic acid of a fine particle size. Several series of investigative experiments into metastannic acid production were carried out at The City University and at Keeling and Walker's factory in Stoke-on-Trent and material analysis was carried out at The City University and at The British Ceramic Research Association in Stoke-on-Trent. The interpretation of results obtained from these experiments enabled a new metastannic acid production plant to be designed together with a proposed operating cycle as part of this work. As well as manufacturing metastannic acid Keeling and Walker Ltd. also produce a range of tin dioxide based semiconductors for industrial applications. Work was carried out in this project to try to find a suitable synthetic route for the large scale manufacture of low resistivity indium tin oxide. Extensive experimental trials resulted in the consistent production of a low resistivity material prepared from the thermal decomposition of indium tin benzoate. Other areas of research covered in this project were, the preparation of tin (IV) oxide by new synthetic routes, mossbauer spectroscopic studies of tin oxides and an investigation into the hydrous metal oxide chemistry of tin, titanium, zirconium and hafnium.


THE USE OF controlled release and nitrification inhibiting fertilisers may improve the availability and uptake of Nitrogen (N) by sugarcane under certain soil and climatic conditions, while reducing losses via leaching, runoff and denitrification, and increasing nitrogen use efficiency. This paper utilises production and operational data from twelve Burdekin trial sites during the 2014-15 growing season to evaluate the profitability of using these fertilisers. In particular, this paper examines whether these fertilisers can maintain farmer profitability at N application rates lower than a conventional rate based on the Six Easy Steps guidelines. Out of the 12 trial sites, nine tested rates 40 kg N/ha lower and three tested rates 60 kg N/ha lower. Two controlled release blends were investigated in these trials. One treatment had 25% of total N coated with sulphur and polymer, while the other had 50% coated. For the nine sites that tested rates 40 kg N/ha lower than a conventional rate, analyses of variance were completed for each individual trial site but none identified a significant treatment effect. As all sites in each group had identical fertiliser treatments, multi-environment trial analyses were undertaken to improve statistical power. The results identified that the controlled release treatment with a 50% blend was significantly less profitable than all the other treatments except for the controlled release treatment with a 25% blend. In contrast, for the three sites comparing the conventional N rate with rates 60 kg N/ha less, treatment effects were identified at two of the three individual sites. However, the multi-environment trial analysis indicated no significant effect of treatment.


BACKGROUND
In the medical literature, there is a lack of sex-specific information regarding the efficacy, metabolism, and side effects associated with psychopharmacologic treatment. In part, this lack results from the historic underinclusion of women in clinical trials during early drug development, but it also occurs because investigators of treatment and metabolic studies do not routinely analyze results according to sex. In 1993, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced changes that encourage the inclusion of women in early pharmacokinetic studies and emphasize the need for subset analyses using sex and age parameters. In conjunction with advances in basic science regarding drug metabolism, these modifications have led to modest increases in information regarding sex differences in drug metabolism and efficacy. In this article, current information regarding potential sex differences in the pharmacotherapy of major depressive disorder is reviewed.

DATA SOURCES
A MEDLINE search was conducted using the terms antidepressants, sex-factors, gender differences, and women for the years 1966 to 2000.

DATA SYNTHESIS AND CONCLUSIONS
There are data supporting sex differences in the activity of various antidepressant-metabolizing enzymes. However, there is a paucity of investigation regarding how these differences might translate into differences in clinical efficacy. Notably, there is little work using existing databases to perform the subgroup analyses recommended by the FDA. The widespread dissemination of such work is needed, and, if conducted, investigations in this area have the potential to enhance psychopharmacologic treatment for both men and women.


