We examined individual heterogeneity in survival and recruitment of female Pacific black brant (Branta bernicla nigricans) using frailty models adapted to a capture–mark–recapture context. Our main objectives were (1) to quantify levels of heterogeneity and examine factors affecting heterogeneity, and (2) model the effects of individual heterogeneity on harvest dynamics through matrix models. We used 24 years of data on brant marked and recaptured at the Tutakoke River colony, AK. Multievent models were fit as hidden Markov chain using program E-SURGE with an adequate overdispersion coefficient. Annual survival of individuals marked as goslings was heterogeneous among individuals and year specific with about 0.23 difference in survival between "high" (0.73)- and "low" (0.50)-quality individuals at average survival probability. Adult survival (0.85 ± 0.004) was homogeneous and higher than survival of both groups of juveniles. The annual recruitment probability was heterogeneous for brant >1-year-old; 0.56 (±0.21) and 0.31 (±0.03) for high- and low-quality individuals, respectively. Assuming equal clutch sizes for high- and low-quality individuals and that 80% of offspring were in the same quality class as the breeding female resulted in reproductive values about twice as high for high-quality individuals than low-quality individual for a given class of individuals producing differential contributions to population growth among groups. Differences in reproductive values greatly increased when we assumed high-quality individuals had larger clutch sizes. When we assumed that 50% of offspring were in the same quality class as their mothers and clutches were equal, differences in reproductive values between quality classes were greatly reduced or eliminated (breeders [BRs]). We considered several harvest scenarios using the assumption that 80% of offspring were in the same quality class as their mothers. The amount of compensation for harvest mortality declined as the proportion of high-quality individuals in the harvest increased, as differences in clutch sizes between groups decreased and as the proportion of BRs in the harvest increased. Synthesis and applications. Harvest at the same proportional level of the overall population can result in variable responses in population growth rate when heterogeneity is present in a population. λ was <1.0 under every scenario when harvest rates were >10%, and heterogeneity caused as much as +2% difference in growth rates at the highest levels of proportional harvest for low-quality individuals and the greatest differences in qualities between classes of individuals, a critical difference for a population with λ near 1.0 such as the brant. We observed less response in overall survival in the presence of heterogeneity because we did not observe heterogeneity in the annual survival of BRs. This analysis provides a comprehensive view of overall compensation at the population level and also constitutes the first example of a survival-recruitment model with heterogeneity. Individual heterogeneity should be more explicitly considered in harvest management of vertebrates.


This dataset is part of an ongoing larger project that aims to build a comprehensive macrobenthic dataset from the Po Plain‒Adriatic Sea system by sampling both sedimentary successions and present-day depositional surfaces. During my Ph.D. research, I processed samples taken from the Mid Adriatic Deep (MAD) and near-MAD cored sedimentary succession in the central Adriatic, that contain marine lowstand deltaic and costal deposits from the last glacial time interval. Although an abundance of data has been gathered from the sedimentary succession of the Adriatic Sea, the dynamics of the macrobenthic community preserved there has been little investigated. The taxonomic and ecological information reported in the MAD dataset will represent a keystone for enhancing the knowledge of the molluscan fauna during the last glacial period.


This paper introduces a new leaderless Byzantine consensus called the Democratic Byzantine Fault Tolerance (DBFT) for blockchains. While most blockchain consensus protocols rely on a correct leader or coordinator to terminate, our algorithm can terminate even when its coordinator is faulty. The key idea is to allow processes to complete asynchronous rounds as soon as they receive a threshold of messages, instead of having to wait for a message from a coordinator that may be slow. The resulting decentralization is particularly appealing for blockchains for two reasons: (i) each node plays a similar role in the execution of the consensus, hence making the decision inherently "democratic" (ii) decentralization avoids bottlenecks by balancing the load, making the solution scalable. DBFT is deterministic, assumes partial synchrony, is resilience optimal, time optimal and does not need signatures. We first present a simple safe binary Byzantine consensus algorithm, modify it to ensure termination, and finally present an optimized reduction from multivalue consensus to binary consensus whose fast path terminates in 4 message delays.


First implemented in 1987, Success for All (SFA) is a whole-school reform initiative whose goal is to help all elementary school students become competent readers. Its key elements include: (1) reading instruction marked by an emphasis on phonics and on comprehension, a highly structured curriculum, use of cooperative learning strategies, across-grade ability grouping, frequent assessments, and tutoring for students who need extra help; (2) components that address students' noninstructional issues; and (3) strategies to secure teacher buy-in, provide teachers and leaders with initial and ongoing training, and foster shared leadership.SFA was selected to receive a five-year scale-up grant under the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) competition. This, the second of three major reports from MDRC's independent evaluation of the scale-up effort, discusses the program's implementation and impacts in 2012-2013, the second year of operations at the study sites. The impact evaluation uses a cluster random assignment design involving 37 schools serving students in kindergarten through grades 5 or 6 (K-5 or K-6) and located in five school districts; 19 schools were randomly selected to receive the SFA program, while the remaining 18 "control group" schools did not receive the intervention. The report considers the experiences of school staff members and compares the reading performance in first grade of a cohort of kindergarten students who remained either in the SFA schools or in the control group schools for two years (and therefore received the maximum program "dosage").Key Findings: During the second year, schools strengthened their implementation of SFA. New program practices were implemented, and the proportion of classrooms within a school where SFA-prescribed practices were in evidence increased. Teachers also reported feeling more comfortable with the program.By the end of the second year, 16 of the 19 program group schools were judged to meet the Success for All Foundation's standards for adequate implementation fidelity.SFA reading classes continued to be distinguished from reading classes in the control group schools by greater use of cooperative learning, more extensive ability grouping of students, and close adherence to the curriculum. Tutoring, although a key program element, was not implemented more widely in SFA schools than in control group schools.First-graders who had been enrolled in SFA schools since kindergarten significantly outperformed their counterparts who had been continuously enrolled in control group schools on two measures of phonetic and decoding skills, although not on measures of fluency and comprehension, which are higher-order reading skills. Impact findings for subgroups of students defined by various demographic characteristics are, for the most part, consistent with the main findings.


The goal of a Virtual Organization is to find the most appropriate partners in terms of expertise, cost wise, quick response, and environment. In this study we propose a model and a solution approach to a partner selection problem considering three main evaluation criteria: cost, time and risk. This multiobjective problem is solved by an improved GA that includes meiosis specific characteristics and step-size adaptation for the mutation operator. The algorithm performs strong exploration initially and exploitation in later generations. It has high global search ability and a fast convergence rate and also avoids premature convergence. On the basis of the numerical investigations, the incorporation of the proposed enhancements has been successfully proved.


Shyness and Embarrassment, Perspectives from Social Psychology: In this volume leading international researchers draw upon a variety of perspectives on the study of shyness and embarrassment, shame, blushing, and self-consciousness. The contributors conceive of shyness and embarrassment as widely shared everyday experiences in which the desired routine flow of social interaction is inhibited by self-consciousness and feelings of discomfort or foolishness. The dominant position within social psychology - that these are aspects of social anxiety - is both attacked and defended. The role of unwelcome self-referential thoughts in the experience of the social emotions is critically evaluated in terms of objective self-awareness, social anxiety, and impression management theories. A psychological account of these experiences is important for both theoretical and practical reasons: It advances the study of social interaction processes and contributes to the remediation of extreme shyness and social anxiety. This is the first book to treat shyness and social embarrassment together. Previous studies dealt with these experiences in isolation, even though they can be difficult to distinguish both in ordinary language and psychological theory. The central assumption of this book is that understanding the social emotions will only be possible if they are considered together, if they are located within their social context, and if conceptual and empirical inquiries are closely related. This engaging volume will appeal to all of those interested in psychology - particularly in personality theory, social and clinical psychology, and the study of the self - and to students and teachers of communication studies and related disciplines.


The focus of this thesis is variational image restoration techniques that involve novel non-smooth first-order gradient regularisers: Total Variation (TV) regularisation in image and data space for reconstruction of thin structures from PET data and regularisers given by an infimal-convolution of TV and Lp seminorms for denoising images with piecewise affine structures. In the first part of this thesis, we present a novel variational model for PET reconstruction. During a PET scan, we encounter two different spaces: the sinogram space that consists of all the PET data collected from the detectors and the image space where the reconstruction of the unknown density is finally obtained. Unlike most of the state of the art reconstruction methods in which an appropriate regulariser is designed in the image space only, we introduce a new variational method incorporating regularisation in image and sinogram space. In particular, the corresponding minimisation problem is formed by a total variational regularisation on both the sinogram and the image and with a suitable weighted L2 fidelity term, which serves as an approximation to the Poisson noise model for PET. We establish the well-posedness of this new model for functions of Bounded Variation (BV) and perform an error analysis through the notion of the Bregman distance. We examine analytically how TV regularisation on the sinogram affects the reconstructed image especially the boundaries of objects in the image. This analysis motivates the use of a combined regularisation principally for reconstructing images with thin structures. In the second part of this thesis we propose a first-order regulariser that is a combination of the total variation and Lp seminorms with 1 < p ≤ ∞. A well-posedness analysis is presented and a detailed study of the one dimensional model is performed by computing exact solutions for simple functions such as the step function and a piecewise affine function, for the regulariser with p = 2 and p = ∞. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for a pair in BV × Lp to be a solution for our proposed model and determine the structure of solutions dependent on the value of p. In the case p = 2, we show that the regulariser is equivalent to the Huber-type variant of total variation regularisation. Moreover, there is a certain class of one dimensional data functions for which the regularised solutions are equivalent to high-order regularisers such as the state of the art total generalised variation (TGV) model. The key assets of our regulariser are the elimination of the staircasing effect a well-known disadvantage of total variation regularisation the capability of obtaining piecewise affine structures for p = ∞ and qualitatively comparable results to TGV. In addition, our first-order TVLp regulariser is capable of preserving spike-like structures that TGV is forced to smooth. The numerical solution of the proposed first-order model is in general computationally more efficient compared to high-order approaches.


