Living longer and in a better health condition should be seen as a chance. However, the increase in the life expectancy is often presented as a source of concern. Indeed, combined with the decline in the fertility rate, the increase in the life expectancy gives rise to the aging of the population that represents one of the main challenges of the twenty-first century since it will put the financial health of the Welfare State under pressure in many countries. Moreover, living longer requires more income and particularly more retirement income. Consequently, citizens of those countries will have probably to rely more on themselves than in the past to get this income. Therefore, it is essential that the young generations are able to make plans for the future in order to have enough resources during their retirement. However, the elaboration of these plans poses two issues. First, the young generations should have all the necessary information to build these plans. Second, once these plans are built, the young generations have to follow them. In this regard, the economic literature provides some upsetting evidence. First, some empirical studies show that the discount rate is not constant over time but is higher for short horizons than for long horizons (e.g. Thaler (1982)). These studies suggest that the discount function would be (quasi-)hyperbolic and not exponential as it is generally assumed in the literature dealing with intertemporal choices. When a person displays a quasi-hyperbolic discount function, it means that this person is too optimistic concerning her future behaviours what can lead her to make time-inconsistent choices due to self-control problems. Second, several studies show a lack of knowledge about pension and Social Security benefits among the population of some countries (e.g. Gustman and Steinmeier (2001)). In conclusion, this evidence suggests that the required information to make plans for the future is not widespread among the population and that people do not follow these plans once they are build because of self-control problems. Therefore, the misperception of the retirement income and quasi-hyperbolic discounting are two factors that could affect the standard of living of the elderly. This thesis is a collection of five independent chapters addressing these issues. Chapter 1 is a short note describing hyperbolic and quasi-hyperbolic discounting. Chapter 2 examines how quasi-hyperbolic discounting influences the retirement decision with respect to exponential discounting. In a 3-period model in which a person has to decide to work or to retire in period 2, we investigate whether quasi-hyperbolic discounting leads to early or later retirement compared with exponential discounting. With respect to exponential discounting, quasi-hyperbolic discounting implies that the agent cares relatively more about the remote future than about the near future. For the young generation, retiring later implies to incur a higher effort cost that takes place in the near future to benefit from a higher income that partially takes place in the remote future. Thus, quasi-hyperbolic discounting induces the young generation to plan to retire later. On the other hand, for the middle-aged generation, retiring later implies to incur an effort cost now to benefit from a higher income in the near future. That is why quasi-hyperbolic discounting induces the middle-aged generation to retire earlier than planned. Therefore, a person who displays a quasi-hyperbolic discount function may retire later or earlier than a person who displays an exponential discount function. However, the impact of quasi-hyperbolic discounting on the retirement decision depends on the degree of awareness of the potential self-control problem and on the tools available to deal with it. In this regard, if the person perceives the potential self-control problem and if she is able to commit her future retirement choice, quasi-hyperbolic discounting leads to later retirement with respect to exponential discounting. On the contrary, if she does not perceive the potential self-control problem or if she is unable to commit her retirement choice, the impact of quasi-hyperbolic discounting on the retirement decision is indeterminate. In conclusion, the retirement decision depends effectively on the discount function we consider and quasi-hyperbolic discounting, even if it does not provide a general explanation for early retirement, may explain, in some cases, this phenomenon. Chapter 3 provides a deep analysis on how quasi-hyperbolic discounting affects the retirement decision. This chapter investigates how the bias for the present that is inherent to quasi-hyperbolic discounting influences the retirement choice. As in Salanie and Treich (2006), the two impacts of the present bias, i.e. the self-control effect and the discounting effect, are considered. Contrary to Chapter 2, we consider that the workers can retire at any age. We show that the self-control effect leads to early retirement while the discounting effect leads to later retirement. Indeed, if the person cares less about the future, she saves less what induces her to retire later. On the contrary, her lack of self-control induces her to retire earlier than expected. The global impact of the bias for the present on the retirement decision is therefore indeterminate. Nevertheless, if a person is able to commit her retirement choice, she avoids early retirement since the self-control effect does not play. However, we show that perceiving the potential self-control problem is not sufficient to attenuate early retirement. The literature on quasi-hyperbolic discounting generally considers that a person who perceives the potential self-control problem tries to commit her future choices or determines her current actions by taking into account her effective future reactions to these actions (Strotz (1956)). Cremer et al. (2007) and Bassi (2008) show that is also possible to design a public transfer scheme through majority voting in order to deal with self-control problems. Following this idea, Chapter 4 shows how a Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) pension can emerge in order to solve the self-control problem regarding the retirement decision. If an agent perceives the potential self-control problem but if a commitment technology is not available, he can make a time-consistent retirement choice by contributing to a PAYG pension system in which the contributions made are lost in the case of early retirement. Therefore, a PAYG pension system can emerge even if it is a dominated saving device since contributing to such a pension system can be a way to constraint the future retirement choice by increasing the cost of early retirement. This chapter identifies the conditions under which such equilibrium arises and compares this voting equilibrium to the one emerging in an economy populated by agents who do not perceive the potential self-control problem. Finally, several studies show a lack of knowledge about pension and Social Security benefits among the population in many countries. However, other studies show that the knowledge of these benefits become more precise for people close to their retirement what suggests that a progressive learning process is at work (e.g. Rohwedder and Kleinjans (2006)). While this lack of knowledge should have sizeable effects on the consumption level during the retirement and on the retirement age, empirical studies find that this misperception has a low impact on the retirement decision and on the consumption level during retirement (e.g. Gustman and Steinmeier (2001), Rohwedder and van Soest (2006)). Chapter 5 investigates the theoretical implications of this misperception of the pension benefit and this progressive learning on the retirement and consumption decisions. The main result is that the impact of the misperception on these outcomes may be ambiguous if only two retirement ages are possible. This could rationalize why empirical studies only find a limited impact of the misperception of the retirement benefit on these outcomes. In addition, this misperception may explain simultaneously early retirement and the Retirement-Consumption Puzzle, i.e. the unexplained downward shift in the consumption path around the retirement age.


We provide a reappraisal of income convergence across European regions over the period 1990-2005 by using a semiparametric partially linear model to approximate the relationship between the average growth rate of GDP per capita and the initial GDP per capita. Estimation results point out both country heterogeneity and non-linearity in the convergence process. Only low income regions converge while there is little evidence of convergence for higher income regions.


ERP deals well with core functions (production, finance and HR), but 'non-core' areas (supply chain collaboration, procurement and eBusiness) often demand "considerably more" in the way of dynamic change and the adoption of new or radically different processes. The article discusses composite ERP, which is replacing proprietary ERP, through which IT services are configured to precisely fit established business processes. The article discusses the factors that contributed to ERP's failure to deliver what it promised. Solutions that may help add to ERP's success are suggested.


In the thymus, key developmental decisions are made that have far-reaching consequences for the immune system, perhaps most notable the commitment of thymocytes to becoming CD4 (helper) or CD8 (cytotoxic) T cells. The transcriptional factor Th-POK commits thymocytes that still express both CD4 and CD8 co-receptors to becoming CD4 T cells, but how is the alternate developmental option generated? Setoguchi et al. find that cells that would otherwise be destined to become CD8+ T cells can be redirected to the CD4 lineage by loss of members of another transcription factor family, Runx. It seems that under normal circumstances, the Runx complex represses Th-POK expression and allows CD8 T cells to emerge. R. Setoguchi, M. Tachibana, Y. Naoe, S. Muroi, K. Akiyama, C. Tezuka, T. Okuda, I. Taniuchi, Repression of the transcription factor Th-POK by Runx complexes in cytotoxic T cell development. Science 319, 822-825 (2008). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Today's nonprofit organizations face an environment characterized by higher levels of competition for funding, clients and audiences, talent, and recognition. In addition, they confront greater pressures from donors, government, and the public to demonstrate efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability, and accountability, while intense social needs and problems, as well as the desire for growth, drive them to expand their programs and activities. Collectively, these challenges go to the heart of fundamental issues of mission and strategy. Integrating Mission and Strategy for Nonprofit Organizations applies and adapts the core body of general management knowledge about mission, strategy, and execution to help nonprofit leaders deal with the special challenges they face. It strives to draw on this knowledge in a way that does not dilute or oversimplify, and at the same time recognizes the unique features of the nonprofit or voluntary sector. James A. Phills develops an action-oriented framework that combines rigorous analysis with the practical challenge of execution and change. In addition to helping nonprofit leaders think through important decisions and make concrete choices, the book also provides a shared language and a discipline that can serve as the basis for more productive discussions between the individuals who lead nonprofits, the business executives who serve on their boards, and the philanthropists who support their organizations and programs. This last objective is critical, because too often nonprofit leaders and board members complain that they can't reap the benefits of the expertise of their supporters, funders, and volunteers from the business sector. Phills suggests that this is often the result of an inability to speak the same language and draw on a common understanding of key concepts, such as competition, strategy, and vision.


