Passive laser barriers are designed to protect humans from risks of laser radiation in the production environment. Manufacturers
of such barriers have to guarantee the protective effect. Therefore, experiments are conducted to determine their protection
times. For this purpose, some sample based approaches exist but they are not statistically reliable. An approach for the
description of the distributions of protection times of passive laser safety barriers is presented to
develop a statistical reliable method for the estimation of safe protection times out of few samples. The analysis result of the
statistical deviations shows that the measured data can be described by a bimodal approach of two weighted normal
distributions.


Featuring a dictionary and thesaurus combined, the Pocket Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus provides the essential language reference help you need in a single portable volume. The second edition of this reference book has been completely redesigned so that it is easier to use. The thesaurus entry for a word now immediately follows the dictionary entry, so that you do not need to hunt around the page for this information. We have also made the text more open and accessible, so that you can find the word you are looking for quickly and easily. New words and new meanings have been added to the text, so you can be sure that you are using a reference book that is up-to-date and reflects the developments of the English langauge. With over 90,000 words, phrases, and definitions, and 115,000 synonyms and antonyms, the Pocket Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus provides all the everday language help you need. This edition also contains new Word Link features, helping you find words that are closely associated with each other. For example, the Word Link at environment tells you that the study of the natural world is called ecology, and the Word Link at cave informs you that the exploration of caves is known as speleology or potholing. The new centre section of the dictionary and thesaurus contains encyclopedic information such as lists of countries, capitals, and kings and queens, helping you to broaden your knowledge, and to find solutions for quizzes and puzzles. The Pocket Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus is an invaluable tool for anyone who wants a portable quick reference tool useful both for general ready reference and for quizzes and crossword puzzles. Explore our language resources on oxforddictionaries.com, Oxford's home for dictionaries and language reference. Updated regularly with the latest changes to words and meanings, the site provides hundreds of thousands of definitions, synonyms, and pronunciations in a range of languages. Access the highest quality language content, built from our extensive research, for free on your desktop or device.


"Dao De Jing" is one of the richest, most suggestive, and most popular works of philosophy and literature. Composed in China between the late sixth and the late fourth centuries BC, its enigmatic verses have inspired artists, philosophers, poets, religious thinkers, and general readers down to our own times. This new translation, both revelatory and authentic, captures much of the beauty and nuance of the original work. In an extensive and accessible commentary to his translation, Moss Roberts reveals new depths of "Dao De Jing". This edition is distinguished by the literary quality of the translation, its new renderings for a number of the stanzas, and by Roberts's knowledgeable contextualizations. Utilizing recently discovered manuscripts and Chinese scholarship based on them, he is able to shed new light on the work's historical and philosophical contexts. This translation shows that "Dao De Jing" is far more than a work of personal inspiration; it is also a work of universal scope that makes penetrating comments on politics, statecraft, cosmology, aesthetics, and ethics. Roberts brings these themes to our attention, shows how they are integrated into the work as a whole, and demonstrates the relevance of these topics for our own times.


A new two step on-axis digital holography (DH) is proposed without any assumptions, phase shifting, or complicated optical components. A dual-channel Mach-Zehnder interferometer was employed. Using that setup, the object field can be reconstructed requiring only two step measurements. To eliminate position difference between two charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras, a matched filter algorithm was used. Experimental results are compared to those of the traditional phase shifting technique. The proposed approach can also be applied to single-exposure on-axis DH for real time measurement.


Gender identity in the brain is regulated by DNA methylation during a short time around birth. The presence or absence of a Y chromosome dictates our biological gender. However, the brain is wired to be female unless exposed to testicular steroids (such as androgen and its metabolite estradiol) during a sensitive period shortly before and after birth. The most sexually dimorphic region in the brain is the preoptic area (POA). Nugent et al. found that steroid-induced gender identity in the POA is mediated by an epigenetic mechanism, specifically DNA methylation. The best characterized form of DNA methylation occurs at cytosine residues that are adjacent to guanines (CpG islands). DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) activity and CpG methylation were lower in the POA of male newborn rats than in those of female newborn rats. Subcutaneously injecting newborn female rats with estradiol induced a decrease in DNMT activity and CpG methylation for a few days. DNMT activity did not differ before or after the sensitive perinatal period, with or without estradiol injections. Intracerebral injection of the DNMT inhibitors zebularin or RG108 in female newborn rats mimicked the effect of estradiol on DNMT activity and produced neuronal morphology, protein marker patterns, and adult anxiety-related and sexual behavior more typical of male mice, without affecting the estrous cycle. In addition, adult female mice that lacked Dnmt3a in the POA from birth had anxiety and sexual behaviors more typical of male mice. However, unlike estradiol exposure, the masculinizing effects of knocking out Dnmt3a were not restricted to the sensitive perinatal period, suggesting that enduring DNA methylation maintains the female phenotype in the brain. RNA sequencing of the POA from postnatal male or female rats revealed that a subset of genes derepressed by DNMT inhibition in females was associated with sexual differentiation. The findings further define how neurological gender identity is determined. B. M. Nugent, C. L. Wright, A. C. Shetty, G. E. Hodes, K. M. Lenz, A. Mahurkar, S. J. Russo, S. E. Devine, M. M. McCarthy, Brain feminization requires active repression of masculinization via DNA methylation. Nat. Neurosci. 18, 690–697 (2015). [PubMed]


Soil water content (SWC) performs an important role in many areas including agriculture, drought cases, usage of water resources, hydrology, crop diseases and aerology. However, the measurement of the SWC over large terrains with standard computational techniques is very hard. In order to overcome this situation, remote sensing tools are preferred, which can produce much more successful results in less time than standard calculation techniques. Among all remote sensing tools, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has a significant impact on determining SWC over large terrains. The main objective of this study is to predict SWC on a yearly basis over the vegetation-covered terrains with the aid of different machine learning techniques and SAR based Radarsat-2 data, which obtained in 2015 and 2016 years.The proposed system consists of several stages, respectively. In the feature extraction stage, the backscatter coefficients of different polarizations and the parameters obtained from different models of decomposition (Freeman-Durden and H/A/α) were combined and nine polarimetric features were formed for each sample point. In the next stage, support vector regression (SVR), generalized regression neural network (GRNN) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) were employed for the prediction of SWC. In the last stage, a machine learning based feature selection was implemented to the obtained feature vectors for determining optimal feature sets. Finally, a feature set with 6 parameters was determined as most optimal feature set over the SWC prediction and a slightly better performance was observed thanks to this feature set compared to the other results.


This longitudinal study aimed to trace changes in Turkish pre-service English as a foreign language teachers' self-efficacy over a year, and to detect possible sources of information influencing their efficacy. Utilizing concurrent mixed model design of Creswell (2003) both qualitative and quantitative data was collected. A total of 40 pre-service teachers participated in the study. Findings indicated that pre-service English language teachers' efficacy changed significantly over time. We also found that pre-service teachers seem to depend more on enactive mastery experience and social persuasion than on vicarious experience and affective state as sources of information. Based on our findings, measures are suggested on how to support pre-service teachers to improve their sense of efficacy. Implications for research on teaching and teacher education are discussed. Keywords : pre-service teachers; school observation; sources of teacher efficacy; student teaching; teachers' sense of efficacy


This chapter focuses on the Dayak Bidayuh people of western Borneo and their efforts to develop initial literacy in their language(s) in the wider context of the Malaysian education system, in which Malay (Bahasa Malaysia) is currently the main medium of instruction. Informal narratives by teachers illustrate the stigmatisation of Bidayuh in school, and resistance to this. Whilst rural Bidayuh growing up in their traditional home areas still acquire the local variety as a first language, those in urban centres may acquire Sarawak Malay or English as their first language. Bidayuh parents and teachers distinguish between the introduction of Bidayuh as a subject of study in schools, and as a medium of instruction through which other school subjects are taught.


ABSTRACT Hematite coatings are common on vertebrate fossils from Paleocene/Eocene paleosol deposits in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming. In general, hematite coatings are found only on fossils and are limited to soils exhibiting hydromorphic features and moderate maturity. Petrographic and isotopic evidence suggests that hematite and micritic calcite formed at nearly the same time in a pedogenic environment, whereas sparry calcite formed later at greater burial depths. The parent material of paleosols is rich in iron, supplying an ample source of iron for hematite formation. Decomposition of animal tissues around bones may enhance the weathering of iron-bearing minerals in soils surrounding carcasses, while the bones might provide favorable sites for iron accumulation. The predominance of discrete smectite, together with regional geothermal history, suggests that burial temperatures have not exceeded 70°C. Hematite coatings on fossils can serve as a substrate for geochemical analysis in continental paleoclimatic research, owing to their pedogenic origin, abundance, and resistance to diagenetic alteration.


The effect of zinc ions on activated sludge microbes was investigated. Zinc ions inhibit the degradation and transformation of substances, and acclimation has little effect on the inhibition of ammonia and nitrite transformation. The change of diversity and similarity of the bacterial community acclimated by zinc were analysed by random amplified polymorphism DNA (RAPD). The results showed that DNA sequence diversity was different during different stages of acclimation. The microbial diversity of the zinc loading unit was lower than that of the control unit. There were wide differences in diversity, richness, evenness and similarity between the beginning and the end of acclimation, although the chemical oxygen demand removal rate reached the same value at the end. The RAPD fingerprint revealed that some bacteria disappeared and some zinc-tolerant species survived. The results were instructive for us to control the running of biological treatment systems and to apply corresponding recovery techniques in the period after damage.