ABSTRACT This paper introduces, describes, and evaluates real-time models of affective states of individual learners interacting with Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Computer-based instructors, like human instructors, should use affective information for adapting instruction. This requires an accurate representation of individual learner state during tutoring; however, models described in the literature are generalised and constructed offline. Such total population models have faced validation difficulty with individuals, while individualised models have had difficulties with offline creation and online use. The simultaneous creation and utilisation of an individualised model from sensor-based physiological measurements presents an attractive alternative. We present and evaluate approaches for building affective models during the tutoring session which address the difficulties present in real-time data streams. Additionally, this work examines the impact of occasional direct user query on model quality. The results indicate that individualised real-time model construction is comparable to offline equivalents, yet can be successfully applied in tutoring settings.


Functional distributions of individual cardiac nerves distal to the stellate ganglia were determined in 30 open-chest, anesthetized dogs by mapping sites of refractory-period shortening during stimulation of the nerves. On the right, recurrent cardiac nerve stimulation produced marked shortening of refractory periods in the interventricular septum, and lesser changes on the anterior heart surface. On the left, ventromedial cardiac nerve stimulation shortened refractory periods in a similar distribution, but changes were not marked as with the recurrent cardiac nerve. The other left-side nerve that produced repolarization changes, the ventrolateral cardiac nerve, produced marked refractory-period changes on the posterior heart surface. Its distribution showed little overlap with that of the ventromedial or recurrent cardiac nerves. T waves inverted in an electrocardiographic Y lead during recurrent cardiac and ventromedial cardiac nerve stimulation, while ventrolateral cardiac nerve stimulation increased the positivity of T waves in that lead. The cardiac distributions of individual nerves documented in this study provide an anatomical basis for localized alterations in ventricular electrophysiologic properties.


In this work we offer a framework for reasoning about a wide class of existing objectives in machine learning. We develop a formal correspondence between this work and thermodynamics and discuss its implications.


The performance of multiuser MIMO systems can be significantly increased by channel-aware scheduling and signal processing at the transmitters based on channel state information. In the multipleantenna uplink multicarrier scenario, the base station decides centrally on the optimal signal processing and spectral power allocation as well as scheduling. An interesting challenge is the reduction of the overhead in order to inform the mobiles about their transmit strategies. In this work, we propose to reduce the feedback by chunk processing and quantization. We maximize the weighted sum rate of a MIMO OFDM MAC under individual power constraints and chunk size constraints. An efficient iterative algorithm is developed and convergence is proved. The feedback overhead as a function of the chunk size is considered in the rate computation and the optimal chunk size is determined by numerical simulations for various channel models. Finally, the issues of finite modulation and coding schemes as well as quantization of the precoding matrices are addressed.


In this increasingly complex and competitive society organisations are compelled to innovate developing inter-organisational relationships and sharing knowledge. In service innovation one key characteristic of the service innovation process is the involvement of parties from the external environment of organisations, such as clients, among others, who provide beneficial resources, particularly to small service organisations. These influential relationships have commonly been investigated through the approach of social capital. Also influential to the service innovation process are knowledge (a resource of social capital and an internal organisational resource), and structural capital (which as an internal structure provides support to both social and knowledge capital). Therefore, the study aimed to further understand the service innovation process in the light of social, knowledge and structural capital. The background to the research highlighted the imperative for small digital marketing agencies to innovate with limited resources, which provided the grounds for the study.
A qualitative approach was used to gain a better understanding of the experience and behaviour of small digital marketing agencies with regard to their innovation. A total of thirty interviews were completed. Multiple case studies were carried out among thirteen agencies to allow a wider and deeper exploration of the research questions. An expert interview methodology was also applied for its suitability to achieve one objective of the study. Thirteen experts were interviewed to collect insights based on their practical experiences in digital marketing, which were used to develop recommendations.
Analysis from the findings highlighted that small digital marketing agencies used an innovation process that was sequential but nonetheless flexible and open to the challenges of service innovation. Weak ties and strong ties creatively and technically strengthened the process and enhanced its consistency, while trust was largely based on the ability of agencies to deliver the work. Moreover, the process was found to be reliant on creative knowledge in addition to technical knowledge. Organisational knowledge was held in tangible systems, intangible practices and employees, which enhanced the efficiency, quality and interactivity of the process by enabling better planning, quality control and communication with the task environment. Finally, a need to establish a practice of co-production with clients was highlighted as one key recommendation to enhance the innovation process through the combination of resources.
Several contributions were drawn, with the first being the presentation of a comprehensive picture of innovation by seeking to understand the innovation process with regard to social, knowledge and structural capital. Furthermore, a theoretical link between each element was provided, thus filling the gap highlighted in the literature. The study also contribute to the discussion of intellectual capital with the first application of a theoretical framework of intangible assets that encompasses knowledge as capital, in addition to social and structural capital. The use of a multidimensional social capital framework also provided a dynamic illustration of inter-organisational relationships in the context of services. The study also contribute to the discussion of intellectual capital with the first application of a theoretical framework of intangible assets that encompasses knowledge as capital, in addition to social and structural capital.
The learning gained from small digital marketing agencies and their innovation process contributes to the development of the integrative approach to service innovation that seeks to be relevant to both manufacturing and services. The consideration of expert interviews as a research methodology provided some new empirical insights for adding to the discussion on methodological triangulation in qualitative studies. Through recommendations practical contributions were also offered for improvements in the innovation process in small digital marketing agencies.


Abstract In the Czech Republic, there are many regions with unbalanced competition between bus and rail transport on main transport routes. This is due to differences in the quality of transport infrastructure, the attractiveness of the region, routing traffic routes or economic attractiveness for new investors and industry. The aim of this article is to evaluate the potential for bus operators on the route from Prague to Trutnov after completion of D11 highway project.


The current study aimed to identify existing and emerging Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) that have the potential to enhance motorcycle rider safety. A review of the literature revealed that very few commercially available ITS currently exist specifically for motorcycles, although several emerging technologies were identified. Consultations with international experts in ITS, motorcycle safety, motorcycle manufacturers and various road safety research organisations confirmed this. However, there are emerging and existing technologies for other vehicles that have the potential to address key motorcycle safety issues. Each of these technologies was described, and those deemed most directly relevant to these key safety issues were ranked in a prioritised list. Systems which addressed the stability and braking properties of the motorcycle were given the highest priority on this list, as these systems have potential to enhance motorcycle safety in almost all crash situations. However, this list was based on safety relevance only. In the absence of more definite data regarding the causal factors of motorcycle crashes and the actual effectiveness of each of these systems, this list should be regarded as tentative. Recommendations are made for further research and for stimulating the early development of ITS which have the potential to enhance safety and are acceptable to riders.


To predict how species establish and disperse within novel communities, the spatial scale at which competition, predation, and habitat interact must be understood. We explored how these factors affect the distribution and abundance of the exotic crayfishes Orconectes rusticus and O. propinquus and the native O. virilis at both the site-specific and whole-lake scales in northern Wisconsin lakes. During summer 1990, we quantified crayfish, fish predators, and fish diets in cobble and macrophyte sites in Trout Lake, com- paring resulting patterns to those in 21 lakes surveyed during summer 1987. Within and across lakes, fish abundance was unrelated to habitat. Within Trout Lake, O. rusticus and O. propinquus were common in both cobble and macrophyte. Orconectes virilis was re- stricted to macrophyte, probably due to strong displacement by the invaders in cobble. Across lakes, O. rusticus increased where habitat was more than 16.7% cobble, O. pro- pinquus was generally rare, and O. virilis abundance was unrelated to cobble. Crayfish were generally small in cobble and large in macrophyte, perhaps because of habitat-specific, size-selective fish predation or because large crayfish leave cobble when it no longer pro- vides refuge. Orconectes virilis, the largest of three congeners, may have a size refuge in macrophyte but not in cobble. Across lakes, O. rusticus was only abundant when fish biomass was low; O. virilis abundance varied positively with fish. Effects of fish predation and habitat on the ability of invaders Orconectes rusticus and O. propinquus to establish and replace O. virilis appear to be scale dependent. At local (site-specific) scales, cobble likely interacts with selective predation for O. virilis to allow the invaders to establish and replace the native. At the lake-wide scale, high cobble facilitates invaders but predation may curb their successful dispersal and establishment at new sites. Models of community assembly and invasions need to incorporate scale dependencies in habitat availability and biotic interactions to effectively assess the invasion potential of novel species.


