The preliminary design of labyrinth seals requires a fast and accurate estimate of the leakage flow. While the conventional bulk flow models can quickly predict labyrinth seal discharge characteristics, they lack the accuracy and pragmatism of modern CFD technique and vice-a-versa. This paper presents a new 1D loss model for straight-through gas labyrinth seals that can provide quick seal leakage flow predictions with CFD-equivalent accuracy.
 The present seal loss model is developed using numerical experimentation technique. Multiple CFD computations are conducted on straight-through labyrinth seal geometries for a range of pressure ratios. A distinct post-processing methodology is developed to extract the through-flow stream tube in seal. Total pressure losses and flow area variations experienced by the flow in seal stream-tube are systematically accounted for based on the well-known knife-to-knife (K2K) methodology. Regression analyses are conducted on the trends of variations of loss and area coefficients to derive the independent pressure loss and flow area correlations.
 These novel correlations can predict the bulk leakage flow rate, windage flow rate and inter-knife static pressures over a wide range of variation of flow and geometry parameters. Validation study shows that the leakage mass flow rate predicted by this model is accurate within ±8% of measured test data. This fast and accurate model can be employed for various applications such as, in seal design-analysis workflows, for secondary air system (SAS) performance analysis and for the rotor-dynamic and aeroelastic assessments of seals.


Rural areas are characterized by changing developments rather caused by processes or trends that occur in society (urban as well as rural environment). The mobility of people is increasing, including commuting, migration, tourism and recreation. Moreover, rural areas are characterized by a more and more urban character. This change in the rural landscape in turn affects out-migration and in-migration. Young people are migrating out of the rural areas; whereas a new group of (pre-) retirees are moving in some rural areas. Nevertheless, there is an implicit recognition by researchers that rural outmigration continuous and that depopulation will remain in the rural areas. Population decline entails a lot of new developments; the changing age structure and migration has direct consequences for the labour supply, education and facilities. Due to decrease in the demand for facilities, e.g. shops and hospitals close down. Moreover, due to the ageing population, the housing demand is changing. Therefore, several action plans are formulated by governments to respond on the population decline in the affected areas. This thesis is an elaboration of population decline in the rural areas of the Netherlands by a case study analysis of Zeeuws Vlaanderen. Within the thesis the characteristics of population decline in Zeeuws Vlaanderen are examined by analysing the current situation within the region and an analysis of the planning documents. The next question therefore is central in the thesis: How is population decline addressed in planning documents in the declining rural areas of the Netherlands? On a regional level Zeeuws Vlaanderen is characterized by a stagnating population with an ageing population and young adults moving out of the region. While on a municipal level, the municipalities of Sluis and Terneuzen are characterized by a decline, the municipality of Hulst is characterized by stagnation. In order to understand how population decline is addressed in the planning documents. The planning documents regarding population decline in Zeeuws Vlaanderen are elaborated by a qualitative content analysis. The main findings of the analysis of the planning documents are that population decline is addressed on a regional level and therefore the differences between the municipalities and thus the current situation are not taken into account in the planning documents. Moreover, the documents are focused on prognoses instead the current situation (planners' approach). The conclusion of the thesis therefore is that although consequences and measures of population decline are addressed in the planning documents, there is a discrepancy between the current population decline in Zeeuws Vlaanderen and the population decline addressed in the planning documents Furthermore, this discrepancy between the planning documents and the current situation can be explained, by the Dutch planning system. This planning system is based on providing guidelines in a top down system and therefore suggests that the local level is waiting for guidelines on provincial level and the provincial level is waiting for the guidelines from the national level.


Packet multiplexing has been proposed as a practical method in optical time-division multiplexing. One reasonable approach is to use a packet compression–expansion scheme at the node to match the transmission rate between the ultrafast backbone optical network and slower (electrical) networks. This scheme is superior to the conventional bit interleave scheme in that it does not require an ultrafast switch at the bit rate; instead, switching at the slower header bit rate and/or packet rate is sufficient. In contrast to the bit interleave, we call this scheme compressed optical packet multiplexing (COPM). Here we present an experimental demonstration of an all-optical COPM with use of a 155-Mbit/s video signal that is optically compressed into a 2.64-Gbit/s optical signal and optically expanded back to the original rate with a reasonable bit error rate.


Post May 1997 the conventional approaches to regeneration strategies in Britain have focused upon establishing local partnerships between - not only service providers an d potential employers - but also local community-based groups. Neighbourhoods or 'localities' are now seen as the arenas within which coalitions of local interest groups meet to identify needs, to allocate resources and to engage with local communities. This paper will examine the assumptions behind such approaches and will explore the sites of conflict an d the ways in which local managers attempt to reconcile differing aspirations and expectations. The paper draws upon a series of interviews with participants in regeneration initiatives in Manchester, and will suggest that regeneration managers occupy a significant place in arbitrating between different interest groups. In particular, the role of multi-agency working will be explored an d the ways in which professionals (from a variety of occupations) seek to negotiate common terms of reference and understanding.


Mining is a hazardous operation and it involves considerable safety and health risk to the miners. Unsafe conditions in the surface and underground mines lead to a number of accidents/disasters, injury and loss to human lives. However, the hazards cannot be completely obliterated and thus there is need to define and reckon with an accident risk level possible to be presented in either quantitative or qualitative way. The traditional technique currently used in many circumstances does not give satisfactory results because the risk data are incomplete or uncertain. This article presents a risk assessment methodology for conducting systematic risk assessment using Fuzzy Reasoning Approach (FRA). The outcome of risk assessment through FRA will be represented as the risk degrees and the defined risk categories of risk levels (RLs) with a belief of percentage, which provide very useful risk information to decision makers. This will provide mining risk analyst, managers and engineers with a method and tool to conduct risk assessment with less time and effort.


This paper succinctly overviews three primary branches of the industrial organization literature with behavioral consumers. The literature is organized according to whether consumers: (1) have non-standard preferences, (2) are overconfident or otherwise biased such that they systematically misweight different dimensions of price and other product attributes, or (3) fail to choose the best price due to suboptimal search, confusion comparing prices, or excessive inertia. The importance of consumer heterogeneity and equilibrium effects are also highlighted along with recent empirical work. ∗Boston College, email@example.com, https://www2.bc.edu/michael-grubb/. I am grateful to Vera Sharunova for her excellent research assistance.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to reflect on carers' experiences of being involved in the development of a web-based support programme for carers of people with heart failure (CPwHF), and discuss the challenges related to their involvement in the development process. The focus was on the different phases in the project as well as the methodological challenges and opportunities that occurred in the user group sessions conducted.

Design/methodology/approach
This research adopt an explorative design studying a co-design process to develop an information and communication technology based support programme for and with CPwHF. Habermas' concepts of lifeworld and system are used as a theoretical framework to analyse the co-design process employed in the study.

Findings
Reflecting on the co-design approach adopted, the findings highlight the methodological challenges that arise with carer involvement and the possible tensions that occur between researchers' ambitions to include users in the design process, and the goal of developing a product or service, in the different phases of the design process.

Originality/value
Findings highlight that there is a tension between the system and lifeworld in the co-design process which are not totally compatible. The paper highlights that there is a need to develop flexible and reflexive human-centred design methodologies, able to meet carers' needs and ideas, and at the same time balance this with proposed research outcomes.


Sir, O'Connor and Fitzpatrick [1] neglected androgen deprivation by the generic drug diethylstilbestrol (DES, 1 mg), which was the first chemotherapy for any cancer (1941) and the basis for the Nobel Prize (1966); DES is a non-steroid oestrogen. Cox and Crawford's 1995 review (96 references) of DES concluded: "A 1 mg dose of diethylstilbestrol remains a medical alternative to bilateral orchidectomy . . ." [2]. The 1986 National Cancer Institute (NCI) summary monograph of the 30-year study of DES, involving > 4000 men (VACUG III) concluded [3] that:


The Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) protocol is highly vulnerable to a form of denial-of-service attack (DoS), aimed at establishing a high number of invalid, half-open, secure sessions. Moreover, even when the efficient pre-shared key provisioning mode is considered, the key storage on the server side scales poorly with the number of clients. SICS Swedish ICT has designed a security architecture that efficiently addresses both issues without breaking the current standard.


This article reports on an action research project focussed on preparing culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) preservice early childhood teachers for field experience. A series of targeted workshops delivered over one semester was designed to support the students to develop intercultural competence in relation to knowledge, attitude, skills and behaviours that contribute to success on field placement. Findings indicate that short-term initiatives targeted specifically to students' identified needs and strengths can help to build intercultural competence for both students and teacher educators. For the participants, access to communication strategies, opportunities for rehearsal of teaching practice, and peer and academic support contributed to shifts in attitude, and the development of skills and new knowledge. New learnings for the teacher educators included challenging assumptions about CALD students' sense of community and belonging in the university context.


Today's scientific investigations are producing large numbers of scholarly products. These products continue to increase in diversity and complexity as researchers recognize that scholarly achievements are not only published articles but also datasets, software, and associated supporting materials. OceanLink is an online platform that addresses scholarly discovery and collaboration in the ocean sciences. The OceanLink project leverages Semantic Web technologies, web mining, and crowdsourcing to identify links between data centers, digital repositories, and professional societies to enhance discovery, enable collaboration, and begin to assess research contribution.


