While group messaging has become popular, particularly among adolescents, it has not yet been explored in the HCI literature. We interviewed 48 adolescents, aged 15-24, who use group messaging regularly. We present a framework for understanding the types of groups they communicate with according to three dimensions: focus, membership, and duration. We also present findings about factors influencing their choice of group messaging tools and the problems they have managing multiple group threads using multiple tools. We explore the problem of notification overload and users' strategies for managing frequent notifications. We describe one approach of "social alerting," when group members notify one another directly, rather than rely on app notifications. We relate our findings to prior work and offer design suggestions to address the challenges our participants faced in managing frequent group notifications.


Go is a new general-purpose programming language for professionals who build and maintain production systems. Hundreds of companies and thousands of open-source projects are using Go, including Google, DropBox, Docker, Apcera, and SoundCloud. This talk will present Go to the experienced service developer and show how its radically simple approach to software construction can make teams more productive.


The strategic tasks of energy companies are impossible to achieve without reducing the risks of companies' development because it is an element of increasing the companies' competitiveness. The article is devoted to the evaluation of the competitiveness of Ural energy companies. For further deterministic evaluation, the author introduces the interpretation of competitiveness as the sum of development risks of an energy company. The article presents a comprehensive assessment of the competitiveness of an energy company on the basis of the proposed methodological approach. This approach includes the assessment and ranking of energy company's risks, the comparative analysis of real and threshold values of the overall risk of investment project implemented by a company. I tested the method of scenario analysis. The main criterion of this method is the consumers demand on energy resources. I applied the theory of economic capital as an auxiliary instrument. Risks' rating construction is one of the most significant results of the method's approbation. On the basis of the calculated indicators of the overall risk, I have developed a map of competitiveness. This map allows assessing the twelve cases of company's competitiveness depending on different development scenarios and types of economic capital. The practical value of this map lies in the possibility to conduct a comparative assessment of overall risk. Furthermore, I have calculated the monetary equivalent of overall risk in each of twelve competitiveness states. The comparative assessment along with the monetary equivalent of overall risk allow making reasonable administrative decisions on the development of the most effective programs of risk management. The obtained results have theoretical and practical importance and can be used firstly in the development of a methodology for assessing competition in the national and global energy markets. Secondly, these results can be useful for the development and improvement the effectiveness of risk management in energy companies. Further research can focus on developing a specific approach for the assessment of the actual economic capital of an energy company, specifying an indicator of economic losses in a case of default, etc.


The presence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) was looked for in fecal samples from 104 healthy volunteers (3 with hospital exposure), 100 selected hospitalized patients, and various environmental sources (44 commercial chickens, 5 farm-raised chickens, 3 turkeys, and 2 chicken farm lagoon slurries). Five probiotic preparations were also studied. No VRE with vanA or vanB genes were isolated from the healthy volunteers without hospital exposure, environmental sources, or probiotic preparations. VRE with vanB were found in the stools of 16% of the high-risk hospitalized patients and in one volunteer with hospital contact. All VRE examined could be classified into one of two clones by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. VRE from 11 of the colonized patients were quantified and ranged from 10(3) to 10(6) CFU/g of stool. This study, in contrast to findings in Europe, failed to find evidence of VanA- or VanB-type VRE in the community or environmental sources in Houston, Texas, and suggests that these settings are not a likely source of VRE in hospitals in this geographic area.


Chirality, or handedness, is a key concept spanning all fields of natural science, from biology to mathematics. Chiral structures can arise from achiral building blocks that lack a handedness if their assembly is unstable to chiral deformations, a phenomenon called spontaneous symmetry breaking. We theoretically study the role of chirality in two systems composed of liquid crystals dissolved or suspended in water, and our results match those obtained experimentally by our collaborators. In the first system, we study achiral liquid crystals whose Frank twist modulus is much lower than their splay and bend Frank moduli and which are confined in capillaries. Under homeotropic anchoring, their ground state configuration undergoes spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking when the twist modulus decreases enough relative to the splay and bend moduli. Under degenerate planar anchoring, a small twist-to-saddle-splay ratio of elastic moduli leads to degenerate twisted configurations even though an undeformed configuration is possible. Measuring the twist profile of an experimental system produces a value for the saddle-splay constant, which has been difficult to achieve previously. Under either boundary condition, domain walls and point defects, whose topological charges depend on chirality, separate domains with different degenerate configurations, and certain ones are energetically preferred over others. In the second system, we study filamentous viruses acting as colloidal liquid crystals under the influence of depletion, which promotes condensation of the viruses into 2D colloidal monolayers. These membranes have tunable chirality and show a rich array of emergent behaviors, including a transition from a circular shape to a striking starfish shape upon changing the chirality of constituent viruses, partial coalescence via domain walls through which the viruses twist by 180 degrees, and phase-separated rafts of a particular size when two virus species with different lengths and opposite chiralities are used. We formulate a simple theory combining Frank elasticity and depletion that shows how entropy and chirality drive the formation and behavior of these diverse structures. Our work may facilitate the design of chiral sensors and reconfigurable materials and suggests that chirality contributes not only biochemically but also physically to the behavior of lipid rafts in biomembranes. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Physics & Astronomy First Advisor Tom C. Lubensky


The term "corporate inversion" is used to identify several transactional forms by which U.S. resident corporations are converted into foreign corporations or into U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations. These transactions are currently a large concern to U.S. tax policy makers and a lively debate is in progress regarding the best way forward.From a tax standpoint, corporate inversions are driven by the triple objectives of (1) enabling inverting U.S. corporations to escape U.S. taxation of their foreign-source income, (2) enabling U.S. corporations to effectively repatriate foreign-source income without paying a U.S. tax on such income, and (3) enabling those U.S. corporations to move U.S.-source income out of the U.S. tax base by means of deductible expense payments — a tactic known as cross-border earnings stripping. In previous work, we have explained how the first two of these objectives could be forestalled if the definition of a U.S. domestic corporation were broadened to include a shareholder ownership test and if the U.S. international income tax system were changed into a real worldwide system. In this Article, we address ways to forestall the third objective by imposing limits on earnings stripping.Focusing on inversions, however, results in a view of earnings stripping that is far too narrow. A principal emphasis of this Article is that earnings stripping presents challenges to the U.S. tax base that are much broader than corporate inversions and so we have developed an analytical framework for identifying responses to the full menu of earnings stripping tactics employed by multinational enterprises (MNEs), of which inversions are only a part.That framework shows that deductions for interest payments on intra-MNE debt, which are the largest contributor to earnings stripping, are also the most vulnerable to criticism from a policy standpoint. Consequently, we examine various approaches to limiting earnings stripping interest deductions and conclude that the best promise lies in employing a proportionate allocation approach to distinguish between interest expenses that are deductible as real costs and interest expenses that should be nondeductible because they are costless foreign related party payments that do not effect a proper inter-nation income allocation.We conclude that distinguishing between properly deductible and properly nondeductible cross-border payments for services is much more difficult and requires reliance on transfer pricing law. Finally, this Article advances understanding of the proper taxation of royalties paid by a U.S. subsidiary to a foreign member of an MNE but concludes that the ultimate resolution of that issue requires further work.Most importantly, this article shows that cross-border earnings stripping is devastating to the tax bases of both worldwide and territorial international tax systems. Thus, action needs to be taken to curtail the use of earnings stripping to erode the U.S. tax base without waiting to resolve the controversy over whether the United States should adopt a territorial system or instead significantly strengthen its badly flawed worldwide system.


AIM
The authors compared the incidence of radiologically documented and/or symptomatic adjacent segment degeneration in and between patients who underwent anterior or posterior single-level, simple discectomy.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
79 patients were clinically and radiologically examined for adjacent segment degeneration (ASD). The results were compared to evaluate which approach was predominant for adjacent segment disc degeneration.

RESULTS
ASD was found in 57 of a total of 79 patients. 24% of the patients demonstrated clinical and radiographic evidence and 48% of the patients demonstrated only radiographic evidence of ASD. Both anterior and posterior single level simple discectomy had similar rates for adjacent segment disease (p>0.05) . ASD was found to appear earlier in patients who had anterior cervical discectomy (4.78 vs 9.85 years, p:0.005). Symptomatic evidence of ASD was found to start earlier than radiological evidence of ASD (4.67 vs 7.63 years p:0.003). Radiographic evidence of adjacent segment degeneration was observed more commonly compared to symptomatic evidence of ASD (38 vs 19 patients p:0.002).

CONCLUSION
Although, radiographic and clinical evidence of ASD is inevitable for both simple cervical discectomy procedures, neither anterior nor posterior simple cervical discectomy is the predominant approach for causing ASD.


The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech - but that protection is not absolute. Some speech is banned outright, such as child pornography. Other speech is nearly fully protected, such as erotic speech. Caught in the middle of the two is obscene speech, which can be owned in the privacy of one's home, but cannot be disseminated publicly. The line between obscenity and eroticism is hard to pinpoint, and varies from community to community. In general, the process of analyzing whether a work is obscene includes asking whether the content violates the community standards of the local geographic area where the material was published. Thus, for most media, publishers of potentially obscene content must choose the communities into which they publish, or face criminal charges from the least tolerant communities. But for online media, the Supreme Court remains undecided whether the obscenity analysis should use the local community standard. The Court's doubts stem from the Internet's global reach and lack of control over who receives free online content. For example, if a work is nationally-available online, and is judged using the same legal standard as in other traditional media, any local community offended by the content has the power of a heckler's veto to make the publisher liable for distributing obscenity. This Article explains why the use of a new online technology resolves the question of whether local community standards should be used to judge online content. Called geotargeting, the technology creates borders on the previously borderless Internet, which allows publishers to specifically target geographically localized communities, thereby excluding areas where the material might lead to criminal charges. This new power to publish potentially obscene materials only to selected communities drastically reduces the constitutional concerns of applying traditional obscenity law to online content.


