In this paper the short-term seismic deformation of Iran is determined by the earthquake moment tensor summation. The study areas include the Alborz, Kopeh-Dagh, eastern Iran, Makran and Zagros orogenic belts. The spatial distribution and focal mechanisms of the earthquakes delineate the deformation zones. The mean directions of the P and T axes are determined by the equal area projection of the seismic moment tensors. The orientations of the P-axes are dominantly correlated with the NE crustal motion of Iran relative to Eurasia. The average strain rates are calculated in all of the regions. The maximum shear strain and dilatation rates are defined by the eigenvalues of the average strain rate tensors. The dilatation rate indicates that not only the dominant compression but also the subsidiary tension affects the Alborz and Makran orogenic belts. The velocity tensor components discriminate the vertical thickening and thinning of the crust in some regions of Iran. The seismic deformation rates, which are determined by the velocity tensors, are smaller than the geodetic deformation rates. In the high seismic deformation zones, such as the eastern Iran and Alborz, the geodetic deformation rate is comparable with the seismic deformation rate. Our results indicate that the NW Zagros and Kopeh-Dagh have the lowest seismic deformation rates. The seismic shortening rate increases from NW to SE in the Zagros orogenic belt. The seismic deformation orientations are different from the P-axes, probably due to the lateral translation. The maximum percentage of the seismic deformation in the study areas is related to the eastern Iran and the minimum one is related to the Makran orgenic belt. The average shape tensors indicate that the focal mechanisms in the Kopeh-Dagh have the highest internal similarity. The eastern Iran has the largest seismic moment rate, while the central Zagros has the lowest one.


This article examines how gay men engage with masculine respectability in urban Turkey. Our analysis of twenty-four in-depth interviews in Ankara shows that gay men's selfpresentation generally conforms to the expectations of masculine appearance and behavior in their class-based social circles. Thus we argue that social class and habitus are important for the norms of masculine respectability with a marked difference between lower-class/traditional middle-class and professional middle-class milieus. While family-dependent gay men in the lower class and traditional middle class often conform to hegemonic masculinity through their "family guy" performances and limit their sexual desires, professional middleclass gay men mobilize their social, economic, and cultural capital to carve out a gay life where they can perform a "sophisticated" gay identity and participate in a gay community, albeit in certain permitted domains.


Taste is an important factor in the development of dosage form. In the formulation for pediatric & geriatric, bed ridden & non-cooperative patients the main challenge to the compounding pharmacist is to mask the taste of obnoxious and bitter drugs, result is patient not receiving the optimal therapeutic value of their medication. Previously the attitude of "Worse the taste of medicine, better the cure" was observed, but now-a-days several approaches of masking the bitter taste have been developed. To overcome this problem so many techniques are available to mask the bitter taste of drugs. These techniques are not only serves as to mask the taste of drug as well as to enhance the bioavailability of drug dosage form. Commonly used techniques that are adopted for large scale production of pharmaceutical dosage form are use of flavors, coating of drug particle with inert materials, by formation of inclusion complexes, by Molecular complexes of drug with other chemicals, Microencapsulation, Multiple Emulsions, Prodrugs ,using liposome's, Dispersion coating and Ion Exchange Resin approach. The present review attempts to give a brief account of different technologies of taste masking with respect to dosage form and novel methods of evaluation of taste masking effect.


Polymorphism of the antiviral drug clevudine is addressed here for the first time. Three polymorphs were isolated and investigated in order to establish their structural relationships as well as their aqueous solubilities and thermodynamic stabilities. Forms 1, 2 and 3 crystallize in the monoclinic space group P21 with 4, 2 and 8 molecules per unit cell respectively. Extensive H-bonding occurs in all three crystals, leading to stacked layers in Forms 1 and 3, while Form 2 contains close-packed columns of clevudine molecules. A combination of hot stage microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, variable-temperature PXRD and the observation of solvent-mediated transformations, enabled assignment of relevant phase transitions as well as the construction of a schematic energy-temperature diagram, which reflects enantiotropic relationships, with Form 2 as the stable form below ∼175 °C. Possible implications of the results in the context of further development and expected widespread use of this antiviral are discussed.


Asian seabass, Lates calcarifer, is a protandrous catadromous fish species cultured worldwide for commercial aquaculture. Farmed Asian seabass exhibit precocious sex inversion before two years of age and this phenomenon is the major impediment to maintaining broodstock in a hatchery. In the wild, age, seasonal temperatures and movement of the fish to a brackish or saline environment apparently affect spawning and sex inversion of Asian seabass. This series of experiments investigated the role and relationships between age and the hatchery conditions which appear to induce sex inversion in captivity. Asian seabass grown in freshwater under natural conditions were transported to the research facility at James Cook University, Australia to conduct four experiments as follows.

In the first experiment investigating age effects, Asian seabass of four different sizes grown in freshwater were transferred to salinewater (32 g L⁻¹) at 28 °C and 14: 10 L:D photoperiod and fed to satiety twice daily. Eight groups of Asian seabass (n=8/group, two groups per each size) according to their body weight were allocated to 3000 L tanks in a single enclosed room. In the rest of the experiments, 14 month old seabass grown in freshwater under natural temperature in the same farm were transferred to the research facility and held in freshwater at 28 °C until acclimatized to the experimental conditions at different salinities (0 g L⁻¹, 20 g L⁻¹or 30 g L⁻¹ salinity), different temperatures (22 °C, 25 °C, 28 °C, 31 °C and 34 °C) and both salinity versus temperature (24 °C, 29 °C or 34 °C at each of 0 g L⁻¹ or 30 -32 g L⁻¹) in experiments two, three and four, respectively. Each experiment additional rearing conditions were similar, except the variable environmental parameter tested. Fish were anaesthetized to collect the blood samples for plasma steroids assays at the beginning and at the end of the experimental period. Upon collection of blood, the fish were sacrificed; brain and gonad were removed aseptically, and labeled vials were placed in liquid N₂ at ⁻80 °C for aromatase assay for all experimental fish, while histological analyses were conducted for last two experiments.

Brain aromatase activity appeared to respond to age/size rather than environmental conditions, while gonadal aromatase was detectable only in the 700 – 1000 g fish group, plasma T increased in response to the environmental change in fish groups of 300 – 500 g and 700 – 1000 g while the 50 – 100 g and 2.5 – 4 kg fish had no increases (P˃0.05). Plasma E₂ increased significantly in all groups of fish in experiment one, while 11 KT was detected in the 700 – 1000 g and 2.5 – 4 kg fish and was significantly different (P˂0.05). Results indicated that the hormonal conditions are pre-requisite for inducing sex change in captive Asian seabass from 435 ± 27 g body weight.

The results of the second experiment indicated that there were no differences (p˃0.05) between the aromatase activities in the brains of fish held at 0 g L⁻¹, 20 g L⁻¹ or 30 g L⁻¹ salinity, while no differences (p ˃ 0.05) between the gonadal aromatase activities were also observed in any of the treatment groups except for fish held in 10 g L⁻¹ and 30 g L⁻¹ salinities, respectively. The highest gonadal aromatase level was recorded in fish held in 0 g L⁻¹and 20 g L⁻¹. Plasma T concentration in fish in all treatments at the end were not different (P ˃ 0.5), while the highest E₂ level was recorded in fish held at 0 g L⁻¹ followed by fish held at 10 g L⁻¹ and 30 g L⁻¹, respectively. However, no measurable amount of 11- KT was detected in any salinity group of fish in this experiment.

Results of the third experiment which examined the effects of temperature on sex change indicated that there was an increase in plasma E₂ levels with increasing temperature from 25 °C, while no significant difference was observed among all treatment temperatures except at 25 °C. However, fish held at 22 °C expressed higher E₂ level than at either 25 °C and 28 °C. Significantly higher plasma T levels were detected in fish held at 31 °C and 34 °C, while a reducing trend was observed towards lower temperature regimes. Fish held at 22 °C had significantly lower plasma T than all others as well as those sampled at the beginning. The plasma 11- KT was at non-detectable levels in all experimental temperatures as shown in the initial fish sampled. The average aromatase activity in the brain was highest at 28 °C among all temperatures, but no significant differences were observed. The average aromatase activity in the gonad was higher at 31 °C, followed by 34 °C and 28 °C. No or very low levels of gonad aromatase activity was recorded in fish sacrificed prior to treatment. The aromatase activity was greater in brain than in gonad suggesting that the initial responses to changes in environmental temperatures occur in aromatase produced in the brain.

The results of the final experiment indicated that there was an increase in plasma E₂ level with temperature in fish held at 34 °C, whereas no significant difference was observed at 24 °C and 29 °C, although the highest plasma T level was detected in fish at 34 °C which, except for those fish held at 24 °C in freshwater, had significantly lower levels than at the beginning. Plasma 11- KT was significantly greater in fish held at 24 °C compared with 29 °C or 34 °C, which was opposite to that of E₂. Aromatase activity in the brain was higher at 29 °C than at either 24 °C or 34 °C, whereas gonadal aromatase was recorded the highest at 34 °C. It is apparent from the data presented in the final experiment that there is a relationship between culture water temperature, independent of salinity, and induction of sex change as demonstrated by histological staging and measured through changes in the concentrations of aromatase and reproductive hormones.