The fairytales of Hutsuls and Appalachians are analyzed in the article. Mountainous dwellers have an indissoluble connection with the nature and metaphysics of mountains that is why there are so many sacred objects and special places there. Megaliths and sanctuaries, life-giving places, miraculous springs, natural metaphysics of the mountains and tales which are grasped like true stories about creation and objective reality of the world, - all these attract not only tourists but also scientists and researchers to the mountainous region. The tale is one of the permanent attributes of people`s life. It gives the opportunity to make the process of emotional and moral development more controlled and determined. The common feature of the tale is identified: it is the presence of a hero-trickster - Jack (the Appalachians) and Ivan (the Carpathians). In tales, most of the fictional characters can be described by the term "duality". It is a certain state of consciousness when the hero-character reproduces his double that lives an imaginary life and performs an intended role. It is a hero who is often hidden behind the mask of a jester and a foolish man. He does not live according to the rules. He breaks both laws and rules, but achieves positive results. The common and different features of the Trickster in the fairytales of Indians and Hutsuls are defined.


Discrimination against women is demonstrated clearly by salary levels reported by PRSA members. The gaps show most clearly when salary is compared to years of experience in the field. But raises reported by female practitioners indicate that the salary gap is narrowing. The issue of gender discrimination in public relations, as in any field, is an emotional one. Many women feel they are paid less opportunities for advancement. With more and more women entering the public relations practice, this issue has become an increasingly important one. What are the differences between salaries earned by males and females? What are the differences in their roles within their organizations? How satisfied are men and women with their opportunities for advancement within the profession? To examine the emerging role of women in America public relations, the Public Relations Society of America established a Task Force on Women in Public Relations under the direction of Kathleen Lewton, APR, vice president marketing and corporate communications, University Hospitals, Cleveland. In cooperation with PRSA's Research Committee, this task force conducted a major research project to explore this issue of gender discrimination in public relations. Research results showed considerable evidence of discrimination against women. Significant gap exists Results from both the questionnaire and focus group stages of this research project show that gender discrimination exists in American public relations. (See sidebar, page 25, for those results.) With a considerable degree of statistical significance, women in the study clearly were discriminated against in terms of salary. (See table, page 23.) The median salaries of men and women with up to five years of experience are similar, according to respondents in those categories. They range from $22,500 at one year of experience, to $31,000 at five years of experience. At six years of experience, the men report a median salary of $40,000, and the women, $35,000. At 10 to 19 years of experience, the men report median salaries of $52,000 compared to a median of $43,000 reported by the women. These differences are all statistically significant. The gap continues at all levels of experience. The study found evidence that the wage gap between the genders might be narrowing. Overall, women received significantly larger raises last year than did men. Women respondents report raises of more than 7%; the male respondents report raises of 6%. These differences were statistically significant. (The error level is .01.) Geographic location was found to be an important factor with regard to both men's and women's salaries. (See table, page 23.) The highest salaries are on the East Coast, with a mean in the mid-$60,000 range, and on the West Coast, with a mean in the high-$50,000 range. The average salary in the central United States ranges from $40,000 to $50,000. There appears to be a statistically significant salary gap based upon gender in every region of the country. These differences between men and women are the greatest in areas where ZIP codes begin with 0, 4 or 5. The greatest differences are in the region where ZIP codes begin with 0: New Jersey and the six New England states. Differences also are significantly higher than average in the central and upper Mid-western states where ZIP codes begin with 4 and 5. The study also found that women, for the most part, were more likely to perform technician or communication skills roles such as writing, editing, creating and disseminating messages. Men were more likely to perform managerial and decision-making functions. Women less optimistic of future The study also examined job satisfaction and found women generally are less positive about their current job situations than men. Women also were generally less optimistic about the future with the present employers. …


Radio resource management (RRM) in cellular radio system is an example of automatic control. The system performance may be increased introducing decentralization, shorter delays and increased adaptation to local demands. However, it is hard to guarantee system stability without being too conservative while using decentralized resource management. In this paper, two alogrithms that both guarantee system stability and use local resource control are proposed for the uplink (mobile to base station). While one of the algorithms uses only local decision, the other uses a central node to coordinate resources among different local nodes. In the chosen design approach, a feasible solution to the optimization problems corresponds to a stable system. Therefore, the algorithms will never assign resources that lead to an unstable system. Simulations indicate that the proposed algorithms also provide high capacity at any given uplink load level.


An atom interferometer and an optical frequency comb measure the Compton frequency of a cesium atom, creating a "clock" that weighs atoms. [Also see Report by Lan et al.] For centuries, humans have measured time by counting oscillations of highly regular periodic motion—the Sun, a pendulum, or a quartz crystal, for example. During the past 50 years, we have chosen to use the electromagnetic oscillations, which drive absorption in an atom—a highly stable and universal frequency reference. Such atomic clocks define the SI second via an atomic resonance in cesium (1). The second is the most precisely defined physical unit. Although it may seem obvious now, making the leap from performing precise spectroscopy on the atomic structure of cesium to using its atomic structure as a precise reference to stabilize other oscillators was profound. On page 554 of this issue, Lan et al. (2) make an analogous distinction between performing momentum-spectroscopy on a recoiling atom, and using that spectroscopy to stabilize an oscillator, effectively locking a clock to the mass of a particle. This result has important implications for fundamental physics and precision measurement, and could play a role in a new definition of the kilogram.


The present work is a cumulative dissertation that covers the research work of the author at the Department of Analytical and Physical Chemistry of Chelyabinsk State University. It contains a short description of the study and a set of attached publications in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.
The phase and chemical equilibria in binary systems Me – Si
(where Me is the 4th-period transition metal) as well as Mo – Si, Mn – Ge and Fe – Ge at low temperatures were considered. The solid solubility of silicon in vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron, nickel, cobalt and copper and that of germanium in manganese and iron was estimated.
The phase equilibria in Me – Si – O, Mo – Si – O, Mn – Ge – O and Fe – Ge – O ternary systems at standard conditions were considered from a thermodynamic viewpoint. The atmospheric corrosion of transition metals silicides and manganese and iron germanides was discussed.
The chemical and electrochemical equilibria in Me – Si – H2O, Mo – Si – H2O, Mn – Ge – H2O and Fe – Ge – H2O systems were considered from a thermodynamic viewpoint. Pourbaix diagrams for some 4th-period transition metals and molybdenum, as well as for silicon, were revised. The potential – pH diagrams for Me – Si – H2O, Mo – Si – H2O, Mn – Ge – H2O and Fe – Ge – H2O systems were plotted in the first time. The corrosion-electrochemical behaviour of transition metals silicides and manganese and iron germanides in aqueous media was discussed.
The potential – pH diagrams for some siliceous brasses and bronzes (which are multicomponent alloys containing both transition metals and silicon) were plotted, and the corrosion of these alloys in aqueous media was discussed.
Method of estimation of corrosion-electrochemical behaviour of multicomponent alloys, which takes into account both thermodynamic and kinetic data and is based on mutual construction of equilibrium and polarisation potential – pH diagrams, was described. Its usage was illustrated in the example of the structural steel 20KT.


Text mining has become an established discipline both in research as in business intelligence. However, many existing text mining toolkits lack easy extensibility and provide only poor support for interacting with statistical computing environments. Therefore we propose a text mining framework for the statistical computing environment R which provides intelligent methods for corpora handling, meta data management, preprocessing, operations on documents, and data export. We present how well established text mining techniques can be applied in our framework and show how common text mining tasks can be performed utilizing our infrastructure. The second part in this thesis is dedicated to a set of realistic applications using our framework. The first application deals with the implementation of a sophisticated mailing list analysis, whereas the second example identifies the potential of text mining methods for business to consumer electronic commerce. The third application shows the benefits of text mining for law documents. Finally we present an application which deals with authorship attribution on the famous Wizard of Oz book series. (author's abstract)