[1] During the SAGE III Ozone Loss and Validation Experiment/Third European Stratospheric Experiment on Ozone 2000 mission, the Multiangle Aerosol Spectrometer Probe (MASP) was flown aboard the ER-2 aircraft sampling the Arctic polar vortex. On several of the flights the ER-2 flew directly through polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), and on six of these flights the MASP sampled large particles (2–22 μm diameter). MASP large particle observations are correlated in time with the large particle signal from the NOAA NOy measurements. This is direct evidence supporting the inference of particle size made by the NOy instrument. On 20 January 2000, the day of the most intense PSC encounter, the shapes of the large particle size distributions above 9 μm observed by the MASP and simulated based on the NOy instruments are in reasonable agreement. The MASP observations show a dramatic increase in large particle volume as the temperature approaches the nitric acid trihydrate equilibrium temperature. Our study suggests that large particles containing nitric acid are present in the Arctic polar stratosphere and may lead to denitrification.


Climate change impact and drought phenomena linked with anthropogenic pressure have become a growing concern for water resource managers and policy makers, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. This research proposes generic methodologies to evaluate the prospective impact of such changes at a basin-scale. The Lower Zab River Basin, northern Iraq, has been selected as a representative case study. These methodologies have been achieved through the following: (1) Highlight the impact of potential evapotranspiration (PET) methods, elevation, and climatic conditions on the reconnaissance drought index (RDI) results, applying three of the most widespread PET estimates, which are Thornthwaite, Hargreaves, and Blaney-Criddle in addition to the Food and Agriculture Organization Penman-Monteith reference technique, using data from 24 stations cover different elevations and climatic conditions for the period from 1979 to 2014. The initial form of RDI is directly influenced by the selected PET method at different elevations for all regions. (2) Combine the results of the flow duration curve and the digital filtering algorithms to overcome the limitations of the traditional baseflow separation methods, and then determine the baseflow annual variations. The water yielded from the basin storage system during the dry seasons resulted in dissimilarities in the observed baseflow index between the pre-damming and post-damming periods of the streamflow. (3) Quantify the hydrological alterations of various flow characteristics utilise the Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration method, in addition to multi-
regression, hydrologic sensitivity, and hydrologic model simulations. Climate change was the main factor reducing streamflow. (4) Compare the results of seven ensembles General Circulation Models (GCM) with the results of delta perturbation (DP) scenarios. Both scenarios predicted almost identical decreases in the mean monthly flows to the reservoir. The DP scenarios allow the sensitivity of the impact models to climate change to be more evidently determined compared to GCM scenarios so that they could be complemented GCM scenarios.


Just as international food and agricultural trade has increased over time, food safety has become increasingly important. This paper discusses the economic framework of food safety and international food trade. Both the private and public sectors within individual countries have incentives to improve food safety, and as a result they have taken many actions to reduce food-safety risks, often in the form of private, national, and international standards that they impose of firms. The first half of this article discusses these issues. Differences in standards across borders can lead to trade conflicts whose resolutions depend on the distribution of costs and benefits from the manufacture, trade, and consumption of safe food. The second half of this article presents a framework of three main types of international outcomes arising from differing food-safety standards, with examples from both the public and private sectors.


Indian Tribals are traditional, conservative and under-privileged people. They are socially and economically weaker and also under abject poverty and live in a subsistence economy and general backwardness. This is because of their ill-health which is a cause and consequence of poverty. The major impediments to good health are inequity in health system and radical poverty of the masses. Illness lowers learning ability, reduces productivity, income and savings and it leads to poor quality of life and thus perpetuating poverty. India has the largest tribal population in the world. There are about 427 recognized scheduled Tribal groups in India. As per 2001 Census' the tribal population of India is 84.3 million, larger than that of any other country in the world. Myanmar, with the tribal population of 44 million is the second largest. Tribes of Andhra Pradesh have added grandeur to the region with their rich heritage of culture, innocent lifestyle and age-old ethnicity. In other words, their customs, rituals, fairs, festivals have drawn the attraction of all the anthropologists of the country who have conducted surveys on them with enthusiasm and vigor. Presently there are 32 lakh tribals 50 lakh nomads and other backward people in Andhra Pradesh. The state of Andhra Pradesh has been chosen as Study area in view the congregation of larger number of tribal's live in below poverty line without any basic medical facilities. There is an urgent need to concentrate on them for their survival. Failing which the race will be wiped out due to perpetual contaminated and dangerous diseases prevailing in the entire tribal areas due to non availability timely Medical assistance and Government sponsored Health Care Projects in spite of the budgetary allocation of scores of Public money for their welfare and well being. The basic training focused on hygiene, malaria prognosis and first aid. Community health workers were selected from among married women in their twenties and thirties, preferably with a modicum of education. Other major achievements included the provision of drugs, equipment and vehicles for 32 primary health centers and of vehicles for mobile medical units; matching grants for the construction of 181 subcentres; the establishment of a referral fund for medical emergencies; and the provision of training kits.Hypothesis: Healthcare system improves the living standards of Tribals, Healthcare system brings socio-Economic Standards among Tribals, and Helath care system gives sustainability and overall growth of tribal areas.Justification for the Study: Lack of personal hygiene, poor sanitation, poor mother-child health services, absence of health education, lack of national preventive programmes, and lack of health services are responsible for the poor health of the tribals. The malnutrition is high among the tribal population. Nutritional deficiency leads to diseases like endemic goiter, anemia, pellagra and beriberi. Problems like in-sanitary food supplies, water contamination, and poor food in-take reflect on the health status of tribals. The tropical disease like malaria is still widespread in the tribal areas. Hence, better nutrition and good environmental health are the important aspects of village health services. Objectives of the Study: To Study the Socio and Economic standards of Tribal in Andhra Pradesh State, to Understand the Need for Implementation of Health care projects in Tribal areas of Andhra Pradesh state initiated by the state government, to review the various Government Sponsored Health care schemes in operation to Protect the lives of Tribal's, to measure the various significant factors influence the Tribal's Health care systems and to analyze the results and to make suggestion for further improvement.Conclusion: A total health programme for the tribal villages is a pre-requisite to check and eradicate vector-borne and water-borne diseases. Facilities may be created in the tribal areas so as to attract hundred percent deliveries in the hospitals. All preventive vaccinations and injections may be given free of cost to the tribal people including Hepatitis B and anti-measles vaccines. It is, therefore, essential to update and provide 24-hours hospital facility to the people in the tribal area. It is necessary to conduct frequent surveys on the food habits, nutrition, health practices of the tribals. It will help the authorities to take suitable measures to improve the health of the tribals.


BACKGROUND
Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a chronic inflammatory disease characterised by clinical features that include bone loss and epidermal hyperplasia. Aberrant cytokine expression has been linked to joint and skin pathology; however, it is unclear which cytokines are critical for disease initiation. Interleukin 17A (IL-17A) participates in many pathological immune responses; however, its role in PsA has not been fully elucidated.

OBJECTIVE
To determine the role of IL-17A in epidermal hyperplasia and bone destruction associated with psoriatic arthritis.

DESIGN
An in vivo gene transfer approach was used to investigate the role of IL-17A in animal models of inflammatory (collagen-induced arthritis) and non-inflammatory (receptor activator of NF-κB ligand (RANKL)-gene transfer) bone loss.

RESULTS
IL-17A gene transfer induced the expansion of IL-17RA(+)CD11b(+)Gr1(low) osteoclast precursors and a concomitant elevation of biomarkers indicative of bone resorption. This occurred at a time preceding noticeable joint inflammation, suggesting that IL-17A is critical for the induction of pathological bone resorption through direct activation of osteoclast precursors. Moreover, IL-17A induced a second myeloid population CD11b(+)Gr1(high) neutrophil-like cells, which was associated with cutaneous pathology including epidermal hyperplasia, parakeratosis and Munro's microabscesses formation.

CONCLUSIONS
Collectively, these data support that IL-17A can play a key role in the pathogenesis of inflammation-associated arthritis and/or skin disease, as observed in PsA.


The effects of seven levels of molybdenum (Mo) supply on growth, distribution and redistribution of Mo in black gram cv. Regur on a Mo deficient acid soil were examined in a glasshouse experiment. Seed of Mo concentration 17 4 Mg Mo/g dry matter was used. At the three lowest Mo rates, plants showed N deficiency symptoms typically induced by low Mo supply in legumes. Nitrogen deficiency symptoms depressed whole shoot dry matter. Increasing the Mo supply increased Mo concentrations in all plant parts. In the leaf blades of plants at all growth stages, the increases were smaller over the three lowest rates of Mo supply: further increases in the Mo supply markedly increased the concentrations of Mo in all leaves, particularly in the recently matured leafblades (YFELb and YFEL-1 b). In addition, in petioles, the concentrations of Mo exceeded those in the blades which they supported at all levels of Mo supply. In Mo-adequate plants, the concentrations of Mo were higher in the stems than in the petioles and higher in the -petioles than in the blades. Molybdenum concentrations in the nodules were higher than in the above ground plant parts except at the high levels of Mo supply where the concentrations in the basal stem exceeded those in the nodules. The mobility of Mo in the phloem appeared to vary with plant parts and the Mo supply. For example, in Mo-adequate plants, there was no net loss of Mo.