Abstract. This paper deals with two aspects of photogrammetric processing of thermal images: image quality and 3D reconstruction quality. The first aspect of the paper relates to the influence of day light on Thermal InfraRed (TIR) images captured by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). Environmental factors such as ambient temperature and lack of sun light affect TIR image quality. We acquire image sequences of the same object during day and night and compare the generated orthophotos according to different metrics like contrast and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Our experiments show that performing TIR image acquisition during night time provides a better thermal contrast, regardless of whether we compute contrast over the whole image or over small patches. The second aspect investigated in this work is the potential of using TIR images for photogrammetric tasks such as the automatic generation of Digital Surface Models (DSM) and orthophotos. Due to the low geometrical resolution of a TIR camera and the low image quality in terms of contrast and noise compared to RGB images, the TIR DSM suffers from reconstruction errors and an orthophoto generated using the TIR DSM and TIR images is visibly influenced by those errors. We therefore include measurements of the UAVs positions during image capturing provided by a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver to retrieve position and orientation of TIR and RGB images in the same world coordinate system. To generate an orthophoto from TIR images, they are projected onto the DSM reconstructed from RGB images. This procedure leads to a TIR orthophoto of much higher quality in terms of geometrical correctness.


John Kwoka's recently published Mergers, Merger Control, and Remedies (2015) has received considerable attention from both antitrust practitioners and academics. The book features a meta-analysis of retrospective studies of consummated mergers, joint ventures, and other horizontal arrangements. Based on summary statistics derived from these studies, Kwoka concludes that domestic antitrust agencies are excessively tolerant in their merger enforcement; that merger remedies are ineffective at mitigating market power; and that merger enforcement has become increasingly lax over time. We review both his evidence and his empirical methods, and conclude that serious deficiencies in both undermine the basis for these conclusions.


Bringing rape stories into popular discussion was a crucial success of the Second Wave Women's Liberation movement. Popular culture is now inundated with rape stories. However, the repetitive scripts and schemas that dominate these are often informed by neoliberal individualism that is antithetical to feminism. The contradictions that characterize the tensions between feminism and neoliberalism in these texts are typically postfeminist, combining often inconsistent feminist rhetoric with neoliberal ideology. By examining the use of the silent victim script in young adult rape fiction, in this article I argue that most young adult rape fiction presents rape as an individual, pathological defect and a precondition to be managed by girls on an individual basis, rather than an act of violence committed against them.


Bayesian optimization is a powerful framework for minimizing expensive objective functions while using very few function evaluations. It has been successfully applied to a variety of problems, including hyperparameter tuning and experimental design. However, this framework has not been extended to the inequality-constrained optimization setting, particularly the setting in which evaluating feasibility is just as expensive as evaluating the objective. Here we present constrained Bayesian optimization, which places a prior distribution on both the objective and the constraint functions. We evaluate our method on simulated and real data, demonstrating that constrained Bayesian optimization can quickly find optimal and feasible points, even when small feasible regions cause standard methods to fail.


BACKGROUND
The prevalence of undiagnosed airflow obstruction is difficult to measure since it requires screening in population-based samples to identify individuals free of clinical symptoms. The purpose of this report is to examine the prevalence of undiagnosed airflow obstruction and its relation with respiratory symptoms in middle-age adults in the Korean Health and Genome (KHG) Study.

METHODS
The KHG study is an ongoing population-based study of Korean adults aged 40 to 69 years. The current report includes 8,140 men and women without a pulmonary disorder or obstructive lung disease. In this sample, undiagnosed airflow obstruction was defined on the basis of spirometric testing and in the absence of a medical history or a recognized pulmonary disorder. Respiratory symptoms included chronic cough, chronic phlegm, wheezing, and shortness of breath.

RESULTS
Undiagnosed airflow obstruction was observed in 12.4% of the men (470 of 3,806 subjects) and in 3.5% of the women (152 of 4,334 subjects). In men, the age-adjusted prevalence of undiagnosed airflow obstruction increased consistently with increasing number of respiratory symptoms. In those who smoked, there was a 2.3-fold excess in its prevalence when three or more symptoms were present, as compared to when they were absent (27.4% vs 12.0%, p < 0.001). A 2.4-fold excess (20.6% vs 8.5%, p = 0.004) was observed in nonsmoking men, in whom respiratory symptoms were consistently less common than in those who smoked. Respiratory symptoms were unrelated to undiagnosed airflow obstruction in women smokers, although only 3.9% smoked cigarettes. In women who were nonsmokers, the prevalence of undiagnosed airflow obstruction increased from 2.3% in those without a respiratory symptom to 6.0% when three or more symptoms were present (p = 0.003).

CONCLUSIONS
Findings suggest that undiagnosed airflow obstruction is common in Korea with several respiratory symptoms. Whether respiratory symptoms with associations with undiagnosed airflow obstruction can be used to design early intervention strategies that prevent or delay the onset of COPD and its disabling consequences warrants further study.


This paper adopts a real options framework to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of four types of subsidies that aim to encourage a socially desirable land use under return uncertainties and costly reversibility of land use change. We first present a land conversion model to show how the subsidies that are expected net present value (ENPV) equivalent can change a representative farmer's optimal land conversion rules differently for converting land into an alternative use as well as converting out of it. This is because these subsidies affect the land conversion costs, land return level and uncertainty differently. Then in the context of encouraging energy crop production, we compare the probabilities of inducing the representative farmer to convert land from a current crop to an energy crop across four subsidies for the same, fixed 30-year expected government budget. Results of Monte Carlo simulations show that the insurance subsidy results in the highest probability of land being converted to the energy crop, followed by the constant subsidy. Although the cost-sharing subsidy and the variable subsidy encourage land conversion to the energy crop, they also reduce the incentive to retain land in it. Over time, these two subsidies have little effect on the probability of land converting into energy crops compared to the no-subsidy baseline. Combining the establishment cost-sharing subsidy with other annual subsidies has no added effect over single subsidies in inducing land conversion to the energy crop.


This work proposes and compares perceptually motivated loss functions for deep learning based binary mask estimation for speech separation. Previous loss functions have focused on maximising classification accuracy of mask estimation but we now propose loss functions that aim to maximise the hit mi- nus false-alarm (HIT-FA) rate which is known to correlate more closely to speech intelligibility. The baseline loss function is bi- nary cross-entropy (CE), a standard loss function used in binary mask estimation, which maximises classification accuracy. We propose first a loss function that maximises the HIT-FA rate in- stead of classification accuracy. We then propose a second loss function that is a hybrid between CE and HIT-FA, providing a balance between classification accuracy and HIT-FA rate. Eval- uations of the perceptually motivated loss functions with the GRID database show improvements to HIT-FA rate and ESTOI across babble and factory noises. Further tests then explore ap- plication of the perceptually motivated loss functions to a larger vocabulary dataset.


A large and growing literature has used patent and patent citation data to measure knowledge spillovers across inventions and organizations, but relatively few papers in this literature have explicitly considered the collaboration networks formed by inventors as a mechanism for shaping and transmitting these knowledge flows. This paper utilizes an approach developed by Fershtman and Gandal (FG 2011) (and applied to Open Source Software) to examine the incidence and nature of knowledge flows mediated by the collaboration networks of inventors active in the information security industry. This is an industry in which a number of nations outside the United States, including Israel, have emerged as important centers of innovation. Israeli prominence in this sector is often attributed, in part, to a dense network of personal collections and collaborations that has its genesis in elite intelligence units in the Israeli Defense Forces, through which many Israeli information security inventors and entrepreneurs receive their first exposure to this domain. Using data from U.S. PTO patent grants in information security, we find that the quality of Israeli information security inventions is systematically linked to the structure of the collaborative network generated by Israeli inventors in this sector. Using the FG (2011) model, this suggests that there are knowledge spillovers from the network. In some other nations, invention quality is less closely linked to the collaboration networks of inventors. This research highlights the importance of direct interaction among inventors as a conduit for flows of frontier scientific knowledge.


Finding Australian Birds is a guide to the special birds found across Australia's vastly varied landscapes. From the eastern rainforests to central deserts, Australia is home to some 900 species of birds. This book covers over 400 Australian bird watching sites conveniently grouped into the best birding areas, from one end of the country to the other. This includes areas such as Kakadu in the Top End and rocky gorges in the central deserts of the Northern Territory, the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, rainforests distributed along the eastern Australian seaboard, some of the world's tallest forests in Tasmania, the Flinders Ranges and deserts along the iconic Strzelecki and Birdsville Tracks in South Australia, and the mallee temperate woodlands and spectacular coastlines in both Victoria and south west Western Australia.

Each chapter begins with a brief description of the location, followed by a section on where to find the birds, which describes specific birdwatching sites within the location's boundaries, and information on accommodation and facilities. The book also provides a comprehensive 'Bird Finding Guide', listing all of Australia's birds with details on their abundance and where exactly to see them.

Of value to both Australian birdwatchers and international visitors, this book will assist novices, birders of intermediate skill and keen 'twitchers' to find any Australian species.