Captchas are designed to be easy for humans but hard for machines. However, most recent research has focused only on making them hard for machines. In this paper, we present what is to the best of our knowledge the first large scale evaluation of captchas from the human perspective, with the goal of assessing how much friction captchas present to the average user. For the purpose of this study we have asked workers from Amazon's Mechanical Turk and an underground captchabreaking service to solve more than 318 000 captchas issued from the 21 most popular captcha schemes (13 images schemes and 8 audio scheme). Analysis of the resulting data reveals that captchas are often difficult for humans, with audio captchas being particularly problematic. We also find some demographic trends indicating, for example, that non-native speakers of English are slower in general and less accurate on English-centric captcha schemes. Evidence from a week's worth of eBay captchas (14,000,000 samples) suggests that the solving accuracies found in our study are close to real-world values, and that improving audio captchas should become a priority, as nearly 1% of all captchas are delivered as audio rather than images. Finally our study also reveals that it is more effective for an attacker to use Mechanical Turk to solve captchas than an underground service.


The present Thesis, in the form of a collection of three essays, provides a contribution to the literature on the effects of the public support to innovation activities.
The first paper aims at providing a review and a critical discussion of the literature dealing with the additionality of innovation policy, that is, the net effects of the public support that would not have occurred in the absence of the policy. In particular, the paper focuses on the behavioural dimension of the additionality concept, i.e. the strategic and behavioural changes induced by the policy. In the first part, the paper argues that the behavioural dimension, though not yet clearly defined, provides a necessary complement to the input and output dimensions, when assessing innovation policies consistently with the evolutionary theory and the related innovation system perspective. In the second part, the paper organises and reviews the recent empirical works that have tried to measure, with econometric and quantitative methods, the strategic and behavioural changes induced by the policy interventions. In so doing, it presents some main methodological issues that characterise the investigation of the behavioural additionality, as well as the main behavioural changes that public support to innovation activities can induce.
Starting from the framework provided in the first paper, the Thesis proposes two empirical applications. The first of these is presented in the second paper. This aims at proposing and applying a new multi-level and multi-dimensional evaluation of the additionality effects of innovation policy. The impacts of national and regional support schemes are jointly investigated (multi-level), by simultaneously analysing their input, output and behavioural additionality effects (multi-dimension). By making use of micro-data on manufacturing firms stemming from the 4th wave of the Community Innovation Survey, an empirical application of this kind of assessment is provided for two EU countries, namely Italy and Spain. To control for the selection bias, the econometric strategy is based upon a set of propensity score matching estimations of the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT). The picture of the results is quite complex. In both countries, only national policies increase R&D investment. On the other hand, their regional and national interventions induce additional innovation performances and innovation behaviours of different nature. The proposed methodology is integrated with an original, although somehow tentative, analysis of the relation between the average additionality effects of the policies and the dispersion of their impacts. With the exception of Italian regional policies, the higher is the average additionality level, the lower is found to be the polarisation of the policy effect.
The third paper included in the Thesis, has a more narrow focus. It aims at identifying the extent to which regional innovation policy affects firms' innovation behaviour. Some research hypotheses are put forward. At first, the policy support is supposed to induce relevant changes in the beneficiaries' behaviour, which can help to solve potential regional system failures. Moreover, an increasing amount of regional subsidy is expected to enhance the geographical range of the cooperation with universities and research institutes, allowing firms to interact with "global best" and more suitable research partners. These hypotheses are tested with respect to a sample of manufacturing firms located in the NUTS-2 Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, by making use of a unique dataset including information on pre-policy characteristics and post-policy behaviours. The econometric strategy is based, at first, on a set of propensity score matching estimations. The recently developed generalised propensity score method, which is suitable for a continuous treatment framework, is also employed. At first, the policy is found to enhance the competencies' upgrading of the beneficiaries, as well as their interactions with both regional and extra-regional research organisations. Furthermore, the amount of subsidy is found to be important to extend beyond the regional borders the cooperation with research partners: over a minimum efficient scale of public funding, an increase in the subsidy enhances the propensity to cooperate with extra-regional universities and research institutes.


ABSTRACT Listening to wolf howls as both material object and socially constructed metaphor highlights the contested relationship between nature and culture. The author conducted field research on Isle Royale National Park from 2011 to 2015, from which data he offers a narrative wherein citizen-scientists who listen for the howl literally "lend their ears" to a wolf biologist who has led the longest continuous predator-prey study in the world. The theoretical framework of this essay extends acoustic ecology, first theorized by R. Murray Schafer, to include environmental history and cultural theory, which problematizes definitions of "nature" and "natural." Ultimately, this introduction describes a nuanced form of participatory, situational environmental music that plays out in the everyday lives of those listening on this remote, roadless island on Lake Superior.


This book investigates request strategies in Mandarin Chinese and Korean, and is one of the first attempts to address cross-cultural strategies employed in the speech act of requests in two non-Western languages. The data, drawn from role-plays and naturally recorded conversations, complement each other in terms of exhaustiveness and authenticity. This study explores the similarities and differences of the request patterns that emerged in the Chinese and Korean data, and the intricate relation between request strategies and social factors (such as power and distance). The findings raise questions about the influence of methodology on data, and the applicability of so called universals to East Asian languages. They also offer new insights into generally held ideas of directness and requesting behaviours in Chinese and Korean, and the problems of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic communication.This research is suggestive for the disciplines of cross-cultural pragmatics, cross-cultural communication, contrastive linguistics, applied linguistics and discourse analysis.


The development of micropropagule and embryo of seaweed depend on nutrient and fertilizer used. Seaweed has been reported contain hormone regulators such as auxine, cytokinine, gibbereline, and various minerals applied in stimulating the growth ocra plant and wheat culture. The objectives of this study were to determine the potential of Kappaphycus alvarezii extract and its optimal concentration in accelerating of Kappaphycus alvarezii micropropagule and embryo growth. Micropropagule and embryo produced through callus induction were planted into PES 1/20 liquid medium supplemented with seaweed extract at the concentrations of 0 (control), 25, 50, 75, and 100 μL in 10 mL of medium. The results showed that medium enrichment with 50 μL of seaweed extract had the highest survival rate and growth of thallus. In addition, this concentration was also resulted in a good performance of K. alvarezii thallus with the lighter color. The advantage of this study for seaweed cultivation in Indonesia, among others, seaweed can be used as fertilizer, especially in the maintenance of seaweed seed, so that cultivation can be better develop.


When two patterns occur equally often in a set of permutations, we say that these patterns are equipopular. Using both structural and analytic tools, we classify the equipopular patterns in the set of separable permutations. In particular, we show that the number of equipopularity classes for length $n$ patterns in the separable permutations is equal to the number of partitions of $n-1$.


This paper demonstrates the analytical potential of graph theory applied to mortuary archaeological data. We focus primarily on the efficient production of dissimilarity matrices, their transformation, and visualization in Social Network Analysis software Pajek. The case study of the Early Bronze Age cemetery Rebesovice (Czech Republic) is used to explore the potential of these analytical tools to explain the contrast between the center and the periphery of the cemetery, which was identified in previous studies. Two hypotheses are proposed to explain this contrast: chronological and social. The first hypothesis explains the difference between the centre and the periphery as a function of time, while the latter as a function of social standing. The dataset includes archaeological and biological data from 72 graves. We calculate simple matching distance matrix as a measure of dissimilarity among the graves. We produce various simple matching distance matrices based on chronologically or socially significant variables.  Then, we select a cut-off value of dissimilarity and transform the simple matching distance matrices into adjacency matrices. Finally, we model and visualize the results in Pajek using the space defined  by real geographic coordinates. The results of this methodological exploration are discussed in context of other analytical approaches used in mortuary studies to investigate intra-cemetery mortuary variability.


Apoptosis is an exquisitely regulated process in cells. Shifting the balance of apoptotic regulation can result in aberrant proliferation or excessive cell death. The phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) signal pathway is important in the prevention of cellular apoptosis. However, PI3K's function is attenuated by PTEN, a lipid phosphatase that regulates PI3K signaling indirectly by dephosphorylating phosphoinositides. Gout et al. have identified a protein, Ruk, that directly inhibits PI3K activity. Despite the ability of Ruk's proline-rich region to bind the SH3 domain of p85α and the NH2-terminal SH3 domain of Grb2 in vitro, only the interaction with p85α could be confirmed in vivo. In Sf9 cells, overexpressed Ruk immunoprecipitated with PI3K holoenzyme complexes containing the p85α but not the p85β or p55γ noncatalytic subunits, suggesting that Ruk only interacts with p85α-containing PI3K complexes. Overexpressed Ruk decreased PI3K activity as measured by phosphatidylinositol 3-phosphate production in vitro. Additionally, overexpression of Ruk in cultured neurons led to increased apoptosis. Thus, PI3K activity can be controlled indirectly, by decreasing the amounts of its phospholipid products, and directly, by attenuating its enzymatic activity. Gout, I., Middleton, G., Adu, J., Ninkina, N.N., Drobot, L.B., Filonenko,V., Matsuka, G., Davies, A.M., Waterfield, M., and Buchman, V.L. (2000) Negative regulation of PI 3-kinase by Ruk, a novel adaptor protein. EMBO J. 19: 4015-4025. [Abstract] [Full Text]