Why some physicians recommend herbal medicines while others do not is not well understood. We undertook a survey designed to identify factors, which predict recommendation of herbal medicines by physicians in Malaysia. About a third (206 out of 626) of the physicians working at the University of Malaya Medical Centre ' were interviewed face-to-face, using a structured questionnaire. Physicians were asked about their personal use of, recommendation of, perceived interest in and, usefulness and safety of herbal medicines. Using logistic regression modelling we identified personal use, general interest, interest in receiving training, race and higher level of medical training as significant predictors of recommendation. St. John's wort is one of the most widely used herbal remedies. It is also probably the most widely evaluated herbal remedy with no fewer than 57 randomised controlled trials. Evidence from the depression trials suggests that St. John's wort is more effective than placebo while its comparative efficacy to conventional antidepressants is not well established. We updated previous meta-analyses of St. John's wort, described the characteristics of the included trials, applied methods of data imputation and transformation for incomplete trial data and examined sources of heterogeneity in the design and results of those trials. Thirty randomised controlled trials, which were heterogeneous in design, were identified. Our meta-analysis showed that St. John's wort was significantly more effective than placebo [pooled RR 1.90 (1.54-2.35)] and [Pooled WMD 4.09 (2.33 to 5.84)]. However, the remedy was similar to conventional antidepressant in its efficacy [Pooled RR I. 0 I (0.93 -1.10)] and [Pooled WMD 0.18 (- 0.66 to 1.02). Subgroup analyses of the placebo-controlled trials suggested that use of different diagnostic classifications at the inclusion stage led to different estimates of effect. Similarly a significant difference in the estimates of efficacy was observed when trials were categorised according to length of follow-up. Confounding between the variables, diagnostic classification and length of trial was shown by loglinear analysis. Despite extensive study, there is still no consensus on how effective St. lohn's wort is in depression. However, most experts would agree that it has some effect. Our meta-analysis highlights the problems associated with the clinical evaluation of herbal medicines when the active ingredients are poorly defined or unknown. The problem is compounded when the target disease (e.g. depression) is also difficult to define and different instruments are available to diagnose and evaluate it.


The period from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s signaled the end of the prosperity of the postwar years enjoyed by the cities of the prairie-those cities located immediately within or adjacent to the Mississippi River drainage system, or what is usually called the American Heartland. During this period, the bottom dropped out of local economies and all collapsed except those upheld by massive state institutions. With this collapse, optimism for new opportunities ended, signaling the close of the American frontier. The Closing of the Metropolitan Frontier looks at mid-sized cities Champaign-Urbana, Decatur, Joliet, Moline, Peoria, Rockford, Rock Island, and Springfield, Illinois; Davenport, Iowa; Duluth, Minnesota; and Pueblo, Colorado. Elazar examines how they adapted to change during the period immediately after World War II, through the Vietnam War, and the Nixon years. He considers the roles of federal and state governments as instruments of change including their efforts to impose new standards and ways of doing business. The Closing of the Metropolitan Frontier analyzes the struggle between federalism and managerialism in the local political arena. In his new introduction, Daniel J. Elazar discusses this volume's place as part of a forty-year study of the cities of the prairie as well as the changes and developments in that region over that forty-year span. This volume will be of great interest to economists, political scientists, and sociologists interested in the Great Society and the New Federalism and their aftermath.


A teacher vocational scholarship (BVP) was established in Chile at the end of 2010. This article analyzes the effect of the BVP on the profile of the students admitted to the pedagogy programs at universities that are members of the Council of Chancellors of Chilean Universities (CRUCh) and how that effect has varied in the different CRUCh universities. Using data from the CRUCh admission processes and the databases of the high-school sophomore SIMCE testing, it is confirmed that the outcome of the BVP has been students entering pedagogy programs who have earned better scores in the university selection testing (PSU) and performed better during high school. More importantly, that improvement in the student profile does not seem to be due merely to the fact that the scholarship is not conditioned to the applicant's economic situation, but rather to the effects of residual elements not measured by selection testing. It may be partially due to "skills". Lastly, the analysis shows that the universities preferred by a greater proportion of BVP recipients are universities that previously accepted students with higher PSU scores.


An analytical procedure utilizing infrared techniques has been developed for the quantitative determination of glutamic and α-ketoglutaric acids for samples containing milligram quantities of these acids. The infrared spectra of the samples in KBr pellets was determined on a Beckman IR-8 infrared spectrophotometer using double beam, slow scan, gains of 5.2% to 5.6% and attenuation to 97% T at 3846.2 cm−1. For preparation of the pellets, approximately 400 mg of KBr (IR grade, E. Merck, Darmstadt, Germany), was used. Better dispersion of the sample was achieved by mixing a part of the KBr with the sample in an agate mortar and combining this mixture with the rest of the KBr in the capsule of a Wig-L-Bug (Crescent Dental Mfg. Co., Chicago, Ill.) along with a nylon ball (⅛ in.). Twenty seconds agitation completed the mixing. The mixture was transferred to the die and the pellet prepared in the usual manner.


AbstractPull-out experiments were performed on four carbon fiber–reinforced polymer (CFRP) ground anchors simulating their applications in rock and soil. The CFRP tendons used in these anchors comprise a single-strap end on both ground and air sides. On the ground side, the single-strap end is embedded in a prefabricated cylinder of high-strength grout that fits into the borehole. In rock applications, the ground-side anchor can be used without additional confinement, while in the case of soil, an additional CFRP confinement ring is needed to prevent premature grout failure in the strap region. The load transfer from the strap to the grout cylinder occurs progressively; approximately 50% of the load is transferred at the semicircular strap end, while the remaining 50% is transferred at the curved transition from the strap to the rod segment of the free length.


Reliability of equilibrium state evaluation about settlement slopes in the context of natural and human-made hazards is a complex issue. The geological structure of the vicinity of the upland slope in the urban environment of Warsaw is characterised by a significant spatial diversification of the layers. This is especially due to the glacitectonics in the Mio-Pliocene clays, which are located shallowly under the sandy tills' formations. With substantial variability in the clay roof surface, point recognition by drilling is often insufficient. The use of electrical resistivity imaging (ERI) in the quasi-3D variant provides accurate images of the real ground conditions, which is crucial in optimal geotechnical design. In forecasting the behaviour of the slope, it is necessary to quantify the impact of spatially differentiated systems of disturbed layers on changes in the safety factor (SF), which corresponds to the observed landslide activity of the Warsaw Slope. This study concerns numerous calculation model analyses of the optional clay position in the context of slope stability conditions. A wide range of soil properties variability was taken into account, resulting from both lithogenesis and subsequent processes disintegrating the original soil structure. Regarding the geological conditions of the slip surface, the use of classical computational methods and numerical modelling (FEM) was considered for comparative purposes. The results indicated that local changes in equilibrium conditions were affected by the different morphology of the clay roof surface of the slope and the alternation in strength characteristics on the slip surfaces. The findings of the study contribute to sustainable spatial planning of near-slope regions.


Pliocene vertebrate locality of Calta, Ankara, Turkey. 8. Suidae. Eleven wild boar remains were found in the upper Ruscinian site of Calta : two tooth-row fragments, seven isolated teeth, a proximal radius fragment, a complete metacarpal IV. They belong to the oldest form of Sus arvernensis Croizet et Jobert, 1828, which is smaller than the nominal subspecies and possesses more simply built cheek teeth. It can therefore be allotted to Sus arvernensis minor (Deperet, 1890) which is a characteristic form of the upper Ruscinian of Europe (standard zone MN15). This form had the same ecological requirements as the recent South-East Asian wild boars of the Sus verrucosus-barbatuscelebensis group, and the much larger S. strozzii from the Villafranchian of Europe.


This paper presents a three-level modelling approach to the catalytic carbon monoxide oxidation in a temperature range between 400 K – 800 K. The first level involves the description of the chemical kinetics for the exothermic reactions on the catalyst surface. The second level models the thermal and hydrodynamic processes in the boundary diffusion layer between the catalyst surface and the reactive stream. Finally, the third modelling level focuses on the representation of the hydrodynamic and thermal properties for the bulk multi-component gas flow at various gas velocity and temperature ranges. The dynamic behaviour of the reactive system has been studied through simulated runs.


Background: Understanding the differences in genetics of malignancies is crucial for therapeutic decisions. This systematic review was conducted to evaluate the current evidence on genetics of bone tumors in the context of pediatric cancer. Material and Methods: We performed a systematic review of the literature published on genetics of pediatrics bone tumors, using PubMed, Google scholar, Science Citation Index and Embase. The search profiles used were: pediatric/childhood malignant bone tumors, pediatric/ childhood bone cancer/neoplasm, osteosarcoma/bone sarcoma/Ewing's sarcoma and risk factors/etiology. Inclusion criteria were as follows: focused upon biology and genetics mechanism of primary bone tumors and published in the last 15 years in English. Results: A total of 278 articles were searched for relevancy, determined by article title, abstract, and full copy. After screening the titles and abstracts, 239 articles were excluded because they were the same articles and case reports. Finally, 39 articles were found that fulfilled all inclusion criteria. Conclusion: This systematic review shows that many genetic studies have been performed on the genetics basis of pediatrics bone tumors. The knowledge base formed by this review should facilitate more informative future research. It is important that orthopedics and other specialists be aware about genetics basis of pediatrics bone tumors.