Ethiopia has one of Africa's fastest growing non-oil producing economies and an increasing level of motorisation (AfDB, OECD, UNDP, & UNECA, 2012). This rapidly increasing mobility has created some unique road safety concerns; however there is scant published information and related commentary (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, 2009). The objective of this paper is to quantify police-reported traffic crashes in Ethiopia and characterise the existing state of road safety. Six years (July 2005 - June 2011) of police-reported crash data were analysed, consisting of 12,140 fatal and 29,454 injury crashes on the country's road network. The 12,140 fatal crashes involved 1,070 drivers, 5,702 passengers, and 7,770 pedestrians, totalling 14,542 fatalities, an average of 1.2 road user fatalities per crash. An important and glaring trend that emerges is that more than half of the fatalities in Ethiopia involve pedestrians. The majority of the crashes occur during daytime hours, involve males, and involve persons in the 18-50 age group—Ethiopia's active workforce. Crashes frequently occur in mid blocks or roadways. The predominant collision between motor vehicles and pedestrians was a rollover on a road tangent section. Failing to observe the priority of pedestrians and speeding were the major causes of crashes attributed by police. Trucks and minibus taxis were involved in the majority of crashes, while automobiles (small vehicles) were less involved in crashes relative to other vehicle types, partially because small vehicles tend to be driven fewer kilometres per annum. These data illustrate and justify a high priority to identify and implement effective programs, policies, and countermeasures focused on reducing pedestrian crashes.


Cellular oxidative stress produced by an increase in free radicals is one of the factors that promote the development of chronic degenerative diseases; therefore, consuming natural antioxidants helps minimize their negative effects. This study evaluated the cytotoxicity of the soursop extract (Annona muricata), its cytoprotective capacity against oxidative stress induced by hydrogen peroxide, the inhibitory potential of reactive oxygen species (ROS), the molecular mechanism of its antioxidant action, and its capacity to repair cellular damage in the fibroblast cell line. The soursop extract proved not to be cytotoxic in fibroblast cultures and showed cytoprotective capacity against hydrogen peroxide-induced stress; in cell culture it reduced the generation of ROS significantly by inhibiting a sub-unit of the NADPH oxidase enzyme (p47phox). The soursop extract can prevent damage caused by cellular oxidants.


In contrast to the traditional legal commentary, I find nuisance law to be a coherent body of rules that serves an explainable function. Nuisance optimally regulates activity levels. Nuisance law induces actors to choose socially optimal activity levels by imposing liability when externalized costs are far in excess of externalized benefits or far in excess of background external costs. The new enforcement actions for lead paint abatement or gun control purposes have an arguable theoretical basis in nuisance law. However, as currently framed, the lawsuits are inconsistent with significant parts of the doctrine and the theory.


With increasing population and freshwater shortages worldwide, it is necessary to protect vital groundwater resources using innovative methods. The main objective of this study is to use a geographic information systems (GIS)-based approach with the Groundwater Quality Index (GWQI) to analyze groundwater quality in Marvdasht located in the semi-arid region of Iran. For this purpose, we used groundwater quality data that were collected in a five-year period (2010–2015). The most influential water quality parameters were determined by performing map removal sensitivity analysis. Mean maps of the groundwater parameters showed that total dissolved solids (TDS), electrical conductivity (EC) and total hardness (TH) were the most important parameters that exceed the maximum permissible limits for drinking water. The groundwater quality of the study area is generally desirable for drinking (GWQI ¼ 71). The GWQI map indicated that groundwater was higher quality in northern regions of the study area. The GWQI also revealed that only 2% of the study area (11 km 2 ) was below the low quality class. According to map removal sensitivity analysis, Mg 2þ , TH and Na þ were identified as the most sensitive water quality parameters. Therefore, these parameters need to be monitored regularly and with increased precision


The main objective of the paper is to gain understanding and overview of how knowledge management practices are understood and approached in the current academic research of circular economy with the focus on business life. A systematic literature review was conducted to identify knowledge management concepts, implemented knowledge management methods, tools or models as well as the areas of knowledge management theory applications and the contexts of applications in the existing academic papers. The aim of the paper behind the main objective is not only to summarize existing evidence but also to draw attention of business practice to the role of knowledge management and complex knowledge ecosystems for meeting the circular economy challenges and overcoming the circular economy barriers. For this paper peer-reviewed journals articles included in the Web of Science and SCOPUS databases were analysed within the systematic literature review. The main findings show that most of the current body of knowledge management theory is ignored in circular economy and circular business literature and the interest is focused mainly on knowledge sharing, knowledge acquisition and lack of knowledge while other important themes are not elaborated at all or only marginally.


Editor's Note In "A Writer's Reflections," Sean Krueger mentions his desire to emulate his favorite writers—Walt Whitman and Mark Twain. He laments how some teach ers squelched these creative tendencies, even as he recognized the harsh— but somehow necessary—lessons on organization. Krueger explains that he was ultimately able to break out of these boundaries, though his writing does maintain an organic structure that works well in this piece. He discusses how he was inspired by his class readings in English 134. How does reading affect your writing? Watch, too, how Krueger stretches his diction and punc tuation throughout the essay, with simple, yet effective words like "lacklus ter," "renegade," "doldrums," and sophisticated punctuation like dashes and semi-colons, as well as precisely placed italics.


Polychaetes of the family Cirratulidae are among the most important macrofaunal invertebrates in deep-sea benthic communities off northern California. The genus Chaetozone includes several species that are among the dominant species in depths of 2400-3200 m. Four of the most common species of Chaetozone are described in this paper. Of these four species, only C. spinosa Moore, 1903 has been previously described. Three other species are new to science. C. brunnea , n. sp. has a short, triangular-shaped prostomium, brown body colour, and an enlarged "stomach" which distends the body in a characteristic pattern. C. allanotai , n. sp. has a unique methyl green staining pattern that provides a means to readily identify juveniles and fragmented adults. A third new species, C. palaea , n. sp has posterior spines that are unusually broad, providing a spectacular armature. These species are compared with the type species, C. setosa from the Arctic. New details concerning segmentation of the anterior end, morphology of the nuchal organs, and posterior spines, represent a suite of characters that, in combination, will be used in a phylogenetic analysis of cirratulid polychaetes.


Monoculture of irrigated rice (Oryza sativa L.) in Latin America has led to serious weed problems and intensive herbicide use. Yield loss prediction enables the economic analysis of weed control, providing a basis for strategic use of herbicides and diversified weed management, but site differences restrict predictions to the environments for which the models are calibrated. We developed an algorithm for predicting rice yield losses based on early assessments of multispecies weed infestations emerging in successive flushes within variable crop stands. Rice was drill-seeded near Palmira, Colombia, at 75, 150. 200, 250, and 300 kg ha 1 , and grown under nonflood intermittent irrigation for two growing seasons. Five common weeds were allowed to emerge at 15, 24, and 30 days after rice emergence (DAE), when farmers usually decide about early, intermediate, and late herbicide applications. Yield losses were predicted using hyperbolic models with independent variables deseribing the mixed-weed infestations in terms of density (no, of plants m -2 ), leaf area index, dry matter m -2 , relative density [weed/(weed + rice)], relative leaf area (RLA), and a visual estimate of relative ground cover (RC,). With early weed emergence (15 DAE), weed density accounted poorly (r 2 = 0.77) for yield loss. Regression fits improved when RLA (r 2 = 0.86) and RC, (r 2 = 0.90) were used as independent variables to describe weed infestations in terms of the light apportionment between rice and weed canopies. Measured in terms of RC, late-emerging (24 and 30 DAE) weeds had lower effects on yield loss variability (r 2 = 0.69 and 0.59, respectively). Although subjective, RC, is easier to estimate than RLA, and was the best single variable to describe the competitiveness of a mixed-weed infestation. An additional variable was needed only when yield losses were predicted from weed density. Predictions based on RLA were further improved (by 36%) when each species' RI was measured separately and the model was extended for additive effects of all species. Yield loss predictions using empirical equations cannot be extrapolated widely across different locations; however, these data suggest that meaningful independent variables can strengthen the usefulness of hyperbolic equations for predicting rice yield losses over a range of situations, such as mixtures of weed species at various densities and times of emergence, and different rice seeding rates.


Stochastic convex optimization algorithms are the most popular way to train machine learning models on large-scale data. Scaling up the training process of these models is crucial, but the most popular algorithm, Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD), is a serial method that is surprisingly hard to parallelize. In this paper, we propose an efficient distributed stochastic optimization method by combining adaptivity with variance reduction techniques. Our analysis yields a linear speedup in the number of machines, constant memory footprint, and only a logarithmic number of communication rounds. Critically, our approach is a black-box reduction that parallelizes any serial online learning algorithm, streamlining prior analysis and allowing us to leverage the significant progress that has been made in designing adaptive algorithms. In particular, we achieve optimal convergence rates without any prior knowledge of smoothness parameters, yielding a more robust algorithm that reduces the need for hyperparameter tuning. We implement our algorithm in the Spark distributed framework and exhibit dramatic performance gains on large-scale logistic regression problems.


Today there is a variation within the EU to what extent nations allow for situation test results to constitute mass of evidence in court in order to prevent ethnic discrimination. In the UK The Equality and Human Rights Commission has the right to conduct discrimination tests and to even prosecute firms, implying that discriminating firms face the risk of a significant penalty. Other European countries have been reluctant to use such tests as a tool for counteracting discrimination and discuss a much softer version with only monitoring. In this study two labor market field experiments, sending qualitatively identical job applications with randomly assigned Swedish and Middle Eastern sounding names to employers, show that ethnic discrimination exists in hiring in the Swedish labor market. In both studies extensive media coverage occurred when being only halfway finished informing employers of their hiring practices being monitored by such situation testing. This study utilizes these unique events and the data from the experiments to perform a difference-in-differences analysis of whether discrimination decreased after the media coverage. The results reveal no sign of employers changing their hiring practices when being aware of running the risk of being included in such an experiment. This suggests that the detection risk alone is not sufficient if authorities wish to use field experiments as a discrimination prevention strategy. Instead, it must be combined with some penalty to become effective.