The effective method of ionic liquid-based aqueous two-phase extraction, which involves ionic liquid (IL) (1-butyl-3-methyllimidazolium chloride, [C4mim]Cl) and inorganic salt (K2HPO4) coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), has been used to extract trace tilmicosin in real water samples which were passed through a 0.45 μm filter. The effects of the different types of salts, the concentration of K2HPO4 and of ILs, the pH value and temperature of the systems on the extraction efficiencies have all been investigated. Under the optimum conditions, the average extraction efficiency is up to 95.8%. This method was feasible when applied to the analysis of tilmicosin in real water samples within the range 0.5-40 μg mL(-1). The limit of detection was found to be 0.05 μg mL(-1). The recovery rate of tilmicosin was 92.0-99.0% from the real water samples by the proposed method. This process is suggested to have important applications for the extraction of tilmicosin.


STUDY DESIGN
Retrospective secondary analysis of data.

OBJECTIVES
To investigate the external validity of the whiplash clinical prediction rule (CPR).

BACKGROUND
We recently derived a whiplash CPR to consolidate previously established prognostic factors for poor recovery from a whiplash injury and predicted 2 recovery pathways. Prognostic factors for full recovery were being less than 35 years of age and having an initial Neck Disability Index (NDI) score of 32% or less. Prognostic factors for ongoing moderate/severe pain and disability were being 35 years of age or older, having an initial NDI score of 40% or more, and the presence of hyperarousal symptoms. Validation is required to confirm the reproducibility and accuracy of this CPR. Clinician feedback on the usefulness of the CPR is also important to gauge acceptability.

METHODS
A secondary analysis of data from 101 individuals with acute whiplash-associated disorder who had previously participated in either a randomized controlled clinical trial or prospective cohort study was performed using accuracy statistics. Full recovery was defined as NDI score at 6 months of 10% or less, and ongoing moderate/severe pain and disability were defined as an NDI score at 6 months of 30% or greater. In addition, a small sample of physical therapists completed an anonymous survey on the clinical acceptability and usability of the tool. Results The positive predictive value of ongoing moderate/severe pain and disability was 90.9% in the validation cohort, and the positive predictive value of full recovery was 80.0%. Surveyed physical therapists reported that the whiplash CPR was simple, understandable, would be easy to use, and was an acceptable prognostic tool.

CONCLUSION
External validation of the whiplash CPR confirmed the reproducibility and accuracy of this dual-pathway tool for individuals with acute whiplash-associated disorder. Further research is needed to assess prospective validation, the impact of inclusion on practice, and to examine the efficacy of linking treatment strategies with predicted prognosis.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE
Prognosis, level 1b.


Shakespeare and the Nature of Love: Literature, Culture, Evolution, by Marcus Nordlund. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2007. Hardback $59.95, Paperback $27.95. This in an important, brave, and urgently welcome study, engagingly written and beautifully respectful of both traditional and theory-based commentaries on Shakespeare. Attempting to bridge the widening chasm between "essentialists" (who celebrate a dramatist who was not for an age but for all time) and "constructivists" (who believe that he can be understood only as the product of historically specific social and cultural determinants), Nordlund grounds his exploration of Shakespeare's treatment of love in "a biocultural fusion of evolutionary and cultural/historical explanation" (5). A longstanding humanist tradition in Shakespeare studies, unabashedly subjective in its imaginative responses, has tended to regard Darwin's world-altering discoveries as either irrelevant or hostile to Renaissance high culture, while recent materialist criticism, fearing biology as the enemy of its egalitarian political agenda yet claiming to bring Shakespeare within the ambit of modern sociological and psychological theory, has grossly distorted the bard by presenting him as the embodiment of a false scientism and often as a site for polemically reductive discourses on patriarchy, gender, race, class, and elitist oppression. Nordlund' s ambitious project is to restore Shakespearean criticism to its time-honored function of analyzing the emotional richness and intellectual universality of the plays, to show why they merit the high value that readers and playgoers have assigned them over the ages, and to illustrate that the problems they explore often leave us with a powerful sense of the mysterious complexity of life. At the same time Nordlund seeks to account for these properties by appropriating the insights of modern science, by locating emotions and their representation in literature in the context of neurochemical adaptations in the limbic system and higher cortex of the human brain - physiological adaptations that were the same for homo sapiens in the sixteenth century as in the twenty-first, despite significant differences of culture and historical conditioning. As he puts it, "Four hundred years is a very short time in the history of the species, and most of the cultural heritage is shared" (126). In Nordlund' s approach biology, evolutionary theory, neuroscience, and anthropology become the partners rather than the opponents of philosophy, literature and art; he jettisons the rigid dichotomy between particulars and universals as a stumbling block - the fossil of a pre-scientific age - and embraces Dr. Johnson's famous praise of Shakespeare as "the poet of nature" with the vital corollary that the paradox of sameness within difference or its obverse is inscribed upon the human genome. An opening theoretical chapter surveys and condenses a formidable complex of research on the hypothesis that human emotion originates biochemically without scanting the likelihood, derived from anthropology and social history, that cultural influences are almost equally important. Although Nordlund is careful to avoid the impression of oversimplifying problematic, perhaps insoluble, issues of causality, he nevertheless appears to accept as his premise a biological formulation about the etiology of love that comes short of certainty and about which scientists themselves disagree. The body of the volume then examines various kinds of love as staged by Shakespeare - the intensity of parental love in conflict with the Roman concept of honor or pietas in Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus; filial love in relationship to the imperatives of duty in King Lear; the tendency of romantic love to over- or undervalue its object in Troilus and Cressida and All's Well That Ends Weiland jealous love with the rage and violence it can unleash in Othello together with a fruitful parallel from The Winter's Tale. …


IN an earlier paper (1957) the authors described a few phyllosomas of scyllarids collected from the Gulf of Mannar near Mandapam and so far this seems to be the only account of the larvae of these lobsters from Indian waters. The difficulty in establishing the specific identity of the various types of phyllosomas has been experienced by all workers. Only in a few instances, such as Scyllarus arctus (ref. Stephensen, 1928 and other earlier workers referred to by him), the monospecific Thenus orientalis (ref. Prasad and Tampi, 1957), and lbacus ciliatus (ref. Harda, 1958) has it been possible to obtain the larvae hatched from the eggs and thus establish identity beyond doubt while at present identification of many other scyllarid larvae will necessarily have to be based on circumstantial evidence. The problem is particularly difficult in the case of Indian scyllarids. Meanwhile it has been possible to obtain some scyllarid phyllosomas and nisto stages from the region around the Laccadive islands (Fig. 1) during the cruises of the research vessel KALAVA in 1958 and 1959. A brief account of these phyllosomas is given in the present paper while the natant stages will be described at a later date along with similar material collected along our coast.


Urbanization through the addition of impervious cover can alter catchment hydrology, often resulting in increased peak flows during floods. This phenomenon and the resulting impact on stream channel morphology is well documented in temperate climatic regions, but not well documented in the humid tropics where urbanization is rapidly occurring. This study investigates the long‐term effects of urbanization on channel morphology in the humid sub‐tropical region of Puerto Rico, an area characterized by frequent high‐magnitude flows, and steep coarse‐grained rivers. Grain size, low‐flow channel roughness, and the hydraulic geometry of streams across a land‐use gradient that ranges from pristine forest to high density urbanized catchments are compared. In areas that have been urbanized for several decades changes in channel features were measurable, but were smaller than those reported for comparable temperate streams. Decades of development has resulted in increased fine sediment and anthropogenic debris in urbanized catchments. Materials of anthropogenic origin comprise an average of 6% of the bed material in streams with catchments with 15% or greater impervious cover. At‐a‐station hydraulic geometry shows that velocity makes up a larger component of discharge for rural channels, while depth contributes a larger component of discharge in urban catchments. The average bank‐full cross‐sectional area of urbanized reaches was 1.5 times larger than comparable forested reaches, and less than the world average increase of 2.5. On average, stream width at bank‐full height did not change with urbanization while the world average increase is 1.5 times. Overall, this study indicates that the morphologic changes that occur in response to urban runoff are less in channels that are already subject to frequent large magnitude storms. Furthermore, this study suggests that developing regions in the humid tropics shouldn't rely on temperate analogues to determine the magnitude of impact of urbanization on stream morphology. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Real-time rendering and the animation of realistic virtual environments and characters
has progressed at a great pace, following advances in computer graphics hardware
in the last decade. The role of cloth simulation is becoming ever more important in
the quest to improve the realism of virtual environments.
The real-time simulation of cloth and clothing is important for many applications
such as virtual reality, crowd simulation, games and software for online clothes shopping.
A large number of polygons are necessary to depict the highly
exible nature of
cloth with wrinkling and frequent changes in its curvature. In combination with the
physical calculations which model the deformations, the effort required to simulate
cloth in detail is very computationally expensive resulting in much diffculty for its
realistic simulation at interactive frame rates. Real-time cloth simulations can lack
quality and realism compared to their offline counterparts, since coarse meshes must
often be employed for performance reasons.
The focus of this thesis is to develop techniques to allow the real-time simulation of
realistic cloth and clothing. Adaptive meshes have previously been developed to act as
a bridge between low and high polygon meshes, aiming to adaptively exploit variations
in the shape of the cloth. The mesh complexity is dynamically increased or refined to
balance quality against computational cost during a simulation. A limitation of many
approaches is they do not often consider the decimation or coarsening of previously
refined areas, or otherwise are not fast enough for real-time applications.
A novel edge-based adaptive mesh is developed for the fast incremental refinement
and coarsening of a triangular mesh. A mass-spring network is integrated into
the mesh permitting the real-time adaptive simulation of cloth, and techniques are
developed for the simulation of clothing on an animated character.