Linear cellular automata have many invariant measures in general. There are several studies on their rigidity: The unique invariant measure with a suitable non-degeneracy condition (such as positive entropy or mixing property for the shift map) is the uniform measure - the most natural one. This is related to study of the asymptotic randomization property: Iterates starting from a large class of initial measures converge to the uniform measure (in Cesaro sense). In this paper we consider one-dimensional linear cellular automata with neighborhood of size two, and study limiting distributions starting from a class of shift-invariant probability measures. In the two-state case, we characterize when iterates by addition modulo 2 cellular automata starting from a convex combination of strong mixing probability measures can converge. This also gives all invariant measures inside the class of those probability measures. We can obtain a similar result for iterates by addition modulo an odd prime number cellular automata starting from strong mixing probability measures.


Abstract Optical tracking systems typically trade off between astrometric precision and field of view. In this work, we showcase a networked approach to optical tracking using very wide field-of-view imagers that have relatively low astrometric precision on the scheduled OSIRIS-REx slingshot manoeuvre around Earth on 22 Sep 2017. As part of a trajectory designed to get OSIRIS-REx to NEO 101955 Bennu, this flyby event was viewed from 13 remote sensors spread across Australia and New Zealand to promote triangulatable observations. Each observatory in this portable network was constructed to be as lightweight and portable as possible, with hardware based off the successful design of the Desert Fireball Network. Over a 4-h collection window, we gathered 15 439 images of the night sky in the predicted direction of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Using a specially developed streak detection and orbit determination data pipeline, we detected 2 090 line-of-sight observations. Our fitted orbit was determined to be within about 10 km of orbital telemetry along the observed 109 262 km length of OSIRIS-REx trajectory, and thus demonstrating the impressive capability of a networked approach to Space Surveillance and Tracking.


International audience

 Euler's identity and the Rogers-Ramanujan identities are perhaps the most famous results in the theory of partitions. According to them, 1-distinct and 2-distinct partitions of n are equinumerous with partitions of n into parts congruent to ±1 modulo 4 and partitions of n into parts congruent to ±1 modulo 5, respectively. Furthermore, their generating functions are modular functions up to multiplication by rational powers of q. For d ≥ 3, however, there is neither the same type of partition identity nor modularity for d-distinct partitions. Instead, there are partition inequalities and mock modularity related with d-distinct partitions. For example, the Alder-Andrews Theorem states that the number of d-distinct partitions of n is greater than or equal to the number of partitions of n into parts which are congruent to ±1 (mod d+3). In this note, we present the recent developments of generalizations and analogs of the Alder-Andrews Theorem and establish asymptotic lower and upper bounds for the d-distinct partitions. Using the asymptotic relations and data obtained from computation, we propose a conjecture on a partition inequality that gives an upper bound for d-distinct partitions. Specifically, for d ≥ 4, the number of d-distinct partitions of n is less than or equal to the number of partitions of n into parts congruent to ±1 (mod m), where m ≤ 2dπ^2 / [3 log^2 (d)+6 log d] .


Foundation construction process has been an important key point in a successful construction engineering. The frequency of using diaphragm wall construction method among many deep excavation construction methods in Taiwan is the highest in the world. The traditional view of managing diaphragm wall unit in the sequencing of construction activities is to establish each phase of the sequencing of construction activities by heuristics. However, it conflicts final phase of engineering construction with unit construction and effects planning construction time. In order to avoid this kind of situation, we use management of science in the study of diaphragm wall unit construction to formulate multi-objective combinational optimization problem. Because the characteristic (belong to NP-Complete problem) of problem mathematic model is multi-objective and combining explosive, it is advised that using the 2-type Self-Learning Neural Network (SLNN) to solve the N=12, 24, 36 of diaphragm wall unit in the sequencing of construction activities program problem. In order to compare the liability of the results, this study will use random researching method in comparison with the SLNN. It is found that the testing result of SLNN is superior to random researching method in whether solution-quality or Solving-efficiency.


Image compression techniques are used for reducing the amount of data required to represent a digital image. An image can be compressed with the use of Walsh-Hadamard Transform (WHT), quantization and encoding steps in the compression of the JPEG image format. In this system, RGB components of color image are converted to YCbCr. For image quantization, YCbCr color space is more convenient than RGB color space. The original image is broken into 8×8 blocks of pixel. In this system, the proposed method is mainly performed by modifying Walsh-Hadamard transform (WHT) method to optimize the processing time of image compression. Each block is calculated by using the modified Walsh-Hadamard Transform (MWHT). Then image quantization calculates probability index for each unique quantity. After applying quantization, Huffman code for each unique symbol is calculated so as to compress the image using Huffman compression. The main objective of this system is to decrease the transmission time for transmission of images. Experimental result shows that the result of the performances for the proposed method of BMP and GIF images is compared. So, the performances are evaluated in term of Bit Per Pixel (BPP), Compression Ratio (CR), Compression Time (CT). The system is implemented by using C# programming Language.


Pituitary apoplexy is an uncommon condition and medical emergency that classically presents with abrupt onset of severe headache, nausea, fever, impaired level of consciousness, visual disturbances and a variable degree of ocular paresis. The constellation of signs, symptoms and cerebrospinal fluid findings in keeping with meningitis is considered a rare presentation of pituitary apoplexy and often leads to a misdiagnosis of infectious meningoencephalitis. We present the case of a 52 year old male admitted with a diabetic ketoacidosis who subsequently developed a severe headache with features of meningism. Haematological tests revealed an elevated white cell count and C-reactive protein, and lumbar puncture demonstrated a marked neutrophilic pleocytosis and elevated protein. Ceftriaxone was commenced for the presumptive diagnosis of bacterial meningitis, but resulted in no improvement in the patient's condition and so imaging studies were performed which revealed the presence of an incidental pituitary macroadenoma with intra-lesional haemorrhage, thus providing the diagnosis of pituitary apoplexy. The patient recovered with conservative management consisting of hormonal replacement therapy and continues to follow up at our facility.


The current severe economic downturn, coupled with scandals of business misfeasance and malfeasance, raises expectations for another surge in the U.S. consumer protections. Because it happened three times before, the human temptation to seek historical parallels readily fuels either optimistic hopes or the paranoid ravings of fact-free commentators on a broadcast news network. A simplified historical perspective brings an odd mix of hopeful optimism and reluctant pessimism.


The Session Description Protocol (SDP) is used to describe the parameters of media streams used in multimedia sessions. When a session requires multiple ports, SDP assumes that these ports have consecutive numbers. However, when the session crosses a network address translation device that also uses port mapping, the ordering of ports can be destroyed by the translation. To handle this, we propose an extension attribute to SDP.


Featuring expert contributors from around the world, this book offers insight into the vital theoretical and practical aspects of the economics of copyright. Topics discussed include fair use, performers' rights, copyright and trade, online music streaming, internet piracy, copyright and visual art markets, and open source publishing. In addition to in-depth coverage of these timely topics, the authors also offer insightful predictions and policy recommendations for the future.


Title of Thesis: A Study of Resting State FMRI Dynamic Functional Network Analysis of MTBI Wenshuai Hou, 2015 Dissertation directed by: Professor Joseph JaJa Department of ECE Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI) is one of the most common neurological disorders. A subset of patients develop persistent cognitive deficits. A number of the brain studies have been conducted to discover the abnormalities and disruptions in the brain functional networks using similar methods to those employed in more severe brain disorders such as Alzheimer's or Schizophrenia. Static functional network analysis using resting state brain fMRI images has shown some promising results in identifying characteristics of MTBI. However, recent development in the dynamics of functional networks have been able to reveal insightful information about anomalies in brain activities that have not been observed when using traditional static analysis. Our work focuses on both static and dynamic functional analysis of the brain. Our overall analysis pipeline is data-driven using a dataset of 47 MTBI subjects and a demographically matching healthy control group size of 30. The data-driven approach proactively removes noise, focuses on the entire brain functional networks and performs advanced independent component analysis, followed by statistical tests to characterize the functional networks of MTBI patients. A key distinction of our research is the finer labeling of MTBI subject according to their long term 6 months recovery status. Our results suggest that those MTBI subject who suffer prolonged recovery exhibit disturbed functional networks, and slowed dynamism in functional connectivity than those of the healthy control or those MTBI participants who recovered quickly. A number of useful network measurements have been found to capture the states and changes of the brain functional networks for healthy and different types of MTBI subjects in their resting state. We believe that our findings can shed more light into the impact of MTBI on the effectiveness of several functional networks and can contribute to helping clinicians make more informed decisions to aid in the recovery of MTBI patients. A Study of Resting State FMRI Dynamic Functional Network Analysis of MTBI


HIP JOINT FUNCTION IN PEOPLE WITH FEMOROACETABULAR IMPINGEMENT SYNDROME Philip Malloy, MS PT Marquette University, 2017 Femoroacetabular impingement syndrome (FAIS) is a clinical hip disorder that represents symptomatic contact between the proximal femur and rim of the acetabulum during normal hip range of motion. FAIS has been described as a precursor to hip joint osteoarthritis (OA), and results in physical impairments and functional limitations in young individuals and active adults. Despite tremendous growth in arthroscopic hip surgery for FAIS, little is known about how this disorder affects dynamic hip joint function. The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate hip joint function, during clinical and functional activities, both before and after arthroscopic hip surgery for FAIS. The first aim compared hip joint function in people with FAIS to that of healthy matched controls. The results show that hip flexion muscle strength is reduced in people with FAIS, although, this loss of hip strength is not associated with gait kinetics or patient reported outcomes. These findings indicate that despite hip strength being impaired, people with FAIS can meet the functional demands of gait. However, during double and single leg squat tasks, significant alterations in hip joint biomechanics were found, and became greater as the control demand of the squat task were progressed. These findings indicate that FAIS alters hip biomechanics, however, tasks that require greater joint demand such as single leg squat are needed to bring about these alterations in joint function. The second aim examined hip joint function before and after hip arthroscopic surgery for FAIS. Arthroscopic hip surgery for FAIS did improve joint range of motion and muscle strength. Additionally, sagittal plane hip joint kinetics and hip joint kinematic control during gait changed after arthroscopic hip surgery, although, hip joint biomechanics remain different than healthy controls. The aims of this dissertation demonstrate that clinical hip function is altered in people with FAIS and arthroscopic hip surgery improves this function. Tasks that involve end ranges of hip motion and single leg control are required to bring about alterations in hip joint biomechanics in people with FAIS. Gait biomechanics after arthroscopic hip surgery for FAIS change, however, may require an extended period to normalize after surgery.


