-As IEC 61850 becomes more widely accepted in the electrical engineering community, it is important that the testing tools keep pace with this development. IEC 61850 presents new challenges to real time simulation and closed-loop testing of protective relays. Electrical interfaces used for binary signaling and voltage/current amplifiers must be replaced by an Ethernet connection and an IEC 61850 protocol stack. The electrical interfaces of a real time simulator are engineered to provide low latency and deterministic performance appropriate for a real time simulation. Similar attention must be given to IEC 61850 interfaces. Latency must be minimized so that the IEC 61850 interface does not add unacceptable delays to the operation of the simulator. Also, protocol processing must be deterministic to allow real time simulations to be repeatable and dependable. In addition, IEC 61850 specifies new configuration parameters and a new method for configuration called the Substation Configuration Language (SCL). These must be implemented in such a way that they fit within the typical modes of operation of the simulator. The paper presents a successful hardware implementation for IEC 61850 messaging on a real time simulator and discusses the key design criteria. The software required to configure the IEC 61850 will also be addressed along with the advantages in using the IEC 61850 protocol. One of the biggest advantages is brought about by the realization of the IEC 61850-9-2 sampled values, removing the need for amplifiers as the standard interface to protection devices. Sampled values of the voltage and current signals can be sent via Ethernet, making it even more practical to perform testing on a protective relaying scheme rather than just individual devices.


The productivity of sorghum in Kenya is on decline despite sorghum being one of the suitable crops for the arid and semi-arid areas commonly found in Kenya. The study therefore aimed at establishing the effect of the selected socio-economic factors on sorghum productivity using a case of small-scale farmers in Siaya County. The four sub-counties considered for this study were selected on the basis of sorghum production. Stratified and random sampling techniques were applied to identify a sample comprising of 300 smallholder households in the study area. Data was collected using semi-structured interview schedules administered to the selected farm households. The characteristics of the smallholder farmers sampled were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Ordinary Least Square multiple regression model. The results showed that farm size under sorghum, labour, farm gate price, serena and seredo seed varieties were significant determinants of sorghum productivity in the study area. Based on these findings, the study recommends provision of improved seed varieties to the farmers. Policies targeted at promoting industrial use of sorghum will increase sorghum demand and promote its uptake. In addition, agricultural development policies should target provision of such services like training and extension support to enhance sorghum production in Kenya.

 Key words: Sorghum productivity, arid and semi-arid, ordinary least square.


Abstract. Detailed studies of snow cover processes require models that offer a fine description of the snow cover properties. The detailed snowpack model Crocus is such a scheme, and has been run operationally for avalanche forecasting over the French mountains for 20 yr. It is also used for climate or hydrological studies. To extend its potential applications, Crocus has been recently integrated within the framework of the externalized surface module SURFEX. SURFEX computes the exchanges of energy and mass between different types of surface and the atmosphere. It includes in particular the land surface scheme ISBA (Interactions between Soil, Biosphere, and Atmosphere). It allows Crocus to be run either in stand-alone mode, using a time series of forcing meteorological data or in fully coupled mode (explicit or fully implicit numerics) with atmospheric models ranging from meso-scale models to general circulation models. This approach also ensures a full coupling between the snow cover and the soil beneath. Several applications of this new simulation platform are presented. They range from a 1-D stand-alone simulation (Col de Porte, France) to fully-distributed simulations in complex terrain over a whole mountain range (Massif des Grandes Rousses, France), or in coupled mode such as a surface energy balance and boundary layer simulation over the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (Dome C).


This is a preliminary report of a study of some linguistic and interactive aspects available in a adult-child dyad where the child is partially hearing impaired, during the ages 8 - 20 months. The investigation involves a male child, born with Hemifacial Microsomia. Audio and video recordings are used to collect data on child vocalization and parent-child interaction. Eye-tracking is used to measure eye movements when presented with audio-visual stimuli. SECDI forms are applied to observe the development of the child's lexical production. Preliminary analyses indicate increased overall parental interactive behaviour. As babbling is somewhat delayed due to physical limitations, signed supported Swedish is used to facilitate communication and language development. Further collection and analysis of data is in progress in search of valuable information of the linguistic development from a pathological perspective of language acquisition.


Two biomechanical approaches were launched in this study to simulate and investigate the manual material handling (MMH) activities. The first is a biomechanical simulation approach. In this approach, an inverse kinematics computation with nonlinear optimization method was applied to simulate MMH. Mathematically, the approach was expressed as a system of nonlinear equations with an objective function and a set of constraints, which was solved using an iterative numerical algorithm. The second is a dynamic & control approach. In this approach, the human body was viewed as a two-link rigid body (upper body and lower body) control system, which can control the muscles to generate different joint torques (ankle torque and hip torque) to compensate the external load moment which was be considered as a perturbation at different phase and posture during lifting. The body postural responses to a wide range of perturbations were simulated. To test and validate these two modeling approaches, a factorial experiment was conducted to obtain the kinematics data for different task conditions. A set of kinematics (angular displacement and angular velocity) and kinetic parameters (joint torque and compressive forces) was analyzed. The experiment results showed that the simulated data fit well with the experiment data and further insights of the human control strategy of MMH were gained by statistical analysis.


Two groups of 22 heifers were examined rectally for corpus luteum (CL) development. 14 cows from each group with CLs at the 5-16 day stage were injected with prostaglandin F2 alpha (PGF2 alpha ; 25 mg i/m), the remaining 8 in each group were given the same treatment 11 days later. All the heifers were inseminated 80 h after injection. All 22 heifers in group I were examined rectally 35 days after insemination. Open heifers were given a second PGF2 alpha injection if a CL was present and inseminated 80 h later. Open heifers without CLs were injected and inseminated 11 days later. This was repeated every 38-39 days until the end of the experiment (July to December). Heifers in group II were observed for signs of oestrus for 15 minutes twice daily (am and pm) and mated 12 h after the first observed signs. There were no significant differences between the groups for mean days from first service to conception (42.27 and 54.22), mean services/conception (1.68 and 2.22), or pregnancy rate (86.2% and 81.8%). These results suggest that the time required for oestrus detection can be replaced effectively by a scheme for oestrus synchronization and pregnancy diagnosis releasing the dairyman for normal herd management.


Abstract: While the majority of today's object class models provide only 2D bounding boxes, far richer output hypotheses are desirable including viewpoint, fine-grained category, and 3D geometry estimate. However, models trained to provide richer output require larger amounts of training data, preferably well covering the relevant aspects such as viewpoint and fine-grained categories. In this paper, we address this issue from the perspective of transfer learning, and design an object class model that explicitly leverages correlations between visual features. Specifically, our model represents prior distributions over permissible multi-view detectors in a parametric way -- the priors are learned once from training data of a source object class, and can later be used to facilitate the learning of a detector for a target class. As we show in our experiments, this transfer is not only beneficial for detectors based on basic-level category representations, but also enables the robust learning of detectors that represent classes at finer levels of granularity, where training data is typically even scarcer and more unbalanced. As a result, we report largely improved performance in simultaneous 2D object localization and viewpoint estimation on a recent dataset of challenging street scenes.


The iterative delay estimation method is based on its analogy with parameter estimation of sinusoids in correlated noise. It assumes a-priori knowledge of echo waveform, their number, and the structure of the covariance matrix of noise. The advantages of this method are improved resolution as compared to the conventional matched filter approach and convergence, in a few iterations, to maximum likelihood estimate.


Understanding the physiology of body systems through in vivo distance and positional measurement in narrow enclosed spaces presents several major challenges. A tech-nique using a 3-axis anisotropic magneto resistive (AMR) sensor array is reported which has been developed to provide continuous real-time monitoring of the position of the gastro-oesophageal squamo-columnar junction (SCJ) for the study of the pathology of the upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract. A technical review is provided of the AMR sensor array for the measurement of mm distances to provide positional information in vivo . The device is used to measure distance along a string of sensors relative to a small magnet that is endoscopically clipped on to the SCJ. The probe consists of an array of 32 sensors mounted on a flexible printed circuit board within a silicone tube and provides a total measurement distance of 217 mm.


The purpose of this study is to explore the opinions of Human Resource Management (HRM) professionals on the effectiveness of some common absence management strategies in the context of any possible increase in absenteeism or presenteeism they may create. The key question this research explores is whether the advantage to a company brought about by the overall reduction in absenteeism that such strategies may bring outweigh any possible disadvantages of potential increases to absenteeism and/or the presenteeism that may be associated with them. This research also explores future challenges HRM professionals may face in terms of managing absenteeism and presenteeism and how these challenges may be met. The literature highlights the importance of managing absenteeism and presenteeism, the relationship between these concepts and how this is an under researched area of HRM. A panel of nine HRM professionals working in Irish private sector organisations were presented with a series of questionnaires upon which they offered their opinions. The researcher used a modified, mixed-method Delphi Study to carry out the research. The study shows that the benefits to employers of providing flexible working conditions, wellness programmes, employee assistance programmes (EAP's) and return to work interviews outweighs any possible disadvantages of potential increases to absenteeism and/or the presenteeism that may be associated with them. With regards to return to work programmes, rewarding low rates of pay and limiting salaries for employees on sick leave the research group neither agreed nor disagreed that their advantages outweighed their disadvantages. The research identified an aging workforce and increasingly atypical forms of employment as being the biggest future challenges facing HRM professionals in this area.