The replacement of a carboxylic acid with a surrogate structure, or (bio)-isostere, is a classical strategy in medicinal chemistry. The general underlying principle is that by maintaining the features of the carboxylic acid critical for biological activity, but appropriately modifying the physicochemical properties, improved analogs may result. In this context, a systematic assessment of the physicochemical properties of carboxylic acid isosteres would be desirable to enable more informed decisions of potential replacements to be used for analog design. Herein we report the structure–property relationships (SPR) of 35 phenylpropionic acid derivatives, in which the carboxylic acid moiety is replaced with a series of known isosteres. The data set generated provides an assessment of the relative impact on the physicochemical properties that these replacements may have compared to the carboxylic acid analog. As such, this study presents a framework for how to rationally apply isosteric replacements of the carboxylic acid functional group.


Proteolysis of Serpa cheese produced traditionally (B) and semi-industrially (C) was evaluated for the first time by determination of nitrogen content and capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE). A citrate dispersion of cheese was fractionated to determine the nitrogen in pH 4.4, trichloroacetic and phosphotungstic acid soluble fractions (pH 4.4-SN, TCA-SN and PTA-SN, respectively). The pH 4.4-SN was significantly higher for B ( P < 0.001), while TCA-SN was significantly higher for C ( P < 0.001). PTA-SN was also higher for C but at 60 days ripening no significant difference was found between B and C. Degradation of alpha(s1) - and beta-caseins evaluated by CZE was in good agreement with the maturation index (pH 4.4-SN/TN).


Context. The star formation rate (SFR) linearly correlates with the amount of dense gas mass (Mdg) involved in the formation of stars both for distant galaxies and clouds in our Galaxy. Similarly, the mass accretion rate (Ṁacc) and the disk mass (Mdisk) of young, Class II stars are also linearly correlated.
Aims. We aim to explore the conditions under which the previous relations could be unified.
Methods. Observational values of SFR, Mdg, Ṁacc, and Mdisk for a representative sample of galaxies, star forming clouds, and young stars have been compiled from the literature. Data were plotted together in order to analyze how the rate of gas transformed into stars and the mass of dense gas directly involved in this transformation relate to each other over vastly different physical systems.
Results. A statistically significant correlation is found spanning ~16 orders of magnitude in each axis, but with large scatter. This probably represents one of the widest ranges of any empirical correlation known, encompassing galaxies that are several kiloparsec in size, parsec-size star-forming clouds within our Galaxy, down to young, pre-main sequence stars with astronomical unit-size protoplanetary disks. Assuming that this global correlation has an underlying physical reason, we propose a bottom-up hypothesis suggesting that a relation between Ṁacc and the total circumstellar mass surrounding Class 0/I sources (Mcs; disk + envelope) drives the correlation in clouds that host protostars and galaxies that host clouds. This hypothesis is consistent with the fact that the SFRs derived for clouds over a timescale of 2 Myr can be roughly recovered from the sum of instantaneous accretion rates of the protostars embedded within them, implying that galactic SFRs averaged over ~10–100 Myr should be constant over this period too. Moreover, the sum of the circumstellar masses directly participating in the formation of the protostellar population in a cloud likely represents a non-negligible fraction of the dense gas mass within the cloud.
Conclusions. If the fraction of gas directly participating in the formation of stars is ~1–35% of the dense gas mass associated with star-forming clouds and galaxies, then the global correlation for all scales has a near unity slope and an intercept consistent with the (proto-)stellar accretion timescale, Mcs/ Ṁacc. Therefore, an additional critical test of our hypothesis is that the Ṁacc−Mdisk correlation for Class II stars should also be observed between Ṁacc and Mcs for Class 0/I sources with similar slope and intercept.


There are many ways that a potential attacker can intercept information, or learn more about the sender, as the information travels over a network. Silence on the Wire uncovers these silent attacks so that system administrators can defend against them, as well as better understand and monitor their systems. Silence on the Wire dissects several unique and fascinating security and privacy problems associated with the technologies and protocols used in everyday computing, and shows how to use this knowledge to learn more about others or to better defend systems. By taking an indepth look at modern computing, from hardware on up, the book helps the system administrator to better understand security issues, and to approach networking from a new, more creative perspective. The sys admin can apply this knowledge to network monitoring, policy enforcement, evidence analysis, IDS, honeypots, firewalls, and forensics.


The aim of the present study was to visualize the testes and the accessory sex glands in male goat during non-breeding season with ultrasonography. A clinically healthy eight adult Egyptian male Baladi goats were used in a study to compare ultrasonographic measurements of reproductive organs. A scanning technique done in standing position using rectal probe for imaging scrotal contents and imaging pelvic accessory sex glands and the measurements were recorded. The mean scrotum circumference was 25.75 ± 0.55cm and the morphometric measurements of the right and left testis length were (9.50 ± 0.32cm and 9.75 ± 0.25cm respectively. Ultrasonographic imagings of testes were appeared as homogeneous with a coarse medium echo-pattern testicular parenchyma ranging from low to moderate echogenicity. The tail of the epididymis was appeared as globular, heterogeneous, less echogenic than testis with some white streaks in center. Ampulla appeared as hypo-echogenic to non-echogenic texture. Vesicular glands appeared as a heterogeneous hypoechogenic structure. The pars disseminata of prostate gland was not well developed in bucks. Bulbourethral glands were easily identified in all bucks and appeared with variable echogenicity from hypo-echogenic to moderate echogenicity. It was concluded that ultrasonography provides a benefits in studying the changes in echogenicity and measurements of the testes and accessory sex glands of male goat and obtained data could provide a useful tool for predicting male goat fertility.


the present study investigated whether music training fosters children9s preliteracy skills. Sixty children were randomly assigned to participate in a 20-day training program in either music or visual art. Before and after training, children9s phonological awareness and their ability to map visual symbols onto words (i.e., visual-auditory learning) were assessed. Equivalent improvement after training was observed for both groups on the phonological awareness measure, but the children with music training improved significantly more than the art-trained children on the visual-auditory learning measure. Music training appears to benefit certain skills necessary for reading.


Abstract The nature of the mapping process that imbues number symbols with their numerical meaning—known as the "symbol-grounding process"—remains poorly understood and the topic of much debate. The aim of this study was to enhance insight into how the nonsymbolic–symbolic number mapping process and its neurocognitive correlates might differ between small (1–4; subitizing range) and larger (6–9) numerical ranges. Hereto, 22 young adults performed a learning task in which novel symbols acquired numerical meaning by mapping them onto nonsymbolic magnitudes presented as dot arrays (range 1–9). Learning-dependent changes in accuracy and RT provided evidence for successful novel symbol quantity mapping in the subitizing (1–4) range only. Corroborating these behavioral results, the number processing related P2p component was only modulated by the learning/mapping of symbols representing small numbers 1–4. The symbolic N1 amplitude increased with learning independent of symbolic numerical range but dependent on the set size of the preceding dot array; it only occurred when mapping on one to four item dot arrays that allow for quick retrieval of a numeric value, on the basis of which, with learning, one could predict the upcoming symbol causing perceptual expectancy violation when observing a different symbol. These combined results suggest that exact nonsymbolic–symbolic mapping is only successful for small quantities 1–4 from which one can readily extract cardinality. Furthermore, we suggest that the P2p reflects the processing stage of first access to or retrieval of numeric codes and might in future studies be used as a neural correlate of nonsymbolic–symbolic mapping/symbol learning.


A contemporary primer on the leading arguments about U.S. national security, National Security Dilemmas addresses the major challenges and opportunities that are live-issue areas for American policymakers and strategists today. Colin S. Gray provides an in-depth analysis of a policy and strategy for deterrence; the long-term U.S. bid to transform its armed forces' capabilities, with particular reference to strategic surprise, in the face of many great uncertainties; the difficulty of understanding and exploiting the challenge of revolutionary change in warfare; the problems posed by enemies who fight using irregular methods; and the awesome dilemmas for U.S. policy over the options to wage preventive and preemptive warfare. With forty years' experience as a strategist, within and outside of government, Gray uses a problem-solving motif throughout the book, suggesting solutions to the challenges he identifies. The book's master narrative is that the United States must take a more considered strategic approach to its security dilemmas. Too often, the country's leaders decide on a policy and then move to take action, all the while neglecting to devise a plan that would connect its political purposes to military means. While many of Gray's judgments here are critical of current ideas and behavior, he crafted them as helpful guides should planners adopt them when revising policies and approaches. Strategy is a practical matter; truly it is the zone wherein theory meets practice. This text can be used as an expert guide to the major national security challenges of today. It both explains the structure of these challenges and provides useful answers. With a foreword by Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper, USMC (Ret.), Bren Chair, Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia.