In line with the spate of technological advances, the transportation industry has also witnessed an increase in the adoption of Electric Vehicles (E.Vs). However, there has been and are still some underlying negating factors to the wide spread acceptance of these electric vehicles; one of note is the unavailability and inaccessibility of adequate charging infrastructure, long charging times, limited driving ranges, costs of the vehicles etc. These and many more characteristics lead to a trend popularly known as "range anxiety". One of the major strengths of electric vehicles are their ability to be powered by electric energy via stored chemical energy in rechargeable batteries. Some electric vehicles run solely on batteries (Battery Electric Vehicle — BEVs), while others are a hybrid of the electric vehicles and the internal combustion engines (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles — PHEVs, and Hybrid Electric Vehicles — HEVs). However, since these electric vehicles lean towards reducing atmospheric pollution (Carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons etc.) caused by internal combustion engines, it also follows that the means of recharging these electric vehicles should also be geared towards reducing pollution to some degree. Hence, the concept of renewable energy sources powered recharging stations. However, before a lot of resources are committed into building such an infrastructure, a model should be developed which will take into account certain key factors such as storage capacity, type and size of the renewable sources, facility layout, policies and other identified stakeholders requirements which are evaluated and used in trade-off and decision analysis. However, the status-quo involves around a document-centric methodology of system development. This methodology carries with it challenging characteristics such as poor communication of data between and within interested parties, inability to contain complexities inherent in today's projects, stored data becoming prone to damage as a result of storage or usage and sometimes, inaccessibility of data. In line with current systems engineering practice, we propose a model-centric approach of the system development life-cycle, which will negate some of the drawbacks of the document-centric approach. In this work, a two-level approach is proposed: First, the model based systems engineering (MBSE) framework approach is implemented utilizing the systems modeling language (SysML) to formulate and show different views and architecture of the system in question. The objectives of this MBSE approach in addition to offering different views of the model are also to aid in real-time communication and collaboration of designs which links to understanding change configurations and impact, requirements verification, and traceability. In the second approach, a discrete-event simulation (Arena) tool is used as the reference simulation optimization tool for the model's architectural analysis. The discrete-event simulation (DES) models a hypothetical renewable-energy powered charging and swapping station with the objective of maximizing the electric vehicle's throughput (amount of EVs successfully recharging and swapping batteries in the facility). Certain constraints such as the allowable area for the solar panels, operating budget, amount of energy to purchase from the main grid etc., are included to account for a realistic adaptation of the facility, which is in line with the concept of the renewable energy sources powered recharging stations previously mentioned. Statistical analysis are performed on the optimized architectures to evaluate and compare the design configurations based on the stakeholder's requirements. The optimized parameters are then used to verify and validate the requirements. These categorization of events support the application of MBSE and simulation to the early stages of the system life cycle development of the high level design of an electric vehicle charging and swapping station


Background It is not known whether or not delivering acupuncture triggers mechanisms cited as placebo and if acupuncture or sham reduces radiotherapy-induced emesis more than standard care. Methodology/Principal Findings Cancer patients receiving radiotherapy over abdominal/pelvic regions were randomized to verum (penetrating) acupuncture (n = 109; 99 provided data) in the alleged antiemetic acupuncture point PC6 or sham acupuncture (n = 106; 101 provided data) performed with a telescopic non-penetrating needle at a sham point 2–3 times/week during the whole radiotherapy period. The acupuncture cohort was compared to a reference cohort receiving standard care (n = 62; 62 provided data). The occurrence of emesis in each group was compared after a mean dose of 27 Gray. Nausea and vomiting were experienced during the preceding week by 37 and 8% in the verum acupuncture group, 38 and 7% in the sham acupuncture group and 63 and 15% in the standard care group, respectively. The lower occurrence of nausea in the acupuncture cohort (verum and sham) compared to patients receiving standard care (37% versus 63%, relative risk (RR) 0.6, 95 % confidence interval (CI) 0.5–0.8) was also true after adjustment for potential confounding factors for nausea (RR 0.8, CI 0.6 to 0.9). Nausea intensity was lower in the acupuncture cohort (78% no nausea, 13% a little, 8% moderate, 1% much) compared to the standard care cohort (52% no nausea, 32% a little, 15% moderate, 2% much) (p = 0.002). The acupuncture cohort expected antiemetic effects from their treatment (95%). Patients who expected nausea had increased risk for nausea compared to patients who expected low risk for nausea (RR 1.6; Cl 1.2–2.4). Conclusions/Significance Patients treated with verum or sham acupuncture experienced less nausea and vomiting compared to patients receiving standard care, possibly through a general care effect or due to the high level of patient expectancy. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00621660


Photocatalytic dye degradation has received more attention as an affordable and effective way to treat the dye polluted water. In the present chapter, we are going to discuss; (i) the preparation and photophysical characterization of g-C3N4 intercalated ZnO\Mg-Al LDH, a novel ternary nanocomposite, and (ii) its visible light photocatalytic degradation activity against the methylene blue dye. LDHs are 2D materials composed of "brucite-like" cationic layers where an inclusion of trivalent cations presents an overall positive charge to the nanosheets. g-C3N4 is one of the organic semiconductor photocatalyst which active for several types of reactions such as CO2 reduction, water splitting, and degradation because of its stable, nontoxic, and earth-abundant nature. Mainly, the development of numerous 2D g-C3N4 nanosheets has been extensively used in the field of photocatalyst. By the combination heterojunction with 2D/2D interface can effectively improve the photocatalytic activity. The nitrogen-rich g-C3N4 intercalated ZnO\Mg-Al LDH ternary nanocomposite formation could follow the direct dye degradation process and results enhance the visible light absorption. The enhanced photocatalytic activity is mainly due to the improved charge separation rate and high number of photogenerated electrons. The large number of photogenerated electrons and high charge separation efficiency are effectively influence the dye degradation efficiency.


The goal of the Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI) conference is to highlight new, innovative, systems and application areas of AI technology and to point out the often-overlooked difficulties involved in deploying complex technology to end users. Those of us who have ventured out of the realm of pure research and tried to build applications to be used by our fellow humans realize that it takes a lot more than just brilliant algorithms to make an application survive in the real world. Each application that succeeds is worth celebrating and the teams behind them are due wholehearted congratulations. It is in this spirit that we bring you this special issue covering select applications from the IAAI conference held last year in Chicago.


Background: Alpha modified Eagle's minimum essential medium (α-MEM) and Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM) are the basic media for cell culture. α-MEM has minimum glucose and amino acid concentration than DMEM. We report a study comparing the individual effect of these two media used for generation of adipose tissue derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADMSC), in terms of quantity, viability and immunophenotyping. Material and Methods: Ten grams adipose tissue resected from anterior abdominal wall of 5 willing healthy donors was divided equally into two 75 cm2 tissue culture flasks with 40 ml culture medium, one containing α-MEM and the other containing DMEM. Adipose tissue was minced into tiny pieces, incubated in collagenase-I at 370C for 1 h and centrifuged at 780 rpm for 8 min. Supernatant was removed and pellets collected in 15 ml centrifuge tubes, diluted to 10 ml with phosphate buffered saline and divided into 2 equal parts. Each set was incubated separately in 6-well plates for 15 days for in-vitro generation. Media were replenished on alternate days. Every 3rd day, 1 well from each set was harvested by trypsinization and analysed for sterility, quantity, viability and immunophenotyping (CD45-/90+/73+) by flow cytometry.
Results: Maximum total cell count was 45.66 × 104 cells/ml on thday of culture with 99.6% viability, CD45-CD90+,8.53 × 104 cells/ ml and CD45-CD73+, 5.69 × 104 cells/ml in α-MEM versus 7.5 × 104 cells/ml with 90.5% viability, CD45-CD90+ 1.8 × 104 cells/ml and CD45-CD73+ 1.84×104 cells/ml in DMEM.
Conclusion: α-MEM was superior to DMEM for in-vitro generation of ADMSC.


Very deep convolutional networks have been central to the largest advances in image recognition performance in recent years. One example is the Inception architecture that has been shown to achieve very good performance at relatively low computational cost. Recently, the introduction of residual connections in conjunction with a more traditional architecture has yielded state-of-the-art performance in the 2015 ILSVRC challenge; its performance was similar to the latest generation Inception-v3 network. This raises the question: Are there any benefits to combining Inception architectures with residual connections? Here we give clear empirical evidence that training with residual connections accelerates the training of Inception networks significantly. There is also some evidence of residual Inception networks outperforming similarly expensive Inception networks without residual connections by a thin margin. We also present several new streamlined architectures for both residual and non-residual Inception networks. These variations improve the single-frame recognition performance on the ILSVRC 2012 classification task significantly. We further demonstrate how proper activation scaling stabilizes the training of very wide residual Inception networks. With an ensemble of three residual and one Inception-v4 networks, we achieve 3.08% top-5 error on the test set of the ImageNet classification (CLS) challenge.


Chemical fertilizers have been used in increasing quantities for household gardening and commercial agriculture worldwide since their advent during the Green Revolution. Such fertilizers have detrimental impacts on the environment, contributing to nutrient runoff and aquatic dead zones. At the same time, water consumption for agricultural needs has
skyrocketed. Alternative growing methods are urgently needed to reduce the impacts of plant cultivation. This study focused on finding more sustainable growing methods that reduce chemical fertilizer or water usage and can be used at the household level for garden plants. We hypothesized that the alternative growing methods would better encourage healthy plant growth as compared to a control. Several marigold (Tagetes patula L.) and garden cress (Lepidium sativum) plants were observed over a 13-week period. Metrics for healthy plant growth were height at first bloom, growing time, and survival rate. The results indicated that the treatments did not have a statistically significant effect on marigold and garden cress growth times in addition to marigold heights. However, the Deep Water Culture (DWC) treatment for garden cress plants significantly increased the height at first bloom compared to the control group. For rates of surviving plants, the treatments had little effect on garden cress, but the Eggshell Grounds, Wick System, and DWC system groups outperformed the control group for marigolds.


Internet censorship is used in many parts of the world to prohibit free access to online information. Different techniques such as IP address or URL blocking, DNS hijacking, or deep packet inspection are used to block access to specific content on the Internet. In response, several censorship circumvention systems were proposed that attempt to bypass existing filters. Especially systems that hide the communication in different types of cover protocols attracted a lot of attention. However, recent research results suggest that this kind of covert traffic can be easily detected by censors. In this paper, we present SkypeLine, a censorship circumvention system that leverages Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) based steganography to hide information in Voice-over-IP (VoIP) communication. SkypeLine introduces two novel modulation techniques that hide data by modulating information bits on the voice carrier signal using pseudo-random, orthogonal noise sequences and repeating the spreading operation several times. Our design goals focus on undetectability in presence of a strong adversary and improved data rates. As a result, the hiding is inconspicuous, does not alter the statistical characteristics of the carrier signal, and is robust against alterations of the transmitted packets. We demonstrate the performance of SkypeLine based on two simulation studies that cover the theoretical performance and robustness. Our measurements demonstrate that the data rates achieved with our techniques substantially exceed existing DSSS approaches. Furthermore, we prove the real-world applicability of the presented system with an exemplary prototype for Skype.