Previous studies have shown that, in addition to being speaker-dependent yet context-independent, lower vocal tract acoustics significantly impact the speech spectrum at mid-tohigh frequencies (e.g 3-6kHz). The present work automatically estimates spectral features that exhibit acoustic properties of the lower vocal tract. Specifically aiming to capture the cyclicity property of the epilarynx tube, a novel multi-resolution approach to spectral analyses is presented that exploits significant differences between the closed and open phases of a glottal cycle. A prominent null linked to the piriform fossa is also estimated. Examples of the feature estimation on natural speech of the VOICES multi-speaker corpus illustrate that a salient spectral pattern indeed emerges between 3-6kHz across all speakers. Moreover, the observed pattern is consistent with that canonically shown for the lower vocal tract in previous works. Additionally, an instance of a speaker's formant (i.e. spectral peak around 3kHz that has been well-established as a characteristic of voice projection) is quantified here for the VOICES template speaker in relation to epilarynx acoustics. The corresponding peak is shown to be double the power on average compared to the other speakers (20 vs 10 dB).


Female labor force participation rates across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have remained low for over four decades, despite the fact that in the same period, women's education rapidly increased and fertility rates substantially decreased. This surprising phenomenon has remained a puzzle. This study tries to provide a better understanding of this puzzle by testing whether there is a causal impact of the number of children on mother's labor supply. It uses twins at first birth as an instrumental variable to estimate the causal impact of fertility on participation of mothers in the labor market, free of bias. It finds that having more children does not reduce women's employment. The paper discusses the implications of this interesting result in understanding the puzzle of female participation in MENA and in designing policies to increase women's work.


One of the recommendations of the National Construction Safety Team for the Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster (NIST NCSTAR 1, 2005) is to enhance the performance-based capability of available computational software to predict the effects of fires in buildings, for use in the design of fire protection systems and the analysis of building response to fires. One of the general purpose software codes used in that analysis is capable of performing thermal and structural analyses, among other things. In its standard package, the transfer of temperatures from a thermal model to a structural model, or the transfer of deflections from a structural model to a thermal model can only be performed with compatible elements, i.e., solid to solid or shell to shell. The present paper seeks to remedy this situation: even though most thermal analyses are performed with solid elements, most structural analyses are not, as they make widespread use of beam and shell elements. The paper develops a procedure that allows temperatures anywhere within a solid thermal model to be transferred as load input to a wide variety of common beam cross sections and shells with various number of layers in a geometrically compatible structural model. The paper also develops a method to transfer deflections from a beam and shell structural model back to a solid thermal model, a step that is especially important in intense fires of long duration, when structural deflections may be significant enough to affect the thermal regime or damage the insulation.


By means of direct simulations and theoretical analysis, we study the nonlinear propagation of truncated Airy pulses in an optical fiber exhibiting both anomalous second-order and strong positive third-order dispersions (TOD). It is found that the Airy pulse first reaches a finite-size focal area as determined by the relative strength of the two dispersion terms, and then undergoes an inversion transformation such that it continues to travel with an opposite acceleration. The system notably features tight focusing if the TOD is a dominant factor. These effects are partially reduced by Kerr nonlinearity.


This paper provides a comprehensive method for the evaluation
of a company. Specifically, it concerns the prediction of the
viability of Czech construction companies. The construction
industry is a very specific industry. This is primarily due to
the nature of the product. The use of many production factors
to convert to a farm (a house, a factory building, etc.) is
assumed. Each contract of a construction company (apart from
the exceptions) is usually unique. In addition, the field
produces long-term assets. As the generic name suggests, the
product is used by a consumer (a household or firm) over a long
period of time. Such a product is seen to some extent as a
consumer one in the consumer market. However, it enters the
market of production factors in the form of fixed assets. Due
to this fact, construction is usually a field which first
inhibits its activity and suffers a loss in times of crisis. On
the other hand, it also becomes the first field which enters a
phase of growth after a crisis period. The offered method is
not only a suitable tool for managers of individual companies,
but it may indicate the stage of the economic cycle in the
particular country or in a particular market at ta correct
selection of those monitored companies. The methodology of the
formation in an offered model is applicable not only in the
Czech Republic but it is also transferable to other countries
in Europe and the world, where it will also be able to take
into account the specifics of local markets, too, after its
application.


A feasibility analysis for an unconventional W-shaped leading edge, reversed delta plan-form wing has been carried out. The wing is believed to aid the Vertical/Short Take-off and Landing (V/STOL) capabilities of small aircraft. The main focus of the research was to carry out computational investigations of the flow phenomena associated with this unique shaped wing at cruise, take-off, and landing configurations. An interactive numerical and experimental method was used to baseline the important flow-field structures associated with this wing, and to identify the necessary areas for further comprehensive full-scale numerical investigations carried out herein.

Numerical simulations solved the explicit quasi-steady compressible Navier-Stokes equations for the cruise conditions (run at a Reynolds Number of 3x107), while segregated quasi-steady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations were solved for the ground-effect analyses and low-speed wind tunnel simulations on a 5% scale of the wing (run at Reynolds Number of 3x105 and 3.6x105).Numerically, the ground was accounted for with the image method, and the static ground board method.

The fuselage was not modelled in the numerical or experimental investigations. Hence, it needs to be noted that the additional lift-dependant drag caused by the modification of the span loading due to fuselage has not been accounted for. Also, the there are limitations on the ground height limited by the inclusion of the fuselage.

In general, the wing was found to have a highly three-dimensional flow field. Both low-speed and high-speed free-flight results revealed that the wing exhibits soft stall and a good lift-to-drag ratio, as well as statically stable pitching moment response up to stall conditions. Maximum lift was reached at 14°< α < 16°, giving a lift-to-drag ratio of 18. On-surface streamline observations showed that the effect of the forward sweep assists in terminating the propagation of the flow separation along the entire part of the wing. High-speed numerical investigations showed regions of local supersonic flow, but with no detrimental effects on the performance of the wing. Near-wake results by both means of study revealed inboard vortex phenomena at higher angle of attack.

The ground-effect results showed a great increase of the lift coefficient and lift-to-drag ratio for the W-wing in ground effect. Values of L/D=30 were achieved for h/b = 0.09, a 90 % increase as compared to the free-flight case. Regions of very low velocity and high pressure underneath the wing were resolved, suggesting a very strong "air cushion" effect being induced by the wing.
Modification of the wing design suggested that in absence of the forward-sweep, the un-swept wing struggles to maintain attached flow, or indeed prevent further separation on the rest of the wing.


The classic quality control model, based on collecting samples, sending them to the laboratory and waiting for results, is challenged by new instrumentation that is able to get the analytical answers in the field. Fouriertransform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy is used widely in determining product quality. Because FT-IR spectrometers were delicate instruments, FT-IR only resided in the controlled environment of an analytical laboratory. Recently, this changed. Now a robust FT-IR spectrometer and sample interface is available and analyses can be done on-site. The molecular signature of every incoming raw material can be recorded and compared where and when it is needed. The new instrumentation is simple to operate and produces reliable answers. No waiting for results, no holding areas for materials waiting to be analyzed and no competing for laboratory time and personnel. Both the instrumentation and examples of applications will be presented. This new technology is taken onto the floor to spot-check ingredients and assure quality products.


To learn about causal relations between variables just by observing samples from them, particular assumptions must be made about those variables' distributions. This article gives a practical description of how such a learning task can be undertaken based on dierent possible assumptions. Two categories of assumptions lead to dierent methods, constraint-based and Bayesian learning, and in each case we review both the basic ideas and some recent extensions and alternatives to them.


As part of the comprehensive research on the Beppu-Haneyama Fault, we have been studying the dynamic rupture process on the Beppu-Haneyama Fault (Ando et al., JpGU-AGU2017). In this study, we will focus on strong motion simulation considering the fault parameters based on the parameters that were derived from the dynamic rupture simulation on the fault zone. The fault model consists of three segments of the Beppu-Haneyama Fault zone, namely "Funai, Asamigawa, Hotta (hereafter, Funai)", "Misa", and "Hoyo strait (hereafter, Hoyo)" segments from west to east along the southern part of the Beppu Bay. When the dip angle for Funai, Misa and Hoyo segments are assumed to be 45, 45 and 75 degrees respectively, the rake angle are calculated to be about -67, -104 and -147 degrees respectively (Ando et al, JpGU-AGU2017). Also, we consider the time delay between the segments, especially the time delay between Misa and Hoyo segments because the two segments do not overlap with each other and how the rupture propagates would rely on the dynamic conditions on the faults. On the other hand, the three-dimensional velocity model that was newly constructed based on the results of surveys and observations for the comprehensive research (Yoshimi et al., JpGU-AGU2017). In this study, we use finite difference method (GMS, NIED) to calculate strong motion at the engineering bedrock considering the different fault parameters and hypocenters. This work is supported by the Comprehensive Research on the Beppu-Haneyama Fault Zone funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT), Japan.


This volume provides the first comprehensive account of the geology of Sumatra since the masterly synthesis of van Bemmelen (1949). Following the establishment of Geological Survey of Indonesia, after WW II, the whole island has been mapped geologically at the reconnaissance level, with the collaboration of geological surveys of the United States and the United Kingdom. The mapping programme, completed in the mid-1990s, together with supplementary data obtained by academic institutions and petroleum and mineral exploration companies, has resulted in a vast increase in geological information, which is summarized in this volume. The synthesis of structural controls on sedimentation and magmatism during the evolution of Sumatra since the late Paleozoic has provided a background for the formation of economic deposits of metallic minerals, coal, oil and gas. The volume provides a sound basis for future geological research and for the exploration of the energy and mineral resources of the island.