A striking feature of contemporary human rights scholarship is the extent to which it has turned its back on the idea that human rights can grounded in a theory of human nature. Philosophers, social scientists, and political and legal theorists thus frequently assert that the classical Enlightenment project of supplying a naturalistic foundation for human rights is dead. The main purpose of this contribution to a new book of essays on human rights is to rebut this pervasive skepticism. Drawing on recent work in the cognitive science of moral judgment, I defend one of the critical premises of ancient philosophy, Enlightenment Rationalism and the modern human rights movement alike: that human beings are moral and political animals, who are endowed with a moral faculty or sense of justice. The chapter thereby seeks to offer a new perspective on an old and venerable argument about the naturalistic foundation of human rights. This new perspective begins from the observation that whether human beings possess a common moral faculty is not primarily a philosophical, political, or theological question, but an empirical question that belongs in principle in the cognitive and brain sciences, broadly construed. The confident assertions of skeptics such as Michael Ignatieff, Richard Rorty, Gilbert Ryle, Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Posner, Robert Bork, and other writers notwithstanding, one cannot therefore simply decide the matter from the armchair. On the contrary, probative evidence and sound scientific argument must be brought to bear. This new paradigm also begins from the recognition that two of the most significant intellectual developments of the past fifty years are the cognitive revolution in the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior and the human rights revolution in constitutional and international law. The former displaced the narrow forms of positivism and behaviorism that dominated academic philosophy and psychology during the first part of the twentieth century and prevented researchers from formulating coherent theories of the "distinct and original powers of the human mind" that had formed the basis of much Enlightenment jurisprudence, moral philosophy, and political theory. For its part, motivated by the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust and other familiar atrocities, the human rights revolution in constitutional and international law has dramatically extended the reach and application of basic moral and legal precepts to every corner of the globe. The central aim of the chapter is to bring these two influential movements into fruitful contact with one another by describing how researchers from a variety of disciplines (including experimental philosophy, developmental and social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, primatology, anthropology, comparative criminal law, and other fields) have begun to converge on a scientific theory of human moral cognition that, at least in its broad contours, bears a striking resemblance to the classical accounts of moral philosophy, natural jurisprudence, and the law of nations that reverberate throughout the ages. These classical accounts typically rest on the claim that an innate moral faculty and with it principles of justice, fairness, empathy, and solidarity are written into the very frame of human nature. These themes were particularly influential during the Enlightenment, when the modern human rights movement first emerged. It is precisely this set of ideas that modern cognitive science, liberated from the crippling methodological restrictions of positivism, behaviorism, historicism, and other discredited theoretical frameworks, has recently begun to explicate and to a substantial extent verify. This new trend in the science of human nature, I suggest, has potentially profound implications for the theory and practice of universal human rights.


We give the first algorithm for kernel Nystr\"om approximation that runs in *linear time in the number of training points* and is provably accurate for all kernel matrices, without dependence on regularity or incoherence conditions. The algorithm projects the kernel onto a set of $s$ landmark points sampled by their *ridge leverage scores*, requiring just $O(ns)$ kernel evaluations and $O(ns^2)$ additional runtime. While leverage score sampling has long been known to give strong theoretical guarantees for Nystr\"om approximation, by employing a fast recursive sampling scheme, our algorithm is the first to make the approach scalable. Empirically we show that it finds more accurate, lower rank kernel approximations in less time than popular techniques such as uniformly sampled Nystr\"om approximation and the random Fourier features method.


The regenerative capacity of human myocardium is unable to compensate adequately forth significant loss of heart muscle that occurs in acute myocardial infarction (Ml). However, recent studies indicate that the adult heart may contain populations of cells that have stem cell characteristics and which could have regenerative potential. In order to better examine the biology of such cells, this study developed a mouse model of MI that combined low mortality, reproducible infarct size and the opportunity for reperfusion studies. One potential barrier to the expression of regenerative capacity at the time of acute Ml is inflammation, which, as well as contributing to myocardial injury, may prevent the activation and function of putative stem cells. The C5/C5a axis in the complement cascade is a key mediator of the inflammatory events involved in MI and therefore represents an attractive target. An antibody to the C5a receptor was used in vivo in the murine model of MI. Although the neutrophil infiltration at the time of MI was significantly reduced (p<0.05), the size of MI was unchanged in comparison to control, suggesting that other regenerative strategies must be explored. Therefore in pursuit of a mechanism by which the heart may regenerate, cells were isolated and assayed in vitro for their stem cell capacity. Cells expressing platelet derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFRA) were candidates for such stem cells, both as these are present in the proepicardium and epicardium in the embryo, and that Pdgfra(^+) mice demonstrate cardiac abnormalities. A combined approach was employed, using genetically modified mice expressing Green Fluorescence Protein (GFP) under the transcriptional control of the Pdgfra locus, expression of surface antigens as well as the ability of candidate stem cells to demonstrate self renewal and proliferation in a colony forming unit fibroblast assay (CFU-F). A Sca-1(^+) /PECAM˙/PDGFRA(^GFP+) fraction isolated from the adult heart was found to be enriched for colony forming activity. Two populations were found which formed colonies, the PDGFRA(^GFPHIGH) population which had 'stem cell' like properties in terms of proliferation, prolonged self renewal and multipotent in vitro differentiation, and the PDGFRA (^GFPMEDIUM) population which had 'progenitor cell' like properties in that although it had proliferative ability, the potential of this population to continue to self renew and differentiate into multiple lineages was limited. The number of candidate stem cells and progenitor cells in the heart increased post infarct as evidenced by an increase in number of PDGFRA (^GFPHIGH) and PDGFRA (^GFPMEDIUM) cells, together with a greater colony forming ability of the PDGFRA (^GEPHIGH) cells. These effects were magnified in a proregenerative transgenic model, Pdgfra (^GFP/+) ;mlGF, in which there was over expression of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), supporting the argument that Sca-1(^+) /PECAM˙/PDGFRA(^GFP+) cells may have a role to play in the regenerative capacity of the adult heart.


We propose an improved technique for in-band optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) monitoring based on a Brillouin fiber ring laser seeded by the optical channel to be monitored. This technique shows a reduction of the required input power into the monitor along with a large and tunable dynamic OSNR monitoring range. It is demonstrated experimentally and numerically for various bit rates and modulation formats.


The paper consists of two parts. In the first part, the authors briefly summarize the results of previous analyses devoted to such issues of relevance as the ownership structure of privatized companies in Poland and how it changed over the course of the 1990s, what factors seemed to have influenced those changes, the economic performance of these companies, and the composition of corporate governance organs such as supervisory and executive boards. In the second part, the authors present the results of econometric analysis of the relationship between performance and ownership structure evolution, focusing on concentration and the respective roles of three types of owners – managers, non-managerial employees, and strategic outside investors. In reference to the debate about whether ownership variables are exogenous or endogenous for performance, they test both hypotheses concerning the effect of ownership on performance and concerning the effect of performance on ownership change.


Agronomic efficiency of N (AEN) in rice cultivation ranges from 20-40 % due to heavy losses of applied N. Dicyandiamide (DCD) and N-(n-butyl) thiophosphorictriamide (NBPT) are used for some crops to enhance the efficiency of urea fertilizer and reduce ammonia volatilization, respectively. The DCD and NBPT were evaluated in combination with different levels of the recommended rate of urea by the Department of Agriculture (DOA), Sri Lanka to examine the (AEN) in irrigated rice (Oryza sativa L.), conducting a pot experiment. As treatments, three levels of urea (100 % (225 kg Urea/ha), 75 % and 50 % of the DOA recommended rate) in the form of urea, and inhibitor compound with four levels (no compound, only NBPT, only DCD and combination of NBPT + DCD) and a control of no urea applied, were arranged in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with three replicates. The DCD and NBPT rates were 10 % and 1 % of the amount of urea used, respectively. Results showed that 50 % urea with inhibitors had no significant yield reduction (P>0.05) compared to 100 % urea alone, with a greater AEN. Thus, application of urea with DCD and NBPT lead to a significant reduction in amount of urea application.


If textbook Lorentz invariance is actually a property of the equations describing a sector of matter above some critical distance scale, several sectors of matter with different critical speeds in vacuum can coexist and an absolute rest frame (the vacuum rest frame, possibly related to the local rest frame of the expanding Universe) may exist without contradicting the apparent Lorentz invariance felt by " ordinary " particles (particles with critical speed in vacuum equal to c , the speed of light). Sectorial Lorentz invariance, reflected by the fact that all particles of a given dynamical sector have the same critical speed in vacuum, will then be an expression of a fundamental sectorial symmetry (e.g. preonic grand unification or extended supersymmetry) protecting a parameter of the equations of motion. We study the breaking of Lorentz invariance in such a scenario, with emphasis on mixing between the " ordinary " sector and a superluminal sector, and discuss with examples the consequences of existing data. The sectorial universality of the value of the high-energy speed in vacuum, even exact, does not necessarily imply that Lorentz invariance is not violated and does not by itself exclude the possibility to produce superluminal particles at accelerators or to find them in experiments devoted to high-energy cosmic rays. Similarly, the stringent experimental bounds on Lorentz symmetry violation at low energy cannot be extrapolated to high-energy phenomena. Several basic questions related to possible effects of Lorentz symmetry violation are discussed, and potential signatures are examined.