Abstract This paper focusses on peer education and specifically on young women peer educators working within the charity Home-Start in the north of England. This work is undertaken in a social context where educational achievement is increasingly measured by certification and occupational hierarchies have been 'professionalised' whilst notions of professionalism have been drained of meaning in ways which can be potentially democratising. State educational imperatives in the UK have focussed on concepts such as academic excellence and the promotion of vocational opportunities (for those from 'hard-working families'). Within this paper, the peer educator is positioned as generally similar to the individuals and groups with which they work in that they are likely to share characteristics including age, gender, ethnicity, social class and educational attainment. The peer educators who participated in the study support each other in circumstances that lead to mutual benefits which are largely outside the educational mainstream. The paper considers motivations for involvement as a peer educator, peer educators' perspectives on the benefits/value of this work, the impact on confidence and aspiration, as well as their experiences of engagement and encounters with professionals. The paper, which focusses on empowerment, is informed by thinking on the importance of recognition and suggests that peer education holds potential for propagating forms of pedagogy which are relatively free of the authoritative relationships typically associated with 'teaching'.


AIMS: This in vitro study aims to compare the deactivation force, delivered as a result of releasing superelastic arch wire from 4 mm to 2.5 mm in horizontal direction at the area of right maxillary canine on standard model of teeth, by using three different methods to ligate the wire to the brackets. MATERIALES AND METHODS: Materials of this study include three sets of Synergy brackets 0.022P Px 0.028 inch, molar buccal tubes, thirty arch wire , 0.016 inch round preformed arch superelastic nickel-titanium wires, were divided to three groups according to ligation method, the first group was ligated with preformed steel wire ligatures ,the second group with elastic ligatures as o configuration and in third group with elastic ligature as c configuration. The measurements were completed at room temperature of 27±5 in dry media by machine designed by college of mechanics engineering /Mosul university and the results were compared among the three methods of ligation. RESULTS: Significant difference in deactivation forces (p < 0.05) were observed. C configuration elastic ligatures had the higher mean of deactivation force (332 gm) than either o configuration or steel wire ligatures (268.5 gm), (267.9 gm) respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Decreasing the ligation force by using C configuration elastic ligatures to ligate the wire to Synergy bracket is potentially adequate to use at the beginning of leveling and aligning stage of orthodontics that allow the arch wire to generate its force without more missing due to high friction, as occurred by the use of stainless steel wire ligatures or o configuration elastic ligatures.


Mechanical properties are the attributes of a metal to withstand several forces and tensions. Specifically, ultimate tensile strength is the force a material can resist until it breaks. The only way to examine this mechanical property is the employment of destructive inspections that renders the casting invalid with the subsequent cost increment. In a previous work we showed that modelling the foundry process as a probabilistic constellation of interrelated variables allows Bayesian networks to infer causal relationships. In other words, they may guess the value of a variable (for instance, the value of ultimate tensile strength). Against this background, we present here the first ultimate tensile strength prediction system that, upon the basis of a Bayesian network, is able to foresee the values of this property in order to correct it before the casting is made. Further, we have tested the accuracy and error rate of the system with data of a real foundry.


The dissociation of methane on Pt(111) was studied using quantum state-resolved methods and reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS), at a surface temperature of 150 K where the nascent reaction products methyl(ads) and H(ads) are stable and accumulate on the surface. RAIRS used here for state-resolved reactivity measurements, enables us to monitor the methyl(ads) uptake during molecular beam deposition. The results show that methane dissociation is not only both translationally and vibrationally activated process but also can be bond-selective.


Next-generation sequencing data will soon become routinely available for association studies between complex traits and rare variants. Sequencing data, however, are characterized by the presence of sequencing errors at each individual genotype. This makes it especially challenging to perform association studies of rare variants, which, due to their low minor allele frequencies, can be easily perturbed by genotype errors. In this article, we develop the quality-weighted multivariate score association test (qMSAT), a new procedure that allows powerful association tests between complex traits and multiple rare variants under the presence of sequencing errors. Simulation results based on quality scores from real data show that the qMSAT often dominates over current methods, that do not utilize quality information. In particular, the qMSAT can dramatically increase power over existing methods under moderate sample sizes and relatively low coverage. Moreover, in an obesity data study, we identified using the qMSAT two functional regions (MGLL promoter and MGLL 3′-untranslated region) where rare variants are associated with extreme obesity. Due to the high cost of sequencing data, the qMSAT is especially valuable for large-scale studies involving rare variants, as it can potentially increase power without additional experimental cost. qMSAT is freely available at http://qmsat.sourceforge.net/.


The New Normal (TNN) is the idea that the increased levels of uncertainty, unemployment, inequality, poverty and market volatility following the financial crisis of 2008 represent a new standard societal situation that will not recover to pre-crisis levels on its own. This paper puts forward the idea that TNN has brought with it a related political shift in the conditions and expectations of policymaking. The three core features of New Normal politics are: the transnational professionalization of regulation, social acceleration and scientific controversy. I argue that the transnational professionalization of regulation is in part driven by its perceived efficacy in overcoming the pressures of social acceleration and scientific controversies on regulatory work. However, this perception glosses over serious and currently unchallenged implications for democratic process and accountability and leaves many questions as to the nature and tradeoffs of this new regulatory work unanswered. This paper thus advances the debate on the role of professionals in transnational regulation, and opens new, fruitful lines of inquiry.


Abstract This article, a continuation of "Orpheus and Pickleherring in the Kremlin: The 'Ballet' for the Tsar of February 1672" (Scando-Slavica 59:2), focuses on the second performance given for Tsar Aleksej Michajlovič by foreign residents of Moscow. This encore production, in May 1672, expanded upon the programme of the February event: it was longer, featured more characters on stage, and even included some female characters (certainly portrayed by male performers). In addition to revealing this May entertainment, we discuss the identities of the performers (largely drawn from the merchant population of Moscow's Foreign Quarter), and we suggest that the author of the eyewitness account describing the February performance was Christoff Koch (ennobled von Kochen), a Swedish correspondent and commercial representative in Moscow. Almost simultaneously with the May performance, the Russian court began to make plans for a more permanent theatre; we trace the court's attempts to contact the important German acting troupe headed by the Paulsen and Velten families. Finally, we discuss the impacts these two performances may have had on the plays offered by the tsar's court theatre beginning in October 1672, with special focus on the character Pickleherring.


Prompted by the U.S. financial crisis and subsequent global recession, policymakers in advanced economies slashed interest rates dramatically, hitting the zero lower bound (ZLB), and then implemented unconventional policies such as large-scale asset purchases. In emerging economies, however, the policy response was more subdued since they were less affected by the financial crisis. As a result, capital flows from advanced to emerging economies increased markedly in response to widening interest rate differentials. Some emerging economies reacted by adopting measures to slow down capital inflows, acting under the presumption that these flows were harmful. This type of policy response has reignited the debate over how to moderate international spillovers.


We reported our investigation on the swelling and solar dewatering behaviours of carbonincorporated composite polymer hydrogels as draw agents in forward osmosis (FO) desalination. Particle sizes and loadings of carbon fillers inside composite polymer hydrogels affected their swelling ratios and dewatering rates. By incorporating smaller sizes and higher loadings of carbon fillers inside polymer matrix, the swelling ratios and dewatering rates of resulting composite hydrogels were enhanced. The swelling ratio of 5PNIPAM-2CS composite polymer hydrogel with 2 mum carbon fillers and a monomer/filler mass ratio of 5 : 2 was 21, which was 163% greater than that of plain PNIPAM polymer hydrogel. After exposing swollen 5PNIPAM-2CS composite hydrogel to 1 kW/m2 simulated solar irradiation, the dewatering rate was 21% higher as compared with that of pure PNIPAM.


Sharing knowledge among employees reduces the risk of losing unique knowledge, contributes
to higher productivity and to higher quality, to better problem-solving, to reducing costs, and to
organizational innovativeness. Knowledge sharing is driven by employee motivation for it.
Nevertheless, motivation is not a simple construct. Therefore, the goal of this study was to fi nd
out which kind of motivation is essential to knowledge sharing. An inventory taking into account
three types of motivation (hedonic intrinsic, normative intrinsic, and extrinsic) was constructed and
a principal axis factor analysis was done. 229 participants from nine organizations fulfi lled the
questionnaire aimed at their motivation to knowledge sharing. The factor analysis confi rmed the
questionnaire construction and the inventory demonstrates a high reliability. Based on the mean
of the indexes that were calculated, hedonic intrinsic motivation seemed to be the main driver
of knowledge sharing. However, the relationship between motivation for knowledge sharing and
the intensity of knowledge sharing in the organization was examined as well (N = 99). Motivation
for knowledge sharing and all its factors were identifi ed to be signifi cantly related to knowledge
sharing. All of these correlations were positive, and in the case of normative intrinsic motivation
the correlation was moderate. That is why rather normative intrinsic motivation (and not hedonic
intrinsic motivation) is essential. Additionally, the results showed no signifi cant correlation between
hedonic intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. The study indicates that managers in the
Czech Republic should support employee organizational commitment if they want to achieve a
higher intensity of knowledge sharing.