Psychology and Tourism Management. David Canter. Tourism Management, vol. 3, no. 3, September 1982, pp. 193-195. Butterworth Scientific Ltd., P.O. Box 63, Westbury House, Bury Street, Guildford GU2 5BH, United Kingdom. $30.50. This paper briefly reviews some of the ways in which psychology can be harnessed to benefit tourism management. As more people recognize that tourism is indeed an industry and requires skillful and informed management, it becomes apparent that depth of experience, rules-ofthumb, and personal intuition are not enough for the successful development of the industry. As a consequence, the scientific study of human behavior and experience-psychology-is being looked to for answers to many questions in tourism.


This essay, for a symposium on Citizen Ignorance, Police Deception and the Constitution, relies on moral philosophy and new empirical research in arguing that police deceit during interrogation is permissible when: (1) it takes place in the window between arrest and formal charging; (2) it is necessary (i.e., non-deceptive techniques have failed); (3) it is not coercive (i.e., avoids undermining the rights to silence and counsel and would not be considered impermissibly coercive if true); and (4) it does not take advantage of vulnerable populations (i.e., suspects who are young, have mental retardation, or have been subjected to prolonged interrogation). A prohibition on interrogation deception under these conditions would cause much more harm (in terms of lost true confessions) than benefit (in terms of preventing false confessions and any intangible harm to the dupe or society).


This paper describes the latest results of a research program that is designed to enhance the security of wireless mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) by developing a distributed intrusion detection capability. The current approach uses learning vector quantization neural networks that have the ability to identify patterns of network attacks in a distributed manner. This capability enables this approach to demonstrate a distributed analysis functionality that facilitates the detection of complex attacks against MANETs. The results of the evaluation of the approach and a discussion of additional areas of research is presented.


Drawing on existing research, this paper investigates various predictors of high school students' college and university choice decisions in Qatar. Based on a 2015 survey of 1,427 participants, this study utilized exploratory factor analysis to identify variables that affect student choice of higher educational institutions (HEI). Three factors were extracted from the analysis, revealing the following aspects of the academic experience as important when choosing a HEI: quality of education, cultural values, and the cost of education. To further the understanding of the relevance of these factors for different student demographics, we employed ordinal logistic regression to test whether several independent variables (student's gender, nationality, parental education, and parental occupation) act as significant predictors of the three extracted dimensions (dependent variables). The analysis revealed that, indeed, demographic characteristics significantly predict, to varying degrees, all three factors affecting student's HEI choice. Discussion on postulated reasons behind the recorded relationships will follow, along with implications and recommendations for further study and research. Findings of this study will help HEIs in Qatar and the broader region to position themselves more effectively, and develop targeted strategies that attract a diverse student population.


Abstract. Biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) are emitted into the atmosphere by plants and include isoprene, monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, and their oxygenated derivatives. These BVOCs are among the principal factors influencing the oxidative capacity of the atmosphere in forested regions. BVOC emission rates are often measured by collecting samples onto adsorptive cartridges in the field and then transporting these samples to the laboratory for chromatographic analysis. One of the most commonly used detectors in chromatographic analysis is the flame ionization detector (FID). For quantitative analysis with an FID, relative response factors may be estimated using the effective carbon number (ECN) concept. The purpose of this study was to determine the ECN for a variety of terpenoid compounds to enable improved quantification of BVOC measurements. A dynamic dilution system was developed to make quantitative gas standards of VOCs with mixing ratios from 20–55 ppb. For each experiment using this system, one terpene standard was co-injected with an internal reference, n-octane, and analyzed via an automated cryofocusing system interfaced to a gas chromatograph flame ionization detector and mass spectrometer (GC/MS/FID). The ECNs of 16 compounds (14 BVOCs) were evaluated with this approach, with each test compound analyzed at least three times. The difference between the actual carbon number and measured ECN ranged from −24% to −2%. The difference between theoretical ECN and measured ECN ranged from −22% to 9%. Measured ECN values were within 10% of theoretical ECN values for most terpenoid compounds.


Conformation traits of Brown, Simmental and Holstein breed calves were studied to estimate the genetic and environmental parameters using data from two classification systems. Calves were classified in the period 2000 – 2010 between the age of one to 51 days. Beside the chest girth as a measurement in cm five traits were scored. At the beginning, the traits such as muscularity, form, body depth, body length and width were scored on the scale from 1 to 3 or 1 to 9 while in the year 2008 the system of classification changed to scores from 1 to 5 for all traits. Due to high variability of the data their thorough cleaning and homogenisation was required. Uni- and bivariate analyses using animal model methodology were performed. The effects of technician by year of classification, classification age class, birth season in months by years were treated as fixed and the herd by year of classification and additive genetic effect as random. Heritability estimates for data from the new classification system are rather higher (0.05-0.29) than those from the old system. Genetic correlations between estimates of two classification systems are very high, i. e. in a range from 0.74 to 0.97, which indicates a strong genetic relationship between the old and the new system of classification. The only exceptions were form and body depth in Simmental breed. In the chest girth the estimates of heritability from 0.16 to 0.27 were obtained.


Determining the appropriate monetary remedy for patent infringement has always been a complicated and confusing task, for two principal reasons. The first is that the rules courts have developed for estimating patent damages have been, all too often, both complex and contradictory. This observation continues to be true even after the creation of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which since 1982 has heard all appeals in patent infringement suits. The second reason is that the proper application of even relatively simple rules to real cases can be surprisingly difficult. In recent years, courts have begun to abandon the formalism that once characterized their approach to patent damages in favor of an analysis more solidly grounded in the economics of market structure, but much work remains to be done to set the law of patent damages on a rational footing. Our goal in this article is to provide a comprehensive economic framework for analyzing and estimating patent damages in the form of either lost profits or reasonable royalties. We begin with an overview of the law of patent damages, paying particular attention to the development of legal standards for estimating lost profits and reasonable royalties over the past thirty years. As we show, the courts have been moving by fits and starts toward adopting a general tort-law framework involving the application of cause-in-fact and proximate cause doctrine, though without completely giving up the idea that the law of patent damages should remain materially different from the law of damages as applied to other torts. We then provide a rationale for a general but-for causation standard and demonstrate how this standard might apply to a variety of market arrangements. Finally, we discuss the concept of proximate cause and what it might mean in the context of patent infringement. Although our results are largely supportive of some of the legal standards the Federal Circuit has adopted over the past ten years, we argue that the court has ignored some potent counterarguments, and that these counterarguments must be resolved before one can have any confidence in the standards chosen. In reaching our results, we therefore address, though ultimately reject, arguments that patent owners should systematically recover less than the amount of their but-for loss, in order to encourage efficient infringement or to avoid anticompetitive schemes of preemptive patenting or tying.


ABSTRACT
 For the majority of native species, human-created habitats provide a hostile environment that prevents their colonization. However, if the conditions encountered in this novel environment are part of the fundamental niche of a particular species, these low competitive environments may allow strong population expansion of even rare and stenotopic species. If these species are potentially harmful to humans, such anthropogenic habitat alterations may impose strong risks for human health. Here, we report on a recent and severe outbreak of the viciously biting and day-active mosquito Anopheles plumbeus Stephens, 1828, that is caused by a habitat shift toward human-created habitats. Although historic data indicate that the species was previously reported to be rare in Belgium and confined to natural forest habitats, more recent data indicate a strong population expansion all over Belgium and severe nuisance at a local scale. We show that these outbreaks can be explained by a recent larval habitat shift of this species from tree-holes in forests to large manure collecting pits of abandoned and uncleaned pig stables. Further surveys of the colonization and detection of other potential larval breeding places of this mosquito in this artificial environment are of particular importance for human health because the species is known as a experimental vector of West Nile virus and a potential vector of human malaria.