By now, it is well understood that aggressive tax planning among high-income individuals and corporations represents a grave threat to the U.S. tax system, and that derivatives are staples of this planning. In response, the usual recommendation is consistency, which means that the same tax treatment should apply to economically comparable bets, regardless of what form is used. Yet because consistency is unattainable, this Article develops an alternative theory: Policymakers should strive instead for balance. This means that for each risky position, the treatment of gains should match the treatment of losses. For example, if the government bears 15% of losses, it has to share in 15% of gains. On a different derivative, if the government bears 35% of losses, it should share in 35% of gains. As long as this matching is achieved across the board for all risky bets, the admittedly counterintuitive reality is that taxpayers need not prefer, or engage in planning to attain, a low effective rate. A low rate obviously is appealing for gains, but it is correspondingly unappealing for losses (i.e., since deducting the loss is less valuable). Moreover, even if a low rate is desired, taxpayers can get the same aftertax return by increasing the size of their bet. The main advantage of this reform agenda is flexibility. To prove this point, this Article outlines three ways to match gains and losses on derivatives: mark-to-market accounting; a novel reform called the stated-term approach, in which gains and losses are deferred until the scheduled maturity date of the derivative, even if the contract is terminated earlier; and a zero tax rate. The provocative conclusion is that these thoroughly inconsistent approaches can coexist for economically comparable derivatives, without prompting planning. Yet this flexibility is not free, so the limitations of this reform agenda are considered as well, along with implications for cutting edge problems in the taxation of derivatives, including the timing and character rules for swaps, Section 1032, and the wash sale rules.


Traffic dynamics have been the focal point of research aiming to provide a better understanding of traffic phenomena and to be integrated in traffic management for recurrent congestion. The aim of the study is to ameliorate complex highway and/or freeway networks performance by forecasting traffic regimes based on lane vehicle allocation, traffic characteristics and their synergies on impending traffic conditions for control and modeling purposes. In order to define the prevailing traffic regimes, model-based Bayesian clustering was employed on flow-density relationships for exploratory data mining. In addition, the stochastic cluster analysis was invoked to uncover the time span of morning and evening peak hours, refining and reducing the input data space and enhancing noise reduction. On the contrary to distance-based clustering, in a preliminary phase, two explicit homogeneous groups (congested/not congested regimes for morning and evening peak hours) were probabilistically determined via the Bayesian propositional logic, regarding the number of existing regimes as well as the peak hours period. With this approach, a metric cluster definition was avoided, as two hypotheses were formed, represented by two models. The null hypothesis H_0:κ=1, with κ the true unknown number of clusters, is examined versus the hypothesis H_1: κ=k, with k a pre-specified number of clusters. Assuming that each model is equally likely to be expressed, the posterior probability of null hypothesis was estimated, thus the Bayesian factor (BF) included, with small values signalizing evidence against H_0. To approximate the BF, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques were evoked. Partitioned sampling from the mixture distribution of traffic flow and density was obtained through the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, so as to constraint the draws to high probability areas. Based on the optimised reduced data space of the respective regimes, piecewise/segmented modeling was introduced to address the parameterization of network dynamics. Piecewise models were studied to delineate stream patterns, as they are additive models that inherit linear models properties, enhancing thus description's flexibility. Lane vehicle allocation and spatiotemporal variables were provided as representative parameters of driver's behaviour (Table 1), where lddrR is the lane density distribution ratio of the right lane, lddrL the lane density distribution ratio of the left lane, ΔVMR-ML the speed difference between median right and median left lane, ΔVMR-R the speed difference between median right and right lane, ΔVML-L the speed difference between median left and left lane, and kR, kL, kMR, kML the density of the right, left, median right and median left lanes respectively. Initially, static models were developed, for both peak and off peak hours, with the lane density distribution ratio (LDDR) as response variable, as well as the differences of speed per adjacent and non-adjacent lanes and lane density. The proposed models indicated strong precision, particularly for off-peak hours. However, potentially, the fluctuating behaviour within traffic states transitions during peak hours, led to a dynamic modeling approach with time-related parameters. The persistence on lane scale yielded significant improvement on accuracy, confirming the aforementioned presumption. The models' assessment was conducted with empirical data from a complex freeway network, with successive on and off ramps and four to six lanes per direction in the mainline (Fig. 1), that features pronounced congested condition during peak hours. The study site is located in district 11 of San Diego County, U.S. (I5-N and I5-S). The traffic dataset was consisted of aggregated measurements (intervals of Δt=5 min), of flow, speed and occupancy per lane, and it is part of the Caltrans Performance Measurement System (PeMS). Further on this on-going study, several types of networks will be evaluated either with ITS control policies or deprived, aiming to assess the stationarity of the static and dynamic models.


The last decade has witnessed a rise in the field of citizen science which can be described as a collaborative undertaking
between citizens and scientists to help gather data and create new scientific knowledge. In the EU, efforts
have been channeled into developing the concept of Citizen Observatories (COs), which have been supported via
the Seventh Framework Program (FP7) and continue to be funded in Horizon 2020. COs, often supported by innovative
technologies including Earth Observation (EO) and mobile devices, are the means by which communities
can monitor and report on their environment and access information that is easily understandable for decision
making. To improve the coordination between existing COs and related citizen science activities, the WeObserve
project tackles three key challenges that face COs: awareness, acceptability and sustainability. The WeObserve
mission is to create a sustainable ecosystem of COs that can systematically address these identified challenges and
help move citizen science into the mainstream. The WeObserve approach will apply several key instruments to
target, connect and coordinate relevant stakeholders. The first is to develop and foster five communities of practice
to strengthen the current knowledge base surrounding COs. Topics will include citizen engagement, the value
of COs for governance and CO data interoperability. In co-creating this knowledge base, CO practitioners will
have a platform to effectively share best practices and avoid duplication. Secondly, the project will expand the
geographical reach of the knowledge base to different target groups via toolkits, a Massive Open Online Course
(MOOC), capacity development roadshows and an Open Data Exploitation Challenge, to strengthen the uptake of
CO-powered science by public authorities and SMEs. A third mechanism will forge links with GEOSS and Copernicus
to demonstrate how COs can complement the EU's Earth Observation monitoring framework. This paper
will describe these various mechanisms and issue a call to bring together diverse stakeholders who share a joint
(practice-oriented) interest in citizen science. The WeObserve consortium brings together the current H2020 COs
(Ground Truth 2.0, GROW, LandSense, Scent) who will actively open up the citizen science landscape through
wide ranging networks, users and stakeholders, including ECSA, GEOSS and Copernicus to foster social innovation
opportunities. The WeObserve approach and outcomes have the potential to create a step-change in the Earth
Observation sector and make COs a valuable component of Earth system science research to manage environmental
challenges and empower resilient communities.


Fiji's new parliament that emerged in 2014 after eight years of military rule revived the prospects for parliamentary democracy in that country. However, concerns have been raised about the suspension of Opposition members of parliament (MPs). These suspensions highlight broader issues regarding executive–legislative relations in Fiji's parliament and the prospects of a robust parliamentary democracy in Fiji. This In Brief examines the MP suspensions, highlights some of the concerns that have been raised both in Fiji and abroad and considers some implications.


BACKGROUND: The therapy of steroid resistant nephrotic syndrome (SRNS) is still a matter of controversy. OBJECTIVE: To assess the options of treatment in SRNS PATIENT AND METHOD: A retrospective study to 50 patients randomly selected in the Central Child Teaching Hospital during study period from Jan. 2006 to July 2008. The patients age were between 6 months.-18 years. All patients who had failed to achieve an improvement in proteinuria after minimum of 4 weeks (up to 8 weeks) of prednisolone (PDN) in a dosage 2 mg/kg/day were taken. Only the patients with idiopathic nephrotic syndrome (45 patients) were involved in the study but the patients with secondary nephrotic syndrome and congenital neprosis were excluded from the study. Each patient were individualized to the type of pathology and to the type of medication used. RESULTS: Forty five patients were included in the study, the age range between 6 months.-18 years. Twenty eight patients were male and 17 were female, M: F ratio 1.64: 1. Regarding the type of pathology, 20 patients with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), 11 patients with minimal change nephrotic syndrome (MCNS), 8 patients with diffuse mesangial proliferation (DMP) and 6 patients were unknown biopsy (not down biopsy). The drugs that used were methyl prednisolone (MP) in 17 patients, Every other day steroid (EODS) in 10 patients, cyclosporineA (CsA) plus EODS in 16 patients (10 patients as first option and 6 patients as second option), cyclophosphamide (CYS) used in 8 patients (6 patients as first option and 2 patients as second option) and chlorambucil were used in 2 patients only. The response was higher in patients who received EODS (50%), followed by the patients who received CsA plus EODS (25%) then the patients who received MP(23.5%) and the patients who received CYS(12.5%) and chlorambucil(zero%). The response to treatment was higher in females than males, 11 out of 28 males (39.28%) responded to treatment while 7 of 17 female (41.17%) responded to treatment. The patients with early presentation responded to treatment higher than those with late presentation, so 12 of 19 patients (63.15%) presented early while 10 of 26 patients (38.46%) presented late. According to histopathology, the patients with unknown etiology had higher rate of response, 3 out of 6 patients (50%) responded to treatment followed by 7 of 20 (35%) patients with FSGS, then 2 of 8 (25%) patients with DMP, then 2 of 11 (18.18%) patients with MCNS. CONCLUSION: The drugs used are the common drugs and EODS is preferable type of medication used in SRNS. KEY WARDS: steroid resistant nephrotic syndrome (SRNS), methyl prednisolone (MP), every other day steroid (EODS), cyclosporineA (CsA).