In both religion & philosophy, the concept of self is of tremendous significance. It has always been an idea of contemplation for mankind as man has always discovered himself uncertain about the true value of his self. Self is a spiritual entity that contains the whole cosmos in itself & has dominion over the physical part of the body. Its power is fathomless & moves freely around the whole universe. Allama Iqbal & Walt Whitman are associated with different religious & cultural backgrounds, but despite this divergence, spiritual, ideological & poetical convergence can be seen in their works. The most striking similarity that can be spotted in their poetry, is their treatment of self. Both use self as a symbol of spirituality & mysticism. Iqbal's Secret of Self & Whitman's Song of Myself presents a distinct composition of religious, cultural, political & spiritual changes, their nations were going through. This research paper seeks to examine the poetry of Iqbal & Whitman to highlight the convergence as well as divergence in their beliefs on self.


Abstract. We use 2019 TROPOMI satellite observations of atmospheric methane
in an analytical inversion to quantify methane emissions from the Middle
East and North Africa at up to ∼25 km × 25 km
resolution, using spatially allocated national United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) reports as prior
estimates for the fuel sector. Our resulting best estimate of anthropogenic
emissions for the region is 35 % higher than the prior bottom-up
inventories (+103 % for gas, +53 % for waste, +49 % for
livestock, −14 % for oil) with large variability across countries. Oil and
gas account for 38 % of total anthropogenic emissions in the region.
TROPOMI observations can effectively optimize and separate national
emissions by sector for most of the 23 countries in the region, with 6
countries accounting for most of total anthropogenic emissions including
Iran (5.3 (5.0–5.5) Tg a−1; best estimate and uncertainty range),
Turkmenistan (4.4 (2.8–5.1) Tg a−1), Saudi Arabia (4.3 (2.4–6.0) Tg a−1), Algeria (3.5 (2.4–4.4) Tg a−1), Egypt (3.4 (2.5–4.0) Tg a−1), and Turkey (3.0 (2.0–4.1) Tg a−1). Most oil–gas emissions
are from the production (upstream) subsector, but Iran, Turkmenistan, and
Saudi Arabia have large gas emissions from transmission and distribution
subsectors. We identify a high number of annual oil–gas emission hotspots in
Turkmenistan, Algeria, and Oman and offshore in the Persian Gulf. We show that
oil–gas methane emissions for individual countries are not related to
production, invalidating a basic premise in the construction of
activity-based bottom-up inventories. Instead, local infrastructure and
management practices appear to be key drivers of oil–gas emissions,
emphasizing the need for including top-down information from atmospheric
observations in the construction of oil–gas emission inventories. We
examined the methane intensity, defined as the upstream oil–gas emission per
unit of methane gas produced, as a measure of the potential for decreasing
emissions from the oil–gas sector and using as reference the 0.2 % target
set by the industry. We find that the methane intensity in most countries is
considerably higher than this target, reflecting leaky infrastructure
combined with deliberate venting or incomplete flaring of gas. However, we
also find that Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar meet the industry target and
thus show that the target is achievable through the capture of associated gas,
modern infrastructure, and the concentration of operations. Decreasing methane
intensities across the Middle East and North Africa to 0.2 % would achieve
a 90 % decrease in oil–gas upstream emissions and a 26 % decrease in
total anthropogenic methane emissions in the region, making a significant
contribution toward the Global Methane Pledge.


This research project studied a steel-reinforced concrete and fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) structural element called the Hybrid-Composite Beam (HCB). The beam was used in a skewed simple span superstructure replacement project over the Tides Mill Stream in Colonial Beach, Virginia. For typical HCB construction, each beam is transported to site as a lightweight FRP beam shell. Self-consolidating concrete is pumped into the shell interior arch form, and when the concrete hardens, it stiffens and strengthens the beam so that it can act as falsework to carry the weight of a cast-in-place concrete bridge deck. Unstressed prestressing strands are embedded in the FRP shell bottom flange during the resin placement, and these strands equilibrate thrust in the arch and stiffen the beam to meet service deflection criteria. After the deck is placed, the HCB system performs as a longitudinal flexural member, with the bridge deck resisting compression and prestressing strands and the FRP bottom flange resisting tension. The primary research goal was to document the HCB as a structural component and as a bridge system, with the outcome being validation of key assumptions that can be applied to future designs such as, for example, strain compatibility between the FRP shell and steel strands. The research was conducted in five phases. In Phase 1, the HCB flexural rigidity and through-depth strain distributions were quantified considering just the FRP shell with unstressed strands. These tests confirmed flexural rigidity estimated by hand calculations and strain compatibility under uniform loads. Phase 2 evaluated flexural behavior of the HCB FRP shell and poured concrete arch. Phase 3 testing was performed after three HCBs were made integral with cast-in-place concrete end diaphragms and a reinforced concrete bridge deck. Point loads, to simulate an HL-93 design truck as specified in American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) LFRD Bridge Design Specifications, were applied to the bridge deck to maximize shear, flexure, and torsion in the skewed bridge. Live load distribution between the three girders was approximately equal and the assumption of strain compatibility between the bridge deck, FRP shell, and steel strand was confirmed. Stresses in bottom flange FRP strands and the top of deck concrete were less than 30% of material limits under service level live loads. The concrete arch fell below the composite neutral axis, placing it in tension along the span. After the live load system tests, a more detailed investigation was performed in Phase 4 to explore transverse deck behavior. Transverse flexural demands were approximately 20% of the design capacity and standard truss bars, as specified by the Virginia Department of Transportation, are not necessary because of the small clear span of the slab between beams. In Phase 5, the bridge system was saw-cut longitudinally to separate it into three individual HCB composite beams. Two beams were load tested to failure at the Structures Laboratory at Virginia Tech. For one of the two beams tested at Virginia Tech, 14 out of a total 22 strands were cut at mid-span to simulate strand deterioration and for comparison the other beam remained undamaged prior to testing. The observed beam failure modes were mid-span concrete crushing for the undamaged beam and mid-span strand-FRP bond failure for the damaged beam. In support of Phase 5, a three-dimensional (3D) finite element model was developed to explore flexural and shear force distributions along the span, which led to a shear design procedure in which shear force is distributed based on the relative moments of inertia of the FRP shell and arch. Shear resistance is provided by the FRP shell webs and the concrete arch and fin.


The glacial geology of two massifs, Muztag Ata and Kongur Shan, in western Tibet was examined to help define the timing and style of glaciation in the semiarid regions of western Tibet. Remote sensing, geomorphic mapping, and 10Be terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide (TCN) surface-exposure dating of boulders on the moraines and sediment in depth profiles show that glaciers advanced at least 12 times during at least the last two glacial cycles. Over this time, the style of glaciation changed progressively from one that produced ice caps to one that produced less extensive and more deeply entrenched valley glaciers. The timing of the two earliest glaciations is poorly defined, but they likely occurred prior to the penultimate glacial cycle (the Karasu glacial stage) and the early part of the last glacial cycle or during the penultimate glacial cycle (the Subaxh glacial stage). In contrast, the timing of later glacial advances (the Olimde glacial stage) is relatively well defined showing quasiperiodical oscillations on millennial time scales (17.1 ± 0.3 ka, 13.7 ± 0.5 ka, 11.2 ± 0.1 ka, 10.2 ± 0.3 ka, 8.4 ± 0.4 ka, 6.7 ± 0.2 ka, 4.2 ± 0.3 ka, 3.3 ± 0.6 ka, 1.4 ± 0.1 ka, and a few hundred years before the present). These data suggest that since the global Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the glaciers in western Tibet likely responded to Northern Hemisphere climate oscillations (rapid climate changes), with minor influences from the south Asian monsoon. This study provides the first well-defined glacial geologic evidence to suggest that glaciers in western Tibet respond to rapid climate changes on millennial time scales throughout the Late Glacial and Holocene.


Out of the large range of human actions, gestures performed with the hands play a very important role during everyday life. Therefore, their automatic recognition is highly relevant for constructing userfriendly human-machine interfaces. This dissertation presents a new approach to the recognition of manipulative gestures that interact with objects in the environment. The proposed gesture recognition can serve to realize pro-active human-machine interfaces enabling technical systems to observe humans acting in their environment and to react appropriately.
For observing the motions of natural hands, a non-intrusive vision-based technique is required. For this purpose, an adaptive skin color segmentation approach that is capable of detecting skin-colored hands in a wide range of lighting conditions is developed. The adaptation step is controlled by using additional scene information to restrict updating of the color model to image areas that actually contain skin areas. With the trajectory data that results from detecting hands in a sequence of images, gesture recognition can be performed.
To recognize gestures with context, a new method for incorporating additional scene information in the recognition process is described. The context of a gesture model consists of the current state of the hand and the object that is manipulated. The current hand state is needed to capture the applicability of a gesture model while the manipulated object needs to be present in the vicinity of the hand to enable recognizing the gesture model. Through the proposed context integration, the developed recognition system allows to observe gestures that are mainly characterized by their interaction with the environment and do not have a characteristic trajectory. The performance of the gesture recognition approach is demonstrated with gestures performed in an assembly construction scenario and in a typical office environment.
The use of the recognition results for improving human-machine interfaces is shown by applying the gesture recognition in a 'situated artifical communicator' system that is situated in an assembly construction domain. Here the information about the executed gesture can be used for improving dialog interaction by providing information about the hand contents. Besides this direct improvement of the human-machine interface, the recognized gestures can also be used as context knowledge for other system components. This is demonstrated with the observation of construction gestures that provide relevant context information for the vision algorithms aiming at recognizing the objects and assemblies in the construction scenario. In this way the gesture recognition results improve the human-machine interface also indirectly.