Nearly every structured prediction problem in computer vision requires approximate inference due to large and complex dependencies among output labels. While graphical models provide a clean separation between modeling and inference, learning these models with approximate inference is not well understood. Furthermore, even if a good model is learned, predictions are often inaccurate due to approximations. In this work, instead of performing inference over a graphical model, we instead consider the inference procedure as a composition of predictors. Specifically, we focus on message-passing algorithms, such as Belief Propagation, and show how they can be viewed as procedures that sequentially predict label distributions at each node over a graph. Given labeled graphs, we can then train the sequence of predictors to output the correct labeling s. The result no longer corresponds to a graphical model but simply defines an inference procedure, with strong theoretical properties, that can be used to classify new graphs. We demonstrate the scalability and efficacy of our approach on 3D point cloud classification and 3D surface estimation from single images.


The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve is often used to summarize and compare the discriminatory accuracy of a diagnostic test or modality, and to evaluate the predictive power of statistical models for binary outcomes. Parametric maximum likelihood methods for fitting of the ROC curve provide direct estimates of the area under the ROC curve and its variance. Nonparametric methods, on the other hand, provide estimates of the area under the ROC curve, but do not directly estimate its variance. Three algorithms for computing the variance for the area under the nonparametric ROC curve are commonly used, although ambiguity exists about their behavior under diverse study conditions. Using simulated data, we found similar asymptotic performance between these algorithms when the diagnostic test produces results on a continuous scale, but found notable differences in small samples, and when the diagnostic test yields results on a discrete diagnostic scale.


Abstract Ramachandran calculations have been used to gain insight into steric hindrance in bile pigments related to biliprotein chromophores. The high optical activity of denatured phycocyanin, as compared to phycoerythrin, has been related to the asymmetric substitution at ring A, which shifts the equilibrium towards the P‐helical form of the chromophore. Geometric effects on the electronic structures and transitions have then been studied by molecular orbital calculations for several conjugation systems including the chromophores of phycocyanin, phytochrome Pr, cations, cation radicals and tautomeric forms. For these different chromophores some general trends can be deduced. For instance, for a given change in the gross shape (e.g. either unfolding of the molecule from a cyclic‐helical to a fully extended geometry, or upon out‐of‐plane twists of the pyrrole ring A) of the molecules under study, the predicted absorption spectra all change in a similar way. Nonetheless, there are characteristic distinctions between the different n‐systems, both in the transition energies and the charge distribution, which can be related to their known differences in spectroscopic properties and their reactivity.


Why do people vote in autocratic elections? Until now, most answers to this question have argued that people vote because they expect a material reward, such as patronage or a direct transfer via vote-buying, or as a way of rewarding the regime for its economic performance. I argue that citizens also vote for different non-economic, expressive reasons, such as a sense of civic duty or a desire to improve the democratic process. I present data from an original quasi-national public-opinion survey conducted in Cameroon, which shows that expressive reasons for voting can explain more variation in voting behavior than economic reasons. These different motivations challenge the implications of existing models of democratization by explaining how some of the poorest electoral autocracies have withstood decades of economic stagnation.


This Note seeks to determine the extent to which personal characteristics of judges—namely gender, race, and prior prosecutorial experience—affect individual judicial votes and panel decisions on the United States Courts of Appeals. Although these characteristics do not have a significant effect on the way an individual judge votes, this Note finds that the presence of one of these characteristics on a three-judge panel can influence how the other two judges vote, affecting the overall outcome.
The presence of at least one female or black judge on a panel increases the likelihood of a more liberal decision across all cases. However, this effect disappears in cases that are specifically related to gender or race issues, such as employment discrimination cases. The presence of a prior prosecutor on a panel in criminal cases decreases the likelihood of a more liberal ruling (in favor of the defendant). These results shed light on the dynamics of panel decisionmaking, and allow us to critically examine the federal judicial appointment process and the pursuit of judicial diversity.


A time-dependent, three-dimensional numerical modeling study of the tides of Massachusetts and Cape Code Bays, motivated by construction of a new sewage treatment plant and ocean outfall for the city of Boston, has been undertaken by the authors. The numerical model being used is a hybrid version of the Blumberg and Mellor ECOM3D model, modified to include a semi-implicit time-stepping scheme and transport of a non-reactive dissolved constituent. Tides in the bays are dominated by the semi-diurnal frequencies, in particular by the M 2 tide, due to the resonance of these frequencies in the Gulf of Maine. The numerical model reproduces, well, measured tidal ellipses in unstratified wintertime conditions. Stratified conditions present more of a problem because tidal-frequency internal wave generation and propagation significantly complicates the structure of the resulting tidal field. Nonetheless, the numerical model reproduces qualitative aspects of the stratified tidal flow that are consistent with observations in the bays.