The occurrence of overpressure observed in petroleum bearing basins must be understood in terms of generation and distribution in order to build up a fluid flow history. Overpressure influences expulsion and migration of hydrocarbons from source rocks. This thesis details and interprets observations and results of a case study into aspects of overpressure distribution, fluid flow patterns, causative mechanisms, palaeo- pressure and subsequent pressure history, the surface expression of overpressure and the mechanical strength relationships of sealing rocks. One of the principle study areas was the Alwyn field in the Northern North Sea. The overpressure distribution over the field area was seen not to be uniform. Organic geochemical data indicated that the source of reservoired hydrocarbons and associated fluids was the Viking Graben depocentre. Fluid inclusion data recorded in specific diagenetic mineral phases interpreted fluid flow conditions of hydrocarbons into the reservoir under normal pressures but elevated temperatures. When combined with computer generated pressure models, these diagenetic events were exclusive of modelled overpressure periods. The greatest contribution of overpressure was modelled as being a result of compaction disequilibrium but withalikely contribution from the thermal cracking of oil to gas which would also account for the present day distribution of overpressure across the Alwyn field area. The Uinta Basin with its relatively simple burial and thermal history allowed the production of a model . : involving a temporal history of overpressure generation, fracture development, regional tectonism, hydrocarbon maturation and expulsion and the process of Gilsonite emplacement. It is inferred that initial hydraulically induced fracturing of the Green River and overlying formations was a result of combined overpressure due to disequilibrium and regional extension with a possible contribution from the maturation of the source rock. This study recognised that the hydrocarbon was emplaced under a high pressure regime with evidence provide. by the existence of forcibly injected hydrocarbon sills. Hydrocarbons fractionated in the pre-existing vertical fractures to leave residual highly viscous and immobile hydrocarbons in veins seen at the present day. The third major component of this study detailed results from an assessment of the mechanical capacity of sealing rocks with respect to specific composition and mineralogy. It was found that increasing organic carbon decreased the compressive strength of the tested shale specimens. This relationship was interpreted as a possible result of the interaction of alkaline fluids to produce a dispersant which acts to reduce the cohesion of the organic rich shale.


Oxilorphan is a fully synthetic morphinan derivative containing the 14-hydroxy group characteristics of naloxone and naltrexone. As a narcotic antagonist, oxilorphan was 4 times more potent than dl-cyclazocine, equipotent to naloxone and about one-fourth as potent as naltrexone parenterally. Duration studies in rodents were inconclusive, but in antagonism of morphine analgesia and miosis in the dog, oxilorphan was longer acting than naloxone and equivalent to dl-cyclazocine. Oxilorphan was inactive in the conventional animal thermal analgesic tests. However, oxilone did exhibit relatively weak analgesic activity in preventing phenylquinone-induced abdominal contraction at doses about 700 times higher than those required for antagonist activity. The analgesic potency of oxilorphan was only 120 and 1/300 the potency of morphine and dl-cyclazocine, respectively, but was significantly greater than naltrexone and naloxone. Mice chronically treated with increasing doses of oxilorphan failed to exhibit withdrawal jumping after naloxone challenge. General central nervous system activity studies showed oxilorphan to be relatively free from central side effects at doses at which dl-cyclazocine produced pronounced effects.


Collective Adaptive Systems (CAS) is a broad term that describes large scale systems that comprise of many units/nodes, each of which may have their own individual properties, objectives and actions. Decision-making in such a system is distributed and possibly highly dispersed, and interaction between the units may lead to the emergence of unexpected phenomena. CASs are open, in that nodes may enter or leave the collective at any time, and boundaries between CASs are fluid. The units can be highly heterogeneous (computers, robots, agents, devices, biological entities, etc.), each operating at different temporal and spatial scales, and having different (potentially conflicting) objectives and goals, even if often the system has a global goal that is pursued by means of collective actions. Our society increasingly depends on such systems, in which collections of heterogeneous technological nodes are tightly entangled with human and social structures to form artificial societies. Yet, to properly exploit them, we need to develop a deeper scientific understanding of the principles by which they operate, in order to better design them.

The aim of this special issue is to provide a selection of the state of the art, emerging trends, new technologies and best practices in the field of collective adaptive systems. The idea was born at the second FoCAS Workshop on Fundamentals of Collective Adaptive Systems at SASO 2014 in London, however, an open call enabled any researcher working on a related topic to submit a paper for review.

This special issue features four articles that concern collective adaptive systems.

The first one, On Intention-Propagation-Based Prediction in Autonomously Self-adapting Navigation, by Laszlo Z. Varga considers road-traffic systems as an example of a collective adaptive system, and applies intention-propagation-based approaches to forecast travel times. The authors find that using intention-propagation-based traffic forecast provides an important improvement to a simple naive online strategy, and also point out some surprising results; for example, if vehicles use a simple naive strategy and exploit intention-propagation-based prediction, then in some networks and in some cases the traffic may be worse off by exploiting real-time information than without exploiting real-time information. They also suggest other collective adaptive systems to which the techniques could be applied, for instance manufacturing and cloud computing.

The second one, Application of collective movement in real life scenarios: overview of current flocking solutions, by Bernat Wiandt, Andras Kokuti, Vilmos Simon considers collective movement of dynamic nodes within an adaptive system, addressing the issue of how to control the nodes in such a way that they behave as a coherent group (flock). The authors critically survey the existing flocking algorithms, showing that the majority are unsuitable for real world use due to overlooking crucial physical limitations or lack of sufficiently detailed models. The paper provides clear directions for future work based on a comprehensive survey and analysis of real-world scenarios.

The third paper, Overlay Service Computing - Modular and Reconfigurable Collective Adaptive Systems, by Evangelos Pournaras, addresses the design of overlay layers in network services that support collective adaptive systems. The author introduces the notion of overlay services that provide generic application capabilities of a broad application scope enabled by one or more overlay networks. In the paper the ASMA architecture is presented, which supports the definition of structures of overlay services and guides their development by means of a simple high-level notation. The paper reports also two examples of overlay services developed according to ASMA.

The fourth paper, SODAP: Self-Organized Topology Protection For Superpeer P2P Networks, by Paul L. Snyder and Giuseppe Valetto, addresses peer-to-peer systems organized in superpeer overlays. To address the vulnerability problems of the superpeers, the authors propose SODAP (Self-Organized Degree Adaptation Protection), which is a self-organized strategy for the self-protection of the overlay. The proposed approach is based on the local adaptation of a peer's degree in response to disconnections, by creating redundant connections that lead to a more resilient topology of the system. The authors provide an evaluation of the proposed approach by means of Myconet, a self-organized superpeer overlay for unstructured peer-to-peer networks.

We would like to thank the editorial board of SCPE for the chance of arranging this special issue, and all the reviewers for their hard work.


A transparent reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) module composed of AWG-based wavelength-channel-selectors monolithically integrated with Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) thermo-optic (TO) waveguide switch arrays and arrayed waveguide true-time-delay (TTD) lines is designed and fabricated using polymer photonic lightwave circuit technology. Negative-type fluorinated photoresist and grafting modified organic-inorganic hybrid materials were synthesized as the waveguide core and cladding, respectively. The one-chip transmission loss is ~6 dB and the crosstalk is less than ~30 dB for the transverse-magnetic (TM) mode. The actual maximum modulation depths of different thermo-optic switches are similar, ~15.5 dB with 1.9 V bias. The maximum power consumption of a single switch is less than 10 mW. The delay time basic increments are measured from 140 ps to 20 ps. Proposed novel ROADM is flexible and scalable for the dense wavelength division multiplexing network.


The most frequently requested investigation in any nuclear medicine department remains the technetium-99m (99mTc)-labelled diphosphonate bone scan. Despite rapid advances in all imaging modalities. there has been no serious challenge to the role of bone scanning in the evaluation of the skeleton. The main reason for this is the exquisite sensitivity of the bone scan for lesion detection. combined with clear visualisation of the whole skeleton. In recent years several new diphosphonate agents have become available with claims for superior imaging of the skeleton. Essentially. they all have higher affinity for bone. thus allowing the normal skeleton to be visualised all the more clearly. However. as will be dis cussed. this may occur at some cost to the principal role of bone scanning. lesion detection. The major strength of nuclear medicine is its ability to provide functional and physiological information. With bone scanning this leads to high sensitivity for focal disease if there has been any disturbance of skeletal metabolism. However. in many other clinical situations. and particularly in metabolic bone disease. more generalised alteration in skeletal turnover may occur. and quantitation of diphosphonate uptake by the skeleton can provide valuable clinical information."


Background Near-infrared fluorescence imaging (NIRFI) is an increasingly utilized imaging modality, however its use amongst general surgeons and its barriers to adoption have not yet been characterized. Methods This survey was sent to Canadian Association of General Surgeons and the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons members. Survey development occurred through consensus of NIRFI experienced surgeons. Results Survey completion rate for those opening the email was 16.0% (n = 263). Most respondents had used NIRFI (n = 161, 61.2%). Training, higher volumes, and bariatric, thoracic, or foregut subspecialty were associated with use (P < .001). Common reasons for NIRFI included anastomotic assessment (n = 117, 72.7%), cholangiography (n = 106, 65.8%), macroscopic angiography (n = 66, 41.0%), and bowel viability assessment (n = 101, 62.7%). Technical knowledge, training and poor evidence were cited as common barriers to NIRFI adoption. Conclusions NIRFI use is common with high case volume, bariatric, foregut, and thoracic surgery practices associated with adoption. Barriers to use appear to be lack of awareness, low confidence in current evidence, and inadequate training. High quality randomized studies evaluating NIRFI are needed to improve confidence in current evidence; if deemed beneficial, training will be imperative for NIRFI adoption.


