This paper describes the design of the single entry tunneler (SET), devised to create a loop-shaped path in forearm subcutaneous tissue prior to placement of a vascular graft for hemodialysis access. Existing tunnelers are almost universally rigid and require high forces and multiple incisions to complete even the most simple path geometries. Furthermore, they are guided from the handle with limited tip-location feedback. This paper presents a three-stage tunneler design consisting of concentric nested tubes. The first stage is a straight stainless steel tube; the second is a smaller pre-curved nitinol tube and the third is a straight inner nitinol tube. By deploying the stages in this order, SET is able to produce an approximately180 ◦ looped path in tissue. A tip that is illuminated via a fiber optic cable provides visual feedback of the tip location. The SET outer diameter is limited to ensure that the pre-curved nitinol will not exceed its yield strain and not require an excessive force to be deployed from the straight outer stage. Therefore, a custom dilator was designed to increase the size of the tunnel to one suitable for the intended graft. A prototype of the SET tunneler and dilator system was manufactured. The device was shown to achieve the desired path in ballistics gel and was capable of at least 100 repeated-use cycles. By reducing the number of required incisions and improving ease of use during graft insertion procedures, the SET has the potential to greatly reduce the risk of infection and degree of unnecessary tissue trauma while increasing tunneling accuracy.


Population structure, extent of linkage disequilibrium (LD) as well as signatures of selection were investigated in sorghum using a core sample representative of worldwide diversity. A total of 177 accessions were genotyped with 1122 informative physically anchored DArT markers. The properties of DArTs to describe sorghum genetic structure were compared to those of SSRs and of previously published RFLP markers. Model-based (STRUCTURE software) and Neighbor-Joining diversity analyses led to the identification of 6 groups and confirmed previous evolutionary hypotheses. Results were globally consistent between the different marker systems. However, DArTs appeared more robust in terms of data resolution and bayesian group assignment. Whole genome linkage disequilibrium as measured by mean r2 decreased from 0.18 (between 0 to 10 kb) to 0.03 (between 100 kb to 1 Mb), stabilizing at 0.03 after 1 Mb. Effects on LD estimations of sample size and genetic structure were tested using i. random sampling, ii. the Maximum Length SubTree algorithm (MLST), and iii. structure groups. Optimizing population composition by the MLST reduced the biases in small samples and seemed to be an efficient way of selecting samples to make the best use of LD as a genome mapping approach in structured populations. These results also suggested that more than 100,000 markers may be required to perform genome-wide association studies in collections covering worldwide sorghum diversity. Analysis of DArT markers differentiation between the identified genetic groups pointed out outlier loci potentially linked to genes controlling traits of interest, including disease resistance genes for which evidence of selection had already been reported. In addition, evidence of selection near a homologous locus of FAR1 concurred with sorghum phenotypic diversity for sensitivity to photoperiod.


By allowing voters to choose among candidates with com- peting policy orientations and by providing incentives for incumbents to shape policy in the direction the public desires, elections are thought to provide the foundation that links government policy to the preferences of the governed. In this article I examine the extent to which the preference/ policy link is biased toward the preferences of high-income Americans. Using an original data set of almost two thousand survey questions on proposed policy changes between 1981 and 2002, I find a moderately strong relationship between what the public wants and what the govern- ment does, albeit with a strong bias toward the status quo. But I also find that when Americans with different income levels differ in their policy preferences, actual policy outcomes strongly reflect the preferences of the most affluent but bear virtually no relationship to the preferences of poor or middle-income Americans. The vast discrepancy I find in government responsiveness to citizens with different incomes stands in stark contrast to the ideal of political equality that Americans hold dear. Although per- fect political equality is an unrealistic goal, representational biases of this magnitude call into question the very democratic character of our society. A key characteristic of democracy is the continuing responsiveness of the gov- ernment to the preferences of its citizens, considered as political equals.


We consider the semi-supervised clustering problem where crowdsourcing provides noisy information about the pairwise comparisons on a small subset of data, i.e., whether a sample pair is in the same cluster. We propose a new approach that includes a deep generative model (DGM) to characterize low-level features of the data, and a statistical relational model for noisy pairwise annotations on its subset. The two parts share the latent variables. To make the model automatically trade-off between its complexity and fitting data, we also develop its fully Bayesian variant. The challenge of inference is addressed by fast (natural-gradient) stochastic variational inference algorithms, where we effectively combine variational message passing for the relational part and amortized learning of the DGM under a unified framework. Empirical results on synthetic and real-world datasets show that our model outperforms previous crowdsourced clustering methods.


This thesis address how robotic arms, called manipulators, can learn a task demonstrated by a teacher. The concept of showing a robot a task, instead of manually programming it, is appealing since it makes it easier to instruct robots. This thesis will introduce the basics of manipulators and techniques suitable for robot learning including an introduction to reinforcement learning. Also a number of other researchers' work are reviewed from the viewpoint of how they apply robot learning from a teacher, and how this knowledge can be reused when a similar problem is faced. One key part of this thesis is an overview of the field Robot Learning from Demonstration, focusing on robotic manipulators, but work including humanoids and mobile robots are also covered. Challenges, such as how to learn from the demonstration, and what to learn are presented together with related work. Initial experiments on learning from a teacher's demonstration, have been carried out using a manipulator and a motion capturing device as a platform. The experiments investigated areposition teaching of a robotic arm using neural networks and a minimum distance classifier,reinforcement learning algorithm for a reaching task, where a demonstrated trajectory was used as bias.Based on the presented work we suggest a future work direction and that provide the robot with some basic behaviours needed to learn other higher level tasks.