Large datasets of real human behaviors are of huge benefit across numerous domains, including evacuation safety, urban planning, marketing, and ergonomics. However, because large-scale experiments involving real human subjects are expensive and prohibitively difficult to organize, such datasets are scarce. Thus in this paper, we propose the use of massively multiplayer online (MMO) communities as an inexpensive and innovative way to capture datasets of large numbers of people under different conditions. We describe our implementation of an online data collection system, based on games, inside the popular massively multiplayer, online environment of Second Life. We evaluate the use of this system for performing evacuation experiments using a mix of Second Life residents and players recruited on campus. Our system was able to draw online participants, support data collection needs, and provide potential insights into high-level evacuation behaviors such as the choices of exit, effects of building debris, and the use-patterns of a building. Through experiments performed using our system, we found that Second Life residents found the game controls and environment to be significantly more compelling than lab participants; that players unfamiliar with our office building tended to evacuate primiraily via the front entrance; and that in-game debris significantly increased the numbers of participants who failed to exit a building safely. email@example.com email@example.com


ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper was to systematically review and organise the literature on soccer SSGs, in order to ascertain the most frequently researched topics, characterise the methodologies employed, and systematise the evolution of the related research areas. A systematic review of Web of Science, Pubmed and SPORTDiscus databases was performed according to PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses) guidelines. The following keywords were used: football and soccer, with each one associated with the terms: "small sided games", SSG, "drill-based training", "small sided", "conditioned games" and "position games". The search returned 394 records. After screening against set criteria, a total of 77 manuscripts were fully reviewed. The most common topics of analysis were (1) pitch area; (2) player number: (a) with/without a goalkeeper; (b) with floater(s) in/outside the pitch; (3) goal: (a) goal vs. scoring zone; (b) number of goals; (c) size of goals; (4) rules modification/task constraints (a) no. of ball touches; (b) offside rule; (c) others; (4) training regimen; (5) coach encouragement. This review provides valuable information on the complex relationship between technical, tactical and physiological interactions in SSGs and how the manipulation of these types of variables can improve the soccer training process.


Three Simple, accurate and reproducible UV spectrophotometric methods were established for the assay of pyrilamine maleate (PYRA) based on the formation of ion-association products between PYRA and cobaltous thiocyanate (CTC), citric acid (CA) and Alizarin red S (ARS). The optical characteristics such as Beers law limits, molar absorptivity and Sandell's sensitivity for the methods (M1-M3) are given. The absorbance was measured at 620 (CTC-M1), 580 (CA-M2) and 420 nm (ARS M3). Regression analysis using the method of least squares was made to evaluate the slope (b), intercept (a) and correlation coefficient (r) and standard error of estimation (Se) for each system. Determination of Pyrilamine in bulk form and in pharmaceutical formulations was also incorporated.


New product design as well as design revision to remedy defects is complicated by an inability to precisely predict product performance. Designers often find that they are confident about the performance of some design alternatives and uncertain about others. Similarly, alternative design changes may differ substantially in uncertainty, potential impact, and cost. This paper describes a method for including the effects of uncertainty in the evaluation of economic benefits of various design change options. The results indicate that the most profitable change option sequence depends not only on relative costs but also on the relative degree of uncertainty and on the magnitude of the potential design defects. The method demonstrates how design change alternatives can be compared using the engineering design of a beam. Finally, the validity of some common engineering change heuristics are discussed relative to their associated, quantitatively determined limits.


Wetland restoration projects are often evaluated for success or failure by comparing attributes of restored ecosystems to undisturbed reference ecosystems. This method of evaluation has several flaws, including site-specific responses of restored ecosystems to topographic and geomorphic changes during degradation and restoration, the substantial differences in structure and function of early (restored) and mature (reference) ecosystems, and the inherent variability that exists for ecosystems that may not be represented in reference systems. We need a better framework for evaluating restoration success. Success could be demonstrated by using ecosystem attributes that indicate ecosystem integrity and maturation over time, such as: stable landforms, native plant community development, internal carbon and nutrient storage and cycling, connectivity within the broader landscape, ecosystem heterogeneity, and increasing complexity in species and community diversity. A more realistic role for reference areas in wetland restoration is useful information on structural and functional attributes of ecosystems and an indication of the natural variability that exists in ecosystems that we hope to emulate. Ultimately though, success in wetland restoration depends on our ability to establish conditions that promote ecosystem maturation and integrity and reference systems may be of limited value to evaluate this success.


Huntington ´s disease (HD) is a progressive, neurodegenerative disease with a fatal outcome. Although the disease-causing gene (huntingtin) has been known for over 20 years, the exact mechanisms leading to neuronal cell death are still controversial. One potential mechanism contributing to the massive loss of neurons observed in the brain of HD patients could be the unfolded protein response (UPR) activated by accumulation of misfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). As an adaptive response to counter-balance accumulation of un- or misfolded proteins, the UPR upregulates transcription of chaperones, temporarily attenuates new translation, and activates protein degradation via the proteasome. However, persistent ER stress and an activated UPR can also cause apoptotic cell death. Although different studies have indicated a role for the UPR in HD, the evidence remains inconclusive. Here, we present extensive bioinformatic analyses that revealed UPR activation in different experimental HD models based on transcriptomic data. Accordingly, we have identified 53 genes, including RAB5A, HMGB1, CTNNB1, DNM1, TUBB, TSG101, EEF2, DYNC1H1, SLC12A5, ATG5, AKT1, CASP7 and SYVN1 that provide a potential link between UPR and HD. To further elucidate the potential role of UPR as a disease-relevant process, we examined its connection to apoptosis based on molecular interaction data, and identified a set of 40 genes including ADD1, HSP90B1, IKBKB, IKBKG, RPS3A and LMNB1, which seem to be at the crossroads between these two important cellular processes. Remarkably, we also found strong correlation of UPR gene expression with the length of the polyglutamine tract of Huntingtin, which is a critical determinant of age of disease onset in human HD patients pointing to the UPR as a promising target for therapeutic intervention. The study is complemented by a newly developed web-portal called UPR-HD (http://uprhd.sysbiolab.eu) that enables visualization and interactive analysis of UPR-associated gene expression across various HD models.


The financial and economic crisis in the Central and East European countries raised the profile of economic policy themes that relate to the role of taxation and state spending. The key policy differences related to public budgets and support for a demand stimulus. Responses fall broadly into two categories that we link to a social-democratic and a neo-liberal response. The distinction indicates that the policy responses were linked to the party affiliation of the government on the left–right spectrum. There were some remarkable common trends that cannot be explained by the logical requirements of the economic situation alone. There are differences in timing and in severity, but every country has at some point moved towards a policy of balancing the budget by making cuts. In all cases there were cuts in benefits for marginal groups in society and a switch towards indirect rather than direct taxes. These carry clear distributional implications.


Control is exerted over the exciton-polariton physics in metal-poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene)-metal microcavities via conformational changes to the polymer backbone. Using thin-film samples containing increasing fractions of β -phase chain segments, a systematic study is reported for the mode characteristics and resulting light emission properties of cavities containing two distinct exciton subpopulations within the same semiconductor. Ultrastrong coupling for disordered glassy-phase excitons is observed from angle-resolved reflectivity measurements, with Rabi splitting energies in excess of 1.05 eV (more than 30 % of the exciton transition energy) for both TE- and TM-polarized light. A splitting of the lower polariton branch is then induced via introduction of β -phase excitons and increases with their growing fraction. In all cases, the photoluminescence emanates from the lowermost polariton branch, allowing conformational control to be exerted over the emission energy and its angular variation. Dispersion-free cavities with highly saturated blue-violet emission are thus enabled. Experimental results are discussed in terms of the full Hopfield Hamiltonian generalized to the case of two exciton oscillators. The importance of taking account of the molecular characteristics of the semiconductor for an accurate description of its strong coupling behavior is directly considered, in specific relation to the role of the vibronic structure.


The Internet and World Wide Web are being used as support aids to facilitate the delivery of teaching and learning materials. The content of the related courses taught at different universities and organizations tend to be strikingly similar. The gains resulted by sharing the teaching material are high. The problem here is that most systems use different formats, languages and vocabularies to represent and to store these resources. Hence there is no way for two different applications to interoperate even if their teaching contents belong to the same domain and so the knowledge exposed by one cannot be used by another. A possible solution to the problem of sharing and reuse of learning resources is to have a shared vocabulary. Ontologies provide a shared and common understanding of a domain that can be communicated between people and heterogeneous application systems. An important aspect of interoperability of learning objects is a common format for describing content. In this thesis, ontologies for the teaching material is developed. Ontologies for the content and metadata of teaching material is developed. Metadata helps people organize, find, and use resources effectively. The IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) was developed to provide structured metadata descriptions of learning resources called Learning Objects in order to enable semantic interoperability among applications on the e-learning domain. The metadata properties adequate for this application are used from IEEE LOM. If the applications share the common ontology of teaching material then the teaching material of one application can be used by another, it also provides intelligent integration such as sharing, searching and reusing information among applications.