Objective: While schizophrenia may have a progressive component, the evidence for neurodegenerative processes as indicated by reactive astrocytes is inconclusive. We recently identified a subgroup of individuals with schizophrenia with increased expression of inflammatory markers in prefrontal cortex, and hypothesized that this subgroup would also have reactive astrocytes. Method: We measured glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) mRNA by quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and protein levels by immunoblotting in grey matter homogenate from 37 individuals with schizophrenia and 37 unaffected controls. We examined the morphology of GFAP-positive astrocytes in immunostained sections of middle frontal gyrus. We tested if GFAP expression or astrocyte morphology were altered in people with schizophrenia with increased expression of inflammatory markers. We used RNA-Seq data on a subset of patients and controls (n=20/group) to ascertain whether mRNA transcripts associated with astrogliosis were elevated in the individuals with active neuroinflammation. Results: GFAP (mRNA and protein) levels and astrocyte morphology were not significantly different between people with schizophrenia and controls overall. However, individuals with schizophrenia with neuroinflammation had increased expression of GFAP mRNA (t(33)=2.978, p=0.005), hypertrophic astrocyte morphology (χ2(2)=6.281, p=0.043), and statistically significant elevated expression of three mRNA transcripts previously associated with astrogliosis. Conclusions: We found clear evidence of astrogliosis in a subset of people with schizophrenia. We suggest that the lack of astrogliosis reported in previous studies may be due to cohort differences in aetiopathology, illness stage, treatment exposure, or a failure to examine subsets of people with schizophrenia.


In various versions of the dungeon illusion (P. Bressan, 2001), we show that grouping between targets and contextual disks determines whether remote luminances affect target lightness or not. In the dungeon illusion, target disks surrounded by contextual disks contrast with them rather than with the immediate background. We formally establish the existence of this illusion and show that it reverses when the luminance of the targets is either lower (double decrement) or higher (double increment) than the luminances of both the background and the contextual disks rather than in between them. On the basis of the double-anchoring theory of lightness (P. Bressan, 2006a), we predict and show that grouping gates the effects of remote luminances in such a way that they go in opposite directions in the double-decrement and double-increment inverted-dungeon illusions. Our results support the double-anchoring theory and demonstrate that luminances that are far away from the targets are irrelevant in some conditions but critical in others.


A number of instruments use rasters generated by deflecting one or more laser beams with some scanning device. Optics for shaping and manipulating these beams are described, with particular attention to the dual role of each element in terms of the (instantaneous) beam and the scanned pattern. A solution is shown to the problem of chromaticity in diffraction scanners. Specific examples are drawn from the scanning laser ophthalmoscope, a scanning instrument using two lasers with real-time TV display.


A group of young women college graduates involved with the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) are identified. As a result of their education, intelligence, as well as their being at the right place and at the right time, these young women were able to perform important computer work. Many learned to use effectively "the machine that changed the world" to assist in solving some of the important scientific problems of the time. Ten of them report on their background and experiences. It is now appropriate that these women be given recognition for what they did as "pioneers" of the age of computing.


Objective To establish the non-inferior efficacy of vonoprazan versus lansoprazole in the treatment of Asian patients with erosive oesophagitis (EO). Design In this phase III, double-blind, multicentre study, patients with endoscopically confirmed EO were randomised 1:1 to receive vonoprazan 20 mg or lansoprazole 30 mg, once daily for up to 8 weeks. The primary endpoint was EO healing rate at 8 weeks. The secondary endpoints were EO healing rates at 2 and 4 weeks. Safety endpoints included treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs). Results In the vonoprazan (n=238) and lansoprazole (n=230) arms, 8-week EO healing rates were 92.4% and 91.3%, respectively (difference 1.1% (95% CI –3.822% to 6.087%)). The respective 2-week EO healing rates were 75.0% and 67.8% (difference 7.2% (95% CI –1.054% to 15.371%)), and the respective 4-week EO healing rates were 85.3% and 83.5% (difference 1.8% (95% CI –4.763% to 8.395%)). In patients with baseline Los Angeles classification grade C/D, 2-week, 4-week and 8-week EO healing rates were higher with vonoprazan versus lansoprazole (2 weeks: 62.2% vs 51.5%, difference 10.6% (95% CI –5.708% to 27.002%); 4 weeks: 73.3% vs 67.2%, difference 6.2% (95% CI –8.884 to 21.223); and 8 weeks: 84.0% vs 80.6%, difference 3.4% (95% CI –9.187% to 15.993%)). Overall, EO healing rates appeared higher with vonoprazan versus lansoprazole. TEAE rates were 38.1% and 36.6% in the vonoprazan and lansoprazole group, respectively. Conclusion Our findings demonstrate the non-inferior efficacy of vonoprazan versus lansoprazole in terms of EO healing rate at 8 weeks in this population. Safety outcomes were similar in the two treatment arms. Trial registration number NCT02388724.


This paper explains the development of a highly efficient progressive 3-D mesh geometry coder based on the region adaptive transform in the spectral mesh compression method. A hierarchical set partitioning technique, originally proposed for the efficient compression of wavelet transform coefficients in high-performance wavelet-based image coding methods, is proposed for the efficient compression of the coefficients of this transform. Experiments confirm that the proposed coder employing such a region adaptive transform has a high compression performance rarely achieved by other state of the art 3-D mesh geometry compression algorithms. A new, high-performance fixed spectral basis method is also proposed for reducing the computational complexity of the transform. Many-to-one mappings are employed to relate the coded irregular mesh region to a regular mesh whose basis is used. To prevent loss of compression performance due to the low-pass nature of such mappings, transitions are made from transform-based coding to spatial coding on a per region basis at high coding rates. Experimental results show the performance advantage of the newly proposed fixed spectral basis method over the original fixed spectral basis method in the literature that employs one-to-one mappings.


Collective cell migration plays a pivotal role in development, wound healing, and metastasis, but little is known about the mechanisms and coordination of cell migration in 3D microenvironments. Here, we demonstrate a 3D wound healing assay by photothermal ablation for investigating collective cell migration in epithelial tissue structures. The nanoparticle-mediated photothermal technique creates local hyperthermia for selective cell ablation and induces collective cell migration of 3D tissue structures. By incorporating dynamic single cell gene expression analysis, live cell actin staining, and particle image velocimetry, we show that the wound healing response consists of 3D vortex motion moving toward the wound followed by the formation of multicellular actin bundles and leader cells with active actin-based protrusions. Inhibition of ROCK signaling disrupts the multicellular actin bundle and enhances the formation of leader cells at the leading edge. Furthermore, single cell gene expression analysis, pharmacological perturbation, and RNA interference reveal that Notch1-Dll4 signaling negatively regulates the formation of multicellular actin bundles and leader cells. Taken together, our study demonstrates a platform for investigating 3D collective cell migration and underscores the essential roles of ROCK and Notch1-Dll4 signaling in regulating 3D epithelial wound healing.


Abstract In this study we examine the determinants of public support for foreign aid in China. We find that while political ideology and sense of national identity are the most important determinants of support for foreign aid, several demographic characteristics, such as age, gender and income, are also important. We also find that those living in the lower income western provinces and in provinces with higher poverty rates express less support for giving foreign aid. We draw policy implications from the findings for better targeting engagement strategies designed to garner support for foreign aid.


An experiment was done to search for states with a neutron halo in 12B. The measurements were carried out at the cyclotron of the University of Jyvaskyla (Finland) using Large Scattering Chamber (LSC). The idea of the work was to search for two states with the expected neutron halo, 1 ̄ and 2 ̄. Differential cross sections with excitation of 12B states, including abovementioned states, were observed. The preliminary calculations on halo radii by the method of asymptotic normalization coefficients for the 2 ̄ and 1 ̄ states which are in a discrete spectrum gave following values: 5.6 fm and 7.4 fm, which is much larger than the radius of the valence neutron in the ground state. But strictly the presence of a neutron halo can be confirmed only for 1 ̄ state. The 2 ̄ state can be considered only as candidate for halo. An unexpected result was obtained for the 3 ̄, 3.39 MeV state, which is in continuum 19 keV above the decay threshold 12B → 11B + n, preliminary estimation for its halo radius is ∼ 6.5 fm. This indicates that the halo can be present in this state as well. But strict conditions for neutron halo are not fulfilled in the same way as for 2 ̄ state. Until now, the neutron halo in unbound states has been observed only for the members of the rotational bands.


Public service announcements (PSAs) are traditionally designed to elicit negative emotions that spur problem-solving behavior. However, in order to improve their reach, some social marketers are forgoing traditional strategy by creating PSAs that are humorous. Because of humor's positivity and association with non-serious situations, we hypothesized that humorous appeals can decrease problem perception and problemsolving behavior. Study 1 examined problem perceptions using matched pairs of humorous and non-humorous PSAs. Respondents judged a social issue as less important to solve after viewing the humorous version of the pair. Study 2 examined problem-solving behavior through a partnership with a non-profit organization seeking to improve young adults' sexual health knowledge. Humorous PSAs were less effective than a non-humorous version at spurring people to search for health information. The inquiry revealed a previously unaddressed tradeoff: using humor to benefit a message's reach creates a potential cost to solving a personal or societal problem.