High-level synthesis (HLS) of memory-intensive applications has featured several innovations in terms of enhancements made to the basic memory organization and data layout. However, increasing performance and energy demands faced by application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) are forcing designers to alter the fundamental architectural template of the HLS output, namely, a controller-datapath associated with a memory subsystem (monolithic, banked, etc.). We propose an architectural template for the HLS output that consists of a controller-datapath circuit associated with a memory subsystem into which computation units have been integrated. The enhanced memory subsystem is called computation-unit integrated memory (CIM). A CIM offers higher memory bandwidth (relative to what is offered through the system bus) to computation units present locally within it and reduces the overall communication between the memory subsystem and the controller-datapath, thus providing a template highly suitable for deriving efficient implementations of memory-intensive applications. This work addresses the challenge of providing an automatic synthesis framework for a CIM-based architecture. Our framework can analyze the various trade-offs involved in selecting suitable operations in a behavior for execution using a CIM and generate a high-performance, low-overhead implementation. Experiments with several behaviors indicate that an average performance improvement of 1.88/spl times/ (a maximum of 2.63/spl times/) is possible with very low area overheads. The energy-delay product improves by an average of 2.1/spl times/ (maximum of 3.4/spl times/).


Several types of relaxations for binary quadratic polynomial programs can be obtained using linear, second-order cone, or semidefinite techniques. In this paper, we propose a general framework to construct conic relaxations for binary quadratic polynomial programs based on polynomial programming. Using our framework, we re-derive previous relaxation schemes and provide new ones. In particular, we present three relaxations for binary quadratic polynomial programs. The first two relaxations, based on second-order cone and semidefinite programming, represent a significant improvement over previous practical relaxations for several classes of nonconvex binary quadratic polynomial problems. From a practical point of view, due to the computational cost, semidefinite-based relaxations for binary quadratic polynomial problems can be used only to solve small to midsize instances. To improve the computational efficiency for solving such problems, we propose a third relaxation based purely on second-order cone programming. Computational tests on different classes of nonconvex binary quadratic polynomial problems, including quadratic knapsack problems, show that the second-order-cone-based relaxation outperforms the semidefinite-based relaxations that are proposed in the literature in terms of computational efficiency, and it is comparable in terms of bounds.


This work reports the biostratigraphic assessment and the chemical and mineralogical characterization of a zeolitized and barium-rich volcanic pyroclastic bed outcropping in the lower Secchia Valley (Northern Apennines, Italy), very close to the boundary between the Ranzano and the Monte Piano Formations. To our knowledge, it is the older so far documented in the Emilian Epiligurian Succession as, through nannofossil biostratigraphy, we have documented an early Oligocene age (Rupelian CNO1 nannofossil zone) for the enclosing sediments. The chemical and mineralogical composition, the latter obtained through a multi- analytical approach combining X-ray powder diffraction (Rietveld- RIR method) with thermal analyses coupled with evolved gas mass spectrometry, revealed large amounts of Ba-rich phillipsite, baryte, volcanic glass and subordinate quantities of sanidine and plagioclase; on the other hand, phlogopite, idiomorphic plagioclase and femic minerals, frequently found in younger volcanic layers of the Ranzano Formation, here are absent. The quantitative mineralogical assessment together with mineral associations suggest that diagenesis did not play a relevant role in the crystallization of phillipsite, but its role cannot be neglected for the crystallization of baryte. Hypothesis on the genesis and transformation of the original material and on the possible correlation with the coeval calc-alkaline magmatic sources in the circum-Mediterranean area were considered, but no definitive conclusion has been reached.


Two new species of dinocyst, Cerbia monilis and Hapsocysta susanae are described from the Lower Cretaceous of the Central North Sea Basin. The first ranges across the Aptian/Albian boundary and the latter is restricted to the Early to Middle Albian interval; both are valuable index taxa in this area. Hapsocysta susanae is remarkably similar to cysts 'without walls' described from the Late Oligocene and Early Miocene, and detailed comparisons are made. The ranges of the two species described here are illustrated against regional lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic schemes.


Low-coherence interferometry is used to measure changes in signal intensity that are dependent on the phase of the light backscattered from particles distributed in dielectric matrices. The measurements provide the unique opportunity to follow the dynamics of the small fraction of scattered light, to 10-10 of the initial intensity, that retains phase characteristics of the incident wave packet. The wave phase effects are manifested in the observed reshaping of backscattered wave packets, the optical-length-dependent degree of phase randomization, and the fluctuation patterns. The experimental results indicate the presence of photon trapping effects. The corresponding data analysis not only allows for an estimation of particle concentration but also provides information on Brownian motion of particles in a liquid and characteristics of particle distribution in size and space.


Background: The capacity of physical therapists to reason effectively in patient management is essential to maximizing outcomes. Although conceptual frameworks of clinical reasoning exist, their theoretical foundations are insufficiently validated to establish those factors that are paramount in guiding physical therapists' clinical reasoning. Studies on how physical therapists clinically reason constitute important means of identifying constructs of such reasoning. Objective: This systematic review aimed to synthesize and interpret the findings of qualitative studies designed to examine factors that are inherent in physical therapists' clinical reasoning with respect to their knowledge, experiences, and practices. Methods: Searches of studies were carried out in four databases, gray literature, and reference lists. Two reviewers independently assessed methodological quality of the studies using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) and performed the analysis: extraction and comparative appraisal of findings, identification of themes, reciprocal translation synthesis, and identification of categories and subcategories. Results: Ten studies were included. Four themes of factors influencing physical therapists' clinical reasoning emerged, namely, Physical therapist as a source, Patient as a source, Elements of the reasoning process, and Context. Conclusions: The identified themes validated some constructs underlying existing clinical reasoning frameworks. Most influencing factors were related to the physical therapist, which highlights opportunities to improve effective reasoning at this level. The notion that this process is recurrent, multifaceted, and contextual lends itself to changing in accordance with the needs of the patient, consistent with a biopsychosocial perspective. How clinicians weigh biomedical and psychosocial elements in their reasoning however warrants further study.


Protection of groundwater sources has become an important issue in Canada. Over the last decade many approaches to the protection of groundwater sources have evolved. Some approaches provide qualitative information while others give quantitative values with respect to protection measures. The objective of the thesis is to examine the existing approaches of source water protection (SWP) using a complex geological setting, and introduce new methodologies towards the quantitative measurement of the various steps of SWP. The information obtained from the studies can be used to set up future guidelines for SWP. The first step in SWP is to assess the vulnerability of an aquifer. In this thesis, we compare three approaches for evaluating aquifer vulnerability: the Index Approach (Intrinsic Susceptibility Index, or ISI), the Hydraulic Resistance (HR) Approach (similar to the Aquifer Vulnerability Index, or AVI) and the Travel Time Approach (Surface to Aquifer Advective Time, or SAAT). The ISI approach uses the thickness and vertical hydraulic conductivity of the layers overlying an aquifer, and the vulnerability is expressed as a numerical score which is related to these parameters but is not physically based. The HR approach is physically based, uses the same parameters as ISI with the addition of porosity, and results are in the form of travel time under a unit gradient. SAAT extends the physically based approach by including the unsaturated zone and using the actual downward gradient; results are given in terms of advective travel time from surface to aquifer. These three approaches are compared, using two different aquifer systems. The second step in SWP is the delineation of wellhead protection areas (WHPAs). The WHPA delineates the area within which a source of contamination could have an impact on the well. The actual impact on the well depends not only on the source, but also on the characteristics of the groundwater system. Important considerations include the dimensionality of the system, the uncertainty in the system characteristics, and the physical processes that could affect the impact. The conventional approach is to define different time of travel (TOT) zones based on backward advective particle tracking. An alternative approach is to apply backward advective-dispersive solute transport modelling, in which dispersion can be taken as representing the uncertainty in defining the hydrogeologic characteristics (e.g. hydraulic conductivity) of the aquifer. The outlines of the TOT zones in the backward advective particle tracking approach is obtained by drawing an envelope around the respective tracks, which may require considerable guesswork. In the iii backward-in-time transport modelling, the outline of the TOT zones are developed using mass balance principles. The third step is the assessment of well vulnerability. Well vulnerability is based on the source-pathway-receptor concept which analyses the transport and fate of the contaminants along its path from the source to the receptor, and the interaction of the well itself with the flow system, and thus determines the actual impact on the well. The impact can be expressed in terms of the contaminant concentration in the well water. The mapping of the impact can be carried out by using a standard advective-dispersive transport model in either a forward-in-time mode (for a known contaminant source) or in a backward-in-time mode (for unknown sources). Thus, the well vulnerability concept goes beyond the conventional approach of WHPA, which is based solely on advective transport, neglecting dispersion and chemical processes. For any known point or non-point time-varying contaminant sources located arbitrarily within the well capture zone, the expected concentration at the well can simply be evaluated by convoluting the source mass with the results of the well vulnerability without further use of the model. Convolution is a well-known and effective superposition method to deal with arbitrary inputs in time and space for linear systems. The information of the contaminant concentration in the well water can be used to quantify the risk of a well becoming contaminated. Risk can be expressed in terms of the exposure value of the contaminant concentration exceeding the allowable limit and the time frame within which the well becomes contaminated. The exposure value can be integrated with the time element to set up a ranking of priorities, or to calculate the investment that must be made today in order to have the required funds available for remediation at the time it becomes necessary. The concept is applied to a well using hypothetical contaminant sources located arbitrarily within the capture zone. Well vulnerability maps can be used as a powerful tool to identify the optimal locations for Beneficial Management Practices (BMPs). A case study addressing the problem of elevated nitrate levels in a drinking water supply well is used to demonstrate the principle. The reduction of nitrate input concentration within the most vulnerable areas shows the largest impact at the well.