One of the most important limitations of mammalian cells-based bioprocesses, and particularly hybridoma cell lines, is the accelerated metabolism related to glucose and glutamine consumption. The high uptake rates of glucose and glutamine (i.e., the main sources of carbon, nitrogen and energy) lead to the production and accumulation of large amounts of lactate and ammonia in culture broth. Lactate and/or ammonia accumulation, together with the depletion of the main nutrients, are the major causes of apoptosis in hybridoma cell cultures. The KB26.5 hybridoma cell line, producing an IgG3, was engineered with BHRF1 (KB26.5-BHRF1), an Epstein–Barr virus-encoded early protein homologous to the antiapoptotic protein Bcl-2, with the aim of protecting the hybridoma cell line from apoptosis. Surprisingly, besides achieving effective protection from apoptosis, the expression of BHRF1 modified the metabolism of the hybridoma cell line. Cell physiology and metabolism analyses of the original KB26.5 and KB26.5-BHRF1 revealed an increase of cell growth rate, a reduction of glucose and glutamine consumption, as well as a decrease in lactate secretion in KB26.5-BHRF1 cells. A flux balance analysis allowed us to quantify the intracellular fluxes of both cell lines. The main metabolic differences were identified in glucose consumption and, consequently, the production of lactate. The lactate production flux was reduced by 60%, since the need for NADH regeneration in the cytoplasm decreased due to a more than 50% reduction in glucose uptake. In general terms, the BHRF1 engineered cell line showed a more efficient metabolism, with an increase in biomass volumetric productivity under identical culture conditions.


An experimental study of the flow of high-speed dense dusty gases has been conducted in a novel shock tube facility. The flow is generated through rapid depressurization and subsequent fluidization of a stationary packed bed of particles loaded under pressure in the vertical driver section of the shock tube. The flow was studied with high-speed photography and fast-response pressure transducers. The studies have been exploratory in nature. The entire process of lofting and disassembly of packed particle beds has been documented. A wide spectrum of dusty flows with particle loadings ranging from that of a fully packed plug to that of a dilute disperse particle flow was observed in this facility. Only extreme flow fields like packed plug flows and very dilute disperse particle flows were found to be uniform. All other flow fields, with intermediate particle loadings, were characterized by the simultaneous presence of dense filamentary structures and dilute dispersions of particles. Typically, while operating with 0.5 mm glass beads, flows reached speeds of 60 meters per second in a period of 25 milliseconds. Two lofting configurations of the packed beds were set up. In the first configuration, the rapid depressurization of the interstitial bed fluid and the consequent initiation of bed expansion was examined. Bed expansion starts along horizontal fractures that partition the bed into slabs. While the bed is accelerating, particles rain down from the bottom surfaces of the slabs partitioning the fractures into bubbles with a characteristic honeycomb pattern. The bubbles eventually compete and the dominant ones prevail. The observed instability of the bottom surfaces of the slabs is analogous to the Rayleigh-Taylor instability observed in continuous media. The flow development in this configuration was not influenced by any wall effects. The second lofting configuration is a high-speed fluidization configuration. Here, the role of the fluid entering from below the bed, in continuing the bed expansion initiated by the rapid depressurization of the interstitial bed fluid, was examined. The bed expansion occurs along expanding and elongating bubbles and the bubble walls are stretched into dense filamentary structures. Beds initially stacked with a gradient in particle size or density or both showed drastic differences in response to fluidization. The morphology of the expanded flow field in all cases was essentially the same: nonuniform, interspersed with dense filamentary structures and dilute dispersions of particles. In the second lofting configuration, only the late stages of flow development were influenced by wall effects. Wall effects manifest as faster moving fluid along the walls and denser accumulation of flow structures towards the center of the channel. The bottom of the dusty flow is characterized by the presence of a tail; a concentric dense particle column formed by the accumulation of particles, initially present in the bottom regions of the flow. The tail terminates in a bulbous and streamlined bottom from which particles are slowly eroded by the coflowing fluid. A multi-transducer probe was installed in the dusty gas flow for making dynamic pressure measurements and for correlating observations with those made through extensive flow visualization.


The article analyzes the stance of the Orthodox Church of Georgia (OCG) towards the Ecumenical Movement before and after the OCG's departure from the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Conference of European Churches (CEC) in 1997, and documents the controversies accompanying this development. Up until the 1990s, the hierarchy of the OCG was outstanding in its energetic ecumenical activities within the country as well as in the international arena. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the gaining of independence, religious nationalism and a hostile attitude towards religious and ethnic minorities grew stronger in Georgia. Having been tainted by a Soviet past, a mass mentality found such phenomena as pluralism, equality, religious freedom, etc., characteristic of the free world, to be foreign. A contingent of Orthodox fundamentalists is gradually growing stronger in the OCG and considers the defense of Orthodoxy against 'sects' and the 'ruinous' innovations of the West its holy obligation. Since the middle of the 1990s, this group intensified its agitation against 'ecumenism', and its pressure on the church hierarchy to keep its distance, threatening with schism in the worst case. This anti-ecumenical propaganda organized by monks is supported by a part of the married clergy, their parishes, the media, and some politicians. The OCG was eventually forced to leave the WCC and the CEC, although it inflicted church penances upon the monks leading the rebellion. Some of the anti-ecumenist monks go even further and are demanding the OCG to cease Eucharistic communion with all the Orthodox churches who are still members of ecumenical organizations. As the OCG would not satisfy this demand, the result was an actual schism of the radical anti-ecumenists and the foundation of their own 'Truly Orthodox' Church in Georgia.


In this paper there is large amount of data in cloud computing. Data like audio/video images, text file, word files etc. Challenge is to provide security to data. we provide both authentication and authorization to cloud data. We provide identity based access control mechanism for preventing data from being obtained by appropriate users. This mechanism is still work even digital content is duplicated over other system. One more advantage is only one copy of encrypted data is stored on server which is access by multiple user. We use mechanism in bank applications. We also use the ARMA algorithm for prediction of bank status.


There is the perception of an increasing range of legal duties being imposed on professionals towards their clients. No doubt that is as much due to the increasing sophistication and complexity of the services they offer as to their own claims of professionalism.
This is true also of insurance brokers. A steady stream of judicial decisions, both here and in other jurisdictions, continue to describe the range of duties they owe their clients, the insured, and in the process apparently to expand that range. In reality, though, it may merely be that these decisions illustrate the application of well-known and basic duties in modern circumstances.
One such decision is that of PFC Foods CC v Three Peaks Management (Pty) Ltd [2012] JOL 29486 (KZD). It concerned the duties of an insurance broker towards its client insured as regards the prevention of under-insurance in the case of business interruption insurance and as regards the application of average.


Magnetometry and Slingram electromagnetic surveys were conducted at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Songo Mnara, Tanzania, as part of a multinational programme of investigation to examine the uses of space within and outside of this stonetown. The town was a major Islamic trading port during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The surveys detected significant evidence for the containment of activities within the town walls, and previously unknown anthropogenic activity was revealed between the existing coral rag buildings, as well as within the open areas inside the town. Over 40 areas of magnetic disturbance were identified that corresponded directly with areas of high magnetic susceptibility in the Slingram electromagnetic in‐phase responses. On excavation many of these anomalies were found to correlate with wattle and daub structures, indicating a hitherto unidentified population, and the location of the anomalies also suggests a potentially deliberate delineation of space within the open areas of the stonetown. The combined results of the three geophysical data sets indicate that there are clear delineations in the use of space within Songo Mnara. This, coupled with the presence of industrial activities and evidence of more ephemeral occupation, neither of which had previously been recorded at the site, indicates that the pre‐existing town plan is in need of significant reappraisal. The current plan, based upon the remains of extant and collapsed coral buildings, can now be updated to incorporate the more ephemeral aspects of Swahili sites, including activity areas, and notably, the homes of the 'hidden majority' of the population. The results establish the benefit of a combined approach at these sites, and demonstrate that further invasive and non‐invasive exploration is required in order to fully exploit the significance of the role of geophysical techniques in understanding Swahili towns. © 2014 The Authors. Archaeological Prospection published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.


The paper examines Vietnam's foreign policy as it translates into strategies toward subregional cooperation in the Mekong Basin. Using transboundary water cooperation as an example, the article argues that Vietnam's prime motivation in Mekong River cooperation is economic development for performance legitimacy. Environmental issues are raised, but only in relation to powerful upstream countries, while Vietnam itself poses similar challenges to less powerful downstream countries. The need for performance legitimacy thus conveys all relevance to the economically oriented Greater Mekong Subregion, while the Mekong River Commission, a basin organization with a mandate to combine economic development with environmental considerations, is sidelined.


Attitudes toward robots influence the tendency to accept or reject robotic devices. Thus it is important to investigate whether and how attitudes toward robots can change. In this pilot study we investigate attitudinal changes in elderly citizens toward a tele-operated robot in relation to three parameters: (i) the information provided about robot functionality, (ii) the number of encounters, (iii) personality type. Fourteen elderly residents at a rehabilitation center participated. Pre-encounter attitudes toward robots, anthropomorphic thinking, and personality were assessed. Thereafter the participants interacted with a tele-operated robot (Telenoid) during their lunch (c. 30 min.) for up to 3 days. Half of the participants were informed that the robot was tele-operated (IC) whilst the other half were naïve to its functioning (UC). Post-encounter assessments of attitudes toward robots and anthropomorphic thinking were undertaken to assess change. Attitudes toward robots were assessed with a new generic 35-items questionnaire (attitudes toward social robots scale: ASOR-5), offering a differentiated conceptualization of the conditions for social interaction. There was no significant difference between the IC and UC groups in attitude change toward robots though trends were observed. Personality was correlated with some tendencies for attitude changes; Extraversion correlated with positive attitude changes to intimate-personal relatedness with the robot (r = 0.619) and to psychological relatedness (r = 0.581) whilst Neuroticism correlated negatively (r = -0.582) with mental relatedness with the robot. The results tentatively suggest that neither information about functionality nor direct repeated encounters are pivotal in changing attitudes toward robots in elderly citizens. This may reflect a cognitive congruence bias where the robot is experienced in congruence with initial attitudes, or it may support action-based explanations of cognitive dissonance reductions, given that robots, unlike computers, are not yet perceived as action targets. Specific personality traits may be indicators of attitude change relating to specific domains of social interaction. Implications and future directions are discussed.