The reactions of the bis(diorganoboryl) chalcogenides (R2B)2X (I; R = Et, X = O; R2 = 1,5-cyclooctanediyl, X = O, S) with 3-methyl-, 3,5-dimethyl-, 3-methyl-5-phenyl-, 3,5-diphenyl-, and 3,5-di-tert-butylpyrazole [mPz, m2Pz, mpPz, p2Pz, and (tb)2Pz, resp.] have been investigated. MPz reacts with I (R2 = 1,5-cyclooctanediyl, X = S) (II) to form a heterocycle, which due to the interaction of the Me substituent with the C skeleton of II is unstable and readily rearranges to the novel heterocycle III (x-ray anal.) when dissolved in toluene at room temp. In contrast, the analogous heterocycle formed from mPz and I (R2 = 1,5-cyclooctanediyl, X = O) is stable even when heated at 100 Deg. The reaction of I (R2 = 1,5-cyclooctanediyl, X = O) with m2Pz and mpPz produces 1:1 adducts in which the pyrazole fluctuates between the two B atoms of I. I (R2 = 1,5-cyclooctanediyl, X = O) showed only weak interactions with mpPz and none with p2Pz and (tb)2Pz. With I (R = Et, X = O), the pyrazoles m2Pz, mpPz, and p2Pz form the corresponding heterocycles; however, no reaction was obsd. with (tb)2Pz (1H, 11B, 13C NMR).


The work described in this thesis proposes and
investigates further use of scrambling in industrial analogue and digital monochrome video
systems. This scrambling inevitably entails some signal modification. Providing the receiver is
able to distinguish between the original and
the scrambled signal, regardless of which one was transmitted, more efficient signal exploitation
is possible. This more efficient signal exploitation is performed at the expense of the inherent
redundancy present in the analogue and di ital signals.
Analogue video signals are usually of a highly correlative nature and, this characteristic is
exploited, in this thesis, by enabling them to be unwitting data carriers. The video signal is
made the data carrier while the data gets a free ride. Each scan-line of the video signal is
sampled, and blocks of pels are scrambled or
not by modulo masking, depending on whether the data necessary for transmission is a logical 1
11 or 1 01 respectively. Prior to transmission the combined data
and video sequence is converted into a continuous signal

with a bandwidth that is no greater than that of the original video signal. From the knowledge of
the original and the modified signal statistics, the receiver is able to perform the inverse
operation of the transmitter, recovering the video signal and the data. Three novel systems are
proposed for embedding data into analogue pictures. Two of these systems are capable of supporting
an average of 17430 and 8713 bits per (256x256) image

LV

respectively, with excellent recovered picture quality. The third system produced a constant number
of bits per image, with a slight degradation in the recovered picture quality but, with a
capability of conveying up to about
0.5 mega bits/sec of data.

The idea and technique of embedding data into analogue signals was then carried on to the digital
method of coding video signals using differential pulse code modulation. However, the scrambling technique here was used to obtain a novel switched quantization scheme, with
forward estimation, without the necessity of sending any side information. Scrambling was
performed on the quantizer output levels by inversion. Initially, experiments were carried out
using fixed length code words with one and two dimensional predictors. Blocks of quantizer output
levels are scrambled, or not, depending on which quantizer was
used in encoding the video signal. Hence the switching information was carried by the quantized
block of error signals. This type of set-up produced only modest improvements. The quantizers were
then altered by using
a different number of levels and the switching information

was carried one block of quantized error signals in advance. As a result, the average bit rate was
reduced to about
2.7 bits/pel using a one dimensional predictor with exceptionally good subjective picture
quality. When used with a two dimensional predictor, the scheme produced an average bit rate of
about 1.7 bits/pel with excellent subjective picture quality.