The research investigated ways to enhance maize yield in intensive maize cropping system by evaluating the effect of high planting densities combined with foliar fungicide treatments. The considered assessments were fungal leaf disease, biomass and grain yield and methane production through anaerobic fermentation. The experiment was conducted in the years 2012 and 2013. The treatments compared at each location were factorial combinations of two plant densities and three fungicide applications. A standard planting density (StD, 7.5 plants m–2 on a 0.75 m interrow spacing) was compared with the high density (HiD, 10 plants m–2 on narrow 0.5 m inter-row spacing). Two fungicides, pyraclostrobin at 0.2 kg AI ha–1 and a mixture of pyraclostrobin and epoxiconazole at 0.2 and 0.075 kg AI ha–1 respectively, were applied at the tassel emergence stage and compared with an untreated treatment. The HiD system positively increased the silage maize yield (+16%), grain (+17%) and methane yield per hectare (+19%) in comparison to the StD. The fungicide application significantly restrained foliar disease symptoms only in 2012. Fungicide did not affect plant silage composition (protein, starch or fibre content) and methane yield, conversely it significantly increased grain yield for both planting density systems (+5%). The overall boost in yield obtained by combining both strategies in an intensive system, HiD combined with the fungicide, was +24% for methane and +21% for grain yield compared to StD without fungicide application. This work proved that an intensive high planting system with up to 10 plants m–2, supported by leaf fungicide treatments, can lead to a real yield enhancement of both maize grain and silage.


INTRODUCTION In recent years, a growing number of manufacturing firms in North America have established supplier partnerships and supplier development programs.|1~ The partnering concept has received attention for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is quality. Dr. Edwards Deming has recommended limiting the supply base and forming single source relationships to reduce the sources of variance in incoming product quality.|2~ The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, which includes supply quality criteria, clearly has increased awareness of the importance of supply management. Total quality management (TQM), a system of management whose primary objective is customer satisfaction, has broadened the historical definition of quality to include the quality of supplier produced materials.|3~ Quality management and partnering, or strategic relationships with suppliers, are inexorably linked. Published quantifiable data to support partnership effectiveness is difficult to find, particularly as it relates to quality management. Most partnership studies have been based on surveys of purchasing executive perceptions, have been descriptive in nature, or have used the automotive industry as the unit of analysis.|4~ Several case studies have appeared in the literature that highlight the benefits that can accrue from supplier partnerships. For example, the Campbell Soup Company has acknowledged that its "select supplier" program yielded $2.3 million in savings during the fourth quarter of 1990 alone, through reduced inventory levels, productivity improvements, and cost reductions.|5~ Unfortunately, this and similar case reports do not necessarily prove that supplier partnerships are the cause of the improvement. Management attention to problem areas might be the actual underlying cause of the change. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the Hawthorne effect, after the well known study at Western Electric's Hawthorne plant in the 1930s.|6~ The purpose of this study was to examine the interrelationship between total quality management (TQM) and supplier partnering activities outside of the automotive sector. In this study, a carton manufacturer became involved in a TQM program that included supplier partnering activity with a buyer. Prior and post intervention data provide a good illustration of the impact a supplier partnership can have in achieving productivity gains and in achieving continuous improvement. Subsequently, the carton supplier was subjected to traditional purchasing practices by the buyer when an alternative supplier temporarily was utilized. The implications of utilizing traditional purchasing practices are explored, as are the difficulties in developing purchasing partnerships without the commitment of top management. This study has significant implications for managers along several dimensions--supplier selection and management, the role of central purchasing's decision-making criteria within an environment of supplier alliances, and the impact that successful alliances can have on both a supplier's and a buyer's quality improvement process. PARTNERING AS OPPOSED TO TRADITIONAL PURCHASING A partnership represents a purchasing philosophy that expands the relationship with a supplier beyond that typically found in traditional purchasing methodologies. A partnership involves such elements as the use of long-term contracts, a reduced number of supply sources, and a high degree of mutual trust between the two parties. The relationship is long term in nature and involves close collaboration and mutual commitment. Based on U.S. practice, one researcher has defined a strategic partnership as a "mutual, ongoing relationship involving a commitment over an extended period, and a sharing of information and the risks and rewards of the relationship."|7~ Another team of researchers found that cooperative buyer-supplier relationships typically were characterized by five attributes. …


This paper presents a new vision of e-Learning and quality in e-Learning based on two main assumptions: e-Learning cannot be seen as a "one-size-fits all" solution as it has as many definitions as the fields and sectors where it is implemented, and to define quality in e- Learning one must consider the influence of visions of stakeholders on quality perception. The paper analyses in-depth the e-Learning territory concept and provides an innovative view on quality approaches for e-Learning as well as a set of recommendations addressing e-Learning stakeholders.


To develop indicator-based management tools that can facilitate sustainable natural resource management by non-specialists, meaningful participation of stakeholders is essential. A participatory framework is proposed for the identification, evaluation and selection of rangeland condition indicators. This framework is applied to the assessment of rangeland degradation processes and sustainable natural resource management with pastoralists in the southern Kalahari, Botswana. Farmer knowledge focused on vegetation and livestock, with soil, wild animal and socio-economic indicators playing a lesser role. Most were indicators of current rangeland condition; however 'early warning' indicators were also identified by some key informants. This demonstrates that some local knowledge is process-based. Such knowledge could be used to improve indicatorbased management tools and extension advice on the livelihood adaptations necessary to prevent or reduce ecological change, capable of threatening livelihood sustainability. There is evidence that social background influences indicator use. Communal farmers rely most heavily on vegetation and livestock indicators, whilst syndicate and landowning pastoralists cite wild animal and soil-based indicators most frequently. These factors must be considered if indicator-based management tools are to meet the requirements of a diverse community.


Considerable theoretical and empirical debate has addressed the effects of minimum lot size zoning regulations on the development of land. The direction of this relationship certainly has relevance for policy. Previous studies have used econometric techniques to estimate this relationship. This paper uses a land use share multiple regression model in which the dependent variable is the natural logarithm of the ratio of acres developed from 1990-2000 to acres not developed over the same time period. It builds on previous studies by using a weighted average minimum lot size variable rather than a simple dummy variable and by explicitly considering the change in developed land area in the dependent variable. The study area is Oakland County, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit that is experiencing significant suburban development. Results show that there is a quadratic relationship between average minimum lot size and land development. At first, development declines with minimum lot size, but at a diminishing rate. Then, at approximately 5.15 acres (224,330 square feet), development begins to increase with minimum lot size at an increasing rate.


The size structure of Callinectes arcuatus was determined from 2,786 ind (1,956 males and 830 females) of C. arcuatus , which were collected from March 2012 to March 2013 in El Colorado Lagoon, Sinaloa, Mexico. Sampling was random in grid form considering five stations located within the study area. Measurements of length (CL), the width of the carapace (CW) and total weight (TW) were registered. The average carapace width of C. arcuatus was 9.4 ± 0.03 cm with a minimum of 5.3 cm and a maximum of 19.5 cm. For the length of the carapace (CL) the mean was 4.8 ± 0.02 cm with a minimum of 2.8 cm and a maximum of 9.2 cm, while the total weight varied between 16 and 416 g with an average of 54.0 ± 0.71 g, in both sexes (juveniles and adults).The morphometric relationships between CL-CW were adjusted a linear model. The equation is describing the relation TW-CW, which was adjusted to a potential model with a coefficient of determination of R 2 = 0.71. The growth parameters estimated using the model of von Bertalanffy, for males was K = 0.84 yr -1 y CW ∞ = 14.0 cm while for females K = 0.55 yr -1 and CW ∞ = 15. 6 cm. According to the results obtained, it is observed that the organisms with sizes and maximum weights were presented in juvenile and adult males in C. arcuatus , being slightly larger and heavier than females in similar sizes and according to the growth curves the organisms, this species reaching is the maximum length between 3-4 years old.


computer-assisted instruction is a means of teaching a student by interaction with a com1uter through a remote console. This thesis will discuss teaching BASIC, a simple programming language, through computer-assisted instruction. The methods of instruction have been carefully planned for and tested with high school students, many of whom have had no computer programming experience. The project involves three phases. The first phase introduces the student to BASIC by means of a self-instructional manual containing all the :fundamentals one needs to know to program a fairly sophist~cated problem in BASIC. Contained in the manual are a series of questions which the student shoula answer to check his progress. Having finished this manual and studied the illustrative examples in the manual, he is now ready to be examined in this the second phase. A programmed examination is used to test each student; the questions for the exam are chosen at random from a bank of questions. The third phase involves problems stored in the computer which contain errors and deletions that the student must locate and correct. This third phase tests the student's programming ability, whereas, the programmed examination tests his understanding of various aspects of the language. The last two phases are more specifically classified as computer-managed instruction (CMI). The results, after having implemented this three phase plan, were quite gratifying having used high school students from many different schools in Rhode Island. All the students were able to solve the suggested problems at the end of the self-instructional manual which clearly indicates that the primary objective had been reached; i.e., to teach a beginner how to program an intelligent problem in BASIC. Students also learned good programming techniques, such as conservation of storage; however, this accomplishment would be most difficult to measure as it varied from student to student. The project was also implemented in a short course for high school teachers with much the same successful results. All who participated enjoyed the CAI method of instruction.


In the last years, the blogosphere has become a vital part of the web, covering a variety of different points of view and opinions on political and event-related topics such as immigration, election campaigns, or economic developments. Tracking the public opinion is usually done by conducting surveys resulting in significant costs both for interviewers and persons consulted. In this paper, we propose a method for extracting political trends in the blogosphere.To this end, we apply sentiment and time series analysis techniques in combination with aggregation methods on blog data to estimate the temporal development of opinions on politicians.


Standing-wave total-internal-reflection fluorescence (SW-TIRF) microscopy uses a super-diffraction-limited standing evanescent wave to extract the high-spatial-frequency content of an object through a diffraction-limited optical imaging system. The effective point-spread function is better than a quarter of the emission wavelength. With a 1.45 numerical aperture objective and 532 nm excitation wavelength, a Rayleigh resolution of approximately 100 nm can be achieved, which is better than twice the resolution of conventional TIRF microscopy. This first experimental realization of SW-TIRF in an objective-launched geometry demonstrates the potential for extended resolution imaging at high speed by using wide-field microscopy.