The hidden states of objects create a barrier to designing and generating test data automatically. For example, the state of an object has to be established indirectly through a sequence of method invocations. For a non-trivial class, however, it is extremely difficult for a randomly-chosen sequence of method invocations to construct an object successfully, as each invocation has to satisfy the state invariants. Nonetheless, automated random testing can reduce the cost of testing dramatically and has strong potential for finding errors that are difficult to find in other ways because it eliminates the subjectiveness in constructing test data. We propose a new approach to generating test data automatically for Java classes annotated with JML specifications. The key idea underlying our approach is to construct an object incrementally in that each method call in the sequence is checked before the next call is chosen. We use JML's runtime assertion checker to check the validity of a method invocation. Other ingredients of our approach include object pooling and object equivalence checking. These are to increase the probability of constructing feasible call sequences and to remove redundancy among the successfullybuilt sequences. We have implemented our approach for JET, a fully-automated testing tool for Java, and our experiment with JET showed a promising result, 10 to 200% increase in the number of generated test cases.


One implication of the theory of storage states that commodity price volatility should increase when inventories are low. We document this volatility feature by estimating asymmetric volatility models for 16 commodity return series, on the period 1994-2011 and show how to account for this feature in Value-at-Risk forecasting. Our contribution is threefold: (i) This study is the first to investigate systematically the volatility implication of the theory of storage for a large panel of commodity types (agriculturals, metals, precious metals and tree crops); (ii) Since inventories are hard to measure and define, especially for high frequency data, we use in the volatility model positive return shocks as a new original proxy for inventories; (iii) We finally develop an original asymmetric version of the spline GARCH model and find that the inventory effect remains robust if we allow the unconditional variance to vary over time.


Analytical applications of near-infrared spectroscopy require the determination of calibration equations linking chemical and spectral values. Such equations are difficult to update by including new calibration specimens. A new procedure for prediction which was not based on multiple linear regression has been investigated. This procedure could be included in a data base system. The proposed method consists of three steps: compression of the spectral data by applying principal component analysis, creation of a predictive lattice, and projection of the spectra of unknown specimens on to the predictive lattice. This enables the prediction of chemical data that are not perfectly linked to spectral data by a linear relationship. The procedure has been applied to the prediction of the refractive index of apples. A predictive lattice was designed with the use of 45 specimens of calibration. A prediction with 43 verification specimens gave a standard error of 0.8%, which appeared sufficient for grading apples in quality classes. Further studies are required in order to include the proposed method in spectral libraries specializing in analytical applications.


This paper employs a systematic approach to packaging design and testing of a system and its components in order to determine the long term durability of light duty diesel filters. This effort has utilized a relatively new aluminum titanate filter technology as well as an advanced support mat technology engineered to provide superior holding force at lower temperatures while maintaining its high temperature performance. Together, these two new technologies form a system that addresses the unique operating conditions of diesel engines. Key physical properties of both the filter and the mat are demonstrated through laboratory testing. The system behavior is characterized by various laboratory techniques and validation procedures.


A large submarine slope failure, the Baiyun Slide Complex, has been discovered in the northern South China Sea. We describe the slide complex morphology, the seismic character of its structural elements and the slide evolution based on high-quality seismic reflection and multi-beam bathymetry data. The Baiyun Slide Complex has three major slide scars that show differences in headwall and sidewall geometry, the nature of the basal shear surfaces and the internal architecture of the deposits. From these observations, we propose a four-phase emplacement model. An extrapolation of the post-slide drape thickness (60 m) gives a rough age estimate for the mass transport events of 0.3 Ma. Pore pressure models for the unfailed continental slope in the vicinity of the Baiyun Slide are based on porosity measurements at nearby Ocean Drilling Program Site 1146. They show that excess pore pressure in slope sediments is anomalously high at a depth around 93 m, most probably as a consequence of a dramatic increase in sedimentation rates over the past 1.8 Ma. This excess pore pressure is proposed to be the major preconditioning factor for the slide initiation, possibly aided by volcano-tectonic activity and gas hydrate dissociation. The unfailed slope is stable under static conditions. However, a near-field earthquake of Mw 5 would suffice to induce a slope instability at c. 93 m depth.


Autophagy is a highly regulated, catabolic process, through which macromolecules such as damaged organelles and proteins are degraded and recycled to maintain cellular homeostasis. Various studies have shown the role of autophagy activation in the brain cells such as astrocytes, microglia, neurons and capillary endothelial cells upon an ischaemic insult. The underlying mechanism and the role of autophagy in ischaemic stroke, however, are yet to be fully elucidated. Recent studies have suggested that insufficient or excessive autophagy results in nerve damage and cell death whereas mild/moderate autophagy has a neuroprotective effect. It has been proposed that autophagy may be a therapeutic target in stroke treatment; however, there is a lot of debate as to whether induction or diminution of autophagy plays a role in neuronal survival after cerebral ischaemia and indicate that it has a dual role depending on the time of induction of autophagy. This review has summarized the role of autophagy in ischaemic stroke and explored effects of pharmacological autophagy modulators in ischaemic stroke treatment. Further studies are needed for translating the potential therapeutic approach in stroke treatment aiming at characterizing the timing, amount and specificity of the autophagy modulation.


Introduction: Neonatal medicine is a specialized aspect of pediatrics. The availability and accessibility of efficient newborn units are essential for improved newborn health and survival. In the structure of our healthcare system in Nigeria, neonatal units are meant to be the component units of secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities. Aims: The study aimed at determining the availability of neonatal units and the levels of care services in Kaduna state, Northwestern Nigeria. Settings and Design: This was a cross-sectional, descriptive study. Materials and Methods: The study was a survey of all hospitals in Kaduna state including public and nongovernment healthcare facilities. Information on the availability of newborn unit, staffing, and equipment was obtained and units were categorized into the levels of care. Statistical Analysis Used: Data obtained were summarized and presented in proportions and simple percentages. Results: A total of 33 public nonprimary healthcare facilities and 25 nongovernment specialist facilities operated in the state. Only two (one each state and federal owned) of these 33 public facilities, both of which were tertiary healthcare facilities, had an operational neonatal unit while 15 of the 25 specialist nongovernment facilities operated a neonatal unit. All the neonatal units were of level I category except for the state-owned tertiary facility, which was of level II category and the federal-owned tertiary facility, which was of level III category. Conclusions: The number of neonatal units and levels of care in both public and private health facilities in the state are grossly inadequate. Improving these may result in improved neonatal care in the state.


In Scotland, stroke is the third most common cause of death behind heart disease and cancer. However, most strokes are not fatal and can cause severe disability, with one third of survivors still functionally dependent after one year. The advent of recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rT-PA) as a thrombolytic modality revolutionised the treatment for ischaemic stroke, providing a treatment aimed to promptly restore nutritional blood flow to the ischaemic penumbra, a transient tissue state which is amenable to salvage. Crucially, patient ineligibility from a multitude of factors (including the narrow time window for benefit and the risk of intracranial haemorrhage) means that fewer than 10% of all stroke patients are thrombolysed.

Positive identification of penumbra is not employed in the current intravenous rT-PA administration strategy, which is instead based on two main prerequisites: stroke patients in whom intracerebral haemorrhage has been excluded with non-contrast computed tomography (CT) and who also present within 4.5 hours of symptom onset. The technical impracticalities and limited availability of the gold standard penumbral imaging modality, multitracer 15O positron emission tomography (PET), and the lack of standardised thresholds to identify penumbra using non-contrast CT have hindered the development and inclusion of routine brain imaging in the management of acute stroke patients. An alternative research tool which may potentially be used in clinical practice is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which defines penumbra on the basis of diffusion-perfusion (DWI/PWI) mismatch. However, this provides an imprecise measure of penumbra and fails to identify tissue viability.

Current PET-derived definitions of penumbra use metabolic indices such as oxygen extraction fraction (OEF) and the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (CMRO2), which are not fully incorporated into MR definitions. This thesis presents an alternative MRI method for identifying the metabolic penumbra in a rodent model of focal cerebral ischaemia. This utilises an MRI sequence similar to that used in functional MRI (fMRI) techniques, and uses 100% oxygen inhalation as a biotracer to detect penumbral tissue. Specifically, by using a blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) T2*-weighted sequence in which changes in the deoxyhaemoglobin:oxyhaemoglobin ratio are detected - in conjunction with a transient hyperoxic challenge (Oxygen Challenge (OC) paradigm: 5 minutes breathing air followed by 5 minutes breathing 100% oxygen) - penumbral tissue can be distinguished from adjacent ischaemic core and benign oligaemia (Santosh et al, 2008).

Changes in CBF, cerebral blood volume (CBV), tissue oxygenation, and oxidative metabolism can all influence the T2* signal (Ramsay et al, 1993; Corfield et al, 2001), so it was important to evaluate the possibility that factors other than tissue metabolism were influencing the signal change during OC. An initial study was performed which showed that baseline CBF did not influence T2* signal response to OC, whilst a greater increase in the percentage change in arterial oxygen saturation following OC caused an increased magnitude in T2* percentage signal change in contralateral tissue and penumbra, but not in ischaemic core. Arterial oxygen levels (PaO2) affect the magnitude of the T2* signal change to OC, with lower baseline PaO2 levels amplifying the T2* signal response in metabolically active regions, implying that careful control of physiological variables may optimise the T2*OC technique.