The cyclic expression of the period (PER) and timeless (TIM) proteins is critical for the molecular circadian feedback loop in Drosophila. The entrainment by light of the circadian clock is mediated by a reduction in TIM levels. To elucidate the mechanism of this process, the sensitivity of TIM regulation by light was tested in an in vitro assay with inhibitors of candidate proteolytic pathways. The data suggested that TIM is degraded through a ubiquitin-proteasome mechanism. In addition, in cultures from third-instar larvae, TIM degradation was blocked specifically by inhibitors of proteasome activity. Degradation appeared to be preceded by tyrosine phosphorylation. Finally, TIM was ubiquitinated in response to light in cultured cells.


This paper studies the analytical properties of the reinforcement learning model proposed in Erev and Roth (1998), also termed cumulative reinforcement learning in Laslier et al. (2001). The stochastic model of learning accounts for two main elements: the Law of E¤ect (positive reinforcement of actions that perform well) and the Power Law of Practice (learning curves tend to be steeper initially). The paper establishes a relation between the learning process and the underlying deterministic replicator equation. The main results show that if the solution trajectories of the latter converge su¢ ciently fast, then the probability that all the realizations of the learning process over a given spell of time, possibly in…nite, becomes arbitrarily close to one, from some time on. In particular, the paper shows that the property of fast convergence is always satis…ed in proximity of a strict Nash equilibrium. The results also provide an explicit estimate of the approximation error that could prove to be useful in empirical analysis. JEL: C72, C92, D83.


We analyze the effect of exposure to international trade on earnings and employment of U.S. workers from 1992 through 2007 by exploiting industry shocks to import competition stemming from China's spectacular rise as a manufacturing exporter paired with longitudinal data on individual earnings by employer spanning close to two decades. Individuals who in 1991 worked in manufacturing industries that experienced high subsequent import growth garner lower cumulative earnings, face elevated risk of obtaining public disability benefits, and spend less time working for their initial employers, less time in their initial two-digit manufacturing industries, and more time working elsewhere in manufacturing and outside of manufacturing. Earnings losses are larger for individuals with low initial wages, low initial tenure, and low attachment to the labor force. Low-wage workers churn primarily among manufacturing sectors, where they are repeatedly exposed to subsequent trade shocks. High-wage workers are better able to move across employers with minimal earnings losses, and are more likely to move out of manufacturing conditional on separation. These findings reveal that import shocks impose substantial labor adjustment costs that are highly unevenly distributed across workers according to their skill levels and conditions of employment in the pre-shock period.


Introduction: Thalassemia is the most common genetic disorder in the world. Children with major thalassemia face much lifelong stress and anxiety related to invasive methods of treatment including venipuncture and blood transfusion that cause discomfort and anxiety symptoms in children and changes their physiological indicators. Methods: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of foot reflexology massage on vital signs and anxiety after blood transfusions in children with thalassemia. It was a quasiexperimental study, which conducted on 60 children with thalassemia who had inclusion criteria. Patients randomized into three groups of reflexology massage, regular massage, and control group. The level of anxiety in patients assessed by an anxiety measurement based on the Observational Scale of Behavioral Distress-Revised (OSBD-R) and patients' vital signs measured 20 minutes before blood transfusion. Results: A significant difference (p=0.0001) observed between the vital signs of children in reflexology massage group before and after the intervention. The average score for patient's anxiety before and after the intervention for reflexology massage group (p=0.003) and regular massage group (p=0.005) was significantly different, but in the control group showed no significant difference before and after the intervention (p=0.09). After the intervention, the mean score of anxiety in patients of the three groups was statistically significant (p=0.0001). Conclusion: The results of this study confirm that foot reflexology massage affects vital signs of children with thalassemia undergoing a blood transfusion and reduces their anxiety.


This thesis is an investigation of politics in the context of digital technologies. Its central claim is that technologies of what I call the digital ensemble express a politics that is very different from that of other technological ensembles. In order to come to an understanding of politics in the digital, this thesis explores three broader themes by way of discussions of three different technologies or assemblages of the digital. While I do not aim to establish an overarching conclusion as to a politics of the digital, I do identify both elements that are common among the three themes and where they diverge from one another.

The first theme concerns the operation of power in the context of the database and examines how subjects are acted upon. I argue that databases represent both an amplification of the disciplinary mode of power and, as a product of that amplification, also express a new mode of power referred to by Deleuze as modulation. It is this concurrent operation of these two modes of power that produces the subject as 'dividual', both object and objectile at the same time, which has a number of consequences in terms of how subjects are controlled and governed.

The second theme considers how the subject is constituted as actor and how this relates to the construction of the political in the context of the digital ensemble. This is achieved by way of looking at the concept of the interface. I argue that digital technologies constitute very different practices or forms of doing, both spatially and temporally. Using a broader phenomenological approach, I argue that these technologies constitute very different forms of being than that of the individual that is so central to much of modern political thought and its construction of the political. A key expression of the political in the digital ensemble, I argue, is the interface, enabling the production of a new human-machine assemblage constituting itself as flow/s.

The third theme is an exploration of the conceptualisation of political action in the context of digital technologies. Here I make use of the technological assemblage of the network in exploring the actions of fluid beings. I argue that modern political thought has always conceptualised political action as the action of solid entities acting upon and in relation to other solid entities. In the context of digital technologies, however, I argue that such a conceptualisation of action is not very useful; if one conceptualises the actor as fluid, then so must its actions be conceptualised as fluid. It is in such a context that concepts of flow and turbulence gain great importance in coming to terms with politics in the digital. Indeed, to the extent that a digitisation of politics can be discerned, I argue it makes much sense to think of it as a politics of fluidity.


The psychometric properties and predictive validity of the Depression Change Expectancy Scale (DCES), a modification of an expectancy scale originally developed for patients with anxiety disorders, were examined in two studies. In Study 1, the 20-item scale was administered along with a battery of questionnaires to a sample of 416 dysphoric undergraduate students and demonstrated good internal consistency. A two-factor solution most parsimoniously accounted for the variance, with one factor containing all pessimistically worded items (DCES-P) and the second containing all optimistically worded items (DCES-O). The DCES-P showed patterns of correlations with other measures of related constructs consistent with hypothesized relationships; the DCES-O showed similar, but weaker, relationships with the other measures. Multilevel modeling was used to examine the predictive utility of the DCES in a clinical sample of 63 adults (Study 2). Improved depressive symptoms (over 6 weeks) were strongly associated with optimistic expectancies but were unrelated to pessimistic expectancies for change. The DCES appears to be a promising measure of expectancies for improvement among individuals with depressive symptoms.


Current trends in representations of rape show a new fascination with a rape scenario, a fascination that puts a normative slant on discourse surrounding rape. Normalizing the rape scenario carries various consequences for women; the first and foremost is that it turns the experience of rape into an entertainment commodity, thus causing women's voices to be appropriated into dominant discourses and the capitalist project. One possible way to circumvent this normalization is to look toward feminist performance strategies in order to subvert this rape scenario and the discourses surrounding it from within. In this thesis, I explore ways to accomplish this subversion by examining two performance artifacts: A Texas Association Against Sexual Assault (TAASA) commercial featuring a young rape survivor and the Clothesline Project, a performance installation. Chapter One theorizes the process of normalization that occurs in rape discourse as a "perform—or else" double bind. In Chapter Two, I critique both the TAASA commercial and how the media representations following its airing co-opt its transgressive potential. In Chapter Three, I analyze the Clothesline Project as a type of postmodern memorial. The Clothesline Project remains one of the only attempts at erecting any sort of memorial of rape, possibly due to the problems associated with representing rape. I argue that the Clothesline Project's strategies of representation can be a transgressive attempt not only to speak out about rape, but also to refuse the spectacle of personal narrative. Chapter Four revisits the performance artifacts and connects them to Diana Taylor's notion of the "scenario." This research demonstrates the possibilities found within these artifacts for subverting the normative pull of rape survivor discourse.


Tax harmonisation is one of the main outstanding issues for a well functioning Single Market. If the EU aspires to become the "most competitive economy of the world" by 2010, as agreed by EU leaders in Lisbon in 2000, corporate tax reform must become a priority. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the "ideal" corporate tax scenario for the EU and to calculate its cost and benefits for business and public administrations.


We propose and demonstrate a novel ring-cavity-based flat-top birefringent interleaver. A single ring cavity provides the two phase shifts needed, each for a polarization state, to achieve a flat-top spectral passband at the output. Fresnel reflectivities (for s- and p-polarization states) at the prism interface of the ring cavity are employed so that highly accurate thin-film coatings are not needed for the phase shifts. By choosing the appropriate incident angle near the Brewster angle, we can obtain the optimum interface reflectivities for flat passbands and extremely low cross talk. We also present the results of our experimental investigations of a flat-top 25-GHz optical interleaver that uses a novel ring cavity architecture. In a 25-GHz channel spacing application the interleaver exhibits a 0.5-dB passband larger than 0.14 nm (17.5 GHz), a 25-dB stopband greater than 0.14 nm (17.5 GHz), and channel isolation better than 28 dB over the entire C band.