In this study the effect of iron of Fe (So4)2 (7H2O) and probiotics BioPlus 2B on some blood parameters was investigated on 270 of Rutilus frisii kutum fry with total weight of 0.4±0.1 gr and total length of 3.9±0.3 cm in nine treatments and triplicates during 60 days. Results showed that the highest number of red blood cells (RBCs) (1.65×10± 1.55 per mm, hemoglobin concentration (7.36±0.15 g/dl), hematocrit concentration (24.03±0.85 %), MCV (1.45±1.48 Fl), MCH (46.29±0.25 pg) and lymphocyte (92±2) belong to treatment 5. The highest level of MCHC (34.65±0.67 g/dl) and the greatest level of white blood cells (6.6±100 per mm) were observed in treatments 4 and 8, respectively. The findings of this research showed that treatment 5 contained the highest amount of iron (7 mg/kg of feed) and probiotics (CFC 1.6×10) resulted in the highest amount of red blood cells, hemoglobin, hematocrit, MCV, MCH and lymphocytes in this study.


Abstract Class I and Class II waste re-injection are the most important methods for disposing of fluid in North Dakota: in 2007, more than 96% of produced water were disposed of using underground injection, and by 2012 all produced water was being managed by underground injection. While Class II injection covers waste produced from most Exploration & Production (E&P) activities, Class I injection wells are used for disposing of a special class of industrial wastes, including waste generated by petroleum refining, metal production, chemical production, pharmaceutical production, commercial disposal, and food production. Non-hazardous industrial waste and Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) not associated with E&P can also be injected using Class I wells. In all cases, the primary concern for permitting and safe operations is to (1) predict the movement of the injected waste to ensure that it stays within pre-defined formations, and (2) ensure that pore-pressure increases caused by injection do not impact neighboring offset wells. Results from a geochemical study of the feasibility of disposal into the Dakota Sands (Inyan Kara formation) in North Dakota is being presented. Analyses were made using a compositional reservoir simulation (REVEAL) to predict the pore-pressure distribution, direction and movement of the injected fluid, as well as chemical reactions between formation brine/waste/formation rocks and the effect of these chemical reactions on formation injectivity and cap rock integrity. Forecasts indicate that for over 50 years of injection, the injected wastes will be completely trapped within the Dakota Sands (no fluid flow is expected to penetrate through the cap rock) and injection pressures are expected to remain well below the estimated fracture pressure. While the Inyan Kara formation is therefore a reasonable storage trap for industrial wastes, carbonate and sulfate scales may cause near wellbore formation damage and rising wellhead pressures which operators will need to address.


Because of the inherent complexity of fiber-reinforced laminated composites, it can be challenging to manufacture composite structures according to their exact design specifications, resulting in unwanted material and geometric uncertainties. In this research, we focus on the deterministic and probabilistic stability analysis of laminated structures subject to subtangential loading, a combination of conservative and nonconservative tangential loads, using the dynamic criterion. Thus a shear-deformable laminated beam element, including warping effects, is derived to study the deterministic and probabilistic response of laminated beams. This twenty-one degrees of freedom element can be used for solving both static and dynamic problems. In the first-order shear deformable model used here we have employed a more accurate method to obtain the transverse shear correction factor. The dynamic version of the principle of virtual work for laminated composites is expressed in its nondimensional form and the element tangent stiffness and mass matrices are obtained using analytical integration The stability is studied by giving the structure a small disturbance about an equilibrium configuration, and observing if the resulting response remains small. In order to study the dynamic behavior by including uncertainties into the problem, three models were developed: Exact Monte Carlo Simulation, Sensitivity Based Monte Carlo Simulation, and Probabilistic FEA. These methods were integrated into the developed finite element analysis. Also, perturbation and sensitivity analysis have been used to study nonconservative problems, as well as to study the stability analysis, using the dynamic criterion.


Bite angle and electronic effects on the ruthenium–diphosphine catalysed ether bond cleavage of the lignin β-O-4 model compound 2-phenoxy-1-phenylethanol were tested. Enhanced conversion of the substrate was observed with increasing σ-donor capacity of the ligands. Kinetic and thermodynamic data suggest oxidative addition of the dehydrogenated model compound to the diphosphine Ru(0) complex to be rate-limiting.


Multiple Intelligences in EFL gives a brief overview of the latest research into multiple intelligences relevant for EFL. It shows how you can enrich your own teaching by systematically activating other intelligences in your language lessons and demonstrates what you can do so that more students feel 'addressed' in your class. This book will help you to appreciate otherwise hidden strengths in your students and provide fun lessons through over 70 clear and easy-to-follow 'teaching recipes'.


INDEX Index is a quarterly chronicle of events throughout the world published to illustrate the ways in which freedom of expression is being variously curtailed or denied. Such a chronicle cannot hope to be complete or to present a comprehensive picture of this problem, but is offered as a supplement to the information and comment appearing elsewhere in these pages.


This survey study utilized a person-oriented approach to explore the patterns of socio-political integration among Russian-speaking minority group members in three neighboring countries in the Baltic area: Estonia (n = 482), Finland (n = 252), and Norway (n = 215). Three profiles were obtained in all countries: critical integration, separation, and assimilation. In the whole sample, critical integration was the most common acculturation profile. After the profiles were established, they were examined vis-a-vis citizenship and integration context to see, whether and to what extent, the objective (i.e., citizenship) and subjective (i.e., perceived social status and sense of belonging) socio-political integration of Russian-speakers corresponded with each other. Critical integration and separation were the most common profiles among participants holding national citizenship of the country of residence, while foreign citizenship was not related to any specific profile. Separation was rare among participants holding dual citizenship, but it was the most common profile among participants with undetermined citizenship. Also, intergroup context was associated with socio-political integration: critical integration and separation were the most common profiles of Russian-speakers in Estonia, critical integration and assimilation profiles in Finland, and assimilation profile in Norway. The results are discussed in relation to previous variable-oriented research and official integration policies of the countries studied.


In July 2002, Germany amended its Atomic Energy Act so no new nuclear power plants could be built and existing power plants would continue running only for a limited time. In 2009, however, a coalition led by Chancellor Angela Merkel took control of the German government and reversed the country's nuclear phase-out policy, extending nuclear plant operating lives and announcing that risks associated with nuclear energy were insignificant. Three months later, just days after the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan, the German government abruptly reversed course again, closing eight older nuclear power plants and eventually ordering the nine remaining plants to cease operations by 2022, at the latest. Three out of the four operators of German nuclear power plants have since taken legal action, seeking compensation for profits supposedly lost as a result of the nuclear policy change. But due to a number of factors—including the German constitution, which places a duty on the government to protect citizens, and the nuclear operators' participation in the original 2002 agreement to phase out nuclear power—most legal observers believe these legal challenges to Germany's nuclear exit are destined to fail. The German nuclear exit includes financial compromises that allow nuclear operators to recoup investments in their nuclear power plants, and the legal protection these compromises provide to the government may be the part of the German initiative that is of most interest to other countries considering nuclear exits.


Surface sediments at 439 sites throughout the North Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas have been analyzed for dinoflagellate cysts in order to establish a reference database from which paleoenvironmental transfer functions can be developed. Laboratory procedures and systematics were standardized in order to avoid bias introduced by the selective loss of taxa and to facilitate site to site comparison. 371 sites were retained to develop the database that includes 41 taxa, some of which were grouped using morphological and/or ecological criteria. 27 taxa were retained for statistical purposes. Distribution maps of these latter taxa have been plotted on the basis of their relative abundance. Principal component analyses were performed in order to describe the distribution of assemblages. The relation between the assemblages, as well as the relative abundance of individual taxa, and selected sea-surface parameters are illustrated. The parameters which were considered include temperature and salinity for winter (February) and summer (August) together with the duration of sea-ice cover. Transfer functions using the best analogue method have been tested with a view to reconstruct past sea-surface parameters. Validation procedures on this transfer function demonstrate that more than 95% of the reconstructions are included within the interannual variability of modern sea-surface conditions. Therefore, these transfer functions give accurate results and can be applied to reconstructing paleotemperatures and salinities from analogous assemblages in Quaternary sedimentary sequences.Protoperidinium stellatum (Wall in Wall & Dale, 1968) Head, comb. nov. (basionym = Peridinium stellatum) is proposed as new, and Algidasphaeridium? minutum var. cezare de Vernal et al., 1989 ex de Vernal et al. is newly validated.