Folate (vitamin B9) plays a crucial role in fundamental cellular processes, including nucleic acid biosynthesis, methyl group biogenesis and amino acid metabolism. The detection and correction of folate deficiency prevents megaloblastic anaemia and reduces the risk of neural tube defects. Coexisting deficiencies of folate and vitamin B12 are associated with cognitive decline, depression and neuropathy. Folate deficiency and excess has also been implicated in some cancers. Excessive exposure to folic acid, a synthetic compound used in supplements and fortified foods, has also been linked to adverse health effects. Of at least three distinct laboratory markers of folate status, it is the total abundance of folate in serum/plasma that is used by the majority of laboratories. The analysis of folate in red cells is also commonly performed. Since the folate content of red cells is fixed during erythropoiesis, this marker is indicative of folate status over the preceding ~4 months. Poor stability, variation in polyglutamate chain length and unreliable extraction from red cells are factors that make the analysis of folate challenging. The clinical use of measuring specific folate species has also been explored. 5-Methyltetrahydrofolate, the main form of folate found in blood, is essential for the vitamin B12-dependent methionine synthase mediated remethylation of homocysteine to methionine. As such, homocysteine measurement reflects cellular folate and vitamin B12 use. When interpreting homocysteine results, age, sex and pregnancy, specific reference ranges should be applied. The evaluation of folate status using combined markers of abundance and cellular use has been adopted by some laboratories. In the presence of discordance between laboratory results and strong clinical features of deficiency, treatment should not be delayed. High folate status should be followed up with the assessment of vitamin B12 status, a review of previous results and reassessment of folic acid supplementation regime.


Abstract Random forests are a powerful method for nonparametric regression, but are limited in their ability to fit smooth signals. Taking the perspective of random forests as an adaptive kernel method, we pair the forest kernel with a local linear regression adjustment to better capture smoothness. The resulting procedure, local linear forests, enables us to improve on asymptotic rates of convergence for random forests with smooth signals, and provides substantial gains in accuracy on both real and simulated data. We prove a central limit theorem valid under regularity conditions on the forest and smoothness constraints, and propose a computationally efficient construction for confidence intervals. Moving to a causal inference application, we discuss the merits of local regression adjustments for heterogeneous treatment effect estimation, and give an example on a dataset exploring the effect word choice has on attitudes to the social safety net. Last, we include simulation results on real and generated data. A software implementation is available in the R package grf. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.


The paper presents a method to visualize the timing related levels of prosodic organization that have an influence on the rhythmic shape of an utterance. Timing relations can be characteristic of a language or a speaking style. The method is illustrated on various languages classified as stress timed or syllable timed, on a rhythmically unclassified language and L2 speech. The visualization method can be used to detect rhythmically relevant levels of organization within the prosodic hierarchy, e.g. whether rhythm manifests itself primarily on the level of prosodic feet, phrasal organization or reduction. Our method helps to identify language and speaking style related rhythmical preferences and can classify languages rhythmically. It is able to visualize subtle and large differences between stress timed and syllable timed languages and timing related performance problems of L2 speech.


This paper presents two case studies of transport of dry air in the free troposphere measured by a ground based Raman LIDAR in the Northern-Italy, during the Mesoscale Alpine Programme (MAP). Two observations characterized by the presence of anomalously dry layers, below 6 km height, were analyzed using Lagrangian techniques. These events are related to upper-tropospheric, high Potential Vorticity (PV) streamers crossing the Alpine region. These are interpreted as small-scale features of stratospheric intrusions associated with the PV ridge during its phase of dissipation. One of the measurements also shows the presence of two distinct dehydrated structures associated with the same event. The water vapor concentration also suggests dilution processes of dry stratospheric air in the troposphere. Lagrangian simulations allowed to successfully reproduce the observed water vapor distribution and the air parcel histories confirmed the stratospheric origin of the dry layers.


Chapter 1 deals with the cultural context and the main philosophical concepts and musical methodologies that inspired the creation of this project. My intention is to signify the philosophical background of L\mega illustrating how music theory and
philosophy, as evolved in ancient Greece, showed the path for spiritual development.
This came through a symbolic understanding of the notion of cosmos which has determined western culture and can still be a live source of inspiration forcontemporary art creation.
In Chapter 2, I discuss how Amega redefines and explores ancient Greek philosophical ideas and Pythagoras's theories as a compositional stimulus and synthesises ancient, traditional and contemporary music forms. Ancient Greek philosophy can be seen as the origin of ways of thinking and seeing things that, to a large extent, define who we, modern westerners, are. Therefore, it is intellectually exciting and has in many cases been a source of inspiration 1 . It is also challenging to explore and to use as a stimulus the philosophical reasoning as expressed in ancient thought and to deal with central philosophical themes and terms and the ancient Greek spirit, in order to produce creative interdisciplinary work.
Chapter 3 explains the creative process I followed for the actualisation of the musical composition, as well as the nature of the musical structure and how this relates to and functions with elements of all the other chapters. Aspects of philosophy are combined with geometrical principles and traditional forms, in order to provide the structural framework of the music, and the number 3 is the determining factor within the musical construction.
In Chapter 4, I discuss the instruments used in this composition and their sonic properties, as well as how these have been sampled through the use of electronics. String, wind and percussion instruments are being explored through combinations of digital effects, influencing the form and the structure of the composition as well as the melodic material used.
Finally, chapter 5 defines the dithyramb with reference to both music and dance and establishes this kind of ancient interdisciplinary art form in the context of contemporary performance theory. Amega redefines the qualities of the traditional
dithyramb in contemporary terms, establishes a form for a contemporary dithyramb and explores appropriate methodologies for its public performance.


Semi-supervised learning algorithms commonly incorporate the available background knowledge such that an expression of the derived model's quality is improved. Depending on the specific context quality can take several forms and can be related to the generalization performance or to a simple clustering coherence measure. Recently, a novel perspective of semi-supervised learning has been put forward, that associates semi-supervised clustering with the efficiency of spectral methods. More precisely, it has been demonstrated that the appropriate use of partial supervision can bias the data Laplacian matrix such that the necessary eigenvector computations are provably accelerated. This result allows data mining practitioners to use background knowledge not only for improving the quality of clustering results, but also for accelerating the required computations. In this paper we initially provide a high level overview of the relevant efficiency maximizing semi-supervised methods such that their theoretical intuitions are comprehensively outlined. Consecutively, we demonstrate how these methods can be extended to handle multiple clusters and also discuss possible issues that may arise in the continuous semi-supervised solution. Finally, we illustrate the proposed extensions empirically in the context of text clustering.


Chemical oxidation with acidified potassium dichromate is one of the more commonly used of a range of available methods for the quantification of black carbon (BC) in soils and sediments. There are potential uncertainties with this method however, with indications that not all non-BC material is susceptible to oxidation. An emerging approach to BC quantification is hydropyrolysis (hypy), in which pyrolysis assisted by high hydrogen pressure facilitates the reductive removal of labile organic matter, so isolating a highly stable portion of the BC continuum that is predominantly composed of >7 ring aromatic domains. Here, results from the hypy of the BC fraction isolated by dichromate oxidation (BCdox) from a BC-rich soil are presented, which demonstrated that 88% of the total carbon initially defined as BC was stable under hypy conditions (defined as BChypy). More notably, hypy allowed the non-BChypy fraction to be characterised. In addition to a number of PAHs, the non-BChypy fraction was also found to contain a significant abundance of n-alkanes, with a marked predominance of even-numbered homologues. These compounds are probably derived from lipids, hydrogenated during hypy, which survived dichromate oxidation due to their hydrophobic nature. Hypy of the dichromate oxidation residue from a sample of Green River shale, known to contain no BC of pyrogenic origin revealed that the significant apparent BCdox content (BC/OC = 5.7%) was also largely due to the presence of n-alkanes within the oxidation residues. The distribution of these compounds, biased towards longer chain homologues with no significant even/odd preference, indicated that they were largely derived from long n-alkyl chains within this highly aliphatic matrix. Hypy therefore provides compelling direct evidence for the incomplete removal of non-BC material by dichromate oxidation from both a BC-rich soil and a BC-free oil shale, with the molecular characterisation of the non-BChypy fraction allowing the potential sources of this material to be deduced.


The time-consuming search for parking lots could be assisted by efficient routing systems. Still, the needed vacancy detection is either very hardware expensive, lacks detail or does not scale well for industrial application. This paper presents a video-based system for cost-effective detection of vacant parking lots, and an extensive evaluation with respect to the system's transferability to unseen environments. Therefore, different image features and learning algorithms were examined on three independent datasets for an unbiased validation. A feature / classifier combination which solved the given task against the background of a robustly scalable system, which does not require re-training on new parking areas, was found. In addition, the best feature provides high performance on gray value surveillance cameras. The final system reached an accuracy of 92.33% to 99.96%, depending on the parking rows' distance, using DoG-features and a support vector machine.