Most of today's terminological representation systems implement hybrid reasoning architectures wherein a concept classifier is employed to reason about concept definitions, and a separate recognizer is invoked to compute instantiation relations between concepts and instances. Whereas most of the existing recognizer algorithms designed to maximally exploit the reasoning supplied by the concept classifier, LOOM has experimented with recognition strategies that place less emphasis on the classifier, and rely more on the abilities of LOOM'S backward chaining query facility. This paper presents the results of experiments that test the performance of the LOOM algorithms. These results suggest that, at least for some applications, the LOOM approach to recognition is likely to outperform the classical approach. They also indicate that for some applications, much better performance can be achieved by eliminating the recognizer entirely, in favor of a purely backward chaining architecture. We conclude that no single recognition algorithm or strategy is best for all applications, and that an architecture that offers a choice of inference modes is likely to be more useful than one that offers only a single style of reasoning.


Transition-based dependency parsing is a fast and effective approach for dependency parsing. Traditionally, a transitionbased dependency parser processes an input sentence and predicts a sequence of parsing actions in a left-to-right manner. During this process, an early prediction error may negatively impact the prediction of subsequent actions. In this paper, we propose a simple framework for bidirectional transitionbased parsing. During training, we learn a left-to-right parser and a right-to-left parser separately. To parse a sentence, we perform joint decoding with the two parsers. We propose three joint decoding algorithms that are based on joint scoring, dual decomposition, and dynamic oracle respectively. Empirical results show that our methods lead to competitive parsing accuracy and our method based on dynamic oracle consistently achieves the best performance.


The development in the field of ICT has opened doors for huge data collections. In order to take advantage of the huge data collections, research and development evolves in different directions, which are not necessarily divergent. We have set ourselves the question how developing and developed countries may share best practices to benefit from the explosive growth of data due to ICT- developments. We argue that existing apps
can be tailored and fed by data to solve problems, such as safety issues, in specific countries. Furthermore, we stress the importance of sharing datasets amongst different countries. Data sharing contributes to a better understanding of emerging phenomena on our planet.


Modifications of the properties of jets in PbPb collisions, relative to those in pp collisions, are studied at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} =$ 5.02 TeV via correlations of charged particles with the jet axis in relative pseudorapidity ($\Delta \eta$), relative azimuth ($\Delta \phi$), and relative angular distance from the jet axis $\Delta \mathrm{r} = \sqrt{{(\Delta\eta)^{2}+(\Delta\phi)^{2}}}$. This analysis uses data collected with the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 404 $\mu$b$^{-1}$ and 27.4 pb$^{-1}$ for PbPb and pp collisions, respectively. Charged particle number densities, jet fragmentation functions, and jet shapes are presented as a function of PbPb collision centrality and charged-particle track transverse momentum, providing a differential description of jet modifications due to interactions with the quark-gluon plasma.


My research strove to further the knowledge of United States-Iran international relations through comprehensive analysis. I investigated and presented information on the internal politics of Iran, and I analyzed and commented on the organization of the government of Iran. I critically examined the historical scholarship on the affairs of state between the United States and Iran, and I investigated the current state of affairs and prospects for the future. From this understanding, it became possible and necessary for rigorously logical and insightful decisions to be made in the current political environment in which emotions and passions dominate, and I probed and evaluated a variety of future policy options for both countries. I concluded that direct diplomacy is needed and that the process of political engagement remains the most likely way to effectively address the areas of policy difference between the two countries, rather than utilizing the rhetoric of regime change and engaging in antagonistic saber rattling. The United States needs to use Iran as a partner in the Middle East to make progress on the issues of shared interest and to create the opportunity for mutual advancement.


There is a wide variety of Alfvén waves in tokamak and stellarator plasmas. While most of them are damped, some of the global eigenmodes can be driven unstable when they interact with energetic particles. By coupling the MHD code CKA with the gyrokinetic code EUTERPE, a hybrid kinetic-MHD model is created to describe this wave–particle interaction in stellarator geometry. In this thesis, the CKA-EUTERPE code package is presented. This numerical tool can be used for linear perturbative stability analysis of Alfvén waves in the presence of energetic particles. The equations for the hybrid model are based on the gyrokinetic equations. The fast particles are described with linearized gyrokinetic equations. The reduced MHD equations are derived by taking velocity moments of the gyrokinetic equations. An equation for describing the Alfvén waves is derived by combining the reduced MHD equations. The Alfvén wave equation can retain kinetic corrections. Considering the energy transfer between the particles and the waves, the stability of the waves can be calculated. Numerically, the Alfvén waves are calculated using the CKA code. The equations are solved as an eigenvalue problem to determine the frequency spectrum and the mode structure of the waves. The results of the MHD model are in good agreement with other sophisticated MHD codes. CKA results are shown for a JET and a W7-AS example. The linear version of the EUTERPE code is used to study the motion of energetic particles in the wavefield with fixed spatial structure, and harmonic oscillations in time. In EUTERPE, the gyrokinetic equations are discretized with a PIC scheme using the δf method, and both full orbit width and finite Larmor radius effects are included. The code is modified to be able to use the wavefield calculated externally by CKA. Different slowing-down distribution functions are also implemented. The work done by the electric field on the particles is measured to calculate the energy transfer between the particles and the wave and from that the growth rate is determined. The advantage of this approach is that the full magnetic geometry is retained without any limiting assumptions on guiding center orbits. Extensive benchmarks have been performed to test the new CKA-EUTERPE code. Three tokamak benchmarks are presented, where the stability of TAE modes are studied as a function of fast particle energy, or in one case as a function of the fast particle charge. The benchmarks show good agreement with other codes. Stellarator calculations were performed for Wendelstein 7-AS and the results demonstrate that the finite orbit width effects tend to be strongly stabilizing.


Using multilevel mixed effects ordered logistic models, this paper conducts an original investigation of the new management as a technology approach for all EU nations in a framework that explicitly recognizes worker representation while incorporating the notion of affective commitment. It is reported that that low worker commitment is unlikely to be found in establishments with better management practices and that, controlling for management practices and worker representation, the hypothesis that financial and productivity performance is superior in establishments without worker representation is not rejected by the data. For establishments with worker representation, the works council-only variant is seemingly the most favorable regime for financial performance, although this does not carry over to the labor productivity outcome. On net, however, the evidence suggests that the selected management practices are likely to be favorable to performance in plants with and without formal workplace representation. Greater worker commitment is strongly associated with improved labor productivity. Moreover, in this case there is seemingly no difference between works council-only representation and no representation at all. Overall, although the results for workplace representation and the financial situation are mixed, it is the case that greater commitment trumps any negative influence of worker representation type.


We present QuAC, a dataset for Question Answering in Context that contains 14K information-seeking QA dialogs (100K questions in total). The dialogs involve two crowd workers: (1) a student who poses a sequence of freeform questions to learn as much as possible about a hidden Wikipedia text, and (2) a teacher who answers the questions by providing short excerpts from the text. QuAC introduces challenges not found in existing machine comprehension datasets: its questions are often more open-ended, unanswerable, or only meaningful within the dialog context, as we show in a detailed qualitative evaluation. We also report results for a number of reference models, including a recently state-of-the-art reading comprehension architecture extended to model dialog context. Our best model underperforms humans by 20 F1, suggesting that there is significant room for future work on this data. Dataset, baseline, and leaderboard available at http://quac.ai.


Many network intrusion detection systems (NIDS) rely on protocol-specific analyzers to extract the higher-level semantic context from a traffic stream. To select the correct kind of analysis, traditional systems exclusively depend on well-known port numbers. However, based on our experience, increasingly significant portions of today's traffic are not classifiable by such a scheme. Yet for a NIDS, this traffic is very interesting, as a primary reason for not using a standard port is to evade security and policy enforcement monitoring. In this paper, we discuss the design and implementation of a NIDS extension to perform dynamic application-layer protocol analysis. For each connection, the system first identifies potential protocols in use and then activates appropriate analyzers to verify the decision and extract higher-level semantics. We demonstrate the power of our enhancement with three examples: reliable detection of applications not using their standard ports, payload inspection of FTP data transfers, and detection of IRC-based botnet clients and servers. Prototypes of our system currently run at the border of three large-scale operational networks. Due to its success, the bot-detection is already integrated into a dynamic inline blocking of production traffic at one of the sites.


This paper is a response to a call for white papers solicited by Gemini Observatory and its Science and Technology Advisory Committee, to help define the science case and requirements for a new Gemini instrument, envisaged to consist of a single-object spectrograph at medium resolution simultaneously covering optical and near-infrared wavelengths. In this white paper we discuss the science case for an alternative new instrument, consisting instead of a multi-object, medium-resolution, high-throughput spectrograph, covering simultaneously the optical and near-infrared slices of the electromagnetic spectrum. We argue that combination of wide wavelength coverage at medium resolution with moderate multiplexing power is an innovative path that will enable the pursuit of fundamental science questions in a variety of astrophysical topics, without compromise of the science goals achievable by single-object spectroscopy on a wide baseline. We present a brief qualitative discussion of the main features of a notional hardware design that could conceivably make such an instrument viable.