A number of existing spatial diversity schemes have been shown to improve the performance of optical wireless communication systems in diversity-rich environments. Among all, switched diversity has low complexity and is simple to implement. In this paper, an innovative spatial diversity scheme based on switched diversity is proposed. The scheme, namely switch-to-dominant combining, contributes to a higher bit error rate (BER) performance when compared to conventional switched diversity schemes, including switch-and-stay and switch-and-examine diversity. The optical multireceiver wireless system operates in a spatially correlated and lognormally distributed fading channel. Analytical analyses are conducted to demonstrate BER and processing load performance offered by the new scheme and compare them to available schemes, i.e., conventional switched combining and selection combining.


In this paper, we present a new algorithm to estimate a signal from its short-time Fourier transform modulus (STFTM). This algorithm is computationally simple and is obtained by an acceleration of the well-known Griffin-Lim algorithm (GLA). Before deriving the algorithm, we will give a new interpretation of the GLA and formulate the phase recovery problem in an optimization form. We then present some experimental results where the new algorithm is tested on various signals. It shows not only significant improvement in speed of convergence but it does as well recover the signals with a smaller error than the traditional GLA.


When you can control a [person's] thinking you don't have to worry about [that person's] actions. --Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933) ... never would I be able to write a book about my life, or even a pamphlet, but ... write something I could and would. --Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992) Frederick Douglass details the horrors of American slavery quite eloquently in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself(1845). In fact, for many scholars, teachers, and students, Douglass's narrative is, as James Olney posits in his essay, "`I Was Born': Slave Narratives, Their Status as Autobiography and as Literature," "the greatest of them all" in presenting "what slavery is really like" (Davis and Gates 154). Olney goes on to use Douglass's narrative as the model upon which to compare and contrast all other slave narratives, establishing what he identifies as a "Master Plan for Slave Narratives," a plan that is recognizably male-centered and focused on discovery of masculine selfhood, chronological and linear journeying spatially and temporally, emotional separations of family relations, Divine deliverance, attacks on Christian hypocrisy, existential pondering, veiled accounts of escape, physical beatings and other mutilations, a burning desire for and the attaining of literacy, and accounts of masculine physical prowess in "mastering the master." Douglass's narrative--with its clever turns of phrase, rich figurative language, and deep symbolisms--is also a testimony of how literacy transforms a slave into a man, or in Douglass's words: "how a man was made a slave; [and] how a slave was made a man" (Douglass 685). While Douglass here speaks of his physical stamina demonstrated in the seemingly impossible two-hour scrape with Mr. Covey, one might easily see how literacy itself transforms an alleged barbarian and an uncivilized animal into a human capable of creative expression and intellectual pursuits. Yet Douglass's narrative does not address the peculiar and particular positioning of slave women except as objects of masters' sexual desires and for masters' economic gains. While Douglass offers emotionally provocative details of his Aunt Hester's naked assault by a lecherous master, and of his old grandmother's abandonment and exile after years of productivity--literally and figuratively--his narrative remains nevertheless a masculine-centered account of slavery. Harriet Jacobs moves beyond Douglass's account of slavery to particularize the conditions of female slaves in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself(1861). Through Linda Brent's experiences with an aggressively lecherous master, Dr. Flint, Jacobs shows the double noose of race and gender for female slaves. She includes no great awakenings to selfhood as does Douglass, but rather details experiences to stir Northern white abolitionist women to action on behalf of their enslaved' sisters. Jacobs highlights the gender-specific complexities of a slave woman compelled to compromise her virtue in order to author her life.(1) In her short story, "The Child Who Favors Daughter," from the collection In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women (1973), Alice Walker revisits and revises the slave narrative genre. An account of black female enslavement by black men who position themselves as "masters," Walker's story is a kind of inverted slave narrative with familial, racial, and gender reversals, with redefinitions of authority and power. While the story bears a striking resemblance to Harriet Jacobs's Incidents and Mary Prince's The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave (1831), it complicates notions of enslavement and liberation. In the tradition of Harriet Jacobs's account of her personal experiences as a slave, "The Child Who Favored Daughter"(2) is generally about female subjugation in a patriarchal society, a society of men who objectify women sexually. …


Hurricane Floyd had immediate impacts on the relatively slow-changing environment and undeveloped unregulated watershed. The total flood water was 95% of the volume of Pamlico Sound and many locations exceeded the record for rainfall in a 24-hour period. North Carolina flood mapping and hydrology projects were started after Floyd. The high water mark signs in the community reflect the social and policy legacy of the storm. When looking at long-term effects the researchers did not see many changes in flow or channel characteristics based on stage–discharge relations and USGS rate curves. Data from three gauges were examined based on the NWS flood modeling program. At Rocky Mount upstream of the Tar reservoir flow is regulated. The inundation model is highly correlated with a well established relationship between stage and discharge. The timeline of Floyd follows the model very well; however a moderate flood causes a different relationship between stage and discharge. The Tar River at Tarboro using the same rating curve showed change after Floyd. In Greenville a partial duration series showed that during extreme floods the relationships are about the same but there were changes at minor to moderate flood stage. Minor to moderate flood inundation maps might be different than the typical inundation maps currently used.


This paper addresses the desirability of competition in banking industry. In a model where banks compete on both deposit and loan markets and where banks can use monitoring technology to control entrepreneurs' behavior, we investigate three questions: what are the effects of competition on banks' monitoring incentives? Does competition hurt banks' stability? What can be devices to correct potential negative effcts of competition vis a vis financial stability? We find that impacts of competition on banks' monitoring incentives can be decomposed into two effects: one on the attractiveness of monitoring and the other on the monitoring efficiency. The first effect operates through the link between competition and loan margin. The second effect comes from the fact that marginal effct of monitoring on entrepreneur's effort depends on loan rate. We characterize the sufficient condition under which competition will increase monitoring incentives as well as banks' stability. For the third question, we focus on the role of capital requirement and claim that with capital requirement, we can attain a weak correction but not strong correction.


Computational linguistics can be used to uncover mysteries in text which are not always obvious to visual inspection. For example, the computer analysis of writing style can show who might be the true author of a text in cases of disputed authorship or suspected plagiarism. The theoretical background to authorship attribution is presented in a step by step manner, and comprehensive reviews of the field are given in two specialist areas, the writings of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and the various writing styles seen in religious texts. The final chapter looks at the progress computers have made in the decipherment of lost languages. This book is written for students and researchers of general linguistics, computational and corpus linguistics, and computer forensics. It will inspire future researchers to study these topics for themselves, and gives sufficient details of the methods and resources to get them started.


Background and objective Asthma is a growing problem worldwide. Acute exacerbations impose considerable morbidity, mortality, and increased cost. Viral respiratory infections are the most common cause (80–85%) of pediatric asthma exacerbations and admissions to the hospital. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of a new synbiotic Lactocare® on viral respiratory infections and asthma exacerbations in asthmatic children. Methods In this double blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial, 72 children with mild persistent asthma, aged between 6 and 12 years, were randomized to receive either Lactocare®, a Synbiotic containing 1 billion CFU/Capsule of Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Streptococcus thermophilus, Bifidobacterium breve, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium infantis, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, and Fructooligosacharide (Zist Takhmir, Tehran, Iran) or placebo daily for 60 days. The primary outcome was the number of viral respiratory infections, and secondary outcomes were school absence, salbutamol and prednisolone usage, outpatient visits, and hospital admission for asthma. The outcomes were compared among study groups using the SPSS 11.5 program and the Mann Whitney and Fisher exact tests. Results Of the 72 children who were enrolled with mild persistent asthma, 36 were assigned randomly to be treated with synbiotic and 36 with placebo. The number of viral respiratory infections was significantly higher in placebo group than the synbiotic group during the first month of intervention (0.74 ± 0.12 vs. 0.44 ± 0.1, p < 0.007) but not during the second month (0.5 ± 0.8 vs. 0.5 ± 0.8, p < 0.641). Considering the total duration of the study (two months), infection episodes also were significantly lower in the synbiotic group (0.92 ± 0.15 vs. 0.69 ± 0.11, p < 0.046). Salbutamol consumption was significantly lower in the synbiotic group, but there were no significant differences in school absenteeism, oral prednisolone use, outpatient visits, or hospital admissions. Conclusion This new synbiotic (a mixture of seven probiotic strains plus fructooligosacharide may reduce episodes of viral infection in asthmatic children. Trial registration This study is registered in Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials with registration number of IRCT201509234976N3. Funding This research was supported financially by the Research Council of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (Grant Number: 911048).


This is an interim report on research carried out at the intertidal site of Peterstone Great Wharf, located on the Wentlooge Levels, c. 7 km east of Cardiff. The project is the first detailed survey and excavation of a site originally recorded in 1996-7 as part of a larger survey of the intertidal zone from Cardiff to the Second Severn Crossing. The 1997 survey produced important evidence for
prehistoric human activity preserved within four
palaeochannels. Significant erosion has taken place since then. A new survey of the foreshore has identified additional palaeochannels not seen in 1997 which form part of a more complex system of inter-cutting channels, many containing wood structures including short lines of timbers on the channel edge. Artefacts include a wooden axe handle, antler artefacts, an animal bone assemblage and some pottery of Beaker and Bronze Age date. The finds are thought to derive from a nearby, possibly eroded, settlement. The channels have trapped artefacts and preserved evidence of a range of activities, including what
are interpreted as possible boat landings and fishing structures.