This mapping problem has to be solved in many application scenarios. In the automotive industry, for example, the implementation of car functions involves distributed task sets running on multiple electronic control units (ECU) with bus-based inter-task communication, a problem we consider in this paper. Our approach is based on mixed integer linear programming (MILP). MILP is concerned with optimizing a linear function subject to a set of linear constraints where some variables are required to be integer. The current state-of-the art method to solve integer programs is the branch-and-cut (B&C) algorithm and several industrial strength solvers are available. We describe a MILP-model for the mapping problem. Handling this model over to a general MILP-solver does not yield satisfactory results in terms of running time. To make the model more efficient we use the above ingredients: we incorporate a primal heuristic, strengthen the model with further inequalities and generate on-demand cutting planes, which violate the current fractional solution. These routines drastically speed up the solution time


Video applications are expected to generate a significant proportion of the traffic in the future B-ISDN. We consider the different possibilities for the transport of video signals provided by the service classes defined by the ATM Forum and the ITU-T, focusing attention on preventive rather than reactive control. The options available for statistical resource sharing are discussed in terms of Rate Envelope Multiplexing (REM) and Rate Sharing (RS). We analyse the characteristics of the output of video coders and argue for burstiness reduction using rate shaping inside the coder to facilitate traffic control. The adequacy of REM and RS for multiplexing VBR video connections in ATM is compared through quantitative performance evaluations.


Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observations at 230 GHz have now imaged polarized emission around the supermassive black hole in M87 on event-horizon scales. This polarized synchrotron radiation probes the structure of magnetic fields and the plasma properties near the black hole. Here we compare the resolved polarization structure observed by the EHT, along with simultaneous unresolved observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, to expectations from theoretical models. The low fractional linear polarization in the resolved image suggests that the polarization is scrambled on scales smaller than the EHT beam, which we attribute to Faraday rotation internal to the emission region. We estimate the average density n_e of order 10^4-7 cm-3, magnetic field strength B of order 1-30 G, and electron temperature Te of order (1-12) x 10^10 K of the radiating plasma in a simple one-zone emission model. We show that the net azimuthal linear polarization pattern may result from organized, poloidal magnetic fields in the emission region. In a quantitative comparison with a large library of simulated polarimetric images from general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations, we identify a subset of physical models that can explain critical features of the polarimetric EHT observations while producing a relativistic jet of sufficient power. The consistent GRMHD models are all of magnetically arrested accretion disks, where near-horizon magnetic fields are dynamically important. We use the models to infer a mass accretion rate onto the black hole in M87 of (3-20) x 10^-4 Msun yr-1.


Loculicytheretta morkhoveni sp. nov., of which the females have six loculi per valve, was found in Recent beachsand samples from Senegal and The Gambia (West Africa). A displaced specimen of the same species was present in a sample from deeper water off Guinea, where it occurred with L. aff. L. pavonia (having four loculi per valve). The presence of the Mediterranean species L. pavonia (with three loculi) in deep samples West of Gibralter is interpreted as a result of transportation by outflowing currents. The discontinuous distribution pattern of the genus Loculicytheretta is tentatively related to a reversal of the flow regime in the Mediterranean basin during the Pliocene.


Exogenous microorganisms often are used to enhance bioremediation. This study compared the capabilities of two exogenous microbial cultures and an indigenous population to detoxify a Weswood silt loam soil amended with a simple chemical mixture. The first three treatments were unamended soils inoculated with either indigenous microorganisms, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, or Phanerochaete sordida. Three additional treatments consisted of soil amended with benzo[a]pyrene, pentachlorophenol, and 2,4,6‐trinitrotoluene, which were inoculated with either indigenous microorganisms, P. aeruginosa, or P. sordida. Samples were collected from the soils at several time points from 0 through 540 or 720 d, sequentially extracted with methylene chloride and methanol, and analyzed for genotoxicity (using the Salmonella/microsome assay) and chemical degradation. Although the indigenous microorganisms were effective for removal of benzo[a]pyrene, the Pseudomonas bacteria exhibited slightly greater removal rates for 2,4,6,‐trinitrotoluene. The fungal cultures were significantly more effective at degrading pentachlorophenol. The day 540 extracts from all model chemical‐amended treatments were genotoxic. In most cases, the day 540 extracts were more genotoxic than the day 0 extracts. The results suggest that, under appropriate conditions, enriched cultures of microorganisms may have an increased capacity to degrade individual chemicals. However, the products of degradation in some cases might be more genotoxic than the parent compounds.


Learning to rank has become an important research topic in machine learning. While most learning-to-rank methods learn the ranking functions by minimizing the loss functions, it is the ranking measures (such as NDCG and MAP) that are used to evaluate the performance of the learned ranking functions. In this work, we reveal the relationship between ranking measures and loss functions in learningto-rank methods, such as Ranking SVM, RankBoost, RankNet, and ListMLE. We show that the loss functions of these methods are upper bounds of the measurebased ranking errors. As a result, the minimization of these loss functions will lead to the maximization of the ranking measures. The key to obtaining this result is to model ranking as a sequence of classification tasks, and define a so-called essential loss for ranking as the weighted sum of the classification errors of individual tasks in the sequence. We have proved that the essential loss is both an upper bound of the measure-based ranking errors, and a lower bound of the loss functions in the aforementioned methods. Our proof technique also suggests a way to modify existing loss functions to make them tighter bounds of the measure-based ranking errors. Experimental results on benchmark datasets show that the modifications can lead to better ranking performances, demonstrating the correctness of our theoretical analysis.


This study investigated the effects of three doses of sodium phosphate (SP) supplementation on cycling 500 kJ (119.5 kcal) time-trial (TT) performance in female cyclists. Thirteen cyclists participated in a randomised, Latin-square design study where they completed four separate trials after ingesting either a placebo, or one of three different doses (25, 50 or 75 mg·kg fat free mass: FFM) of trisodium phosphate dodecahydrate which was split into four equal doses a day for six days. On the day after the loading phase, the TT was performed on a cycle ergometer. Serum phosphate blood samples were taken at rest both before and after each loading protocol, while a ~21 day washout period separated each loading phase. No significant differences in TT performance were observed between any of the supplementation protocols (p = 0.73) with average completion times for the 25, 50 or 75 mg·kg FFM being, 42:21 ± 07:53, 40:55 ± 07:33 and 40:38 ± 07:20 min respectively, and 40:39 ± 07:51 min for the placebo. Likewise, average and peak power output did not significantly differ between trials (p = 0.06 and p = 0.46, respectively). Consequently, 500 kJ cycling TT performance was not different in any of the supplementation protocols in female cyclists.


We investigate a class of quadratic-exponential growth BSDEs with jumps. The quadratic structure introduced by Barrieu & El Karoui (2013) yields the universal bounds on the possible solutions. With local Lipschitz continuity and the so-called A_gamma-condition for the comparison principle to hold, we prove the existence of a unique solution under the general quadratic-exponential structure. We have also shown that the strong convergence occurs under more general (not necessarily monotone) sequence of drivers, which is then applied to give the sufficient conditions for the Malliavin's differentiability.


A fundamental evolution is witnessed in recent research and development of wireless communications: much effort is put on shifting from the current static spectrum management to a dynamic one, since the wireless industry is hindered by spectrum scarcity while most of allocated spectrum stays idle. To realize the paradigm of dynamic spectrum management, cognitive radio network is a promising way. In this thesis, we present our current research status on dynamic spectrum management and cognitive radio networking, under a unified framework including both economic and technological aspects. We first investigate the economic feasibility of dynamic spectrum management in the form of dynamic spectrum market. Market mechanisms are proposed to stimulate primary (licensed) users to open up their under-utilized spectrum bands for secondary (unlicensed) users. We further analyze the competitive behavior of the major players in wireless industry, wireless service providers, in such a spectrum market. Then we switch to the technical realization part. We address several unique issues within cognitive radio networking. One is about the spectrum sensing strategy of secondary nodes. A MAC protocol is proposed to conduct efficient spectrum sensing and access in ad hoc cognitive networks, taking the hardware constraints into consideration. Another is about spectrum heterogeneity. We propose a cooperative relaying scheme and prove the effectiveness with a real testbed. Finally, we describe our current work about cognitive radio network testbed construction. The testbed has both fine programmability and high performance, which is quite useful for concept verification and performance evaluation.


Abstract Cerulean Warblers (Dendroica cerulea) have experienced one of the highest population declines of any neotropical-Nearctic migratory species in North America. We performed point counts and habitat assessments in areas used and unused by Cerulean Warblers in northern Alabama during the 2005 and 2006 breeding seasons to examine their avian associations and identify microhabitat features that best explained their occurrence. We detected on average ∼50 Cerulean Warbler males (total) in three disjunct populations during each breeding season. Areas used by Cerulean Warblers were characterized by avian communities with significantly higher species richness, diversity, and abundance compared to areas where they were not detected. Correspondence analysis related Cerulean Warblers to inhabitants of riparian, bottomland deciduous forests (e.g., Kentucky Warbler [Oporornis formosus], Acadian Flycatcher [Empidonax virescens], and Northern Parula [Parula americana]) and two edge specialists (Blue-winged Warbler [Vermivora cyanoptera] and Indigo Bunting [Passerina cyanea]) suggesting Cerulean Warblers in our study areas may be tolerant of some habitat disturbance within an otherwise largely forested landscape. Information theoretic criteria and canonical correspondence analysis indicated Cerulean Warblers preferred bottomland forests containing tall (> 29 m), large diameter, well-spaced (> 27 m2/ha) deciduous trees with greater canopy cover (≥ 90%), closer (< 20 m) canopy gaps, fewer snags (≤ 25/ha), and a moderately complex canopy structure.