Despite of the apparent failure of the Kyoto Protocol with respect to environmental effectiveness, it has established a broad international mechanism that might be able to provide a global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions during a second commitment period. In this paper we investigate the likely future of post-Kyoto policies. Our primary objective is to identify policy-relevant abatement scenarios and to quantify the associated economic implications across major world regions. Based on a cross-impact analysis we first evaluate an expert poll to select the most likely post-Kyoto climate policy scenarios. We then use a computable general equilibrium model to assess the economic implications of these key scenarios. We find that post-Kyoto agreements are likely to cover only small reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions with abatement duties predominantly assigned to the industrialized countries while developing countries do not make any commitments, but can sell emission abatement to the industrialized world. Equity rules to allocate abatement duties are mainly based on the sovereignty principle or ability-to-pay. Global adjustment costs arising from post-Kyoto policies are very moderate but fuel exporting countries are likely to face quite considerable costs because of adverse terms-of-trade effects on fossil fuel markets.


Equipping an agent with the ability to infer intentions behind observed behavior is a prerequisite for creating truly autonomous robots. By deducing the purpose of the actions of other agents the robot would be able to react in a sensible way and, furthermore, to imitate the strategy on a high level. Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) can be applied to learn a reward function that is consistent with the observed behavior and is, thus, a step towards this overall goal. Some strategies can only be modeled properly by underlying a time-dependent reward function. Maximum Causal Entropy Inverse Reinforcement Learning (MaxCausalEnt-IRL) is a method that can be applied to learn such non-stationary functions. However, it depends on gradient-based optimization and its performance can therefore suffer if too many parameters have to be learned. This can be problematic, since the number of parameters increases significantly if separate reward functions are learned for each time step. Furthermore, since only few time steps might be relevant for the observed task, a second challenge of applying IRL for learning non-stationary reward functions consists in properly extracting such sparseness. This thesis investigates how to meet these practical requirements. A novel approach, IRL-MSD, is developed for that purpose. Unlike some previous IRL methods, Inverse Reinforcement Learning by Matching State Distributions (IRL-MSD) does not aim to match feature counts but instead learns a reward function by matching state distributions. This approach has two interesting properties. Firstly, the features do not have to be defined explicitly but arise naturally from the structure of the observed state distribution. Secondly, it does not require gradient-based optimization. The experiments show that it converges faster than existing IRL methods and properly recovers the goals of a sparse reward function. Therefore, IRL-MSD suggests itself for future research.


The origins and consequences of warfare or large-scale intergroup violence have been subject of long debate. Based on exhaustive surveys of skeletal remains for prehistoric hunter-gatherers and agriculturists in Japan, the present study examines levels of inferred violence and their implications for two evolutionary models, which ground warfare in parochial altruism versus subsistence. The former assumes that frequent warfare played an important role in the evolution of altruism, while the latter sees warfare as promoted by social changes induced by agriculture. Our results are inconsistent with the parochial altruism model but consistent with the subsistence model, although the mortality values attributable to violence between hunter-gatherers and agriculturists were comparable.


We carry out constant volume simulations of steady-state shear-driven rheology in a simple model of bidisperse soft-core frictionless disks in two dimensions, using a dissipation law that gives rise to Bagnoldian rheology. We discuss in detail the critical scaling ansatz for the shear-driven jamming transition and carry out a detailed scaling analysis of our resulting data for pressure p and shear stress σ. Our analysis determines the critical exponent β that describes the algebraic divergence of the Bagnold transport coefficients lim_{γ[over ̇]→0}p/γ[over ̇]^{2},σ/γ[over ̇]^{2}∼(ϕ_{J}-ϕ)^{-β} as the jamming transition ϕ_{J} is approached from below. For the low strain rates considered in this work, we show that it is still necessary to consider the leading correction-to-scaling term in order to achieve a self-consistent analysis of our data, in which the critical parameters become independent of the size of the window of data used in the analysis. We compare our resulting value β≈5.0±0.4 against previous numerical results and competing theoretical models. Our results confirm that the shear-driven jamming transition in Bagnoldian systems is well described by a critical scaling theory and we relate this scaling theory to the phenomenological constituent laws for dilatancy and friction.


With a portion of healthcare
reimbursement now dependent on the patient's report of the hospital experience,
healthcare systems are looking for ways to improve patient satisfaction scores.
In this study, one inpatient physiatrist at an acute inpatient rehabilitation
facility wore a button on the right lapel of his white coat at all times which
read, "Ask ME about your TREATMENT and PROGRESS!!!" in order to determine if a
wearable visual cue prompting the patient to discuss his or her treatment and
progress alters Press Ganey Patient Satisfaction Survey (PGPSS) scores. Mean
score on the physician-specific PGPSS question "How well the rehabilitation
doctor kept you informed about your treatment and progress" was calculated
retrospectively for five months before and after the physiatrist donned the
button. Comparisons were made to two other inpatient physiatrists. For the button-wearing physiatrist, mean score for the physician-specific patient
satisfaction survey question for the five months before donning the button was
88.1 ± 11.5; and, for the five months after donning the button, the mean score
was 95.8 ± 5.9. These scores were marginally statistically different (p = 0.07). Conversely, the difference
in mean scores over the same time periods for two other inpatient
physiatrists who did not wear the button did not approach statistical significance.
In conclusion, a wearable visual cue improved the PGPSS score specific to the
question the visual cue addressed.


Emerging sustainability challenges, such as food security, livelihood development and climate change, require innovative and experimental ways of linking science, policy and practice at all scales. This requires the development of processes that integrate diverse knowledge to generate adaptive development strategies into the future. Social learning is emerging as a promising way to make these linkages. If and how social learning approaches are being applied in practice among smallholder farming families—the bulk of the world's food producers, requires specific attention. In this paper we use a case study approach to explore social learning among the agricultural poor. Five key evaluative factors: context assessment, inclusive design and management, facilitating learning, mobilizing knowledge and assessing outcomes, are used to analyze nine projects and programs in (or affiliated with) the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). We explore three main questions: (1) in what contexts and in what ways are socially differentiated and marginalized groups enrolled in the learning process? (2) what, if any, are the additional benefits to social learning when explicitly using strategies to include socially differentiated groups? and (3) what are the benefits and trade-offs of applying these approaches for development outcomes? The findings suggest that, in the agricultural development context, social learning projects that include socially differentiated groups and create conditions for substantive two-way learning enhance the relevance and legitimacy of knowledge and governance outcomes, increasing the potential for accelerating sustainable development outcomes.


This paper discusses the doctrinal content of the New Public Management (NPM): contractual state; the theories of public choice, transaction costs and agency theory. Secondly, the role of formal and informal institutions is explored. Also the article argues that the practical implementation of NPM is subject to institutional arrangement of the country's administrative system. From the point of view of informal institutions, Lithuania represents a mix of "Germanic-French" and "soviet-nomenclature" traditions of public administration. Having in mind soviet heritage, the contemporary bureaucratic system in Lithuania should be defined as patrimonial administration, rather than rationalistic bureaucracy. NPM is an effective tool when it is applied in the systems of rational-legalistic type of public administration. However, in the case of patrimonial bureaucracies NPM enhances the concentration of power in the arms of patrimonial rulers (managers). The gap between existing informal institutions and NPM practices acts as a hindrance to the development of modern public administration system in Lithuania.


Several of the supposedly anhydrous major minerals of the upper mantle have been shown to regularly contain small amounts of hydrogen. The concentrations measured in the most important minerals obtained from mantle xenoliths are, expressed in ppm H 2 O, 100-1300 for clinopyroxene, 60-650 for orthopyroxene, 0- 140 for olivine and 1-200 for garnet. Hydrogen is normally structurally incorporated as hydroxyl ions, and in many cases the hydrogen ions seem to act as charge compensators associated with point defects, such as metal vacancies or substitution by mono- or trivalent cations. The determination of the exact amount of hydrogen stored in these nominally anhydrous upper mantle minerals is a key-step toward quantification of the water content of the mantle, as well as understanding of its internal water cycle. For instance, a concentration of 100 ppm H 2 O homogeneously distributed within the upper mantle above 410 km depth is approximately equivalent to a 100 m water layer at the Earth9s surface. However, the relatively fast kinetics of dehydrogenation with concomitant oxidation of iron within these minerals, implies that hydrogen as well as Fe 3+ concentrations in equilibrium with mantle conditions might be different from those measured from recovered xenolith samples. High-pressure experimental measurements of hydrogen solubility as a function of PH 2 O show a trend similar to the hydrogen contents of natural samples, with hydrogen saturation levels that decrease following the mineral series: diopside > enstatite > olivine > pyrope. Except pyrope, these minerals may incorporate more than 1000 ppm H 2 O. Based on recent data of water solubility, stability and partitioning, we suggest that an entire upper mantle saturated in hydrogen is highly unprobable and that the maximum average amount of hydrogen stored in the nominally anhydrous minerals of the upper mantle is around 600 ppm H 2 O. Despite the important progress achieved during the last years, our knowledge of the concentration of hydrogen stored as point defects in the mantle above 410 km is still too poorly constrained. The importance of nominally anhydrous minerals for the water budget of the upper mantle is now well established but still awaits complete quantification.