California Drought Impact v2 is an interactive data visualization and sonification that depict the causes and impact of the drought and promote awareness of water consumption. It uses multivariate data of the California drought to create wooden data sculptures and projection-mapping images. This newer version improved the previous version by enhancing accuracy of sensing system, incorporating tactile input system and water sound. This work expands the possibility of creating diverse audiovisual results based on user interaction, and depicts the past, present, and future of the drought, which is a major concern on our environment and society. This multimodal data representation not only provides an aesthetically meaningful visualization but also explores how to coexist between art and our environment using the hybrid practices of art and design.


This article looks at women's representation in local government in Pakistan, focusing particularly on the introduction of a quota setting 33 per cent of the seats for women brought in under General Musharraf's Devolution of Power Plan in 2000. The article suggests that establishing a direct correlation between a woman's quota and regime type is problematic. It demonstrates a complex pattern of interaction on the issue by both the military and civilian regimes in Pakistan. Policies which have been brought in, informed both by political pragmatism and ideological continuity, have been wide ranging and almost contradictory in nature. The article also highlights the importance of the roles of NGOs and women activists in providing capacity building and support for mobilising women both as candidates and as voters. It shows that women's struggles at grassroots can bring achievements even in spaces where patriarchal norms rule, but these pathways to political empowerment are uneven and unpredictable.


The initial form of a tsunami originated by an homogeneous seismic source consists on a simple wave front. While the tsunami propagates in deep water, this simple form suffers several modifications by the tsunami's interaction with the ocean basin's bathymetry. When the tsunami climbs the continental slope, it suffers more modifications due to the bathymetry and topography of the coastal region. The manner in which these local features modify the tsunami's form depends on the tsunami's form itself, i.e., different tsunamis arriving at the same location do not have the same form, though resemblances can be identified among them, and also among the same tsunami arriving to different regions. In this paper the importance that these modifications on the tsunami's form acquires when it approaches to the coast, is identified for the arrival of the Alaska 1964's tsunami to Hilo Bay in Hawaii and of the Indonesia 2004 and 2005's tsunamis to Colombo in Sri Lanka.


A laboratory small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) system with a dual energy (Mo and Cr) source has been designed and established with the aim of studying the heterogeneity in high-Z metallic structural materials such as steels (Fe alloy) and other materials. With the combination of Mo and Cr energies, various camera lengths (maximum of 2400 mm), and an area detector, three decades of q range has been achieved, from 0.024 to 14 nm−1. In real space, the probing periodic distance is a maximum of 261 nm. SAXS profiles of 9Cr-ODS steel powders with good statistics with a measurement time of 6 h show the aptness and viability of this system for the investigation of high-`Z' (high-absorption) metallic structural materials. In addition to having Mo and Cr sources, a flexible sample mounting stage permits measurements on a wide range of materials from soft to hard and liquid to solid, both in transmission and in grazing-incidence geometry.


In the 1966 study of the population of Busselton, Australia, blood sugar and serum insulin levels were measured one hour after an oral glucose load, in addition to the conventional cardiovascular risk factors. The six-year incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) and the 12-yr mortality from CHD and from all cardiovascular diseases is described in relation to the initial baseline variables measured using the upper 20th percentile values (agespecific and sex-specific) to define the risk ratios. In younger subjects (ages less than 60 yr), elevated blood pressure levels for both sexes (risk ratios from 2.9 to 5.2) and elevated serum cholesterol concentrations for males (risk ratios from 3.0 to 3.3) were strong predictors of cardiovascular risk. In men aged 60 to 69 yr, those with upper range one-hour serum insulin concentrations showed marked associations with the six-year incidence of CHD, the 12-yr mortality from CHD, and the 12-yr mortality from all cardiovascular diseases (risk ratios were 2.0, 2.3, and 2.4, respectively). The relationship of elevated serum insulin and cardiovascular mortality persisted when males of all ages were analyzed, and it appeared to be independent of the other major risk factors. In females, no association between serum insulin and CHD or cardiovascular disease could be found. Although the age and sex specific upper 20th percentile values for one-hour blood sugar concentrations showed a low grade association in patients with subsequent cardiovascular disease end points, more noticeable risk ratios were demonstrated at the higher blood sugar level of 200 mg/100 ml or greater (in the age group 60 yr and over, risk ratios were 2.2 in males and 2.6 in females.


This classic treatment of linear algebra presents the fundamentals in the clearest possible way, examining basic ideas by means of computational examples and geometrical interpretation. It proceeds from familiar concepts to the unfamiliar, from the concrete to the abstract. Readers consistently praise this outstanding text for its expository style and clarity of presentation. * The applications version features a wide variety of interesting, contemporary applications. * Clear, accessible, step-by-step explanations make the material crystal clear. * Established the intricate thread of relationships between systems of equations, matrices, determinants, vectors, linear transformations and eigenvalues.