The metabolic performance of ectotherms is expected to be driven by the environment in which they live. Ecologically similar species with contrasting elevation distributions occurring in sympatry at mid-elevations, provide good models for studying how physiological responses to temperature vary as a function of adaptation to different elevations. Under sympatry, at middle elevations, where divergent species ranges overlap, sympatric populations are expected to have similar thermal responses, suggesting similar local acclimation or adaptation, while observed differences would suggest adaptation to each species' core range. We analysed the metabolic traits of sympatric species pairs from three ectotherm groups: reptiles (Reptilia: Lacertidae), amphibians (Amphibia: Salamandridae) and beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae), living at different elevations, in order to test how adaptation to different elevations affects metabolic responses to temperature. We experimentally tested the thermal response of respiration rate (RR) and estimated potential metabolic activity (PMA) at three temperature regimes surrounding the groups' optimal activity body temperatures. RR was relatively similar among groups and showed a positive response to increasing temperature, which was more pronounced in the high-elevation species of reptiles and beetles. Relative to RR, PMA displayed a stronger and more consistent positive response to increased temperature in all three groups. For all three groups, the average biochemical capacity for metabolism (PMA) was higher in the range-restricted, high-elevation species, and this difference increased at higher temperatures in a consistent manner. These results, indicating consistent pattern in three independently evolved animal groups, suggest a ubiquitous adaptive syndrome and represent a novel understanding of the mechanisms shaping spatial biodiversity patterns. Our results also highlight the importance of geographic patterns for the mechanistic understanding of adaptations in physiological traits, including species' potential to respond/adapt to global climate changes.


We present Revel, a partially neural reinforcement learning (RL) framework for provably safe exploration in continuous state and action spaces. A key challenge for provably safe deep RL is that repeatedly verifying neural networks within a learning loop is computationally infeasible. We address this challenge using two policy classes: a general, neurosymbolic class with approximate gradients and a more restricted class of symbolic policies that allows efficient verification. Our learning algorithm is a mirror descent over policies: in each iteration, it safely lifts a symbolic policy into the neurosymbolic space, performs safe gradient updates to the resulting policy, and projects the updated policy into the safe symbolic subset, all without requiring explicit verification of neural networks. Our empirical results show that Revel enforces safe exploration in many scenarios in which Constrained Policy Optimization does not, and that it can discover policies that outperform those learned through prior approaches to verified exploration.


We compare the aerosol single‐scattering albedo (SSA) retrieved by the near‐UV two‐channel algorithm (OMAERUV) applied to the Aura/Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) measurements with an equivalent inversion made by the ground‐based Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET). A recent upgrade of the OMAERUV algorithm incorporates a modified carbonaceous aerosol model, a Cloud‐Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization‐based aerosol height climatology, and a robust aerosol‐type identification. This paper is the first comprehensive effort to globally compare the OMI‐retrieved SSA with that of AERONET using all available sites spanning the regions of biomass burning, dust, and urban pollution. An analysis of the colocated retrievals over 269 sites reveals that about 46% (69%) of OMI‐AERONET matchups agree within the absolute difference of ±0.03 (±0.05) for all aerosol types. The comparison improves to 52% (77%) when only "smoke" and "dust" aerosol types were identified by the OMAERUV algorithm. Regionally, the agreement between the two inversions was robust over the biomass burning sites of South America, Sahel, Indian subcontinent, and oceanic/coastal sites followed by a reasonable agreement over Northeast Asia. Over the desert regions, OMI tends to retrieve higher SSA, particularly over the Arabian Peninsula. Globally, the OMI‐AERONET matchups agree mostly within ±0.03 for the aerosol optical depth (440 nm) and UV‐aerosol index larger than 0.4 and 1.0, respectively. Possible sources of uncertainty in the OMI retrieval can be the subpixel cloud contamination, assumptions of the surface albedo, and spectral aerosol absorption. We expect further refinement in the OMAERUV algorithm which stands uniquely in characterizing aerosol absorption from space.


The aim of this study was to evaluate the theoretical model Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) to diagnose the leadership profile of students in agronomy from the University of Sonora, Mexico. We used the self-assessment procedure on a sample of 168 students. A 45 questions instrument was used, with Likert scaling, validating its content and internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha for each dimension). The statistical analysis included the general descriptive and use of structural equation modeling (SPSS 16 and Amos, 16). Model results indicated the data are consistent with the proposed research model, with a Chi2 of 36.4, a ratio Chi2/gl of 1.26 a p-value of 0.16, a TLI of 0.98, a RMSEA of 0.039, and a CFI of 0.99. There was a positive correlation of transformational leadership, transactional and performance with their respective theoretical sub dimensions. We found a positive relationship between transactional leadership and performance indicators and that that transformational leadership has a marginal effect on performance indicators, but nevertheless has a strong relationship with transactional leadership, giving evidence of their status directly relates to transactional leadership and lack of direct relation to the performance indicators.


Background Boxing headgear has previously been mandatory at the Olympic Games but was removed from men's competition in 2016, citing evidence that it increases concussion risk. Objective To describe the dissemination of concussion information on social media in response to headgear removal during Olympic competition. Design Cross-sectional media analysis. Setting User-generated content posted on the social networking site Twitter during the 2016 Olympic Summer Games. Participants Twitter users posting relevant content between 5th-21st August, 2016. Assessment of Risk Factors Twitter data ("tweets") were extracted and coded as either for (supporting) or against (opposed to) headgear removal, and to indicate the user's belief that headgear prevents or increases the risk of concussion. Main Outcome Measurements The total number of tweets and the number of users reached were extracted. Pearson chi2 was used to assess the effect of concussion risk beliefs on the type of disseminated message (e.g., personal opinion versus evidence-based). Results 646 tweets were captured, reaching ∼13.2 million Twitter users. Concussion was mentioned in 91 (14.1%) cases; increased laceration risk after headgear removal was referenced in 100 (15.5%). External links were included in 219 tweets (33.9%), comprising scientific publications/resources (n=27, 12.3%), news articles (n=141, 64.4%), and blog/opinion sites (n=51, 23.3%). Only 277 tweets were framed as either for (n=121, 43.7%) or against (n=156, 56.3%) headgear removal. Of these, 64 (45.4%) indicated that headgear increases concussion risk, whereas 77 (54.5%) suggested that it prevents concussions. Users who believed that headgear prevents concussions were more likely to base this on personal opinion (n=66, 85.7%) than those believing it increases risk (n=41, 64.1%) (x2=8.95, p=0.003). Conclusions Personal opinion and news articles were the most commonly disseminated concussion information sources, leading to conflicting positions on the counterintuitive removal of boxing headgear. These findings have implications for real-time knowledge translation strategies during intervention implementation across contexts.


The fact that States resort to automated cyber operations like NotPetya, which spread virally and have indiscriminate effects, raises the question of how the use of these might be regulated. As automated operations have thus far fallen below the threshold of the use of force, the letter of international humanitarian law (IHL) does not provide such regulation. In IHL, the principles of distinction and discrimination hold that attacks should in their targeting distinguish between the civilian population and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives. Attacks must not be indiscriminate, and operations that might foreseeably spread to affect civilian objects are prohibited. This paper draws inspiration from the legal principles of distinction and discrimination to suggest a non-binding norm for responsible State behaviour with regard to automated operations that fall below the threshold of the use of force: the norm proposes that States should design cyber operations so as to prevent them from indiscriminately inflicting damage. The paper finds that in the case of automatedcyber operations, a distinction between the nature of the operation and the use of the operation does not make sense because the design (nature) of the malware defines the use. In order to conform with the norm, responsible States should conduct a review of cyber operations prior to their execution. Finally, as the paper illustrates with a comparative analysis of NotPetya and Stuxnet, the post-incident forensic analysis of an operation can allow third parties and victims to determine whether the operation's designer conformed with the norm. This can help set a normative benchmark by providing a basis upon which States may call out unacceptable behaviour.


Summary Faith communities are important to the psychiatric care of people with mental illness. I distinguish the effects of two principles of becoming welcoming communities: compassion, in which the community accommodates members with mental illnesses so they are fully included, and dignity, which rests on the essential worth of everyone.


Investments in urban transport should deliver the maximum economic, social and environmental benefits; in times of constrained budgets, projects' economic viability is often the deciding factor. This paper discusses the current practices and challenges facing cities in assessing urban transport interventions. On this basis, it develops options for decision-makers to appraise small-scale, sustainable urban transport policy measures.
The analysis of current appraisal practice shows that data requirements and complexity are cities' main obstacles appraising projects and comparing potential alternatives. Additionally, there is often a risk that project appraisal enters the planning process too late to play any meaningful role. Conducting a Cost-benefit
analysis (CBA) ex-ante is often only approved if the implementation of the measure in question is already likely. Often, a CBA is a means to access funds rather than a basis for decision-making. Project appraisal of small-scale and non-infrastructure-based measures is often simply too expensive.
On the basis of these findings, the paper discusses the following alternatives to comprehensive CBAs: 1) learn from others, 2) use a simplified assessment method, 3) rely on norms and values. All of these options aim to cope with the trade-off between effort and certitude. In practice, some policy-makers may already apply one or more of these options, but this has not been documented in a systematic manner. A systematic documentation of such practices could be a major step forward for implementation of sustainable and integrated urban transport projects, as it would shed some light on the reasoning behind decisions, from which conclusions could be drawn on the likely follow-on effects thereof and also possible improvements to the process.