The need for improved understanding of the phase relationship in the system Fe–AsO4–SO4 involving ferric arsenate, scorodite, and ferrihydrite motivated a series of synthesis experiments at 40 °C and 70 °C, and pH 0.5 to 1.5, from solutions with variable compositions. The precipitates were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM with selected-area electron diffraction, SAED), and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy techniques. Amorphous ferric arsenate is the initial metastable phase forming from solutions with As/S molar values of as low as 0.1, as a precursor to scorodite. The onset of scorodite formation is exponentially delayed with increased pH and at lower temperatures. High-resolution TEM images reveal that amorphous ferric arsenate occurs as randomly oriented stubby nanoparticles showing no changes in size and crystallinity with increased synthesis. Simultaneous fitting of the As K edge and Fe K -edge EXAFS spectra of a series of ferric arsenate precipitates resulted in local structural parameters that are similar to those reported earlier, supporting a local structure made of short polymers containing chains of corner-linked octahedra instead of the framework model or a scorodite-like local structure. The EXAFS modeling results can also be conceptualized as short chains of alternating octahedra and tetrahedra without the Fe–Fe linkages of the original chain model, suggesting that there is no unique EXAFS solution. Experimental results indicate that As can be fixed as scorodite through precipitation under ambient conditions from arsenic-rich effluents in the pH range 0.5–4.5. Improved understanding of the kinetics of phase transformations and their dependence on pH and temperature would facilitate the development of new stabilization technologies involving scorodite or ferrihydrite (or both) by improved controls on the behavior of arsenic in mine wastes. Stabilization of As through controlled precipitation of ferrihydrite during incongruent dissolution of scorodite at pH greater than about 2, which would maximize the uptake of As and optimize the kinetics of FeO6 polymerization without the presence of ferric arsenate, would be the most desirable outcome.


It has long been recognised that depression and anxiety share a common core of negative affect, but research on similarities and differences between these two emotions is growing. The focus of the current study was on whether the timing of a triggering event can determine whether the dominant emotional reaction is depression or anxiety. It was hypothesised that aversive events in the past would elicit more depression than anxiety, whereas the same aversive events in the future would elicit more anxiety than depression. We created temporally varied versions of vignettes describing aversive events occurring at either time, and asked participants to rate the extent to which the events would elicit feelings of depression or anxiety. Results indicated that adverse past events elicited much higher ratings of anticipated depression and adverse future events elicited much higher ratings of anticipated anxiety. Implications for understanding these two emotions and depressive and anxiety disorders are discussed.


Thirteen species of plant parasitic nematodes within nine genera were isolated and identified from roots and soil around cashew nut shrubs. They were: Helicotylenchus astriatus, H. dihystera, H. elegans, Hemicriconemoides mangiferae, Hoplolaimus indicus, Meloidogyne incognita, Pratylenchus coffeae, P. brachyurus, Rotylenchulus reniformis, Scutellonema brachyurus, Tylenchorhynchus leviterminalis, Xiphinema brevicolle and X. neoamericaum. Among them, Helicotylenchus spp. (95%), Rotylenchulus reniformis (83%), Pratylenchus spp. (70%), Hoplolaimus indicus (60%), Tylenchorhynchus leviterminalis (46%) and Xiphinema spp. (28%) were the most predominant species associated with cashew nut in Tripura. All these species of phytonematodes, except Hemicriconemoides mangiferae, are new records of association with cashew nut from Tripura state as well as from India. The plantation at Belonia (10 years old) was more diverse than either the younger or older plantations when diversity was based on the numbers of nematodes. The three-years-old plantation at Nalkata was the least diverse in this regard. The twenty-years-old plantation located at Nagichherra was the most diverse when diversity was based on nematode biomass.


We think, conventionally, of volcanic explosive eruptions as being triggered in one of two ways: by release and expansion of volatiles dissolved in the ejected magma (magmatic explosions) or by transfer of heat from magma into an external source of water (phreatic or phreatomagmatic explosions). We document here an event where neither magma nor an external water source was involved in explosive activity at Kīlauea. Instead, the eruption was powered by the expansion of decoupled magmatic volatiles released from deeper magma, which was not ejected by the eruption, and the trigger was a collapse of near-surface wall rocks that then momentarily blocked that volatile flux. Mapping of the advected fall deposit a day after this eruption has highlighted the difficulty of constraining deposit edges from unobserved or prehistoric eruptions of all magnitudes. Our results suggest that the dispersal area of advected fall deposits could be miscalculated by up to 30% of the total, raising issues for accurate hazard zoning and assessment. Eruptions of this type challenge existing classification schemes for pyroclastic deposits and explosive eruptions and, in the past, have probably been interpreted as phreatic explosions, where the eruptive mechanism has been assumed to involve flashing of groundwater to steam.


This article considers how the Fourth Amendment should limit the process of executing search warrants for digital evidence. Warrants for digital evidence are normally executed in two stages. First, agents enter the physical place to be searched and seize all computers. Second, agents conduct an electronic search for the responsive data described in the warrant. The two-stage process raises the prospect that warrants for digital evidence will be executed in ways that resemble general warrants. If agents can seize everything at the first stage, and see all the data at the second stage, what stops agents from accessing and using a target's entire digital world every time a computer warrant is executed? This article argues that the Fourth Amendment should be interpreted to impose a use restriction on nonresponsive data seized during the execution of computer warrants. After reviewing the various ways courts could limit the execution of computer warrants, it concludes that use restrictions are the best way to restore the traditional limits on searches for the new technological environment of computers. The article then revisits the author's earlier conclusion that courts can achieve that result by eliminating the plain view exception for computer searches. While still a possible approach, eliminating the plain view exception raises underappreciated doctrinal puzzles. The better path is for courts to rule that the Fourth Amendment imposes use restrictions on nonresponsive data because use transforms the underlying seizure from a justified and modest step needed to execute the warrant to an unjustified and invasive seizure unrelated to the warrant itself. Agents can overseize at the first stage because they must, and they can search through all the data for the responsive files because there is no other way to ensure that they find all the evidence described in the warrant. But when agents use nonresponsive data, the seizure of that data is no longer justified by the warrant and ordinarily is no longer reasonable. This approach also allows courts to impose an exigent circumstances exception to the use restriction: When a review of nonresponsive files reveals exigent circumstances, agents can use the nonresponsive files to address the exigency.


The suburban growth corridors are the new frontier of America's economic future. But who are the firms that dominate the highway grids? How do they find their locations and labor force, what is their service spillover, the multiplier of banking, legal and accounting services, and all their other necessities? And what of markets? Rent levels and search patterns of the tenants are examined in detail. Whether you are a municipal or regional economic planner or a locational consultant, this book provides crucial knowledge. How are firms attracted to a location? And what keeps them there--or impels them to move? What is the role of the realtor? Of taxes? Of housing availability? These are just a few of the parameters which are explored in depth. The work is fully cross-tabulated by SIC code and size of operation. This is a detailed case study in New Jersey, based on 500 interviews with firms that have located since 1979. The report ranges from Princeton's growth corridor to the Meadowlands; from hi-tech to basic industry. Are these central city ref-ugees--or something far more complex? Survey data on two older industrial cities--New Brunswick and Trenton-- provide comparatives. A case study that provides national insights.


In an era of slowing growth, Africa is home to a trillion-dollar, resource-rich economy, and six of the ten fastest growing markets in the world. Success in Africa introduces the ambitious CEOs who are building the continent. These stories of growth, technology, and tradition bring life to one of the most important stories of the global economy: a successful Africa. The CEOs of General Electric, The Coca Cola Company, and Tullow Oil join Africa's leading CEOs to share insights on what wins in this fast-growth market. With twenty years of experience in frontier markets, including a decade working in Africa, author Jonathan Berman engages with top business leaders on the vast opportunities and challenges of the continent. Success in Africa pushes past the headlines on Africa's growth to answer the questions often asked by companies and investors: Who do I work with there and what drives them? How do I deal with government? What about war, disease, and poverty? What about China? How do I win? Success in Africa provides on-the-ground perspective, personal stories, and insight that Robert Rubin calls "essential reading for all who are interested in Africa for reasons of business, investment, policy, or curiosity."


The British Cardiovascular Society recently commissioned a working group to report on the role of simulation-based learning (SBL) in cardiology (http://www.bcs.com/documents/231\_SBL\_Report\_BCSv7\_FINAL.pdf).

Why was the report commissioned now, and what is the relevance of the findings to the wider cardiology community?

Simulation is a technique to replace or amplify real experiences in an interactive setting. SBL applies this, through the use of role play, simulated patients, part-task trainers, virtual reality devices and electronic manikins.

Simulators have the theoretical potential to enhance learning, enhance practice, especially of teams, and thereby improve patient care and there are several factors that create a pressing need to enhance training and practice.

Training time is being compressed by the European working directive and opportunities are further reduced by the less frequent undertaking of certain procedures—for example, right and left cardiac catheterisation. Patient safety priorities are at the forefront of health providers' concerns and this has driven a more consultant-led service. The see one, do one, teach one philosophy has hopefully been, and certainly should be, eliminated.

Furthermore, for trained cardiologists, revalidation is developing both in the UK and in Europe, and has long since formed part of practice in the USA. The field of cardiology is evolving rapidly and the use of new equipment and procedures requires training.