Three tests were used to measure the circulating immunoglobulin in 381 purchased calves as they entered a commercial calf-rearing unit. A correlation of 0.64 was found between the zinc sulphate turbidity (ZST) test and a quantitative latex agglutination test (LAT) measuring IgG1 (P less than 0.001). A qualitative version of the LAT related poorly to the quantitative version. The proportion of plasma samples identified by the quantitative LAT as having an IgG1 concentration of less than 5 g/litre which were incorrectly identified as positives (greater than or equal to 5 g/litre) by the qualitative LAT was 0.65. The proportion of plasma samples identified by the quantitative LAT as having a IgG1 concentration of greater than or equal to 5 g/litre which were incorrectly identified as negative (less than 5 g/litre) was 0.11. There was no statistically significant relationship between plasma IgG1 concentration and initial liveweight, subsequent overall daily liveweight gain or disease incidence (P greater than 0.05). Calves treated for infectious disease, particularly respiratory disease after weaning, had statistically significantly lower liveweight gains than healthy calves (P less than 0.001).


The range of randomised controlled trials reported in the scientific literature is extensive. A systematic literature review was conducted with the aim of determining how dietary assessment methods were reported and the use of assisted technologies. OVID (Medline, PreMedline, PsychINFO, Cochrane, ERIC and Cynahl) and ScienceDirect databases 20002010 were searched for food-based parallel randomised controlled trials in humans. Studies relating to drug testing, vitamin or mineral supplements, enteral or parenteral nutrition and behavioural/educational interventions were excluded. Meal replacement studies were included. A total of 1364 abstracts were reviews and 347 studies identified. Additional articles referred to in the methods as the main publication and not captured in the initial search were also retrieved. Food record methodology was the most common assessment technique with three day duration the most common timeframe (2 week, 1 weekend day). There was a limited use of information technology for the assessment. Technology was primarily reported for analysis of nutrient data. Dietary analysis software used to determine for nutrient intakes is country specific. The end point of the study is the most commonly used time point for dietary assessment. The regular use of food record methodology to measure actual rather than usual dietary intake may not capture foods eaten intermittently though is not as resource heavy for a study. Information technology use may increase in the future allowing automation of dietary analysis and also allowing other forms of assessment to be used efficiently.


Real-world tasks often exhibit a compositional structure that contains a sequence of simpler sub-tasks. For instance, opening a door requires reaching, grasping, rotating, and pulling the door knob. Such compositional tasks require an agent to reason about the sub-task at hand while orchestrating global behavior accordingly. This can be cast as an online task inference problem, where the current task identity, represented by a context variable, is estimated from the agent's past experiences with probabilistic inference. Previous approaches have employed simple latent distributions, e.g., Gaussian, to model a single context for the entire task. However, this formulation lacks the expressiveness to capture the composition and transition of the sub-tasks. We propose a variational inference framework OCEAN to perform online task inference for compositional tasks. OCEAN models global and local context variables in a joint latent space, where the global variables represent a mixture of sub-tasks required for the task, while the local variables capture the transitions between the sub-tasks. Our framework supports flexible latent distributions based on prior knowledge of the task structure and can be trained in an unsupervised manner. Experimental results show that OCEAN provides more effective task inference with sequential context adaptation and thus leads to a performance boost on complex, multi-stage tasks.


Different management systems of drinking water services are found within the European Union, where the importance of private industry is becoming increasingly significant. In England and Wales, for example, where water supply services were fully privatised in 1989; and in France and Spain, the delegation of management of drinking water systems has been common practice for a long time, particularly in France.

This paper describes the report prepared by a Working Group within the European Union of National Associations of Water Suppliers and Sewage Services (EUREAU), whose aim has been to analyse the different systems in the EU Member States and group them together under five major categories, one main feature of the report establishes the strong link between the management bodies and the authoritative bodies. It concludes that 65.5% of the EU population's drinking water services provided are managed publicly, while the remaining 34.5% are privately managed.


Kitemill is developing a new concept to harness wind energy. Their concept is shaped like a glider, and takes advantage of the high wind speeds at high altitudes. Operations in such environments require strong and lightweight materials. This thesis will focus on the production method, material type and lay-up for a structural composite beam inside the horizontal stabilizer. Kitemill currently use wet lay-up bladder moulding technique to make the part. In this process where an inflatable bicycle tube is used to generate pressure on the composite in a closed mould. The maximum load of the piece they made by this process was set as the benchmark loading. The material used in this production method is a combination between Textreme (76 gsm) and Renlam M1 Epoxy. This material combination was tested according to the ASTM standard of composite testing, with some simplifications. The laminate constants were calculated from these results. These constants were used to create an Abaqus model which simulated the bladder moulded beam in a three-point bending test. A second production technique was created. The aim was to build a sample that could take the benchmark loading, but weighing less. This was done by creating a parametric optimization of lay-up for composites with the software program Isight. This lay-up was used together with a compression moulding technique where a core-material is squeezed into the mould. Pre-Preg composite material was used for this concept. The results indicated that the focus should be changes from the "maximum load" to "production quality". The compression moulding production technique seems to be a better alternative than the bladder moulding technique due to air bubbles in the laminate. However, this is a more expensive production technique. The structure of the optimization program is good, but it needs some adjustments before it can be useful for real design applications. The program was computational heavy because the program had too many variables. There was also a problem with the way the simulation was set up. The result av this was that Abaqus ignored the difference between a continuous ply and a non-continuous ply. The conclusion is that the bladder molding technique can be used for the prototype glider, but the material should be changed to Pre-preg to minimize production flaws.


The livelihood systems of farm households in coastal Orissa have been analysed based on a sample of 193 farmers. It is found that the incomes of these households were quite diversified. As against the general impression that crop income dominates household income, it is observed that the non-farm income has emerged important in the coastal Orissa. Rice, which has been traditionally the main source of income in this area, has slipped to the third position, next to remittances and income from non-farm activities. The income from non-farm works and rice has accounted for 71 per cent and 20 per cent of the total income, respectively. The non-farm sources have contributed more than 90 per cent towards income inequality. The source-wise income share has also shown a similar trend at the disaggregated level of farm-size categories. The income share for livestock has been comparatively high for large farmers. In general, the non-farm income was 3-times higher than that of the on-farm income for the small farmers and two-times in case of the larger category. The analysis of employment pattern shows that the male workers have dominated the labour market participation. A sizeable proportion of it has been in the non-farm sector. Creation of more non-farm employment opportunities, increase in investment on human resource development, more of R&D on development of rice varieties and tubewell irrigation will be needed to increase and stabilize household income in the coastal Orissa.


This study was designed to investigate 1) whether a protocol employing a gradual reduction in O2 availability to submaximally contracting muscle results in relatively minor disturbances in intracellular homeostasis and 2) the interaction between tissue oxygenation and the proposed regulators of muscle respiration, metabolism, and force production. O2 delivery to isolated submaximally contracting [isometric contractions at 3 Hz; approximately 50% of peak O2 uptake (VO2)] in situ canine gastrocnemius (n = 6) was manipulated by decreasing arterial PO2 (hypoxemia; H) or muscle blood flow (ischemia; I) during three separate periods in each muscle [control (C), H, or I; each separated by 45 min of rest]. O2 delivery was reduced gradually in small steps every 3 min by H or I during two of the contraction periods (6 steps for a total of 21 min; O2 delivery reduced by 67% by the end of 21 min), whereas C was at normal O2 delivery for a 15-min period. Muscle VO2 was maintained at control levels for the first two O2 delivery reduction steps for the H and I conditions and then fell proportionally with O2 delivery to approximately 35% of the initial value by the end of the 21-min contraction period. Muscle force development generally fell in parallel with VO2. There was no significant changes from the values obtained during C contractions in intracellular concentrations of ATP, phosphocreatine, NH3, calculated free ADP, lactate, and redox state ratios as the O2 delivery was reduced, even with the severe decline in VO2 and developed force. These results demonstrated that when O2 availability was reduced gradually to contracting skeletal muscle, 1) developed force (ATP utilization) was reduced through a tight coupling with aerobic ATP supply, such that there was little additional disruption of intracellular homeostasis, and 2) there was an apparent dissociation of some of the proposed regulators of cell respiration and force development from the control of these processes.


Distributed learning is an effective way to analyze big data. In distributed regression, a typical approach is to divide the big data into multiple blocks, apply a base regression algorithm on each of them, and then simply average the output functions learnt from these blocks. Since the average process will decrease the variance, not the bias, bias correction is expected to improve the learning performance if the base regression algorithm is a biased one. Regularization kernel network is an effective and widely used method for nonlinear regression analysis. In this paper we will investigate a bias corrected version of regularization kernel network. We derive the error bounds when it is applied to a single data set and when it is applied as a base algorithm in distributed regression. We show that, under certain appropriate conditions, the optimal learning rates can be reached in both situations.


Received 22 August 2017; Accepted 23 August 2017; Published 24 November 2017 Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Journal of the International AIDS Society published by John Wiley & sons Ltd on behalf of the International AIDS Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


This study examines the impact of CCTV footage on clearance rates for crimes occurring on the rail network in New South Wales. Nearest neighbour matching was used to compare criminal matters with and without camera footage. Cases were matched on principal offence type, spatial and temporal characteristics and offence severity. Overall, 24.8 percent of matters where footage was requested were solved by police, compared with 21.0 percent of matters where footage was not requested—an 18 percent increase in clearance rates. Footage was provided to police for nine out of 10 requests and was associated with an estimated 20 percent increase in clearance rates. Results varied by offence type, with larger increases observed for theft and property damage than for assault, and for offences at night. Timely access to CCTV footage for criminal investigations is associated with increased clearance rates for crimes on the rail network.