Abstract. Observations of the global distribution of mesospheric gravity wave activity are rare. To our knowledge there exist only a few articles showing global maps of gravity wave potential energy in the mesosphere derived from observations of the instrument SABER (Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry) on NASA's satellite TIMED (Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics Dynamics). In the present study, we find that the geopotential height (GPH) measurements of the instrument MLS (Microwave Limb Sounder) on NASA's satellite Aura are sensitive to mesospheric gravity waves with horizontal wavelengths between 200 and 1500 km. We apply a data analysis which evaluates the standard deviation of horizontal GPH perturbations at a fixed pressure level and along the orbit of the sounding volume of Aura/MLS. The orographic waves from the Southern Andes in August serve as a test signal for the horizontal resolution and sensitivity of the method. We find enhanced gravity wave activity in the lower, middle, and upper mesosphere in a small region over the Southern Andes. It seems that the horizontal resolution of the mesospheric gravity wave maps provided by Aura/MLS is higher than those of TIMED/SABER. We apply the method to estimate the global distributions of mesospheric gravity wave activity before and after the major sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs) of January 21, 2006, January 24, 2009, and January 6, 2013 using 30 day intervals of Aura/MLS observations of GPH. It seems that the gravity wave activity in the lower mesosphere over the subtropical convection regions of the summer hemisphere are decreased after the SSW of January 21, 2006. The gravity wave activity in the lower and middle mesosphere over middle and high latitudes (40° N to 70° N) of the winter hemisphere is decreased after the SSW of January 24, 2009. The major SSW of January 6, 2013 is preceded by enhanced mesospheric gravity wave activity over Eurasia at high latitudes (40° N to 60° N). This asymmetric gravity wave activity in the lower mesosphere is coincident with a long-lasting stay of the stratospheric polar vortex mainly in the Eurasian longitude sector before the SSW of January 6, 2013. In case of the SSW 2009 and SSW 2013, the gravity wave activity is enhanced at latitudes poleward of 70° N in the lower and middle mesosphere after the SSWs.


A bestselling business title on how to unlock the potential of people by applying the techniques of coaching.Coaching is the key to realising the potential of your employees, your organisation and yourself. The good news is that becoming a great coach requires nurturing just a few simple skills and habits. This bestselling and classic business book, now revised and relaunched, takes you through the stages needed to implement coaching to maximum effect.Easy to read and apply, the book provides the techniques and tools of coaching that are vital for anyone who wants to develop a team of people who will perform effectively and who will relish working with you. Since its publication in 1996, it has become the bible for the coaching manager.


The objective of the study reported here was to develop a master slave system for catheter-guided vascular surgery conducted by interventional radiology. By using a master slave system, the surgeon is not exposed to x-rays during the operation because the master tool managed by an operator is located away from the slave tool, which is near the patient. The system must provide vivid realism to the surgeon, particularly with regard to force information, because this surgery is performed in three dimensions while the surgeon watches a two-dimensional monitor. In this study, we developed a training system for a catheter guide in order to upgrade the surgeon's skills because it is difficult to upgrade a master slave system without training. The system consists of a human interface device as the master tool, a control box, and a simulator. This training simulator is for the master slave system, which we developed. The master tool has a force display function using an electrorheological fluid. Two advantages of the fluid actuator are that it can be used without force feedback control and there is mechanical safety, as the surgeon does not experience any accidental force. An open loop control is used to achieve a simple mechanism and algorithm. Our results of preliminary experiments indicated that the output force achieved correlated with that sent from the PC. Three surgeons evaluated this training system under a variety of conditions. The operation of the master tool is simple. The thrust and rotation movements of the catheter can be handled instinctively and without complicated instructions. In addition, accurate force display, response, and stability were achieved with the electrorheological fluid. In the future, the training will need for a realistic depiction of interventional radiology, and the system provides accurate readings for aspiration and blood flow.


The gut microbiome is increasingly recognized to play a role in cognition and dementia. Antibiotic use impacts the gut microbiome and has been linked with chronic disease. Despite these data, there is no evidence supporting an association between long-term antibiotic use in adults and cognitive function. We conducted a prospective population-based cohort study among 14,542 participants in the Nurses' Health Study II who completed a self-administered computerized neuropsychological test battery between 2014–2018. Multivariate linear regression models were used to assess if chronic antibiotic use in midlife was associated with cognitive impairment assessed later in life. Women who reported at least 2 months of antibiotic exposure in midlife (mean age 54.7, SD 4.6) had lower mean cognitive scores seven years later, after adjustment for age and educational attainment of the spouse and parent, with a mean difference of -0.11 standard units for the global composite score (Ptrend <0.0001), -0.13 for a composite score of psychomotor speed and attention (Ptrend <0.0001), and -0.10 for a composite score of learning and working memory (Ptrend <0.0001) compared with non-antibiotic users. These differences were not materially changed after multivariate adjustment for additional risk factors, including comorbid conditions. As a benchmark, the mean difference in score associated with each additional year of age was (-0.03) for global cognition, (-0.04) for psychomotor speed and attention, and (-0.03) for learning and working memory; thus the relation of antibiotic use to cognition was roughly equivalent to that found for three to four years of aging. Long-term antibiotic use in midlife is associated with small decreases in cognition assessed seven years later. These data underscore the importance of antibiotic stewardship, especially among aging populations.


Recently the astronomically calibrated geological timescale has been extended to the base of the Oligocene (Shackleton et al, 1999). Here we present a new relative age calibration of sediments of late-Middle Eocene (39.5Ma) to Late Eocene age (35Ma) that were obtained from deep-marine sediment cores during ODP Leg 171B from Site 1052. We analyse elemental ratios of Ca and Fe as a proxy for calcium carbonate content, obtained by using the X-ray Fluorescent core-scanner (XRF) in Bremen. Our data match very well with other proxy data (magnetic susceptibility and colour reflectance) but show a significantly higher signal-to-noise ratio and a more consistent hole-to hole agreement. The data obtained hence allow the construction of a more accurate composite depth scale. The data display a strong orbital signal that shows variability at all major Milankovitch frequencies as well as long term amplitude modulation patterns. We use the eccentricity driven amplitude modulation of precession to put our record onto a relative timescale, assuming that the 400kyr eccentricity cycle has been stable at that time (Laskar, 1999). The exact nature of the orbital signal might be subject to revision pending further calculations, but the consistent relationship between the different orbital frequencies present in the data suggests new ages for Magnetochrons C16, C17, and C18 that will refine the magneto-stratigraphic timescale created by Cande and Kent (1995). Our astronomical calibration suggests that the relative durations of these magnetochrons has not changed significantly, although the absolute ages might be ~200ky younger than on the Cande and Kent timescale (1995). Our study should allow a better time control for high-resolution studies over the Late Eocene time interval.


Agriculture plays a significant role in the economic development of Indonesia. In Bali province, the government has been implementing agricultural development programs through subaks, which are customary communities that manage the traditional irrigation system. However, subaks now face some problems due to low farmers' income from paddy farming. This paper describes the social capital performance of the subak system and attempts to identify ways to strengthen the social capital for agricultural development. The study selected the subak of Guama as its site because the government implemented a pilot project on agribusiness development in this subak in 2002. Key informants and samples were drawn during the survey and observation for data collection. Data were analyzed using descriptive methods. Results showed that social capital within the subak system consisted of mutual trust, social norms, and social networking. The three elements run simultaneously for the agricultural, irrigation, and agribusiness activities, including ritual ceremonies within the subak system. The social capital in the subak system for agricultural development, particularly rice farming, can be strengthened by: (1) conducting intensive extension and training activities using participatory approaches; (2) providing economic stimulants to encourage farmers to sustain their agribusiness activities; and (3) facilitating partnership activities between the subak and other agribusiness institutions.


Might the dollar eventually follow the precedent of the pound and cede its status as leading international reserve currency? Unlike the last time this question was prominently discussed, ten years ago, there now exists a credible competitor: the euro. This paper econometrically estimates determinants of the shares of major currencies in the reserve holdings of the world's central banks. Significant factors include: size of the home country, inflation rate (or lagged depreciation trend), exchange rate variability, and size of the relevant home financial center (as measured by the turnover in its foreign exchange market). We have not found that net international debt position is an important determinant. Network externality theories would predict a tipping phenomenon. Indeed we find that the relationship between currency shares and their determinants is nonlinear (which we try to capture with a logistic function, or else with a dummy "leader" variable for the largest country). But changes are felt only with a long lag (we estimate a weight on the preceding year's currency share around 0.9). The advent of the euro interrupts the continuity of the historical data set. So we estimate parameters on pre-1999 data, and then use them to forecast the EMU era. The equation correctly predicts a (small) narrowing in the gap between the dollar and euro over the period 1999-2004. Whether the euro might in the future rival or surpass the dollar as the world's leading international reserve currency appears to depend on two things: (1) do enough other EU members join euroland so that it becomes larger than the US economy, and (2) does US macroeconomic policy eventually undermine confidence in the value of the dollar, in the form of inflation and depreciation. What we learn about functional form and parameter values helps us forecast, contingent on these two developments, how quickly the euro might rise to challenge the dollar. Under two important scenarios – the remaining EU members, including the UK, join EMU by 2020 or else the recent depreciation trend of the dollar persists into the future – the euro may surpass the dollar as leading international reserve currency by 2022.


We propose a novel approach for unsupervised zero-shot learning (ZSL) of classes based on their names. Most existing unsupervised ZSL methods aim to learn a model for directly comparing image features and class names. However, this proves to be a difficult task due to dominance of non-visual semantics in underlying vector-space embeddings of class names. To address this issue, we discriminatively learn a word representation such that the similarities between class and combination of attribute names fall in line with the visual similarity. Contrary to the traditional zero-shot learning approaches that are built upon attribute presence, our approach bypasses the laborious attributeclass relation annotations for unseen classes. In addition, our proposed approach renders text-only training possible, hence, the training can be augmented without the need to collect additional image data. The experimental results show that our method yields state-of-the-art results for unsupervised ZSL in three benchmark datasets.