The primary qualities of SBL would seem to make it ideal to help us adapt to this changing environment. SBL can take place without exposing patients to risk, at the speed of the learner, with immediate feedback and the ability to adapt to the learner in a completely flexible way. Perhaps this is best summarised by saying that simulators have the potential to take the early and dangerous part of the learning curve away from patients …


We present the simultaneous Swift and Fermi observations of the bright GRB 100728A and its afterglow. The early X-ray emission is dominated by a vigorous flaring activity continuing until 1 ks after the burst. In the same time interval, high-energy emission is significantly detected by the Fermi/Large Area Telescope. Marginal evidence of GeV emission is observed up to later times. We discuss the broadband properties of this burst within both the internal and external shock scenarios, with a particular emphasis on the relation between X-ray flares, the GeV emission, and a continued long-duration central engine activity as their power source.


An updated checklist of the species of Turkish Raphidioptera and further analysis concerning their zoogeographical distribution are presented in this study. The present checklist has been based on studies from the literature and includes records from extensive material that I have identified over the last few years. The Turkish Raphidioptera presently comprises 40 species in 8 genera and 2 families. There are 38 species of Raphidiidae, while there are only 2 species of Inocelliidae in Turkey. Among these species, 19 species are recorded as endemic and the endemism rate is 47.5%. Distributions of these species within Turkey are given according to data provided from 81 provinces of the country. Three species have been known only from the type locality, whereas the other species have been recorded from various parts of the country. Analyses of the species of Turkish snakeflies were based on their origins. The faunal assemblage is represented by 28 taxa from Mediterranean, 8 species from Pontocaspian, 2 species from Syrian, 1 species from Cyprio-Syrian, and 1 species from Euro-Siberian elements in the Turkish fauna. Mediterranean subregion species are the most dominant constituents representing characteristic features of the fauna (70%), and 8 species are widely distributed in the Pontocaspian subregion (20%). The elements of the Mediterranean subregion of Turkey's fauna are represented by 4 groups: 20 taxa from Anatolopontomediterranean, 6 species from Balkanopontomediterranean, and 2 species from Pontomediterranean faunal elements. Taxa are arranged hierarchically under the categories of family, genus, subgenus, and species. The addition of examined material turns this manuscript into an original contribution on the Turkish fauna, with new records of species of Raphidioptera in some provinces. The investigated specimens, of 40 in total, belong to 15 species. First records are 16, concerning 9 species and 11 provinces.


Obesity is more prevalent in people of lower-socioeconomic status. Since over half of meals consumed are prepared in the home, grocery store purchases may be playing an important role in the obesity epidemic. The objective of this study was to assess the price differences between more nutrient favorable (MNF; i.e. low in fat, low in sodium, low in sugar, low in calories and whole grain) foods and less nutrient favorable (LNF; i.e. high in fat, high in sodium, high in sugar, high in calories, and refined) food option pairs (n=126; 63 MNF, 63 LNF) in all grocery stores in Greenville, NC (n=13) in the summer of 2009. Anovas, independent t tests and post-hoc analyses were used to produce means for each food item across the 13 grocery stores. LNF food items never cost more than MNF food items. Of the MNF and LNF food pairs assessed, 14 (22.2%) of foods had statistically significant differences in price (P<0.01). When looked at for cent-for-cent differences, 33 (52.4%) of the food pairs assessed had no differences in price. The findings of this study show that consumers can largely reduce calorie, fat, sugar, and sodium content of grocery store food purchases without increasing cost.


Research on associations of suicidal behavior, including suicide and suicide attempt, with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and acute use of alcohol (AUA) are discussed, with an emphasis on data from meta-analyses. Based on psychological autopsy investigations, results indicate that AUD is prevalent among individuals who die by suicide. Results also indicate that AUD is a potent risk factor for suicidal behavior. Risk estimates are higher for individuals with AUD in treatment settings, when compared to individuals in the community who have AUD. Also, although rates of suicide and prevalence of AUD remain higher in men, they have increased more among women in recent decades. Based on postmortem blood alcohol concentrations, AUA was commonly present among those who died by suicide. AUA is a potent proximal risk factor for suicidal behavior, and the risk increases with the amount of alcohol consumed, consistent with a dose-response relationship. Research indicates that AUA increases risk for suicidal behavior by lowering inhibition and promoting suicidal thoughts. There is support for policies that serve to reduce alcohol availability in populations with high rates of AUD and suicide, that promote AUD treatment, and that defer suicide risk assessments in intoxicated patients to allow the blood alcohol concentration to decrease.


This paper describes recent research regarding: 1) the influence of the water flow and the pressure in order to attain the best polishing in portuguese limestones; 2) the experimental validation of a polishing simulator under development at Instituto Superior Tecnico (Lisbon). The research work was carried out using slabs of calcareous stone Moleanos, from Portugal, and the polishing sequence employed commercial Frankfurt-type abrasive tools applied for the last 3 stages of the process in order to attain maximum surface gloss. The study was conducted with a single-head laboratory-type polishing machine, where all test conditions are adequately monitored and controlled. The polishing head contains 6 Frankfurt abrasives of the same grit size (320#, 400# and 5Extra). The surface quality was assessed, after each polishing stage, by means of a glossmeter. In the end, it was possible to identify the optimum working parameters for each polishing stage. The results obtained also show that indeed a correlation exists between experimental values of gloss and the abrasion data given by the simulator.


In supervised machine learning, the partitioning of the values (also called grouping) of a categorical attribute aims at constructing a new synthetic attribute which keeps the information of the initial attribute and reduces the number of its values. In this paper, we propose a new grouping method MODL founded on a Bayesian approach. The method relies on a model space of grouping models and on a prior distribution defined on this model space. This results in an evaluation criterion of grouping, which is minimal for the most probable grouping given the data, i.e. the Bayes optimal grouping. We propose new super-linear optimization heuristics that yields near-optimal groupings. Extensive comparative experiments demonstrate that the MODL grouping method builds high quality groupings in terms of predictive quality, robustness and small number of groups.


The new edition, retains the key features of the first which successfully showed how to tackle self-defeating thinking and replace it with a problem-solving outlook and provided clear and helpful advice on dealing with troublesome emotions, overcoming procrastination, becoming assertive, and tackling poor time management. In addition it now offers a brand new chapter on the emerging topic of resilience as well as updates throughout.


ELI-ALPS (Extreme Light Infrastructure Attosecond Light Pulse Source) is a new Research Infrastructure under implementation in Hungary. The infrastructure will consist of various systems (laser sources, beam transport, secondary sources, end stations) built on top of common subsystems (HVAC, cooling water, vibration monitoring, vacuum system, etc.), yielding a heterogeneous environment. To support the full control software development lifecycle for this complex infrastructure a flexible hierarchical configuration model has been defined, and a supporting toolset has been developed for its management. The configuration model is comprehensive as it covers all relevant aspects of the entire controlled system, the control software components and all the necessary connections between them. Furthermore, it supports the generation of virtual environments that approximate the hardware environment for software testing purposes. The toolset covers configuration functions such as storage, version control, GUI editing and queries. The model and tools presented in our paper are not specific to ELI-ALPS or to the ELI community, they may be useful for other research institutions as well.


This paper investigates the syntax and semantics of Singlish (Colloquial Singapore English) sentencefinal already and its development in the contact ecology of Singapore. Bao 2005a identifies the Mandarin Chinese perfective suffix -le and sentence-final particle le as two substrate sources for Singlish already. In this paper, I first argue instead that sentence-final le — together with its cognate liao/laa in other Chinese languages of Singapore — is the sole substrate source for the syntax and semantics of Singlish already. The various interpretational effects of already can be derived from a uniform semantics shared with its substrate cognate particles le/liao/laa, together with consideration of the telicity of the predicate. I furthermore show that the syntax of already differs subtly from that of its substrate cognates: Singlish sentence-final already unambiguously scopes over the entire clause, whereas its substrate cognate particles le/liau/laa are in a clause-medial position. I propose that this difference can be explained through a process of reanalysis forced by the interaction of a syntactic universal, the Final-over-Final Constraint, together with independent differences between Singlish and its substrate Chinese languages.


Hydropower currently generates approximately eight percent of the electricity in the United States. It is the most abundant, most efficient and least expensive source of renewable electricity generation on earth. Yet, when most people think of hydropower they think of huge dams, dead fish and a destroyed environment. Unfortunately, this perception has on too many occasions been a reality. Hydropower needs a new PR department. It is time for a "small" makeover. To embrace the full potential of sustainable hydropower, investors and regulatory agencies must look to develop small, localized facilities on existing infrastructure. Unlike large conventional hydropower, small and low flow hydropower facilities require less water flow and can be placed in conduits, canals, locks, and other areas that are less affected by climate change decreases in river levels. The environmental impact of small hydropower is generally minimal. It diverts less water, and does not require creation of dams and reservoirs. Furthermore, small hydropower can be developed near populated areas (especially if located on existing infrastructure), which makes it a valuable distributed generation energy source. Utilization of distributed generation has several advantages over centralized generation. Distributed generation is generally cost-efficient and environmentally-friendly because it takes up very little space and requires little to no construction of transmission and distribution systems. It is also less susceptible to blackout and damage as a result of storms, which are becoming more frequent and severe due to a changing climate.In addition to guidance on locating the small facilities, regulatory agencies should continue to take steps to allow a more streamlined licensing scheme for small hydropower. The current licensing scheme requires – with few exceptions – that small projects undergo the same complex licensing process as large projects such as construct of another Hoover Dam. The process is expensive – costing several times that of the technology itself. The process is time-consuming – often taking up to five years to complete. It requires multiple levels of consultation – often with dozens of parties. And, all of this must occur prior to issuance of a license to operate. Recently, the federal government and some states have taken steps to make the process more efficient; however, more can and should be done.