The energy sector is undergoing decarbonization, decentralization, and digitalization. This paper explores the application of blockchain in this transition. Based on structured interviews with 15 experts of energy and blockchain in Germany, practical challenges and opportunities are explored from multiple perspectives: technological, economic, social, environmental, and institutional dimensions. A critical identified issue is the matching of regulatory change with technological advancements, potentially facilitated through multi-stakeholder engagement and regulatory sandboxes. At large, this paper aims to contribute with holistic insights and outlooks for blockchain in the energy sector.


BACKGROUND
Pakistan is one of the remaining 24 countries which have not yet achieved Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus Elimination (MNTE), The country adopted high-risk approach for 56 out of 119 districts with country-wide Tetanus Toxoid (TT) provision in Routine Immunization (RI) during early 2000-2003. The TT's mass campaigns could only cover 13% of high risk districts for 2009- 2011, and mostly for the Punjab province. To achieve MNT elimination, the country needs risk mapping for cost-effective intervention.

METHODS
We used both the quantitative and qualitative methods to conduct risk characterization. All the three available data sets (Reported EPI coverage data, PDHS 2012-13, and PSLM 2010-11) were assessed. A mix of core and surrogate indicators-for risk categorization was used through ranking and scoring the aggregated data and considering the past tetanus campaigns' coverage. Tetanus Toxoid (TT2+)-coverage of pregnant women and delivery in health facility, both received more weightage in scoring. We based the higher and lower cuts off points for each indicator on data ranges. The districts with higher scores, i.e., 10.5 and above were ranked good followed by medium (5.5-10.4) and low performing (less than 5.5). Consultations with the national and provincial field officers were utilized to understand the local context.

RESULTS
In Pakistan, there are 139 districts out of which, 60 are the high risk districts for tetanus. Highest percentage is for Baluchistan (83%) followed by Sindh (52%), and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (40%). Most of the Punjab is at medium risk (55%), followed by KP (52%), and Sindh (39%).

CONCLUSION
Pakistan is at medium to high risk of MNT with a great variation at the sub-national level. Campaigns aiming to these districts may bring the country closer to MNT elimination target.


In his late work, Michel Foucault elaborates on the notion of resistance in a meticulous fashion, introducing the more precise concept of counter-conduct. This article contributes to this topical discussion within a specific framework: the gay mode of life. First, the article underlines the fundamental role of relatedness, which is characterised in terms of existential sharing and participation, and also as an affective dynamics of traversal. Second, what is addressed and elaborated is Foucault's idea of "becoming homosexual" or "becoming gay". Gay or queer relations, due to their very manner of existence, flee as well as pervasively disrupt the functioning of those discourses, institutions and apparatuses through which governmental power conducts our conduct. The article claims that gay/queer counter-conduct in Foucault's sense not only intersects with, but also significantly differs from care of the self and parrēsia, that is, the central form of counter-conduct in late Foucault. There is no need to construct any hierarchic setting, in which one set of counter-conductive practices would be deemed as pre-eminent, and the other one as secondary or subjugated. Instead, we can see the different modalities as interrelated and mutually supplementary.


Human Resource Management System (HRMS) refers to an array of software including Human Capital Management (HCM) and Human Resource Information System (HRIS)that help HR staff take care of an organization's most valuable assets, people. HR tasks are too complex and time-consuming when performed manually. Leveraging the help of a technological solution like an HRMS can help you save time, cut costs, and manage your staff better.Depending on your needs, you could opt for a simple HR Management Software with features that takes care of day-to-day administrative tasks like Employee Management, Leave Management, etc. Or you could choose a solution that addresses the strategic areas of human resource management like Training & Development, Performance Management, and Recruitment. Keywords: HRM Functions, HRM Effectiveness, HRM Relationships, HRM software.


Objective: To investigate possible relationships between symptoms of ADHD and of learning disorder (LD) in a population geographically, culturally, and linguistically distinct from previous studies. Method: The authors evaluated a cross section of 834 Colombian schoolchildren for childhood neurological pathologies on the basis of a medical examination and performance with reference to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (4th ed.) attention checklist, the General and Differential Aptitudes Battery, and the Visual–Motor Integration (VMI) test. Results: Of the total sample, 382 were classified as "ADHD only," 54 as "LD only," and 75 as "ADHD + LD." A total of 459 had low VMI scores. ADHD, LD, and low VMI were significantly interrelated. Among the children with ADHD, the attention deficit subtype tended to have more learning problems than the hyperactive subtype, who showed no major deficiencies in their learning ability. Conclusions: This study provides additional evidence demonstrating a relationship between LD and ADHD, particularly with respect to verbal reasoning, visual–auditory memory, and VMI.


An easy route for preparation emulsion of kaolinite (Al2Si2O5.4H2O) from Sweileh sand deposits, west Amman, Jordan by hydrochloric acid under continuous stirring for 4 h at room temperature was performed and nano kaolinite powder was used as an adsorbent for the removal of Cu(II), Zn(II) and Ni(II) ions. Nano kaolinite was characterized by XRD, FT-IR and SEM techniques. Effect of pH, adsorbent dose, initial metal ion concentration, contact time and temperature on adsorption process was examined. The negative values of ΔGo and the positive value of ΔHo revealed that the adsorption process was spontaneous and endothermic. The Langmuir isotherm model fitted well to metal ions adsorption data and the adsorption capacity. The kinetic data provided the best correlation of the adsorption with pseudo-second order kinetic model. In view of promising efficiency, the nano kaolinite can be employed for heavy metal ions adsorption.


Soil-pile interaction in liquefying soils is very complex and involves rapid changes in soil characteristics and loads on piles. Thus, when analyzing the behaviour of piles with a simplified pseudo-static approach, the key issue is how to determine appropriate values for the parameters of the model while considering the inherent uncertainties associated with liquefaction. This paper identifies key parameters in the pseudo-static analysis of piles in liquefying soils and provides guidance for their determination based on observations from case histories and full-size tests.


This article examines the educational efficacy of a learning environment in which children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) engage in social interactions with an artificially intelligent (AI) virtual agent and where a human practitioner acts in support of the interactions. A multi-site intervention study in schools across the UK was conducted with 29 children with ASC and learning difficulties, aged 4--14 years old. For reasons related to data completeness and amount of exposure to the AI environment, data for 15 children was included in the analysis. The analysis revealed a significant increase in the proportion of social responses made by ASC children to human practitioners. The number of initiations made to human practitioners and to the virtual agent by the ASC children also increased numerically over the course of the sessions. However, due to large individual differences within the ASC group, this did not reach significance. Although no evidence of transfer to the real-world post-test was shown, anecdotal evidence of classroom transfer was reported. The work presented in this article offers an important contribution to the growing body of research in the context of AI technology design and use for autism intervention in real school contexts. Specifically, the work highlights key methodological challenges and opportunities in this area by leveraging interdisciplinary insights in a way that (i) bridges between educational interventions and intelligent technology design practices, (ii) considers the design of technology as well as the design of its use (context and procedures) on par with one another, and (iii) includes design contributions from different stakeholders, including children with and without ASC diagnosis, educational practitioners, and researchers.


Dealing with missing values and incomplete time series is a labor-intensive, tedious, inevitable task when handling data coming from real-world applications. Effective spatio-temporal representations would allow imputation methods to reconstruct missing temporal data by exploiting information coming from sensors at different locations. However, standard methods fall short in capturing the nonlinear time and space dependencies existing within networks of interconnected sensors and do not take full advantage of the available - and often strong - relational information. Notably, most state-of-the-art imputation methods based on deep learning do not explicitly model relational aspects and, in any case, do not exploit processing frameworks able to adequately represent structured spatio-temporal data. Conversely, graph neural networks have recently surged in popularity as both expressive and scalable tools for processing sequential data with relational inductive biases. In this work, we present the first assessment of graph neural networks in the context of multivariate time series imputation. In particular, we introduce a novel graph neural network architecture, named GRIN, which aims at reconstructing missing data in the different channels of a multivariate time series by learning spatio-temporal representations through message passing. Empirical results show that our model outperforms state-of-the-art methods in the imputation task on relevant real-world benchmarks with mean absolute error improvements often higher than 20%.


OBJECTIVE
Measuring performance is the first step on the road to improving it. This report presents the results of an exploratory study sponsored by the Quality Assurance (QA) Project to describe and quantify the quality of supervisor-provider interactions in health care facilities in Zimbabwe in 1999. Supervisors were district and municipal nursing officers who are responsible for guiding, assisting, and motivating health providers at government and missionary health facilities.

DESIGN
The study's design was qualitative. It involved the triangulation of data from various sources: structured observations of supervisors, audiotaping of supervisor-provider interactions, recording of all supervisory activities, and interviews with supervisors and supervisees. A team composed of current and past supervisors, along with researchers, determined the supervisory practices that would be measured.

STUDY PARTICIPANTS
Sixteen district-level government, municipality, and Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council supervisors from four provinces participated in the study.

RESULTS
The study found that supervisors devoted <5% of their time to patient care issues. The supervisors' main strengths were in giving feedback on technical standards, discussing and analyzing data, and developing a rapport with the providers. They were most deficient in making suggestions, seeking client input, problem solving with the providers, and building on previous (and future) supervisory visits. None of the supervisors observed achieved the threshold set in advance by the team for exemplary performance.

CONCLUSION
The study concludes with recommendations to the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare on how the quality of supervision in Zimbabwe could be improved.