The first validation study used [14C] 2-deoxyglucose autoradiography to determine the metabolic status of penumbra defined by T2*OC MRI. The results confirmed that glucose metabolism in the T2*OC-defined penumbra was comparable to contralateral values, whereas markedly different levels of glucose metabolism were evident in the ADC-derived ischaemic core and an adjacent region of increased 2DG phosphorylation. From this, it was concluded that metabolic information could be yielded from the ischaemic brain that may improve delineation of the penumbra using the OC technique.

As penumbral tissue must fulfil the fundamental criteria of being potentially salvageable and responsive to therapy, the consequences of reperfusion on the T2*OC-defined penumbra was tested. This study confirmed that T2*OC-defined penumbra displayed a T2* signal change significantly higher than contralateral tissue during ischaemia which subsequently returned to contralateral levels following reperfusion and did not progress to infarction when assessed at day 7 following stroke.

Finally, the spatiotemporal characteristics of the T2*OC-defined penumbra were investigated and compared with DWI/PWI mismatch-defined penumbra. Serial scanning demonstrated that T2*OC penumbra behaved in a similar manner to tissue defined by traditional mismatch criterion. The spatial location and tissue volumes of penumbra were similar with both methods, showing that, in animals where mismatch tissue volume reduced over time, T2*OC penumbra reduced similarly, and in animals where mismatch volume remained static over time, T2*OC-defined penumbra behaved similarly. Additionally, an interesting finding arose in the latter study which showed that ischaemic damage continues to progress beyond 4 hours following permanent MCAO, which may be relevant to the calculation of ADC and CBF thresholds used in defining DWI/PWI mismatch.

Collectively, the preclinical data support the potential of T2*OC to discriminate tissue compartments in acute stroke based on metabolic status which thereby provides an alternative and improved means of defining the ischaemic penumbra.


The FluidFM technology uses microchanneled atomic force microscope cantilevers that are fixed to a drilled atomic force microscope cantilevers probeholder. A continuous fluidic circuit is thereby achieved extending from an external liquid reservoir, through the probeholder and the hollow cantilever to the tip aperture. In this way, both overpressure and an underpressure can be applied to the liquid reservoir and hence to the built-in fluidic circuit. We describe in this letter how standard atomic force microscopy in combination with regulated pressure differences inside the microchanneled cantilevers can be used to displace living organisms with micrometric precision in a nondestructive way. The protocol is applicable to both eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells (e.g., mammalian cells, yeasts, and bacteria) in physiological buffer. By means of this procedure, cells can also be transferred from one glass slide to another one or onto an agar medium.


This position paper focuses on Nynorsk in the digital era and the need for research-based knowledge about it in school settings in Norway. The Norwegian language situation is exceptional because Norway has two written standards, Bokmål (majority variety) and Nynorsk (minority variety), and both the Education Act and the Norwegian Directorate of Education require that publishers provide parallel editions of all paper-based and digital learning aids for pupils. However, a national report by Skjær,Eiksund, Fretland, Holen & Netteland(2008) revealed that few publishers have developed and offered digital learning aids in Nynorsk. In 2015 the situation appears to be largely unchanged, even though the authorities, language organisations and "leadings lights" have taken several initiatives to encourage compliance with the Education Act; however, what is needed is further research into the situation of parallel editions of digital learning aids. This is of particular interest today since the pupils in the county with the highest rate (97%) of Nynorsk-pupils has consistently been at the top of the list as one of the best performing counties in Norway in national tests since 2006 (Directorate of Education 2015). In addition, Vangsnes, Söderlund & Blekesaune (2015) find that municipalities in Norway with more than 50% Nynorsk-pupils achieve better in National tests when compared to Bokmål municipalities. The main message in our position paper is that the digital revolution might have changed some underlying premises for how we understand and use language and dialects, and the need for parallel editions of digital learning aids in Bokmål and Nynorsk is no longer a question of economics or of political statements for or against Nynorsk, etc., but is instead a question of a more nuanced scientific understanding of learning and achievement in today's digitized school. The achievements of Nynorsk pupils in national tests is one indicator of school performance, but to understand what causes this relationship further research is required and several indicators should be developed. In this case, it concerns Nynorsk pupils, but in a broader sense, it concerns pupils in general, and how they learn in school.


i»?Asia is fast becoming the largest recipient of Japan's foreign direct investment (FDI). Within the Asian region, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been the major investment destination of Japan. In the manufacturing sectors, however, the investment flows from Japan to ASEAN—with Thailand being the largest recipient—has been declining. In contrast, Japan's FDI in the services sectors in ASEAN has been growing rapidly. The recent phenomenon of the Singapore Shift in Japan's FDI in the ASEAN services sectors proves interesting. The prominent strategy of Japanese companies is to establish a commercial presence in Singapore, which they expect to be the "hub†of Southeast Asia, thereby enabling them to supply services to the entire ASEAN region. The magnitude of the Singapore Shift varies for every services sub-sector. By comparing transport and logistics with finance and insurance industries, this paper considers the critical determinants of the Singapore Shift.


Due to political and environmental impacts interbasin transfer is often regarded as an undesirable alternative for water supply development. However, water authorities will pursue interbasin transfer aggressively if they perceive the water is needed to meet demands. As a result, conflict often develops between interest groups and regions over interbasin transfer proposals. Interbasin transfer proposals can result from frustration with attempts to extend supplies through cooperation among existing water authorities in a region. This often repeated outcome is presented in the form of a scenario, with examples of how the scenario works, and suggested principles for using regional cooperation to reduce the need for interbasin transfer or other drastic water development measures.


The most direct and strongest evidence for the presence of dark energy is provided by the measurement of galaxy distances using SNe Ia. This result is based on the assumption that the corrected brightness of SN Ia through the empirical standardization would not evolve with look-back time. Recent studies have shown, however, that the standardized brightness of SN Ia is correlated with host morphology, host mass, and local star formation rate (SFR), suggesting a possible correlation with stellar population property. To understand the origin of these correlations, we have continued our spectroscopic observations to cover most of the reported nearby early-type host galaxies. From high-quality (signal-to-noise ratio ∼175) spectra, we obtained the most direct and reliable estimates of population age and metallicity for these host galaxies. We find a significant correlation between SN luminosity (after the standardization) and stellar population age at a 99.5% confidence level. As such, this is the most direct and stringent test ever made for the luminosity evolution of SN Ia. Based on this result, we further show that the previously reported correlations with host morphology, host mass, and local SFR are most likely originated from the difference in population age. This indicates that the light-curve fitters used by the SNe Ia community are not quite capable of correcting for the population age effect, which would inevitably cause a serious systematic bias with look-back time. Notably, taken at face values, most of the Hubble residual used in the discovery of the dark energy appears to be affected by the luminosity evolution.


Various factors and elements can influence the identity of urban landscapes the most important of which is the old trees in the urban spaces. It is now for years that the researchers are paying more attention to the shells, walls, and details of the cities in line with the investigation of the cities' identities and, in a smaller scale, to "urban spaces" but they have neglected the importance of the old trees as a valuable natural heritage. The current study aims to emphasize on the importance of protecting and conserving the trees (the old ones) in the urban spaces and the relationship between old trees and such a subject as the identity in the urban landscape in the study area. In order to perform this study, there was a need for a proper geographical ground; thus, Shohada Street in Ilam was selected and the residents and the users were subjected to the study questions. The data required for this study were collected using observations, content analysis, and questionnaire. Shohada Street is one of the urban spaces in the city of Ilam and the existence of the old trees is amongst the factors that are effective and are of great importance in the street's identification. The investigations show that the green spaces in this city have undergone a substantial decrease in comparison to the past years and this issue has overshadowed the natural identity of the city. The present study tries to find answers to the following questions: is there a relationship between the old trees and the identity of the urban landscapes? Can solutions be found for the identification of the cities using the trees? And, how much and in which way do the old trees influence the identity of the urban landscape in Ilam? The results signify that the green space and, particularly, the old trees are amongst the most important elements parallel to the creation of landscape identity in the cities. Old trees can grant identity to the urban spaces and distinguish them from the other spaces and they also make the urban spaces and streets more identifiable and more beautiful.


We present a model of offshoring of tasks to a developing nation, which is characterized by a minimum wage formal sector and a flexible wage informal sector. Some offshored tasks are outsourced by the formal sector to the lower wage informal sector. An improvement in the productivity in performing offshored tasks in the developing country raises offshoring, but not necessarily formal-to-informal outsourcing, and, in response, the developed nation wage can fall. Productivity improvements in the informal sector expand both offshoring and outsourcing, and the developed nation wage must rise. When the minimum wage is reduced, the developed nation wage falls when most of the efficiency gains accrue to the informal sector.