For decades the number of scientific publications has been rapidly increasing, effectively out-dating knowledge at a tremendous rate. Only few scientific milestones remain relevant and continuously attract citations. Here we quantify how long scientific work remains being utilized, how long it takes before today's work is forgotten, and how milestone papers differ from those forgotten. To answer these questions, we study the complete temporal citation network of all American Physical Society journals. We quantify the probability of attracting citations for individual publications based on age and the number of citations they have received in the past. We capture both aspects, the forgetting and the tendency to cite already popular works, in a microscopic generative model for the dynamics of scientific citation networks. We find that the probability of citing a specific paper declines with age as a power law with an exponent of α ∼ −1.4. Whenever a paper in its early years can be characterized by a scaling exponent above a critical value, α c, the paper is likely to become 'ever-lasting'. We validate the model with out-of-sample predictions, with an accuracy of up to 90% (area under the curve ∼ 0.9). The model also allows us to estimate an expected citation landscape of the future, predicting that 95% of papers cited in 2050 have yet to be published. The exponential growth of articles, combined with a power-law type of forgetting and papers receiving fewer and fewer citations on average, suggests a worrying tendency toward information overload and raises concerns about scientific publishing's long-term sustainability.


In the United States, there are over 25 million micro-enterprises, comprising 88% of all businesses. These businesses with five or fewer employees are resource-constrained – with one of the many areas being the lack of technical skills. Their inability to acquire and use these skills causes them to be at a disadvantage to larger corporations. An innovative approach, comprising of a customizable technology-based assistance infrastructure is utilized for any micro-enterprise willing to adopt Information Communication Technologies (ICT). This adoption can lead to social, economic, and human development if the ICT is sustained . An action research methodology was used to apply the innovative technology adoption approach to investigate a set of micro-enterprises in Western New York that have previously adopted ICT during a five-month timespan. This study investigates how Information Technology adoption and use in microenterprises may be sustained to facilitate their business growth . The main contribution of this study is an online tool to facilitate micro-enterprises' sustainability of ICT adoption and use.


Optimizing Control of Shell Eco-marathon Prototype Vehicle to Minimize Fuel Consumption Chad Louis Bickel Every year the automotive industry strives to increase fuel efficiency in vehicles. When most vehicles are designed, fuel efficiency cannot always come first. The Shell Eco-marathon changes that by challenging students everywhere to develop the most fuel-efficient vehicle possible. There are many different factors that affect fuel efficiency, and different teams focus on different vehicle parameters. Currently, there is no straightforward design tool that can be used to help in Shell Eco-marathon vehicle design. For this reason, it is difficult to optimize every vehicle parameter for maximum fuel efficiency. In this study, a simulation is developed by using basic vehicle models and experimental data to accurately represent any prototype-class vehicle in the Shell Ecomarathon. This simulation is verified using different experimental data from an on-vehicle data acquisition system. An easy-to-use design tool is developed, and this tool is used to optimize driving strategy and final drive ratio to maximize fuel efficiency.


It is known that music perception maps musical parameters against a cognitive template derived from physical spatial perception such that music is experienced in terms of space. Recent research suggests that the spatial dimension of music is general, but varies according to the way different societies construct different shared cultural spaces. The culturally specific East Asian spatial template of geomancy (feng shui in Chinese, p'ungsu in Korean) can be related to the structures of several genres of Korean music, with geomantic influences exerted on the constructions of Korean performance spaces, rhythmic patterns, and pitch sets. Knowing how such practices penetrated and spatialized aspects of Buddhist, Confucian, Shaman, and even secular musical activity alike provides a powerful new interpretive tool for understanding Korea's multifaceted soundscape.


This article explores the application of restorative justice to situations of historical injustice. It argues that applying restorative justice practices and principles could maximize justice for Indigenous peoples by, first, refocusing Indigenous land claims on the restoration of tribal respect and dignity rather than on the restoration of property rights, and second, acknowledging the wider social relationships in which such conflicts arise. This article also contends that using restorative justice in situations of historical injustice may impact on the practice of restorative justice itself. First, the roles and relationships of key players will change which may lead ultimately to a reconsideration of the role of the State in restorative justice. Second, applying restorative justice in situations of Indigenous historical grievances underscores the collective nature of such conflicts and the collective, contextual nature of evolving notions of the justice in restorative justice.


Background Intravitreal aflibercept is approved in the treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The duration of its effect is higher than that of ranibizumab and bevacizumab but the effectiveness in patients who do not respond to these treatments is unknown. Purpose To evaluate the efficacy of intravitreal aflibercept on best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and central retinal thickness (CRT) in refractory AMD. Material and methods Prospective observational study in patients diagnosed with AMD treated with aflibercept, who didn't respond to ranibizumab and/or bevacizumab. Variables: BCVA (ETDRS optotypes) and CRT obtained on optical coherence tomography (OTC 3-D). Statistics: Wilcoxon test for paired data and Student t test for paired data, considering results significant if p value <0.05. Results A total of 27 eyes from 24 patients were included, 20 of them were females. The median age was 76.98 ± 9.9 years old. 12.5% of the patients received bilateral treatment. 22.2% of the eyes were previously treated with photodynamic therapy (PDT), 70.4% with ranibizumab (average 7.5 injections/eye, range 2–24) and 77.8% with bevacizumab (average 8 injections/eye, range 1–33). 52% of the eyes had been treated with both ranibizumab and bevacizumab. The average number of aflibercept injections per eye was 3.3 (1–10). In 63% of the eyes there was an increase in BCVA, 7.5% of the eyes maintained the previous BVCA and 29.6% lost vision. ETDRS before and after treatment was 60.4 ± 2.5 vs. 62.3 ± 3.2 letters (p = 0.0504). 89% of eyes experienced a decrease in the CRT measured by OCT, 324.9 ± 22.2 vs. 245.5 ± 13.4 mcm (p < 0.01). Conclusion Aflibercept is effective in refractive AMD. We obtained a better anatomical response than visual. Due to the duration of the study we expected a greater effect with repeated administrations. References and/or acknowledgements No conflict of interest.


1. Interpreting the functional diversity of vegetation is important in unravelling the relationship between environmental change, community composition and ecosystem processes. Functional diversity is the range and distribution of functional trait values in a community. It can be described, among other indicators, by community-level weighted means of trait values (CWM) and functional divergence. Standard methods exist for trait measurements but not for assessments of CWM and functional divergence in the field. No research has addressed the effects of different methods of estimating relative abundances, nor the need to estimate traits at individual, population or species level, or whether methods could be used that bypass taxonomy all together. 2. This study reviews and evaluates plot-level assessment methods of functional diversity in herbaceous vegetation. We asked: (i) Should the objective of the study influence the method for estimating relative abundance? (ii) What are the strengths and limitations of intensive vs. 'rapid' approaches, and when should either be applied? (iii) Are taxon-free methods robust in comparison to taxon-explicit methods of trait measurement? Under what circumstances might they be applied? 3. Our review of published studies that have measured functional diversity in the field showed that the choice of metric has not generally taken into account the link between the metric and the functions of interest, and that vegetation cover has been most widely used, regardless of study purpose. 4. We compared quantitatively in subalpine grasslands three methods for quantification of species abundances plus one taxon-free method. We found that: (i) data base trait values were robust across years for a diverse set of dominant species; (ii) CWM have little sensitivity to method for estimating relative abundances; this sensitivity also depends on traits, for example, seed mass results were less stable than leaf traits and heights; (iii) robust estimates of CWM were obtained from visual estimates of species ranks and biomass using a dry-weight ranking method (BOTANAL), whereas functional divergence was more sensitive to method; and (iv) the taxon-free method should be treated with more caution and performed particularly poorly for estimates of functional divergence. 5. We conclude that methodology can affect estimates of functional diversity. Although care should be taken in the choice of method and interpretation of results, rapid methods often offer promising avenues for sampling larger areas and/or repeated measures.


Biosocial Worlds presents state-of-the-art contributions to anthropological reflections on the porous boundaries between human and non-human life – biosocial worlds. Based on changing understandings of biology and the social, it explores what it means to be human in these worlds. Growing separation of scientific disciplines for more than a century has maintained a separation of the 'natural' and the 'social' that has created a space for projections between the two. Such projections carry a directional causality and so constitute powerful means to establish discursive authority.

While arguing against the separation of the biological and the social in the study of human and non-human life, it remains important to unfold the consequences of their discursive separation. Based on examples from Botswana, Denmark, Mexico, the Netherlands, Uganda, the UK and USA, the volume explores what has been created in the space between 'the social' and 'the natural', with a view to rethink 'the biosocial'. Health topics in the book include diabetes, trauma, cancer, HIV, tuberculosis, prevention of neonatal disease and wider issues of epigenetics. Many of the chapters engage with constructions of health and disease in a wide range of environments, and engage with analysis of the concept of 'environment'. Anthropological reflection and ethnographic case studies explore how 'health' and 'environment' are entangled in ways that move their relation beyond interdependence to one of inseparability. The subtitle of this volume captures these insights through the concept of 'health environment', seeking to move the engagement of anthropology and biology beyond deterministic projections.