The presentation of technical information graphically through the use of sketches, mechanical drawings, and CAD systems is a fundamental part of engineering practice. Differences in background experience and gender cause many individuals to possess impaired ability to spatially visualise solutions to problems. However, these abilities can be developed and enhanced through both formal educational and informal experiences.

The development and integration of a computer-based visualisation course was initiated at RMIT in the 1992 as part of departmental educational effort to advance engineering graphics instruction. The problem of determining the effectiveness of various engineering graphics educational aids in developing students' spatial abilities was addressed in a research project that started in 1993.

The paper discusses the research project, presents findings from the study, reviews the engineering graphics course offered to all first year engineering students in 1993 and 1994, and recommends future developments.


China's demand for skilled workers, including from Australia, in their emerging economy is continuing. Australians working in China as employees or as consultants are likely to encounter many cultural but also legal differences, including different tax treatment of their remuneration. Although the taxation of remuneration in China has some similarities with the Australian tax system, there are at least three differences that are worth noting. These differences relate to treatment of residency (referred to in China as 'domicile rules') which allow foreigners to pay Chinese tax only on Chinese-source income if the person is resident for less than 5 full years; the more favourable treatment of allowances and bonuses and the tendency to tax foreign workers more favourably than domestic workers. This article considers those differences and notes the pressures that may mean that features of the Chinese personal tax system could change.


Human robot interaction (HRI) tasks requires robots to have safe sharing of work space and to demonstrate adaptable compliant behavior enabling eminent collision safety as well as maintaining high position accuracy. Robot compliance control normally can be achieved by using active compliance control of actuators based on various sensor data. Alternatively, passive devices allow controllable compliance motion but usually are mechanically complex. We proposed a unique method using semi-active compliant actuation mechanism having magneto-rheological (MR) fluid based actutaor that introduces reconfigurable compliance characteristics into the robot joints. This enables high intrinsic safety coming from fluid mechanics as well as, it offers simpler interaction control strategy compared to other concurrent approaches. In this studies, we have described three essential modes of motions required for physical human system interaction. Furthermore, we have demonstarted robot collision safety in terms of static collision and experimentally validates the performance of robot manipulator enabling safe human robot interaction.


This study aims to numerically investigate on the crashworthiness of thin-walled square tubes by consideration of 3-D oblique loading. In this type of loading, direction of loading is defined by using two spatial angles relative to the position of the tube. To this aim, finite element (FE) analysis is employed to simulate the loading for 8 different numerical models with different loading orientation. Subsequently, load-displacement diagrams as well as deformation shapes during the loading are derived for each model. Moreover, a study is done on the tube collapse mode for each case. Effect of loading orientation and tube thickness on the maximum crushing load and energy absorption are also studied via a parametric study on the FE simulations. Results indicated a different trend for all cases of 3D oblique loading compared to axial loading. This study highlights the significance of consideration of a 3D orientation in analysis of crushing behavior of thin-walled tubes.


No matter what industry or activity, when a human is performing a task, there is a possibility that the person carrying out that task could make an error. There are numerous studies showing the contribution of poor procedures towards human error, which led to an incident, ranges between 65-90%. Process Safety Management legislation such as Seveso III and OSHA 1910.119, require the use of procedures when executing safety critical tasks and as such regulators have recognized the importance of having a set of good quality procedures as part of the management of human factors.
 As companies begin to embrace the concepts of digitalization and big data, the main challenge still remains … 'how do we make a step change in reducing human error in heavily paper based operating and maintenance procedures?'
 This paper will provide examples of how poor procedures have led to human error causing across industry incidents, introduce the background to human factors with respect to procedures and explain some of human error categories to which people are susceptible. The paper will then explain the road map approach that the UK regulator (UK Health and Safety Executive) has adopted as part of their Human Factors Delivery Guide. The paper then shows how the energy industry's approach return these procedures back into a paper format, fails to take advantage of available digital technologies to make the step changes in reducing human error.
 This paper shows that incidents continue to occur in all industries due to human error in procedures and shows how the drive from the regulator to perform Critical Tasks Analysis can actually lead to procedures becoming less useable (f these reviews are not performed correctly). The paper will then show how taking a digital approach to meeting these new regulatory requirements provides the opportunity to digitize existing operating and maintenance procedures, enabling a structured, efficient and auditable approach to theses assessments. The paper will also show how the adoption of the available digital technologies provide new performance influencing techniques that are not available in paper-based systems.
 The paper will also show how emerging technologies such as Augmented Reality can further enable the transition to these new technologies and how big data, can provide additional continuous improvements in procedures, ensure appropriate competencies are in place for field workers performing tasks and also introduce significant efficiencies to lower operation costs.
 Human error continues to contribute significantly to incidents in the energy and other industries. To address this, regulators, such as the UK Health and Safety Executive, are placing new requirements on operating companies to ensure the risks associated with errors in procedures are managed more effectively. The opportunity to make a step change in reducing human error, whilst also providing an efficient work flow, will lead to safer working environments, reduce potential impacts on the environment and also provide efficiencies for operation and maintenance teams, which will lead to savings in Operational Expenditure.


In Germany the only regulation concerning dispersion modelling is found in Annex C of the Technical Instructions on Air Quality Control (TA Luft). It prescribes a Gaussian plume model but does not consider features such as wet deposition, dynamic plume rise and transport in structured terrain. Several VDI Guidelines have been formulated to harmonize handling of those features. However, concerning dispersion modelling in the vicinity of a source where the influence of buildings has to be taken into account, no general proposal has been made. As there are several models to calculate flow and concentration fields in the vicinity of buildings, first steps have been made in the State of Northrhine–Westphalia to find a pragmatic approach for using these models to determine annual means and percentiles. Thereby the number of different meteorological situations to be considered has to be reduced. The resulting coarser classification of wind speed, wind direction and stability classes must be based on the available meteorological frequency distributions.


Do high skill immigrant workers find employment corresponding to their training? Using unpublished data from the 1996 census, we examine the occupational locations of men age 30-54 who have a university degree with a major in engineering. We focus on three groups: Canadian born, foreign born who immigrated before age 19 and the foreign-born arriving after age 27, arguing that the first two are most likely to be educated in Canada whereas the last group is not. We find birth place differences in the percentages who are working in managerial, engineering, technical and all other occupations, with differences being most pronounced for those immigrating after age 27. Multinomial logit analysis confirms that these differences cannot be attributed to differences in measured human capital stock. Accreditation requirements are one likely explanation, particularly for those who have received training outside Canada.


In the fall of 1980 a rupture of one of the Project's 525kV transmission cables occurred and created a fire. Power from three Third Powerplant 700MW units was interrupted, complete cable replacement was required, the underground concrete-lined tunnel was heavily damaged in the fire area, and the cable oil storage tanks in the tunnel were lost. The results of this fire and others less in severity prompted a thorough review of the Project's fire protection. In January 1982, a contract was awarded to Gage-Babcock and Associates, Inc. , to perform a fire protection engineering survey of the Project. The survey and prepared report analyzed and described the existing conditions, identified deficiencies, made recommendations, and provided cost estimates for correction of the deficiencies. The paper includes descriptions of the fire systems analysis, water supply systems, alarm and detection systems, ventilation systems, emergency systems, and preliminary design aspects of the Project's fire protection plan as it relates to the powerplants.


We analyzed how juvenile bearded seals Erignathus barbatus use and move through sea ice and consider how future ice conditions might affect bearded seal distribution and behavior. In October 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2009, we tagged 29 (16 female and 13 male) juvenile (0−2 yr old) bearded seals with Argos satellite transmitters in Kotzebue Sound, Alaska, USA, who then freely moved through the Chukchi and Bering Seas. Movement data were initially analyzed using behavior discriminating state-space models. These results were subsequently analyzed with mixedeffects models to relate inferred behavioral state to environmental variables (sea ice, water depth, season, distance to ice edge) and then with a modified resource selection function using the same environmental variables. Sea ice concentration was highly predictive of use, but had a non-linear effect, with seals preferring intermediate concentrations and areas closer to the ice edge (defined here as 15% sea ice concentration). Behavior was also affected by sea ice and other environmental conditions. When seals were in dense sea ice, they were likely to express an encamped movement pattern; when in open water or sparse ice, they tended to express transiting behavior. The seasonal migratory behavior of bearded seals, at least in juveniles, appears to result from tracking the sea ice edge as it seasonally expands and recedes over the Bering and Chukchi continental shelves. The association with the ice edge suggests that bearded seal habitat will shift as the climate warms.


Secure Multi-party Computation (SMC) problems deal with the following situation: Two (or many) parties want to jointly perform a computation. Each party needs to contribute its private input to this computation, but no party should disclose its private inputs to the other parties, or to any third party. With the proliferation of the Internet, SMC problems becomes more and more important. So far no practical solution has emerged, largely because SMC studies have been focusing on zero information disclosure, an ideal security model that is expensive to achieve.Aiming at developing practical solutions to SMC problems, we propose a new paradigm, in which we use an acceptable security model that allows partial information disclosure. Our conjecture is that by lowering the restriction on the security, we can achieve a much better performance. The paradigm is motivated by the observation that in practice people do accept a less secure but much more efficient solution because sometimes disclosing information about their private data to certain degree is a risk that many people would rather take if the performance gain is so significant. Moreover, in our paradigm, the security is adjustable, such that users can adjust the level of security based on their definition of the acceptable security. We have developed a number of techniques under this new paradigm, and are currently conducting extensive studies based on this new paradigm.