Feedbacks involving rainfall, fire, and vegetation govern transitions between forests, savannas, and grasslands. Ecologists have long assumed that forests, savannas, and grasslands change gradually over space and time, with tree cover responding linearly to gradients in precipitation, aridity, fire disturbance, and grazing pressure. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that these biomes are self-reinforcing and that transitions between them can be nonlinear, governed by feedbacks at local and regional scales (1–3). Two reports in this issue, by Staver et al. on page 230 (4) and by Hirota et al. on page 232 (5), find evidence for these feedbacks and transitions at the global scale. These results suggest that global climate change will be substantially influenced by nonlinear behaviors and feedbacks between biophysical and human systems.


The majority of Ceraphronoidea (Insecta: Hymenoptera) species were described in the late 1800s and early 1900s, with most of these early descriptions relying on text alone. Few type specimens have been illustrated and even fewer have been photographed, posing a challenge to taxonomists working on the group today. Here, we attempt to remove the barriers obstructing Ceraphronoidea research by creating a photographic catalog of the type specimens present at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN) in Paris, France. We discuss the history of the ceraphronoid specimens present in the collection and provide comments on unpublished species notes from former Ceraphronoidea taxonomist Paul Dessart. We synonymize Ceraphron myrmecophilus Kieffer, 1913 syn. nov. with Aphanogmus abdominalis (Thomson, 1858) (Hymenoptera: Ceraphronidae) based on the male genitalia morphology, body shape and presence of foveae on the median length of the mesoscutellum. We also report the discovery of the missing male holotype of Ceraphron testaceus (Risbec, 1953) (Hymenoptera: Ceraphronidae) and several potential types of Aphangomus aphidi (Risbec, 1955) (Hymenoptera: Ceraphronidae).


500 ESSENTIAL ENGLISH WORDS FOR ESL MISSIONARIES Carrie Ann Thompson Department of Linguistics and English Language Masters of Arts In order to help ESL missionaries teach the gospel from their hearts using their own words, I have developed a 500-word list of core gospel vocabulary in English. To enhance the 500-word list, I included a lexicon with simple definitions, some grammatical information, and examples of the words in context. The resulting product complies with the standards for master's projects established by the Department of Linguistics and English Language. Published literature shows that the development of specialized corpora can be beneficial for students learning another language. Additionally, specialized corpora act as a catalyst for in-depth vocabulary analysis and the development of other materials associated with the field of language acquisition. Using the 5,013 lexical items from the Preach My Gospel manual and related materials, I developed a specialized vocabulary list of 500-words. To achieve this, I used a number of strategies to reduce the larger compilation of words into the most useful and essential core vocabulary: a pre-rating selection that resulted in 2,419 words, a nonnative ESL-instructor rating that resulted in the selection of 994 words, a post-rater researcher analysis that resulted in 425 words, a range-and-frequency analysis that resulted in 634 words, and a think-out-loud analysis that resulted in 500 words. After creating the 500-word list, I implemented and tested the materials with ESL missionaries at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah. I gathered feedback from ESL teachers and missionaries through interviews and a questionnaire. Based on their responses, I determined that the 500-word list is useful in helping missionaries learn essential vocabulary and to teach gospel topics in English. Furthermore, the materials have drawn attention from administrators and developers at the MTC, creating a springboard for future projects at the MTC.


In this work we expose wide-spread efforts by criminals to abuse the Chrome Web Store as a platform for distributing malicious extensions. A central component of our study is the design and implementation of WebEval, the first system that broadly identifies malicious extensions with a concrete, measurable detection rate of 96.5%. Over the last three years we detected 9,523 malicious extensions: nearly 10% of every extension submitted to the store. Despite a short window of operation--we removed 50% of malware within 25 minutes of creation--a handful of under 100 extensions escaped immediate detection and infected over 50 million Chrome users. Our results highlight that the extension abuse ecosystem is drastically different from malicious binaries: miscreants profit from web traffic and user tracking rather than email spam or banking theft.


The vast majority of cancer next-generation sequencing data consist of bulk samples composed of mixtures of cancer and normal cells. To study tumor evolution, subclonal reconstruction approaches based on machine learning are used to separate subpopulation of cancer cells and reconstruct their ancestral relationships. However, current approaches are entirely data-driven and agnostic to evolutionary theory. We demonstrate that systematic errors occur in subclonal reconstruction if tumor evolution is not accounted for, and that those errors increase when multiple samples are taken from the same tumor. To address this issue, we present a novel approach for model-based subclonal reconstruction that combines data-driven machine learning with evolutionary theory. Using public, synthetic and newly generated data, we show the method is more robust and accurate than current techniques in both single-sample and multi-region sequencing data. With careful data curation and interpretation, we show how the method allows minimizing the confounding factors that affect non-evolutionary methods, leading to a more accurate recovery of the evolutionary history of human tumors.


The growing call to teach lawyers, investigators, mitigation specialists, and law students the skills required to provide culturally competent representation should be welcomed by all. A culturally insensitive criminal justice system has tolerated unfair processes and delivered unjust outcomes for too long. While the push for cultural competence has appropriately prioritized the attorney client relationship (reaching defense teams as a first step), at the present time less attention has been given to how to influence the views of other key actors, including prosecutors, legislators, judges, and jurors. This article specifically considers jurors in death penalty cases and contemplates how defense teams can utilize the lessons of cultural competence in questioning and selecting the jurors who will decide whether their client lives or dies. In setting out how a cultural competency lens could benefit defense teams, this Article also identifies significant legal and practical obstacles that may prevent the implementation of an ideal selection process. This article represents only an initial attempt to think through the implications of cultural competency and jury selection. Although this is in some ways an embryonic idea, there already exists a significant body of empirical research assessing how capital juries make their sentencing decisions. That research has provided invaluable insight, and some of its most important findings support the idea that lessons of cultural competence can make a meaningful difference in capital jury selection. This article draws on available research, suggests avenues for future research, and encourages a subtle but potentially significant shift in how capital defense teams approach jury selection. This article contains five parts. To set the backdrop for the claim that cultural competency should influence the defense's approach to capital jury selection, Part II explores why culture is critical in death penalty cases. Part III then describes and identifies as a serious concern the vast cultural gap between death penalty defendants and the jurors typically selected to serve on capital juries. By looking at the effects that death-qualification and peremptory challenges have upon the jury's composition and considering the jury selection process's psychological effects on selected jurors, this Part recognizes that the cultural gap is largely inherent to the system. Part IV outlines thoughts on how lawyers can draw upon key lessons from cultural competency and implicit bias research to both select culturally competent jurors and make selected jurors more culturally competent. Part V concludes.


A masked randomised control design compared the effectiveness of precision ophthalmic tints in improving the recognition of emotion in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Fourteen children aged 10-14 with ASD and 14 control children matched on verbal and non-verbal IQ, wore spectacles with coloured lenses to complete two tasks that involved the observation of coloured video sequences in which social interactions were depicted. On one occasion (randomly first or second) the coloured lenses provided light of a colour that the child had one month previously selected as optimal for the clarity of text. On the other occasion the lenses differed in CIE UCS chromaticity by 0.07. Performance in the ASD group was superior in both social interaction tasks with the lenses that provided the optimal colour of light.


A case of concordant oligodendroglioma in monozygotic twins is reported. The twins were also concordant for uterine leiomyoma and one twin partner had fibroadenoma and lipoma of the breast and myelofibrosis. As very few cases of concordant glioma in monozygotic twins have been published and no such cases in dizygotic twins, a genetic influence in the aetiology of glioma can only be suggested.


This thesis explores solutions to the problem young adults face when relocating on a budget. The target age range of 20 to 30 year-olds face multiple hurdles when it comes to their nomadic existence. On average this age group relocates once per year; they are a consumerist population often defining themselves by their possessions; and are often under tight budget constraints. Since nomadic cultures to the current day, relocation has allowed individuals access to better things and the essentials of life. The difference being that nomadic cultures had fewer possessions which were designed for easy packing and carrying, where as current young professionals have far more possessions, most of which are designed for a sedentary lifestyle. The goal of the thesis is to create a design solution which makes moving faster, less complicated, more affordable, stylish and appealing to young adults.


ABSTRACT The predominantly siliciclastic Upper Proterozoic sediments of the Taoudeni basin have been buried to depths of 2.5 to 3 km. In a normal geothermal gradient 25°C/km), maximum burial temperatures of the section studied would be no higher than 100°C. However, detailed petrographic and fluid inclusion data of sandstones and shales from three areas in Mauritania and Mall along the western side of the basin indicate two major diagenetic events: an earlier low temperature (< 70°C) quartz cementation of the sandstones and a later high temperature (135-170°C diagenesis that affected both shales and sandstones. These latter temperatures are too high to have occurred simply in response to burial. The sediments are cut by numerous Jurassic diabase intrusions, which crop out es ecially commonly in the south and the northeast. The emplacement of these diabases was related to the opening of the South Atlantic ocean. Contact metamorphism and hydrothermal alteration are visible near intrusive contacts. In western Mall (southern part of basin) where the largest exposed sill in the basin occurs, at 50 to 60 km from any outcropping massive diabase, the late diagenetic paragenesis consists of micas, illite, chlorite, kaolinite, siderite and ankerite. High-temperature diagenesis is also observed in Adrar of Mauritania (northwestern part of basin) where outcropping diabases are extremely rare. There, calcite cement is associated with illite and chlorite. Fluid inclusions indicate formation temperatures of 135°C for the ankerite and 170°C for the calcite. Thus, in spite of a thin sedimentary pile, the Taoudeni basin experienced a high-temperature diagenesis. We propose that this resulted from circulation of hot fluids, generated during the diabase emplacement, over extensive areas within the basin.