Connected to the sea by a narrow estuary, St Lucia lake is a shallow, generally saline water body situated on the sub-tropical east coast of northern Natal. The lake constitutes an internationally renowned nature reserve, rich in freshwater and marine flora and fauna. A popular tourist resort, it has great appeal to naturalists and scientists. With the advent of man, development of the catchments of the rivers feeding the lake has disturbed the delicate balance between the freshwater supply and evaporation losses. To an ever-increasing degree the system has now to rely on salt water from the sea to replace the water lost by evaporation. Consequently, during drought, salinities may rise to several times that of sea water, with dire consequences to the flora and fauna. The work reported in the paper was aimed primarily at establishing the effect of man's activities on the water level and the salinity regimes in the lake and, secondly, at selecting and testing feasible engineering measures aimed at preserving or enhancing the nature reserve environment. No attempt was made, however, to perform a benefit cost analysis of the lake system as a whole.


The aim of this project was to investigate a range of novel liquid crystalline pyrazine based compounds as potential neutral ionophores, for use in ion selective electrodes and to investigate the effect of their liquid crystal properties on ionophoric behaviour. The ionophores were initially incorporated into poly (vinyl chloride) matrix membranes and tested for their analytical usefulness as ion-selective electrodes, for the potentiometric response of a range of monovalent and divalent cations.
Two series of electrodes were fabricated, Series A and Series B. Series A incorporated o- nitrophenyl octyl ether as membrane plasticiser, which is used extensively in PVC membrane ion-selective electrodes commercially and for research purposes. The potentiometric results found the ionophore 2-n-hexyloxy-5-(4-bromophenyl)pyrazine to exhibit a near-Nernstian response for caesium ions over a concentration range of 10[sup]-1-10[sup]-5M. Selectivity coefficient values suggest this electrode is more responsive towards caesium ions in the presence of interfering ions, but this electrode is not comparable with or better than the current commercially available one which incorporates calix[6] arenehexakis( carboxymethylether )-hexakis( ethylester ) as ionophoric material.
The Series B set of electrodes incorporated a liquid crystal mixture, known commercially as E7, as a membrane placticiser. This was also used to generate an ionophoric system in the liquid crystal phase at room temperature. E7 or any liquid crystal material has not been used as plasticiser or ionophoric material for use in ion-selective electrodes to date. The potentiometric results found the electrode, incorporating the ionophore 2-n-hexyloxy-5-(4- bromophenyl)pyrazine, to exhibit a near-Nernstian response of 55.18mV decade[sup]-1 over a concentration range 10[sup]-1-10[sup]-5M. The selectivity of this electrode was much improved in comparison to that from Series A and was comparable with the current commercially available one. By changing the internal reference solution from 10[sup]-1M caesium chloride solution to 10[sup]-1M ammonium chloride solution this electrode can be used as an ammonium sensor in the absence of caesium ions.
The influence of the liquid crystal properties of the selected pyrazine ionophore on the potentiometric behaviour, was firstly attempted by immersing the electrode in a heated sample of the test solution. and then allowing the solution to cool to the ionophores liquid crystal monotropic smectic A phase temperature. With the high temperatures involved it was found the PVC membrane blistered.
Secondly, with the influence of E7 exhibiting plasticising properties, and showing a nematic liquid crystal phase at room temperature, it was possible to overwhelm the pyrazine ionophore with E7 resulting in converting the smectic A phase to a nematic mixture at room temperature. The added advantage of using E7 is that the nematic phase is easily influenced by the application of an external electric field. This would enable to electronically reorientate the molecular structure and hence see what influence this would have on the performance of the electrode. A number of alternative polymer matrices were investigated to see which allowed the best dispersion of E7 and the ionophore, as PVC did not show a response to the molecular switching at low voltages. Norland Optical Adhesive 65, a photocurable polymer, and photopolymerised decyl methacrylate both provided good matrices for the dispersion of E7 and the ionophore with switching occurring at low voltages.


CONTEXT
Both comorbid conditions and functional measures predict mortality in older adults, but few prognostic indexes combine both classes of predictors. Combining easily obtained measures into an accurate predictive model could be useful to clinicians advising patients, as well as policy makers and epidemiologists interested in risk adjustment.

OBJECTIVE
To develop and validate a prognostic index for 4-year mortality using information that can be obtained from patient report.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
Using the 1998 wave of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a population-based study of community-dwelling US adults older than 50 years, we developed the prognostic index from 11,701 individuals and validated the index with 8009. Individuals were asked about their demographic characteristics, whether they had specific diseases, and whether they had difficulty with a series of functional measures. We identified variables independently associated with mortality and weighted the variables to create a risk index.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
Death by December 31, 2002.

RESULTS
The overall response rate was 81%. During the 4-year follow-up, there were 1361 deaths (12%) in the development cohort and 1072 deaths (13%) in the validation cohort. Twelve independent predictors of mortality were identified: 2 demographic variables (age: 60-64 years, 1 point; 65-69 years, 2 points; 70-74 years, 3 points; 75-79 years, 4 points; 80-84 years, 5 points, >85 years, 7 points and male sex, 2 points), 6 comorbid conditions (diabetes, 1 point; cancer, 2 points; lung disease, 2 points; heart failure, 2 points; current tobacco use, 2 points; and body mass index <25, 1 point), and difficulty with 4 functional variables (bathing, 2 points; walking several blocks, 2 points; managing money, 2 points, and pushing large objects, 1 point. Scores on the risk index were strongly associated with 4-year mortality in the validation cohort, with 0 to 5 points predicting a less than 4% risk, 6 to 9 points predicting a 15% risk, 10 to 13 points predicting a 42% risk, and 14 or more points predicting a 64% risk. The risk index showed excellent discrimination with a cstatistic of 0.84 in the development cohort and 0.82 in the validation cohort.

CONCLUSION
This prognostic index, incorporating age, sex, self-reported comorbid conditions, and functional measures, accurately stratifies community-dwelling older adults into groups at varying risk of mortality.


Keywords : Conjugate gradient fast Fourier transform (CG-FFT), Discrete complex image method (DCIM), Electric field integral equation (EFIE), Frequency selective surfaces (FSS), Generalized pencil-of-functions (GPOF), Green's function (GF), Method of moments (MoM), Prony's method (PM), Sommerfeld integral (SI), Two-dimensional generalized exponential integral (2D-GEI)As the need for more frequency spectrum drives the design of antennas and other microwave components at higher frequencies, compact but electrically large microwave components are beginning to appear. Since a significant share of these components comprises scatterers etched on planar stratified layers, efficient tools analyzing and optimizing such structures are invaluable. The work carried out here is in fact a continuation of the research performed in the past at the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway.The conventional method of moments for analyzing and optimizing scatterers in stratified media is simple in formulation but computationally very intensive. Moreover, the computer memory usage of the software based on conventional MoM is high. Both these factors have so far limited the application of conventional MoM to electrically small and simpler stratified structures. Therefore, the present work focuses on introducing and implementing an improved space domain MoM for large radiating or scattering structures etched on planar stratified media. The space domain method of moments is selected due to its simplicity and potential for further improvements when compared with the spectral domain method of moments.The major areas of space domain MoM such as finding spectral Green's functions, deriving spatial Green's functions, matrix formulation and matrix inversion are addressed.The existing methods are evaluated with respect to their pros and cons. In addition, in order to extract the scattering parameters a few simple de-embedding techniques are introduced. We have attempted to optimize each stage of the conventional space domain MoM such that it can handle electrically large scatterers in planar stratified media. Each method is discussed independently and proved to be performing well compared with the corresponding method applied in conventional space domain MoM. In deriving spectral Green's functions, a novel formulation of transmission line theory is applied easing the analytical derivation and the software implementation significantly. A robust form of discrete complex image method (DCIM) is used in deriving spatial Green's functions from the corresponding spectral Green's functions. DCIM is an accurate and efficient way of evaluating Sommerfeld integrals without resorting to multi-dimensional numerical integration.The accuracy and efficiency of DCIM are affirmed by applying it to simple scatterers. The outcome of DCIM is a sum of complex exponential functions. These are then used to calculate the impedance matrices of MoM. It is also shown that when using mixed potential integral formulation, the original four-dimensional numerical integration can be simplified to two-dimensional integration with no loss of accuracy, thus reducing the mathematical complexity during matrix filling phase. Nevertheless, some of the complex exponential functions can lead to two-dimensional singular integrals. These singular two- dimensional generalized exponential integrals(2D-GEI) are efficiently handled by generalizing an innovative numerical integration method, thus saving the processing time further. The last but most important operation of MoM, the matrix inversion is achieved by using an iterative algorithm known as conjugate gradient method. It is then combined with fast Fourier transform to exploit the space invariant property present in the impedance matrices of MoM. A new compact formulation of the matrices is also presented to facilitate the programing task. To our knowledge, this is the first time such formulation is presented explicitly. A brief chapter is reserved for de-embedding of scattering parameters from the surface current densities resulting from MoM.In order to present the thesis as a collection of self-containing and independent chapters, results are included in each chapter whenever it is appropriate. These partial results confirm the accuracy and the efficiency of each method introduced in the corresponding chapter before we move on to the next. The conclusion on the overall method introduced in this work is that the space domain method of moments combined with the discrete complex image method and the conjugate gradient fast Fourier transform presents a very powerful tool for analyzing and optimizing large arbitrary stratified structures. However, to be competitive with commercial products based on either spectral domain method of moments or finite element methods, further improvements in its implementation and methodology are needed. Few improvements such as more efficient implementation of the entire method, inclusion of surface wave contribution in DCIM, integration of non-uniform basis and testing functions and need for better de-embedding techniques are already identified at the end of this work.Finally we hope that this work clarifies some important issues relating to space domain method of moments when applied to large scatterers etched on planar stratified media and encourages the further research on this particular method.