Monthly temperature records are assembled for 57 European stations, with some of the records extending nearly two and a half centuries. Our analyses reveal a statistically significant warm- ing of approximately 0.5°C over the period 1751 to 1995. The period of most rapid warming in Europe occurred between 1890 and 1950, and there is quantitative evidence that some of the observed warm- ing during this 60 yr period may be related to urbanization or other local effects; no warming was observed in the most recent half century. Urban effects or other local contaminations in the earliest records could not be quantified due to a dearth of reliable comparable data. The long-term warming in Europe has been confined to the low-sun months, and the coldest period since 1751 occurred near 1890.


: - The paper has as research objective to increase the efficacy of an anti-hail rocket with solid propellant rocket motor (SRM). A particularity of SRM is that the rocket motor once started it cannot be stopped and restart. That induces the idea that the only control of thrust in the same conditions for pressure in burning chamber is to fragment the propellant grain in two or more parts that will split the thrust. This is possible by introducing a lag time into the pyrotechnical chain using delay devices. In this paper are presented numerical calculations for different delay time between Thrust 1 and Thrust 2 in order to obtain a maximum for the active part of the rocket trajectory inside an area of interest. This will increase the efficacity of the anti-hail rocket and as a consequence the efficiency of hail suppression activity.


Visual behavior, and specifically gaze directed at objects and people, is a fundamental cue for understanding how children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience and respond to social interaction. Indeed atypical behaviors such as averting the gaze from faces, looking out of the corner of the eyes, and having difficulties disengaging from non-social stimuli, are well known symptoms of this developmental disorder. However, studying these atypicalities presents several technical challenges, both at a hardware and software level. Traditionally this type of analysis is done by viewing video recordings of the child's interaction and manually rating gaze behavior episodes. This data collection procedure is often a time consuming process, and all the results have to be checked by multiple raters to ensure reliability. When automated systems are used, issues of intrusiveness, robustness and reliability have to be taken into consideration, and their impact on the behavior of the child needs to be accounted for. Moreover, children often do not cooperate to the same extent as an adult participant in the experimental process. This thesis addresses the problem of studying the visual behavior of children during dyadic interactions, using tools from machine learning and computer vision. One focus is on the technical aspects of how to measure the direction of the gaze, and how to recognize what the child is looking at. Another is on the development of semi-automated data analysis collection methods that can be efficiently checked and corrected by the experimenter. The concrete contribution of this work is a set of algorithms and software tools that allow firstly the measurement of multiple gaze factors and the quantification of attentional episodes to objects and people, and secondly the analysis of their distributions, extrema, and spatio-temporal correlations. These tools are applied to the specific case of children affected by ASD, which allows the assessment of how their gaze strategies differ from typically developing children. To measure the direction of the gaze of children in a robust and unobtrusive way, the main recording tool employed is the WearCam: a head-mounted camera developed in our laboratory, that records the eyes of the child and an image of the broad field of view. The reflected images of the eyes are mapped to the coordinates of the gaze in the field of view by means of data-driven appearance-based methods. This is a different approach to the standard methods for gaze tracking, as it makes no use of active lighting, and allows the gathering of data to be postponed until after the recording. This is especially useful as it relieves the children from actively participating in a calibration phase. The task of identifying at which object or person the child is looking is approached through a semi-automated analysis of the recordings. A computationally intensive face and object detection system provides a preliminary estimation, while a faster on-line method can be used by the experimenter to correct that estimation by providing active cues. Furthermore, to allow faster processing of the recordings, a set of features specific to the relevant objects is extracted. The combination of these approaches greatly reduces the time needed to collect the data, while ensuring that reliable data is obtained. The development of these tools facilitates the studying of the behavior of children during natural interactions with an adult. Our approach is able to obtain information on several gaze factors, such as the frequency and length of fixations to faces, how extensively the gaze explores the broad field of view and the use of central vs. peripheral vision. The experimental observations obtained from the comparison of 29 children with autism to 29 typically developing children provide, in two separate studies, quantitative measurements in support of known deficits, such as reduced gaze to faces, downcast gaze and shorter fixations to social stimuli; deficits that were so far documented only in a qualitative manner. More importantly, the results highlight a novel hypothesis, not yet documented, suggesting that ASD children may use a strategy of continuous peripheral viewing to overcome their visual processing difficulties. These observations thus provide an experimental contribution to clinical research in autism.


The forests of Attappady Hills part of the Western Ghats in Kerala homeland to Adivasi people is a frontier region where a settler population is now predominant. This paper aims to bring the concept of borders as a heuristic device to interpret gender-ecology-indigeneity in Attappady. The conversations among Adivasis, between Adivasis and settlers, between Adivasi women and their children become in media res dialogues of their border subjectivity. This was an empirical study in Attappady in which life experiences, oral history and myths were studied using narrative analysis. The paper discusses four findings: First how land dispossession disproportionately impacted Adivasi women. Second the gradual increase of elopement and its linkage with land dispossession among women and loss of commons. Thirdly the collapse of the household due to alcoholism and Adivasi women's social movement to protect their oikeon. Fourthly the rupture of gender agriculture foodways and how women are running community kitchens for nutritious meals. The Attappady hills that were once denuded have regenerated although the region is prone to recurrent droughts and floods. In the midst of these climate change challenges and agrarian distress both these forests and Adivasi women are uniting from their border position and showing signs of being mutually constituted in renewal. While narratives of "enchantment" can serve as technologies of power it argues that critical border thinking has to be accompanied by visions of "re-enchantment" of the commons. Flows of knowledge are in media res between enchantment, critical enchantment and re-enchantment. Epistemic potential for this re-enchantment comes from the convergence of decolonial feminist epistemologies of geo politics, body territory and indigenous feminisms with ecofeminism. The emergent affective interrelation shows co-production of place and people. Finally, a grounded approach is recommended for strengthening women's collectives and multifunctional land use planning to ensure gender equity in access to natural resources.


This thesis presents the design and implementation of a Chip-Multiprocessor (CMP) targeted at streaming applications(e.g. MPEG, MP3). Streaming applications are applications which can be split into several distinct stages working on data elements in a pipelined fashion. We propose a distributed-memory array (MEP- MAS), where the cores communicate via message-passing, optimizing the throughput. Application tasks are dynamically scheduled by a hardware scheduler taking the consumer-producer locality into ac- count, thereby minimizing the communication overhead. The array is evaluated in terms of performance, scalability and predictability as a function of varied input stream sizes, multiple pipelines, number of pipeline stages and traffic volume. The array is configured as a 4 by 5 mesh and has reached speedups as high as 3.6x for a 4-stage pipeline and 13.4x for a 16-stage pipeline. Our experiments have highlighted the need for a balanced workload in order to optimize the performance. Furthermore, it is shown that MEP-MAS is scalable as the speedup and throughput almost linearly increases with the number of added pipelines. The speedup has increased from 3.6x to 13.5x and the throughput from 17k data elements per second to 65k data elements per second. Increasing the traffic volume in the network marginally affects the speedup (-1.9%). Finally, increasing the traffic volume can cause a high deviation in arrival times between two subsequent data blocks in the pipeline of up to 8%.


Abstract This paper examines the workings of kinship and marriage idioms in transnational political imaginary in the central Mediterranean to challenge current academic reliance on the notion of fraternity as the symbolic building block of both national and global political relations. Since the 1960s, the Sicilian town of Mazara del Vallo and its fishing fleet have become entwined in intensifying interactions with Tunisia and the wider Maghreb. These interactions—specifically the Tunisian-Italian "Fish War" and construction of a trans-Mediterranean natural gas pipeline between North Africa and Europe—rejuvenated the old geopolitical imagination of the Mediterranean and helped produce the central Mediterranean as a spatio-temporal field of political action. Italians and Tunisians perceived each other as related, and staged the trans-Mediterranean infrastructural project as a sort of European-African (cross-cousin) marriage. I begin by examining the tensions between two central kinship idioms—fraternity and cousinage—in current understandings of transnational relations. I then discuss the growing prevalence of a transnational political cosmology of affinity across difference over that of shared descent and sameness that characterize national alignments. I conclude by examining how Tunisians and Sicilians in Mazara today cast each other in roles deriving from segmentary schemes they share, but on the content of which they disagree. By applying concepts associated with kinship and marriage studies to recent Mediterranean history, I show how segmentation, a concept anthropologists abandoned when they crossed the Mediterranean on their way into Europe, can help us understand transnational politics.


Neuronal activity is composed of synchronous and asynchronous oscillatory activity at different frequencies. The neuronal oscillations occur at time scales well matched to the temporal resolution of electroencephalography (EEG); however, to derive meaning from the electrical brain activity as measured from the scalp, it is useful to decompose the EEG signal in space and time. In this study, we elaborate on the investigations into source-based signal decomposition of EEG. Using source localization, the electrical brain signal is spatially unmixed and the neuronal dynamics from a region of interest are analyzed using empirical mode decomposition (EMD), a technique aimed at detecting periodic signals. We demonstrate, first in simulations, that the EMD is more accurate when applied to the spatially unmixed signal compared to the scalp-level signal. Furthermore, on EEG data recorded simultaneously with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the hand area of the primary motor cortex, we observe a link between the peak to peak amplitude of the motor-evoked potential (MEP) and the phase of the decomposed localized electrical activity before TMS onset. The results thus encourage combination of source localization and EMD in the pursuit of further insight into the mechanisms of the brain with respect to the phase and frequency of the electrical oscillations and their cortical origin.