Does the recently enacted Federal Right-to-Try Act provide improved access for the desperately ill? Will insurance companies provide reimbursement for a patient to undergo such investigational therapies? Is the manufacturer protected in terms of lawsuits? That is, does the patient relinquish the right to bring a legal action? Will physicians comprehend the pathway and advocate for their patients? Does this new law guarantee "any novel federal right"? The national state movement regarding Right-to-Try state legislation spurred the enactment of the Federal Right-to-Try (Federal Right-to-Try Act) legislation passed in 2018. Yet, even prior to the enactment of the Federal Right-to-Try law, the United States Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has had mechanisms in place for those terminally ill who do not qualify for a clinical trial.

This article provides a Federal Primer on the Investigational Drug, Biologic and Device Process, details a similar national right-to-know movement in the food and drug law arena that led to federal legislation perhaps comparable to how the Federal Right-to-Try Act was enacted and includes a discussion about the state right to try movement which conceivably led to the enactment of the Federal Right-to-Try Act. There are more queries than unambiguous answers regarding the recently enacted Federal Right-to-Try Act. The federal law in essence could prove troublesome and confusing with both the state Right-to-Try measures due to, for instance, issues of national uniformity and preemption. Further, could the recently enacted Federal Right-to-Try Act ultimately be detrimental to the patient in terms of lack of adequate safeguards and perhaps a false unrealistic sense of hope?


We have used a CW imaging apparatus to measure the near infrared (NIR) optical properties of rodents in vivo. We observed changes in the tissue vasculature of the animals in response to inspiratory hypercapnia (elevated CO2) and hyperoxia (elevated O2). The dynamics were dependent upon the inspired gas concentrations.


A technique for adaptive random field refinement for stochastic finite element reliability analysis of structures is presented in this paper. Refinement indicator based on global importance measures are proposed and used for carrying out adaptive random field mesh refinements. Reliability index based error indicator is proposed and used for assessing the percentage error in the estimation of notional failure probability. Adaptive mesh refinement is carried out using hierarchical graded mesh obtained through bisection of elements. Spatially varying stochastic system parameters (such as Young's modulus and mass density) and load parameters are modeled in general as non-Gaussian random fields with prescribed marginal distributions and covariance functions in conjunction with Nataf's models. Expansion optimum linear estimation method is used for random field discretisation. A framework is developed for spatial discretisation of random fields for system/load parameters considering Gaussian/non-Gaussian nature of random fields, multidimensional random fields, and multiple-random fields. Structural reliability analysis is carried out using first order reliability method with a few refined features, such as, treatment of multiple design points and/or multiple regions of comparable importance. The gradients of the performance function are computed using direct differentiation method. Problems of multiple performance functions, either in series, or in parallel, are handled using the method based on product of conditional marginals. The efficacy of the proposed adaptive technique is illustrated by carrying out numerical studies on a set of examples covering linear static, free vibration and forced vibration problems.


Environmental factors, such as forest characteristics, have been linked to fawn survival in eastern and southern white-tailed deer ( Odocoileus virginianus) populations. In the Great Plains, less is known about how intrinsic and habitat factors influence fawn survival. During 2007-2009, we captured and radiocollared 81 fawns in north-central South Dakota and recorded 23 mortalities, of which 18 died before 1 September. Predation accounted for 52.2% of mortality; remaining mortality included human (hunting, vehicle, and farm accident; 26.1%) and hypothermia (21.7%). Coyotes (Canis latrans) accounted for 83.3% of predation on fawns. We used known-fate analysis in Program MARK to estimate summer (15 May-31 Aug) survival rates and investigated the influence of intrinsic and habitat variables on survival. We developed 2 a priori model sets, including intrinsic variables and a test of annual variation in survival (model set 1) and habitat variables (model set 2). Model set 1 indicated that summer survival varied among years (2007-2009); annual survival rates were 0.94 (SE = 0.06, n = 22), 0.78 (SE = 0.09, n = 27), and 0.54 (SE = 0.10, n = 32), respectively. Model set 2 indicated that survival was further influenced by patch density of cover habitats (Conservation Reserve Program [CRP]-grasslands, forested cover, and wetlands). Mean CRP grassland and wetland patch density (no. patches/100 ha) were greater (P < 0.001) in home-range areas of surviving fawns (xcRPPD = 1.81, SE = 0.10, n = 63; XWe,PD = 1.75, SE = 0.14, n = 63, respectively) than in home-range areas of fawns that died (xcRPPD = 0.16, SE = 0.04, n = 18; XWe,PD = 1.28, SE = 0.10, n = 18, respectively). Mean forested cover patch density was less (P < 0.001) in home-range areas of surviving fawns (fycpn = 0.77, SE = 0.10, n = 63) than in home-range areas of fawns that died (XF"CPD = 1.49, SE = 0.21, n = 18). Our results indicate that management activities should focus on CRP-grassland and wetland habitats in order to maintain or improve fawn survival in the northern Great Plains, rather than forested cover composed primarily of tree plantings and shelterbelts. © 2012 The Wildlife Society.


Remote experiments may be an important tool to implement new technologies in the teaching/learning process, since it enables experimenting with real plants, essential to consolidate the concepts acquired in the theoretical classes, especially in technical and scientific disciplines. This article presents the "modulator PWM" remote experiment, its operational architecture and construction. It seeks to demonstrate its integration with theory and the use of the 3G cellular network as a communications channel for remote experimenting. The PWM modulators are often used in disciplines of higher education courses in electrical engineering, telecommunications and electronics. This article shows that it is possible to perform the practical activity completely remotely, via 3G cellular networks or through the internet to access the experiment and perform the experiments needed to fully understand the theories of the PWM modulator. .This article is a further initiative for remote experiments in the world of different engineering specialties, involving the cellular networks that are rapidly expanding at this time.


This article examines the guitar trade (i.e. making, collecting and dealing) to examine the political ecology of the guitar from forests to construction: delving both into its environmental impacts and attempts to protect endangered species, it focuses on the impact of two pieces of legislation have on guitar making, the international guitar trade, and guitar ownership: the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES); and the Lacey Act Amendments of 2008. In so doing, it examines the underlying problems (deforestation, endangered species, illicit trade in wood, and unfair trade advantages) that these pieces of legislation were meant to address; and the politicization of these efforts that has the US Congress deadlocked. This account also analyzes the practical difficulties that legal compliance presents, and finally examines what alternatives may exist.


Abstract. Practical implementations of chemical OSSEs (Observing System Simulation Experiments) usually rely on approximations of the pseudo-observations by means of a predefined parametrization of the averaging kernels, which describe the sensitivity of the observing system to the target atmospheric species. This is intended to avoid the use of a computationally expensive pseudo-observations simulator, that relies on full radiative transfer calculations. Here we present an investigation on how no, or limited, scene dependent averaging kernels parametrizations may misrepresent the sensitivity of an observing system. We carried out the full radiative transfer calculation for a three-days period over Europe, to produce reference pseudo-observations of lower tropospheric ozone, as they would be observed by a concept geostationary observing system called MAGEAQ (Monitoring the Atmosphere from Geostationary orbit for European Air Quality). The selected spatio-temporal interval is characterised by an ozone pollution event. We then compared our reference with approximated pseudo-observations, following existing simulation exercises made for both the MAGEAQ and GEOstationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events (GEO-CAPE) missions. We found that approximated averaging kernels may fail to replicate the variability of the full radiative transfer calculations. In addition, we found that the approximations substantially overestimate the capability of MAGEAQ to follow the spatio-temporal variations of the lower tropospheric ozone in selected areas, during the mentioned pollution event. We conclude that such approximations may lead to false conclusions if used in an OSSE. Thus, we recommend to use comprehensive scene-dependent approximations of the averaging kernels, in cases where the full radiative transfer is computationally too costly for the OSSE being investigated.


The use of schools as a political instrument has long been a highly developed art. Before widespread radio or travel, each nation could furnish through the schools the information available to most of its citizens and thereby further the interests of the State. Very often misinformation about others - particularly military, economic or cultural rivals - was added to a chauvinistic view of the motherland. This kind of education let Hitler pervert one of the best schooled, most cultured and creative populations of Europe, reducing many of its citizens to the barbarians of Belsen or Auschwitz. One of the most insidious educational programs ever devised led this inhumanity to be confused with patriotism, this schooling to be mistaken for education. It is important to remember that nationalistic schooling was augmented by the influence of press, radio, cinema, youth groups and demonstrations, and probably by bitter family memories of imposed treaties and economic privation.