Background: Only a few randomized controlled trials have been carried out to evaluate various complementary treatments for allergic disorders. This study assessed the effects of the preseasonal use of birch pollen honey (BPH; birch pollen added to honey) or regular honey (RH) on symptoms and medication during birch pollen season. Methods: Forty-four patients (59% female, mean age 33 years) with physician-diagnosed birch pollen allergy consumed either BPH or RH daily in incremental amounts from November 2008 to March 2009. Seventeen patients (53% female, mean age 36 years) on their usual allergy medication served as the control group. From April to May, patients recorded daily rhinoconjunctival and other symptoms and their use of medication. Fifty patients completed the study. Results: During birch pollen season in 2009, BPH patients reported a 60% lower total symptom score (p < 0.01), twice as many asymptomatic days (p < 0.01), and 70% fewer days with severe symptoms (p < 0.001), and they used 50% less antihistamines (p < 0.001) compared to the control group. The differences between the BPH and RH groups were not significant. However, the BPH patients used less antihistamines than did the RH patients (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Patients who preseasonally used BPH had significantly better control of their symptoms than did those on conventional medication only, and they had marginally better control compared to those on RH. The results should be regarded as preliminary, but they indicate that BPH could serve as a complementary therapy for birch pollen allergy.


Every year, more than 10.000 children in the Netherlands are born moderately preterm after 32 to 36+6 weeks of gestation, which is 6.1% of all births. These children are at risk for difficulties on the short and long term. Previous studies especially found academic problems and difficulties in attention. Although there was increasing interest in the development of moderately preterm children during the last decade, still little was known about the early development and functioning of these children at toddler age. Aims of the current dissertation were to study differences in behavior, development and attention capacities between moderately preterm and term born children at toddler age. Furthermore, the role of biological factors, child characteristics, and maternal stimulation on the cognitive development of moderately preterm and term born children was investigated. To accomplish these aims, a group of 123 moderately preterm and 103 term born children was studied longitudinally at 12, 18, and 24 months of age, corrected for weeks of prematurity. At 24 months corrected age, moderately preterm children showed more internalizing behavior problems and less receptive language skills than the term born children. Differences regarding cognitive, motor, and expressive language functioning were only found when age was not corrected for prematurity. In order to perform a detailed study of attention capacities of toddlers, a new instrument was designed: The Utrecht Tasks for Attention in Toddlers using Eye-tracking (UTATE). The UTATE consists of four tasks measuring functioning of the orienting, alerting, and executive attention systems with an eye tracker. Results showed that at 18 months of age, moderately preterm children performed worse on orienting and alerting skills compared to term born peers. Furthermore, a larger subgroup of preterm children showed suboptimal functioning concerning alerting. This indicates that moderately preterm children especially seem to have difficulties with sustaining their attention for a longer period of time. An integrated model examined how cognitive functioning at 24 months of age was predicted by the child's gestational age, and attention capacities and maternal stimulation at 18 months of age. An indirect relation between gestational age and cognitive functioning was found through maternal behavior and attention skills of the children: Lower gestational age was related to more maternal behavior redirecting the children's attention, which was related to less orienting and alerting attention skills, that in turn predicted lower cognitive scores of the children at two years of age. In addition, more maternal attempts to maintain the attention of their children were related to better cognitive scores at two years of age. In conclusion, these studies showed that moderately preterm children are at increased risk for internalizing behavior problems, for less developed receptive language skills, and for difficulties in sustaining attention for a longer period of time as early as toddler age. In addition, it was found that a cascade of biological risk, maternal stimulation, and attention capacities of the children was associated with cognitive outcome of the children at two years of age. The studies in this dissertation showed that moderately preterm children need attention!


The understanding of vegetated flows is of primary importance since a new trend in river management consists in restoring rivers and floodplains to their natural form. The present laboratory study focuses on the particular case of a floodplain with a longitudinal roughness step change from highly-submerged dense meadow to emergent rigid stems set on the dense meadow (representing a wood), and vice versa. First, it was found that the flow depth solely varies upstream from the roughness change (but the flume is too short to observe the uniform flow depth at the upstream end of the flume). In this region, the vertical profiles of mean velocity, Reynolds stress and turbulent intensities are self-similar, when the mean streamwise velocity is normalized by the bulk velocity and the turbulent quantities by the shear velocity. Downstream from the roughness step change, the mean flow and turbulent quantities are spatially evolving over longitudinal distances that are about 35 to 50 times the water depth. Second, a simple 1D model is found to accurately predict the longitudinal profile of water depth through the two types of roughness transitions (from meadow to rigid stems and vice versa). Bed-roughness is modelled by Manning's formula and the drag caused by the stems is modelled by a volume force with constant drag coefficient and constant frontal surface per unit area. Results of this model show that the convergence length upstream of the roughness step change, that is necessary to reach the uniform water depth of the upstream roughness, scales with the uniform water depth of the upstream roughness Hup and can be estimated in the present case as 2000 Hup.


Aims. More than half of all active galactic nuclei show strong photoionised outflows. A major uncertainty in models for these outflows is the distance of the gas to the central black hole. We use the results of a massive multiwavelength monitoring campaign on the bright Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 509 to constrain the location of the outflow components dominating the soft X-ray band. Methods. Mrk 509 was monitored by XMM-Newton and other satellites in 2009. We have studied the response of the photoionised gas to the changes in the ionising flux produced by the central regions. We used the five discrete ionisation components A–E that we detected in the time-averaged spectrum taken with the RGS instrument. By using the ratio of fluxed EPIC-pn and RGS spectra, we were able to put tight constraints on the variability of the absorbers. Monitoring with the Swift satellite started six weeks before the XMM-Newton observations. This allowed us to use the history of the ionising flux and to develop a model for the time-dependent photoionisation in this source. Results. Components A and B are too weak for variability studies, but the distance for component A is already known from optical imaging of the [O iii] line to be about 3 kpc. During the five weeks of the XMM-Newton observations we found no evidence of changes in the three X-ray dominant ionisation components C, D, and E, despite a huge soft X-ray intensity increase of 60% in the middle of our campaign. This excludes high-density gas close to the black hole. Instead, using our time-dependent modelling, we find that the density is very low, and we derive firm lower limits to the distance of these components. For component D we find evidence for variability on longer time scales by comparing our spectra to archival data taken in 2000 and 2001, yielding an upper limit to the distance. For component E we derive an upper limit to the distance based on the argument that the thickness of the absorbing layer must be less than its distance to the black hole. Combining these results, at the 90% confidence level, component C has a distance of >70 pc, component D is between 5–33 pc, and component E has a distance >5 pc but smaller than 21–400 pc, depending upon modelling details. These results are consistent with the upper limits that we derived from the HST/COS observations of our campaign and point to an origin of the dominant, slow ( v< 1000 km s −1 ) outflow components in the NLR or torus-region of Mrk 509.


In this paper I look at how through the use of teasing as a socially recurrent activity the members of a multilingual, multicultural and multiethnic peer group (comprised of majority Greek and minority Turkish-speaking children of Roma heritage) make particular identity ascriptions and displays salient and position themselves and others in particular ways in peer talk during break-time in an Athens primary school. Taking as a point of departure that identities are produced relationally, through systems of opposition (Barth 1969), the paper deals with how members of this school-based peer group exploit teasing as a versatile discursive device to construct one particular peer as a "poor" pupil and themselves by extension as "good" pupils in talk-in-interaction. The focus on the situated and relational construction of identity makes visible how children position themselves with regard to others in order to construct academic hierarchies. At the same time, it brings to the fore how through such positionings children may reproduce but also challenge powerful institutional discourses of academic success and failure in circulation in the classroom by negotiating identity options closer to their peer concerns. These processes of identity construction demonstrate how social selves are produced in interaction through contestation and collaboration and how identities may be simultaneously chosen and imposed through language use.


In recent years uncomfortably high ventilation temperatures have become more common on longwall faces in Australian coal mines. Increasing strata temperatures at relatively shallow depths in combination with high surface ambient temperatures, particularly in Queensland, have led to high intake temperatures. These have approached trigger levels that introduce reduced face operator exposure times. With the addition of heat from coal breakage and goaf caving on high production longwall faces the working environment has become uncomfortable and continuous exposure over a shift is potentially injurious to health. Typical strata temperatures at 200m depth are 35oC increasing to 38oC at 350m depth. The added heat from broken coal and rock on the face and in the goaf together with heat from machinery, that has been progressively increasing in capacity, results in wet bulb temperatures exceeding 30oC and humidity of 95% to 100% on longwall faces. Management plans have introduced controls to limit continuous working times for personnel on longwall faces in the hot and humid conditions. This impacts on productivity and in some situations requires additional personnel in the panel crews. Increased ventilation quantities are a partial solution because evaporative cooling rates and reduction in effective temperatures are minimal in high humidity conditions and less effective in the already high air velocity currents on faces. High air velocities also introduce other face environment problems with dust, increased pressure differentials and goaf leakage quantities which re-enter as additional warm air back onto the face. Spontaneous combustion risks also increase in thicker seam environments. Depending on seam conditions more attractive approaches can be used such as three heading longwall development allowing a back return airway using the goaf as a partial heat sink and the introduction of direct cooling of air in the longwall panels by spray systems without disrupting the passage of employees and equipment.