Raman scattering can be a significant contributor to the emergent radiance spectrum from the surface ocean. Here, we present an analytical approach to directly estimate the Raman contribution to remote sensing reflectance, and evaluate its effects on optical properties estimated from two common semianalytical inversion models. For application of the method to ocean color remote sensing, spectral irradiance products in the ultraviolet from the OMI instrument are merged with MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data in the visible. The resulting global fields of Raman-corrected optical properties show significant differences from standard retrievals, particularly for the particulate backscattering coefficient, b(bp), where average errors in clear ocean waters are ~50%. Given the interest in transforming b(bp) into biogeochemical quantities, Raman scattering must be accounted for in semianalytical inversion schemes.


Borneo has experienced heavy deforestation and forest degradation during the past two decades. In this study the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer was used to monitor land cover change in Borneo between 2002 and 2005 in order to assess the current extent of the forest cover, the deforestation rate and the role of fire. Using Landsat and ground observation for validation it was possible to discriminate 11 land cover classes. In 2002 57% of the land surface of Borneo was covered with forest of which 74% was dipterocarp and more than 23% peat swamp forest. The average deforestation rate between 2002 and 2005 was 1.7% yr− 1. The carbon‐rich ecosystem of peat swamp forests showed a deforestation rate of 2.2%. Almost 98% of all deforestation occurred within a range of 5 km to the forest edge. Fire is highly correlated with land cover changes. Most fires were detected in degraded forests. Ninety‐eight per cent of all forest fires were detected in the 5 km buffer zone, underlining that fire is the major driver for forest degradation and deforestation.


The determination of the blast protection level of laminated glass windows and facades is of crucial importance, and it is normally done by using experimental investigations. In recent years numerical methods have become much more powerful also with respect to this kind of application. This report attempts to give a first idea of a possible standardisation concerning such numerical simulations. Attention is drawn to the representation of the blast loading and of the behaviour of the material of the mentioned products, to the geometrical meshing, as well as to the modelling of the connections of the glass components to the main structure. The need to validate the numerical models against reliable experimental data, some of which are indicated, is underlined.


We investigate semiclassical contributions to correlation functions in N = 1 supersymmetric gauge theories. Our principal example is the gluino condensate, which signals the breaking of chiral symmetry, and should be exactly calculable, according to a persymmetric non-renormalisation theorem. However, the two calculational approaches previously employed, SCI and WCI methods, yield different values of the gluino condensate. We describe work undertaken to resolve this discrepancy, involving a new type of calculation in which the space is changed from R(^4) to the cylinder R(3) x S(1) This brings control over the coupling, and supersymmetry ensures that we are able to continue to large radii and extract answers relevant to R(^4). The dominant semiclassical configurations on the cylinder are all possible combinations of various types of fundamental monopoles. One specific combination is a periodic instanton, so monopoles are the analogue of the instanton partons that have been conjectured to be important at strong coupling. Other combinations provide significant contributions that are neglected in the SCI approach. Monopoles are shown to generate a superpotential that determines the quantum vacuum, where the theory is confining. The gluino condensate is calculated by summing the direct contributions from all fundamental monopoles. It is found to be in agreement with the WCI result for any classical gauge group, whereas the values for the exceptional groups have not been calculated before. The ADS superpotential, which describes the low energy dynamics of matter in a supersymmetric gauge theory, is derived using monopoles for all cases where instantons do not contribute. We report on progress made towards a two monopole calculation, in an attempt to quantify the missed contributions of the SCI method. Unfortunately, this eventually proved too complicated to be feasible.


Bounding the generalization error of learning algorithms has a long history, which yet falls short in explaining various generalization successes including those of deep learning. Two important difficulties are (i) exploiting the dependencies between the hypotheses, (ii) exploiting the dependence between the algorithm's input and output. Progress on the first point was made with the chaining method, originating from the work of Kolmogorov, and used in the VC-dimension bound. More recently, progress on the second point was made with the mutual information method by Russo and Zou '15. Yet, these two methods are currently disjoint. In this paper, we introduce a technique to combine the chaining and mutual information methods, to obtain a generalization bound that is both algorithm-dependent and that exploits the dependencies between the hypotheses. We provide an example in which our bound significantly outperforms both the chaining and the mutual information bounds. As a corollary, we tighten Dudley's inequality when the learning algorithm chooses its output from a small subset of hypotheses with high probability.