Wright was careful in her approach to slavery, saying it "is not for a young and inexperienced foreigner to suggest remedies for an evil which has engaged the attention of native philanthropists and statesmen and hitherto baffled their efforts." This changed and eventually she would have no problem asserting her views as well as the accompanying remedies, as is evidenced in Nashoba. She spoke briefly on emancipation and colonization, but only to say that unless they became programs of national concern, they would never be implemented successfully. She also, while still disapproving of slavery, credited slave owners for stoically bearing the burden set upon them by British slave-holders in colonial America. She called slave-owners "unfortunate masters of unfortunate slaves" who shouldered the jabs from the Northern states. Morris speculates that some of her sympathy for Southern slave-holders, which was always part of her nature, came from extended conversation with Thomas Jefferson, a proponent of education for freed-slaves, if only in the indefinite future. This article is available in Constructing the Past: http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing/vol8/iss1/7 A Courage Untempered by Prudence 49 A Courage Untempered by Prudence: The Writings, Reforms, and Lectures of Frances Wright


The six-jump-cycle (6JC) diffusion mechanism is used to analyze the behavior of vacancy-wind factors and collective correlation factors in partially ordered B2 intermetallic compounds at stoichiometric and near- stoichiometric compositions. Expressions for the vacancywind factors are obtained in the framework of the four-frequency model where the two sublattices exist a priori. The phenomenological coefficients on the two sublattices that remain hitherto independent in 6JC mechanism are connected through a microscopic detailed balance condition. The present results for collective correlation factors when compared with our earlier calculation based on taking the harmonic mean of the sublattice correlation factors show much better agreement with Monte Carlo simulation results. The collective correlation factors and tracer correlation factors are used to calculate the vacancy-wind factors. Our results for vacancy-wind factors agree qualitatively with the simulation data when the frequency ratio ( α ) of structural and antistructural atoms jumps decreases up to the order of unity.


This paper characterizes the evolution of Paraguay's policymaking process (PMP) between 1954 and 2003. The authors present an overview of the PMP under the rule of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-89) and explore the institutional setting emerging after 1989. In addition, they discuss how the Colorado Party progressively broke up into several factions and characterize the distinctive patterns of policymaking that emerged after the adoption of the 1992 Constitution. The authors hypothesize that the presence of a large number of veto players has made policy change more difficult and that legislators are inclined to pursue particularistic policies. In order to test those hypotheses, they rely on a database containing virtually every bill introduced in Congress since April 1992. The conclusions suggest that the current Paraguayan PMP may be flexible for the provision of particularistic benefits but is rigid for the approval of broad regulatory or redistributive policies.


This paper shows that workers who do not receive legally mandated benefits due to employer noncompliance have a negative view not only of their employers, as has been documented, but also of the State. Those workers believe that the State did not protect their rights, and hence they feel fewer obligations to comply with their duties as citizens. Using a list experiment, as well as household data from nine Latin American countries, the paper shows that non-registered workers are less likely to obey the law, pay taxes and vote compared to registered workers.


We investigated the mechanisms underlying the regulation of complement genes C3 and C4 by IFN-gamma. IFN-gamma (500 U/ml, 24 h incubation) increased steady state mRNA levels for both C3 and C4 in three different cell types (Hep G2, U937, and primary fibroblasts). The response to IFN-gamma in Hep G2 cells was time and dose dependent. At all doses of IFN-gamma and at all incubation times, the transcription rate for these two genes, determined by nuclear run-on assays, was reduced (0.3 +/- 0.1; unstimulated rate = 1.00). The t1/2 of mRNA for C3 and C4 in unstimulated cells was 1.8 +/- 0.3 and 2.2 +/- 0.2 h, respectively. After high-dose IFN-gamma stimulation, both C3 and C4 mRNA levels remained at 100% with respect to baseline at 5 h, but after 12 h, levels fell to 13 +/- 2% (C3) and 8 +/- 3% (C4) of baseline values, giving a half-life for these mRNA species of between 5 and 12 h. IFN-gamma stimulation increased C3 and C4 protein synthesis measured at 24 h. We suggest that it is the increase in mRNA stability that is the major effector mechanism by which IFN-gamma regulates C3 and C4 gene expression.


This dissertation attempts to outline general problems regarding the appropriateness of the concept of public service broadcasting in the late 1990s, a direct result of the liberalisation of the global broadcasting environment. The work is an assessment of the SABC's fulfilment of its public service mandate, the general hypothesis being that the SABC has failed to fulfill its public service mandate due to its inability to remain financially stable and politically independent from the government of the day. The research examined feelings and opinions regarding the concept of public service broadcasting within the SABC in order to discover whether current changes in the broadcasting environment have influenced the SABC's fulfilment of its public service mandate. The assumption is that if the concept of public service broadcasting is shifting, commitment to the principles underlying public broadcasting will shift and therefore public broadcasters are no longer working along traditional lines. The research concludes that the SABC is facing many of the same problems that public broadcasters the world over have faced during the 1990s: the lack of stable funding, the withdrawal of financial support from the government in the face of increasing competition from other broadcasters and the resulting move towards a more business-like, strategic approach are all traits identified amongst public broadcasters the world over. This does not mean to say that the SABC's situation is not unique in some senses, for example it has been far more sUbject to political trajectory than many other public broadcasters due to its past status as a state broadcaster and its operation in a strongly political environment. The SABC also faces large-scale criticism from the South African press, which has proved to be an obstacle for the SABC with regard to its ability to move beyond its past. The fact that challenges facing the SABC are not new suggests that the changing environment is not catering for public service broadcasting and therefore its principle of a distancing from vested interests needs to be rethought.


This article is about the United States government trading off athlete's constitutional rights in the pursuit of national prestige through sport. As shown below, the Olympic Movement has for decades provided an incentive for governments of all ideologies to use elite athletes to enhance national prestige or demonstrate national supremacy. This phenomenon is commonly known as "sportive nationalism." Unlike countries such as the former East Germany and Soviet Union, the United States government has not readily acknowledged its own practice of sportive nationalism, preferring instead to assert that Olympic Movement sport in the United States is a private endeavor. This article, however, demonstrates that the United States has in fact practiced its own brand of sportive nationalism - previously as a foreign policy tool during the Cold War and today as part of the world-wide fight against athletic doping. This article explains that the practice of United States sportive nationalism is accomplished through the United States Olympic Committee and now the United States Anti-Doping Agency, both of which serve as "private" Olympic Movement regulators. This private sector status of sport regulation in the United States has created a significant accountability vacuum so that manifestations of sportive nationalism that threaten athletes' eligibility, like the war on doping, largely go unchecked. As a result, athletes' constitutional liberty and property interests are threatened because there is no incentive to give, and in many cases athletes are not given, meaningful due process protections to protect their eligibility. Accordingly, this article argues that steps should be taken to promote greater accountability for sportive nationalism in the United States Olympic Movement, so that the athletes who serve to enhance our nation's prestige do not risk their due process rights in the process.


The velocity observer in Wondergem et al. [2011] ("the Wondergem Observer") and the velocity observer in Stamnes et al. [2011] ("the Stamnes Observer") are evaluated and compared for a ship model given in Wondergem et al. [2011]. The former observer has shown to be uniformly semi-globally exponentially stable. The latter observer has proven to be uniformly globally asymptotically stable and semi-globally exponentially stable when certain requirements are satisfied. However, due to a non-linear damping term in the ship model, the Stamnes Observer only meets the conditions for uniformly semi-globally exponentially stability. The two observers have shown different convergence properties. The Wondergem Observer has a large overshoot during the settling period, then follows the reference robustly. The Stamnes Observer has a first order system behaviour and can become underdamped in the position convergence. Both observers show similar behaviour when considering a bias in the system equations. However, the run time for the Stamnes observer when simulating on a desktop computer is one to two orders of magnitude longer than for the Wondergem Observer. From the evaluations in this thesis, the Wondergem Observer has shown to be the best choice for the given ship model. It is more robust than the Stamnes Observer, it does not have a lower degree of stability as first implied, and it has a much simpler structure.


Humans have evolved along with the millions of microorganisms that populate their bodies. These microbes (1014) outnumber human cells by 10 to 1 and account for 3 × 106 genes, more than ten times the 25,000 human genes. This microbial metagenome acts as our "other genome" and like our own genes, is unique to the individual. Recent international efforts such as the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) and the MetaHIT Project have helped catalog these microbial genomes using culture-independent, high-throughput, next-generation sequencing. This manuscript will describe recent efforts to define microbial diversity in the female reproductive tract because of the impact that microbial function has on reproductive efficiency. In this review, we will discuss current evidence that microbial communities are critical for maintaining reproductive health and how perturbations of microbial community structures can impact reproductive health from the aspect of infection, reproductive cyclicity, pregnancy, and disease states. Investigations of the human microbiome are propelling interventional strategies from treating medical populations to treating individual patients. In particular, we highlight how understanding and defining microbial community structures in different disease and physiological states have lead to the discovery of biomarkers and, more importantly, the development and implementation of microbial intervention strategies (probiotics) into modern day medicine. Finally this review will conclude with a literature summary of the effectiveness of microbial intervention strategies that have been implemented in animal and human models of disease and the potential for integrating these microbial intervention strategies into standard clinical practice.