Brand equity denotes the value that is transferred from a brand to its products, and which translates into higher sales volumes and higher profit margins. Consumer based brand equity (CBBE), a perspective of brand equity as a set of associations held in consumers' minds, was conceptualized in the early 1990's. CBBE measurement has always been conducted by the use of surveys, administered as personal interviews, telephone calls and the like. Surveys are expensive and time-consuming, which means that alternative approaches for CBBE measurement should be investigated. The internet offers multiple types of information which may relate to CBBE in various ways. This research investigated whether publicly available online resources can be collected and analyzed with regard to CBBE. In order to do so, the author re-conceptualized CBBE as applicable for measurement using online resources. The online conceptualization was then operationalized in terms of relevant information available online, resulting in an online CBBE scale consisting of 11 metrics. The metrics were gathered from four domains: Google search results, Google search statistics, social media, and online reviews. Web mining is the process of automatic web information retrieval. In order to automate web retrieval procedures within the four domains, the author designed a computer application, intended to work across product categories. The web mining approach was performed on the product category of headphones, featuring 62 headphone models from 18 different brands. Product information was supplied by leading Norwegian electronics retail chain Spaceworld Soundgarden, and included all headphone models sold in-store or online in 2016. The study revealed that several online measures of CBBE are correlated with sales. One of the key findings of the multiple regression analysis was a general shift of explanatory power, when comparing expensive models with budget models. In the high-end segment, product-specific measures, such as professional review scores, best explained differences in sales, while several brand-specific measures were negatively correlated. In the low-end segment, the result was the opposite. The web mining approach is shown to be able to provide insights on CBBE, but generalizability across product categories is limited, due to reliance on social media and reviews. Recommendations for future research are proposed, such as utilizing nationwide sales figures, and analyzing products that are in direct competition. Expanding the set of algorithms, such as including sentiment analysis, may also increase the performance of the web mining approach to CBBE measurement. The research concludes with the argument that the web based CBBE may, with refinement, become a valid alternative to survey research.


Birds are major predators of many eared insects including moths, butterflies, crickets and cicadas. We provide evidence supporting the hypothesis that insect ears can function as 'bird detectors'. First, we show that birds produce flight sounds while foraging. Eastern phoebes (Sayornis phoebe) and chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) generate broadband sounds composed of distinct repetitive elements (approx. 18 and 20 Hz, respectively) that correspond to cyclic wing beating. We estimate that insects can detect an approaching bird from distances of at least 2.5 m, based on insect hearing thresholds and sound level measurements of bird flight. Second, we show that insects with both high and low frequency hearing can hear bird flight sounds. Auditory nerve cells of noctuid moths (Trichoplusia ni) and nymphalid butterflies (Morpho peleides) responded in a bursting pattern to playbacks of an attacking bird. This is the first study to demonstrate that foraging birds generate flight sound cues that are detectable by eared insects. Whether insects exploit these sound cues, and alternatively, if birds have evolved sound-reducing foraging tactics to render them acoustically 'cryptic' to their prey, are tantalizing questions worthy of further investigation.


This article explores the problems that Internet users of marginalized populations face at telecenters (Internet public access sites). Using an exploratory case study method and gathering data from users and telecenter operators, we have explored users' limitations when using the Internet. To interpret the results, this article uses the digital literacy framework developed by Eshet-Alkai (2004). Findings reveal telecenter users are digitally illiterate in three skills: "branching ability" (ability to navigate through a nonlinear environment to find the desired information); "reproduction ability" (ability to analyze and synthesize the information retrieved); and "information ability" (ability to assess the quality of information). Additionally, there are technical barriers, such as Internet access speed, which influence user's behaviors when searching for information. Finally, the lack of knowledge of the English language, which is the predominant languages in the Internet, is a barrier that widens the digital divide. Based on these findings, this research suggests possible solutions to overcome user's problems. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


A confluence of factors promises to put pressure on the new Bank of Canada governor to direct monetary policy at fixing Canada's so-called "overvalued" currency, according to a report released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. But in "The Seductive Myth of Canada's "Overvalued" Dollar," author Christopher Ragan provides two strong arguments against doing so: the importance of the Bank's focus on inflation, and the weakness of the "overvalued" dollar argument.


Originally published in the fall of 1983, Braja M. Das' Seventh Edition of PRINCIPLES OF FOUNDATION ENGINEERING continues to maintain the careful balance of current research and practical field applications that has made it the leading text in foundation engineering courses. Featuring a wealth of worked-out examples and figures that help students with theory and problem-solving skills, the book introduces civil engineering students to the fundamental concepts and application of foundation analysis design. Throughout, Das emphasizes the judgment needed to properly apply the theories and analysis to the evaluation of soils and foundation design as well as the need for field experience.


Most multi-core architectures nowadays support dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) to adapt their speed to the system's load and save energy. Some recent architectures additionally allow cores to operate at boosted speeds exceeding the nominal base frequency but within their thermal design power.

In this paper, we propose a general-purpose library that allows selective control of DVFS from user space to accelerate multi-threaded applications and expose the potential of heterogeneous frequencies. We analyze the performance and energy trade-offs using different DVFS configuration strategies on several benchmarks and real-world workloads. With the focus on performance, we compare the latency of traditional strategies that halt or busy-wait on contended locks and show the power implications of boosting of the lock owner. We propose new strategies that assign heterogeneous and possibly boosted frequencies while all cores remain fully operational. This allows us to leverage performance gains at the application level while all threads continuously execute at different speeds. We also derive a model to help developers decide on the optimal DVFS configuration strategy, e.g, for lock implementations. Our indepth analysis and experimental evaluation of current hardware provides insightful guidelines for the design of future hardware power management and its operating system interface.


Natural language use, acquisition, and understanding takes place usually in multisensory and multimedia communication environments. Therefore, for one to model language in its interaction and integration with sensorimotor experiences, one needs a representative corpus of such interplay. In this paper, we will present the first corpus of language use and sensorimotor experience recordings in everyday human:human interaction, in which spontaneous language communication has been recorded along with corresponding multiview video recordings, recordings of 3D full body kinematics, and 3D tracking of objects in focus. It is a twelve-hour corpus which comprises of six everyday human:human interaction scenes, each one performed 3 times by 4 different English-speaking couples (interaction between a male and a female actor), each couple acting each scene in two settings: a fully naturalistic setting in which 5-camera multi-view video recordings take place, and a high-tech setting, with full body motion capture for both individuals, a 2-camera multiview video recording, and 3D tracking of focus objects. The corpus has been developed within an EU-funded cognitive systems research project, POETICON (http://www.poeticon.eu), and represents a new type of language resources for cognitive systems. Namely, a corpus that reveals the dynamic role of language in its interplay with sensorimotor experiences and which allows one to computationally model this interplay.


This paper focuses on prediction and prevention of seismic risk through a system for decision making. Data Warehousing and OLAP operations are applied, together with, data mining tools like association rules, decision trees and clustering to predict aspects such as location, time of year and/or earthquake magnitude, among others. The results of the data mining and data warehouse application help to confirm uncertainty about problems behavior in decision making, related to the prevention of seismic hazards.


The synergy between the fields of public health and tourism around the emerging theme of well-being is evident from global, European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK) perspectives. It is suggested that a vision where public health and tourism strategy are allied will not only contribute to a region economically in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment, but will also provide sustainable well-being for residents and tourists alike. As a result, there is potential for well-being to be incorporated as a resource to create new products. Research on the well-being impacts of tourism is limited and there remains a dearth of literature on the significance of these benefits. Therefore, to better understand this area there is a need for a more in-depth exploration and analysis. As a result, the aim of this research is to critically investigate the well-being effects of tourism on the individual within the UK. This study employs an exploratory mixed methodological research approach whereby the first empirical study (inductive stakeholder focus groups) contributed to the development of the second empirical study (deductive consumer questionnaire). Focus groups (n=11) were used to understand how tourism investors view the concept of well-being in relation to tourism and the potential to adopt it as a tourism product resource. Findings validated by a wider group (n=50) exposed the barriers and enablers of implementing well-being in this way. The potential for businesses and policymakers to transform these barriers into enablers was also identified. In addition, study findings were mapped onto the study's theoretical framework (a systems theory approach, a model extracted from the public health sector and applied here in a tourism context). A postal questionnaire (n=240) was utilized to measure the well- being effects of tourism guided by elements of a systems theory approach. Results indicate that infrastructure and health/tourism services together with the tourist's expectations of the holiday lead to increased well-being in terms of an individual's relationships with family and friends as well as their emotional well-being. This research makes a contribution to knowledge by using a systems theory approach to quantitatively measure the well-being effects of tourism on the individual. It is a challenge taking a model from one discipline and transferring it to another therefore the limitations of the systems theory approach are debated. From an academic perspective the interdisciplinary nature of this research is innovative and demonstrates how tourism and public health can be brought together, which is an emerging area of interest. Moreover, research findings provide a more holistic view of tourism and well-being, as the well-being impacts on mainstream tourism are examined. The research influences policy by identifying the appropriate links among tourism, well-being and policy with the potential to create healthier, more sustainable communities at tourism destinations. Finally, data from this research aids tourism/business practice and development by embedding a well-being philosophy for tourist destinations whereby tourism can be promoted and marketed as a healthy lifestyle experience due to the positive benefits that may be realized.


In this article we explain why and how school finance reform should be a part of a reparations program for Black Americans. This article proceeds in six parts. Part I explains how Black-white school funding disparities occurred during the separate-but-equal era. Part II discusses how these funding disparities have occurred in the aftermath of the Brown decision. Parts III and IV explore why school desegregation and school finance litigation, respectively, have failed to remedy these gaps. Part V lays out a reparations framework that state legislatures could adopt to provide restitution to schools and taxpayers harmed by state policies creating Black-white racial funding disparities. Part VI discusses the role that the federal government could play in a school finance reparations program.