Schumpeter first reviews the basic economic concepts that describe the recurring economic processes of a commercially organized state in which private property, division of labor, and free competition prevail. These constitute what Schumpeter calls "the circular flow of economic life," such as consumption, factors and means of production, labor, value, prices, cost, exchange, money as a circulating medium, and exchange value of money. The principal focus of the book is advancing the idea that change (economic development) is the key to explaining the features of a modern economy. Schumpeter emphasizes that his work deals with economic dynamics or economic development, not with theories of equilibrium or "circular flow" of a static economy, which have formed the basis of traditional economics. Interest, profit, productive interest, and business fluctuations, capital, credit, and entrepreneurs can better be explained by reference to processes of development. A static economy would know no productive interest, which has its source in the profits that arise from the process of development (successful execution of new combinations). The principal changes in a dynamic economy are due to technical innovations in the production process. Schumpeter elaborates on the role of credit in economic development; credit expansion affects the distribution of income and capital formation. Bank credit detaches productive resources from their place in circular flow to new productive combinations and innovations. Capitalism inherently depends upon economic progress, development, innovation, and expansive activity, which would be suppressed by inflexible monetary policy. The essence of development consists in the introduction of innovations into the system of production. This period of incorporation or adsorption is a period of readjustment, which is the essence of depression. Both profits of booms and losses from depression are part of the process of development. There is a distinction between the processes of creating a new productive apparatus and the process of merely operating it once it is created. Development is effected by the entrepreneur, who guides the diversion of the factors of production into new combinations for better use; by recasting the productive process, including the introduction of new machinery, and producing products at less expense, the entrepreneur creates a surplus, which he claims as profit. The entrepreneur requires capital, which is found in the money market, and for which the entrepreneur pays interest. The entrepreneur creates a model for others to follow, and the appearance of numerous new entrepreneurs causes depressions as the system struggles to achieve a new equilibrium. The entrepreneurial profit then vanishes in the vortex of competition; the stage is set for new combinations. Risk is not part of the entrepreneurial function; risk falls on the provider of capital. (TNM)


How much traffic does a Web site receive? While many may want to know the relative influence of someone else's site, generally only the site owner has access to accurate data. JavaScript-based Web analytics, such as Google Analytics or Omniture, are widely considered the gold standard for tracking audiences. These services are census- rather than sample-based. They also have the virtues of being entirely passive (requiring no input from the visitor) as well as providing true measures of behavior. If you're not the site owner, you'll have to use competitive intelligence services to estimate the traffic. These services a wide range of methodological approaches, generally recruiting panel members using an opt-in mechanism, sometimes mixing in anonymized data bought from Internet service providers. Three of the leading free services of this type are Alexa, Compete, and Quantcast. This study examines the methodology of these four methods of measuring online audiences. It compares the results from all three services using a panel of 18 Web sites that have agreed to share analytics data with the author. Results show high variability in the quality of the estimated audience data from competitive intelligence services. Using analytics as the reference, Compete underestimated traffic by more than 300 percent. Quantcast underestimated traffic by more than 200 percent. Confounding this pattern were occasional overestimates of traffic by these services. Alexa data, which is presented differently than Compete and Quantcast data, showed one significant correlation (page views) with analytics data, while three other variables showed no relationship to data from analytics. Overall, these services performed poorly. But are the data worthless? The report concludes with recommendations for understanding the limitations of competitive intelligence services and appropriately reporting audience activity based upon differing methodologies.