This thesis investigates the possibility of reducing ship price risk in the dry bulk sector using freight derivatives. We establish a theoretical linkage between ship prices and FFA prices and empirically test this relationship. Based on this relationship, we construct a timeweighted FFA portfolio whose aim is to reflect the future operational earnings of a vessel. The static hedge ratios are calculated using the OLS model, while the dynamic hedge ratios are generated from a dynamic conditional correlation GARCH (1,1) model. We find that the hedging efficiency of an FFA portfolio on ship price risk is, in general, very good. However, there are variations among vessels of different vintages and sizes: (i) the hedging efficiency is negatively correlated with age; and (ii) the hedging efficiency is higher for the smaller vessel sizes. We also find that the static hedge ratio outperforms the dynamic hedge ratio in all ship categories. Thus, we conclude that an FFA portfolio can be used for ship price risk management in the dry bulk sector. Ship owners should apply a static hedging strategy and adjust the hedge ratio in accordance with the age and size composition of their fleets.


This paper represents the results of chemical characteristics during one year across five sampling stations located on the bank of Budhi Gandak river at Muzaffarpur. The water quality parameters like pH, TDS, DO, BOD, COD, hardness, chloride, calcium and magnesium were studied by various analytical techniques. It was observed that most of the water quality parameters are in the acceptable limits in accordance with WHO standards.


Background The benefits of education through simulation are augmented when coupled to quality improvement and educational initiatives by improving patient safety.1 We harnessed the strengths of simulation to develop a quality improvement project (SAFEQIP) aiming to improve anticipatory care, using role allocation through a multifaceted educational approach with the overarching goal to improve patient safety, staff education and team-working. Methodology planned In-situ Simulated inter-PRofessional Team (SPRinT) courses are embedded within PICU. Currently, a validated tool monitors participant self-evaluation of team-performance during these SPRinT courses, and during real resuscitations.2,3 The project will involve pre-allocation of roles during SPRinT courses, and role allocation during twice daily safety huddles of the arrest team, thereby providing roles prior to real and simulated arrests. A change in TeamMonitor2 scores and process measures will be assessed pre and post project implementation. Additionally a system has been created to disseminate learning events and latent threats from simulations to the wider team whilst ensuring a confidential, safe learning environment. This will also enable replication of successes by sharing and cascading Safety 2 events to frontline staff. Outcomes anticipated/to date Team-performance including role allocation has been scored by participating staff during real resuscitations since May 2014. Additional baseline data suggests most role allocation is performed during the arrest with no current pre-planning in place. Staff desire for anticipatory planning was strongly suggested from feedback from simulated and real events. Potential impact SAFEQIP could mitigate threats associated with ad-hoc team-building during resuscitations.Staff will be empowered to strategically plan prior to resuscitations and team-cohesiveness fostered. Learning is facilitated through sharing learning events. Patient outcome may benefit as pre-planning enables less hands-off time during chest compressions, decreased time to initiate crucial first treatments and improved leadership and communication.4 References Barton J, et al. Impact of multidisciplinary team training and high fidelity simulation in critical patient scenarios. Med Sci Educ 2013;23(3S):532–540 Stocker M, et al. Reliability of team-based self-monitoring in critical events: a pilot study. BMC Emerg Med 2013;13:22 Stocker M, et al. Impact of an embedded simulation team training programme in a paediatric intensive care unit: a prospective, single-centre, longitudinal study. Intensive Care Med. 2012;38(1):99–104 Fernandez Castelao E, et al. Effects of team coordination during cardiopulmonary resuscitation: a systematic review of the literature. J Crit Care 2013;28:504–521


This paper presents a multiplication reduction technique through near-zero approximation, enabling embedded learning in resource-constrained IoT devices. The intrinsic resilience of neural network and the sparsity of data are identified and utilized. Based on the analysis of leading zero counting and adjustable threshold, intentional approximation is applied to reduce near-zero multiplications. By setting the threshold of the multiplication result to 2−5 and employing ReLU as the neuron activation function, the sparsity of the CNN model can reach 75% with negligible loss in accuracy when recognizing the MNIST data set. Corresponding hardware implementation has been designed and simulated in UMC 65nm process. It can achieve more than 70% improvement of energy efficiency with only 0.37% area overhead of a 256 Multiply-Accumulator array.


A hands-on book which begins by setting the context;- defining 'fermentation' and the possible uses of fermenters, and setting the scope for the book. It then proceeds in a methodical manner to cover the equipment for research scale fermentation labs, the different types of fermenters available, their uses and modes of operation. Once the lab is equipped, the issues of fermentation media, preservation strains and strain improvement strategies are documented, along with the use of mathematical modelling as a method for prediction and control. Broader questions such as scale-up and scale down, process monitoring and data logging and acquisition are discussed before separate chapters on animal cell culture systems and plant cell culture systems. The final chapter documents the way forward for fermenters and how they can be used for non-manufacturing purposes. A glossary of terms at the back of the book (along with a subject index) will prove invaluable for quick reference.Edited by academic consultants who have years of experience in fermentation technology, each chapter is authored by experts from both industry and academia. Industry authors come from GSK (UK), DSM (Netherlands), Eli Lilly (USA) and Broadley James (UK-USA).


Introduction: Persistence of allergen and immunocompetent cells at sites of healed contact dermatitis has been reported. Flare-up reactions triggered by patch testing and after systemic provocation with allergen are well-known phenomena. To our knowledge, we report the first flare-up of a previous patch test site following casual cutaneous application of nickel in an individual with hitherto latent nickel sensitization. Case Report: Patch testing in a 23-year-old female patient was performed for dermatitis following application of various gels and adhesive bandages: positive delayed-type hypersensitivity reactions were noted for nickel sulfate and potassium dichromate. The patient had never noticed skin reactions to nickel-containing items before. Three weeks following these patch tests, the patient wore earrings which in the past had been well tolerated. She subsequently developed dermatitis of both earlobes within hours and dermatitis at the site of nickel patch testing within a day. Conclusions: Nickel exposure for 48 h in a patch test is sufficient to induce overt delayed-type hypersensitivity on re-exposure with a previously tolerated antigen in a previously clinically unresponsive individual. Antigen and/or antigen-specific effector cells at the site of previous positive patch testing can be recruited into a delayed-type hypersensitivity reaction for a prolonged period of time.


This thesis is based on two main parts. The first part concerns purification and functionalization of carbon nanotubes (papers I-III), and the second part is related to the synthesis of organometallic fullerene derivatives (papers IV-VII): Two oxidative methods involving aqueous nitric acid were compared with respect to their capability to introduce carboxylic groups into single walled carbon nanotubes, and several literature methods for esterification and amidation of these groups have been evaluated with focus on efficiency and reproducibility in forming covalently functionalized products soluble in organic media. Amidation proceeding via a SWNT-(COCl)n intermediate yielded the expected covalent product, whereas carboxylate salt formation dominated with other attempted methods. Esterification was achieved via the acyl chloride method and via alkylation of SWNT-(COO–)n, the latter being the more efficient method. A new, reagent-free method for purification of single- and multi walled carbon nanotubes has been developed. Microwave treatment dissociates non-nanotube carbon and disperses it into an organic solvent, resulting in very pure carbon nanotubes within a few minutes of heating, without the involvement of acidic/oxidative reagents. According to thermogravimetric analysis, Raman and IR spectroscopy, as well as SEM, the process yields nanotubes with a low degree of defects. A non-covalent approach has been employed to prepare nanotubes functionalized with glycosides. Derivatives of galactose and lactose were covalently linked to a pyrene moiety and the thus formed pyrene-glycosides were non-covalently attached to single- and multi walled carbon nanotubes by π-π interactions. Fluorescence titrations have been used to quantify the formed supramolecular assemblies, which for SWNTs exhibits increased water solubility. A fulleropyrrolidine-(tricarbonyl)chromium complex was synthesized and fully characterized. IR spectroelectrochemistry was used to probe the redox state of the fullerene and provided evidence for electronic communication between the two electroacive moieties. A C60-ferrocene-C60 triad system was synthesized and characterized. Cyclic voltammetry and fluorescence studies suggested electronic communication between ferrocene and the two fullerenes. Finally, the synthesis and initial characterization of short fullerene-ferrocene oligomers are presented.


Although reliability standards for electric power systems are well accepted, methods and metrics are not established for evaluating the effects of large-scale disruptions that exceed N – 1 criteria for bulk power systems. This paper introduces a model for simulating restoration of bulk power systems following such disruptions. The model allows analysts to simulate disruption of a bulk power system by designating system components as damaged or non-functional. The analyst further defines recovery resource availability and restoration priorities. The model then compares resource requirements to constraints to calculate the timeline of repair completion and the dynamic restoration of power across the network. Resilience metrics quantify the impacts and costs of the disruption to the utility. These quantities enable the analyst to evaluate how proposed system improvements affect restoration and resilience of the bulk power system. The paper concludes with an illustrative case study on a simplified seven-bus system.