We present several exact and highly scalable local pattern sampling algorithms. They can be used as an alternative to exhaustive local pattern discovery methods (e.g, frequent set mining or optimistic-estimator-based subgroup discovery) and can substantially improve efficiency as well as controllability of pattern discovery processes. While previous sampling approaches mainly rely on the Markov chain Monte Carlo method, our procedures are direct, i.e., non process-simulating, sampling algorithms. The advantages of these direct methods are an almost optimal time complexity per pattern as well as an exactly controlled distribution of the produced patterns. Namely, the proposed algorithms can sample (item-)sets according to frequency, area, squared frequency, and a class discriminativity measure. Experiments demonstrate that these procedures can improve the accuracy of pattern-based models similar to frequent sets and often also lead to substantial gains in terms of scalability.


High-temperature superconducting coated conductors (HTS-CCs) are good candidates for resistive superconducting fault current limiter (RSFCL) applications. However, the high current density they can carry and their low thermal diffusivity expose them to the risk of thermal instability. In order to find the best compromise between stability and cost, it is important to study the heat transfer between HTS-CCs and the liquid nitrogen (LN2) bath. This paper presents an experimental method to monitor in real-time the temperature of a quenched HTS-CC during a current pulse. The current and the associated voltage are measured, giving a precise knowledge of the amount of energy dissipated in the tape. These values are compared with an adiabatic numerical thermal model which takes into account heat capacity temperature dependence of the stabilizer and substrate. The result is a precise estimation of the heat transfer to the liquid nitrogen bath at each time step. Measurements were taken on a bare tape and have been repeated using increasing Kapton® insulation layers. The different heat exchange regimes can be clearly identified. This experimental method enables us to characterize the recooling process after a quench. Finally, suggestions are done to reduce the temperature increase of the tape, at a rated current and given limitation time, using different thermal insulation thicknesses.


De-mystifies statistics via the popular SPSS software The development of easy-to-use statistical software like SPSS has changed the way statistics is being taught and learned. Even with these advancements, however, students sometimes still find statistics a tough nut to crack. Using SPSS for Windows and Macintosh, 7/e, guides students through basic SPSS techniques using step-by-step descriptions and explaining in detail how to avoid common pitfalls in the study of statistics. This title is available in a variety of formats digital and print. Pearson offers its titles on the devices students love through CourseSmart, Amazon, and more


Luis Cernuda's 'Recuerdalo tu y recuerdalo a otros' has become a frequent reference in the debates over historical memory of the Spanish Civil War that have taken place in Spain at least since 2004. Readers tend to treat this poetic line as an authoritative exhortation, and in repeating it, they seem to remember Cernuda and remember Cernuda to others, carrying out the act of remembrance that it demands. This essay explores the value of this act of remembrance. Among the questions this essay asks are: What function do the memorial strategies unique to lyric utterance fulfill in shaping collective memory? What social purposes do poetic testimonies serve in a historical period marked by memory and commemoration?


This is the introductory chapter of the book Philosophical Foundations of Labour Law (Collins, Lester, Mantouvalou eds, OUP, 2018). It argues that labour law needs philosophical foundations and explains that careful reflection about underlying moral and political principles and values can serve to provide firm foundations and a clear sense of direction for labour law. At a time when many appear to doubt the value of labour laws and workers' rights at all, the chapter suggests that it is necessary to reassert that the values and principles that provide the foundations for a system of labour law are not those of a narrow special interest group, but rather embrace interpretations of key values such as freedom, autonomy, dignity, equal respect, democracy, and social justice.


Structured overlay networks forma major class of peer-to-peer systems, which are used to build scalable, fault-tolerant and self-managing distributed applications. This thesis presents algorithms for structured overlay networks, on the routing and data level, in the presence of network and node dynamism.

On the routing level, we provide algorithms for maintaining the structure of the overlay, and handling extreme churn scenarios such as bootstrapping, and network partitions and mergers. Since any long lived Internet-scale distributed system is destined to face network partitions, we believe structured overlays should intrinsically be able to handle partitions and mergers. In this thesis, we discuss mechanisms for detecting a network partition and merger, and provide algorithms for merging multiple ring-based overlays. Next, we present a decentralized algorithm for estimating the number of nodes in a peer-to-peer system. Lastly, we discuss the causes of routing anomalies (lookup inconsistencies), their effect on data consistency, and mechanisms on the routing level to reduce data inconsistency.

On the data level, we provide algorithms for achieving strong consistency and partition tolerance in structured overlays. Based on our solutions on the routing and data level, we build a distributed key-value store for dynamic partially synchronous networks, which is linearizable, self-managing, elastic, and exhibits unlimited linear scalability. Finally,we present a replication scheme for structured overlays that is less sensitive to churn than existing schemes, and allows different replication degrees for different key ranges that enables using higher number of replicas for hotspots and critical data.


This paper examines the financial stability implications arising from securitization markets, with one eye on the past and another on the future. The paper begins by deriving a number of "lessons learned" based on an examination of key industry developments in the years before the crisis. Emphasis is placed on the various ways in which securitization markets dramatically changed shape in the years preceding the crisis, vis-a-vis their earlier (simpler) incarnation. Current impediments to securitization markets are then discussed, including a treatment of various regulatory initiatives, the operational infrastructure of securitization markets, and related official sector intervention. Finally, a broad suite of policy recommendations is presented to address the factors that either contributed to the crisis or may currently be posing obstacles to growth-supportive, sustainable securitization markets. These proposals are guided by the objective of preserving the beneficial features of securitization, while mitigating those that pose a potential risk to financial stability.


Does violent repression strengthen the state? In this article we explore the legacies of repression by the Mexican government on subsequent patterns of state consolidation. We investigate how a particular form of state repression, forced disappearances of alleged leftist dissidents during the 'Dirty War', had path-dependent consequences for different dimensions of state capacity nearly 50 years later. To do so, we rely on data gathered from suppressed Mexican human rights reports of forced disappearances which, to our knowledge, have not been analyzed by social scientists before. Controlling for a rich set of pre-disappearances covariates we find that forced disappearances are positively correlated with contemporary measures of fiscal, territorial, and bureaucratic capacity. However, historical forced disappearances do not help the state to provide security, to consolidate its monopoly over the use of force, or to provide welfare-related public goods in the long run. Moreover, disappearances are negatively correlated with various measures of trust in the government. Forced disappearances committed by the state appear to have long-term yet heterogeneous effects on state consolidation.


There are a growing body of evidences that the human gut microbiota is involved in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Two mains forms exists, namely Crohn's disease (CD) and Ulcerative Coilitis (UC). Although these knowledge are so far limited, a better understanding of the gut microbes and variations in health and disease can contribute to inflammatory bowel disease diagnotics. In this current project as reported, was designed to determine correlations between the composition of the gut microbiota and IBD in children (less than 18 years old) and thus evaluate potentials for early diagnostics. From a repertoire of faecal specimens from early diagnosed IBD (CD and UC) and non-IBD controls at Akershus University Hospital biobank, 75 children samples were analysed utilising bacterial small subunit (SSU) rRNA as biomarkers. DNA from this samples were extracted and purified using the QIAGEN QIAamp® DNA Stool Kit. Using a combination of forward and reverse primers that generally target the conserved regions of 16S rRNA gene of multiple microorganisms, the amplicons were direct sequenced. The mixed pool of sequences were subjected to multivariate curve resolution with resulting five components matched by Ribosomal Database Project search to, Faecalibacterium, Dialister, Haemopilus, Enterobacteriaceae and Bacteroides as dominant phylotypes and corresponding frequencies in all samples were obtained. To isolate pure bacterial species within the cohort, MCR selected samples were cloned into plasmid vectors of competent E. coli cells (TOPO®TA Cloning Kit) and sequenced. The clone library revealed earlier enumerated bacterial species in IBD cases against controls in literature and as well as Haemophilus, a previously uncharacterised gut bacteria. Similary, the clone library sequences were subjected to the Genetic Analysis (GA) in house probe design programme with specific settings that would generally label targets, excluding non-targets at the set conditions were screened on the cohort samples 16S rRNA amplicons utilising the GA two step single nucleotide extension (SNE) novel probe technology. In addition to six probes being screen, a Universal probe was screened for normalisation. To establish correlation to disease, data generated from both multivariate resolution and probe screening was put through the SYSTAT binary logistic regression model. The MCR prediction showed Faecalibacterium and Enterococcus significantly correlating to disease,


Vagal tone (measured via respiratory sinus arrhythmia, RSA) and vagal withdrawal (measured by decreases in RSA) have been identified as physiological measures of self-regulation, but little is known how they may relate to the regulation of cognitive activity as measured through executive function (EF) tasks. We expected that baseline measures of vagal tone, thought to be an indicator of attention, would correlate with EF performance. We also predicted that vagal withdrawal would allow for the reorientation of attention that is needed to succeed on EF tasks, but too much withdrawal would be detrimental. RSA measured at baseline was indeed related to EF performance in 220 3.5-year-old children, and those who exhibited a moderate decrease in RSA during the EF tasks outperformed children whose RSA decreased by too little or too much. These findings implicate vagal tone withdrawal as a psychophysiological measure of higher cognitive processes, most likely substantiated through increases in the levels of focused attention.


Default unification operations combine strict information with information from one or more defeasible feature structures. Many such operations require finding the maximal subsets of a set of atomic constraints that are consistent with each other and with the strict feature structure, where a subset is maximally consistent with respect to the subsumption ordering if no constraint can be added to it without creating an inconsistency. Although this problem is NP-complete, there are a number of heuristic optimizations that can be used to substantially reduce the size of the search space. In this article, we propose a novel optimization, leaf pruning, which in some cases yields an improvement in running time of several orders of magnitude over previously described algorithms. This makes default unification efficient enough to be practical for a wide range of problems and applications.