Laser-ablation 40 Ar/ 39 Ar step-heating analyses of 20 pseudotachylyte veins from a single location along the exhumed central portion of the active Alpine fault of New Zealand yield total gas age values between 1 and 19 Ma. Evidence shows that they are genetically related and were formed during coeval episodes of seismogenic melting at shallow crustal depth, contrasting with a spread in formation ages. The total gas ages show an exponential decrease with increasing proportion of melt matrix and K content, refl ecting incomplete degassing and mixtures of radiogenic Ar sources. Calculation of intercepts for all‐melted matrix and all‐clast end-member components indicate ca. 570 ka (Quaternary) friction-melting ages of ca. 332 Ma (Lower Carboniferous) source rock. Assuming an average exhumation rate of 6‐9 mm/yr for uplift and erosion, these results imply that friction melts were generated during major slip episodes at ~3.5‐5 km crustal depth. We conclude that reliable dating of young pseudotachylyte can be accomplished by combining chronologic study with clast-matrix quantifi cation of genetically related vein assemblages.


On May 20, 2012, in response to tweets about "blasphemous drawings," Pakistan blocked Twitter for eight hours before the Prime Minister intervened to restore access. During that period, hundreds of Pakistanis visited Herdict, a Harvard University project for tracking Internet censorship and web blockages, and filed numerous inaccessible reports, allowing us to see blockages in real time. Similarly, when China blocked The New York Times in late October 2012, in response to a story about the wealth of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, Herdict received several inaccessible reports from China for the news site. These events epitomize the importance of projects that track the openness of the Internet. But just as importantly, these events are data points in an expierment. Herdict is premised on the belief that by asking people to complete a small, simple task—reporting if they can access a site—we can transform individuals into foot soldiers for Internet freedom, even if they do not see themselves as activists. Moreover, by making the task so small, these people can participate without assuming too much personal risk.


Optical fibre sensors have offered such unrivalled distributed sensing features that they continue to be successfully exploited in various industries for performing continuous measurements of the physical parameters, such as, temperature and strain. However, there arise certain conditions in engineering or materials manufacturing and characterisation environments, when the user seeks to extract the knowledge about a single physical parameter only, say strain, whilst the environment is also subject to temperature. This thesis explores techniques to offer solutions under such conditions by developing a high spatial resolution temperature compensated distributed strain sensor. The preliminary exploration involved exploiting the high spatial resolution Brillouin frequency based Brillouin optical correlation domain analysis technique in combination with the anti Stokes Raman intensity based optical time domain reflectometry technique. This work resulted in achieving a temperature compensated strain resolution of 46 µe with a spatial resolution of 24cms over a sensing length of 135m. Tackling the impact of modest pump depletion effects on the Raman backscattered signal, a beneficial normalisation protocol was identified. During discussions the possible limitation imposed by the weaker backscattered Raman signal towards achieving any better results on the strain and spatial resolution values, seemed to emerge. In order to enhance the performance of the sensor, anti Stokes Brillouin, which is a stronger back scattered signal, was exploited for the time domain reflectometry measurements. This resulted in 22µe of temperature compensated strain resolution with a spatial resolution capability of 10cms. Although the combined performance of the Brillouin frequency in combination with Brillouin intensity proved better than the performance of the Brillouin frequency in combination with Raman intensity, but since the electronic detection system was changed together with pulse widths between the two techniques that it was unclear as to which combinatory technique was best suited for designing the sensor. It is with this view that a theoretical analysis on the performance of the R-OTDR and B-OTDR was carried under similar sensor parameters. B-OTDR is identified as a better technique compared to the R-OTDR towards providing high spatial resolution temperature compensation feature to the Brillouin frequency based distributed strain measurements. The exploration also gave an opportunity to experimentally study for the first time the impact of simultaneously varying temperature and strain on the four Brillouin coefficients. This study proved useful in identifying the corrections to the Brillouin coefficients in order to estimate the true value of strain and temperature in a temperature controlled variable strain environment. The thesis culminates with a summary of work, discussing the thresholds of various non linear effects together with means to improve the performance of the sensor. With the view of enhancing the sensor applicability, schemes of loss compensation are also discussed. In conclusion work for the future is highlighted.