Let $G$ be a connected graph with the usual shortest-path metric $d$. The graph $G$ is $\delta$-hyperbolic provided for any vertices $x,y,u,v$ in it, the two larger of the three sums $d(u,v)+d(x,y),d(u,x)+d(v,y)$ and $d(u,y)+d(v,x)$ differ by at most $2\delta.$ The graph $G$ is $k$-chordal provided it has no induced cycle of length greater than $k.$ Brinkmann, Koolen and Moulton find that every $3$-chordal graph is $1$-hyperbolic and that graph is not $\frac{1}{2}$-hyperbolic if and only if it contains one of two special graphs as an isometric subgraph. For every $k\geq 4,$ we show that a $k$-chordal graph must be $\frac{\lfloor\frac{k}{2}\rfloor}{2}$-hyperbolic and there does exist a $k$-chordal graph which is not $\frac{\lfloor \frac{k-2}{2}\rfloor}{2}$-hyperbolic. Moreover, we prove that a $5$-chordal graph is $\frac{1}{2}$-hyperbolic if and only if it does not contain any of a list of five special graphs as an isometric subgraph.


Abstract Household debt is at a record high in most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and it played a crucial role in the recent financial crisis. Several arguments on the macroeconomic drivers of household debt have been put forward, and most have been empirically tested, albeit in isolation of each other. This article empirically tests 7 competing hypotheses on the macroeconomic determinants of household indebtedness together in one econometric study. Existing arguments suggest that residential house prices, upward movements in the prices of assets demanded by households, the income share of the top 1%, falling wages, the rolling back of the welfare state, the age structure of the population, and the short-term interest rate drive household indebtedness. We formulate these arguments as hypotheses and test them for a panel of 13 OECD countries over the period 1993–2011 using error correction models. We also investigate whether effects differ in boom and bust phases of the debt and house price cycles. The results show that the most robust macroeconomic determinant of household debt is real residential house prices, and that the phase of the debt and house price cycles plays a role in household debt accumulation.


Abstract Here we record the occurrence of a new species of the Herefordshire Lagerstätte ostracod genus Pauline from the Lower Silurian (upper Telychian) of North Greenland. Pauline nivisis sp. nov. was recovered from a limestone boulder (Pentamerus Bjerge Formation) collected south of Kap Schuchert, Washington Land. It is reasonable to transpose the palaeobiology known from the Herefordshire Pauline avibella – body, limbs including swimming antennae, lateral eyes, gills and alimentary system – into the carapace of the Greenland species, which represents the oldest cylindroleberidid myodocopid and almost the oldest known myodocope, and is the first record of a Herefordshire Lagerstätte genus from outside the Welsh Borderland locality. Morphological, sedimentological and faunal evidence suggest that the Greenland species was nektobenthic. This is compatible with the notion that ostracods (specifically myodocopids) did not invade the water column until later in the Silurian, in the Wenlock and Ludlow epochs. Pauline is an Early Silurian link between 'Baltic-British' and North Laurentian ostracod faunas, endorsing the idea that the UK and Greenland were in close geographical proximity, near a remnant Iapetus Ocean, during late Llandovery time.


ID: 17989 Title: Incorporating a Lateral Scan Effect Correction in a EBT3 Calibration Protocol Purpose:To use the new EBT3 Gafchromic films for large modulated field dosimetry, a lateral scan correction needs to be performed. We propose a lateral correction built in in the calibration curve. The feasibility of this calibration methodology is evaluated. Methods:The relative scan value (Transmittance, T) is associated with the dose using a rational function with three parameters: T0 the unirradiated transmittance, Tmax the maximal transmittance, and b3 a parameter scaling the impact of the dose. Because, the lateral scan effect is inherent to the scanner transmission system, a parabolic correction is implemented in the calibration function itself, instead of a post calibration correction. To assess a sufficient sampling of both the dose and the lateral dependency in the calibration procedure, eight dose levels are irradiated to two lateral locations on two uncut calibration films (one location per film). The resulting calibration function is validated by delivering known uniform doses on eight strips a single film. The central pixel line of each validation strip is converted to dose for the three (RGB) color channels. To show lateral independence of the measured dose, the central pixel line is divided in five 2 inch ROIs, subsequently, the root mean square error (RMSE) of these ROIs is calculated. Results:The dose errors (1SD) are 2%, 2.2%, and 2% for the red, green, and blue color channel respectively. The red channel dose, without lateral correction, has a maximal RMSE >2.5%, for the outer ROI. The proposed methodology results in a maximal RMSE < 0.5% for all ROIs and all three color channels in a [0.57,4.16]Gy dose range. Conclusions:The scanner-transmission system with the new EBT3 gafchromic films is calibrated with a calibration protocol incorporating the lateral scan effect. This method reduces the RMSE from 2.5% to 0.5%. Funding Support, Disclosures, and Conflict of Interest: Research was supported Ashland Specialty Ingredients Wayne, New Jersey 07470, and PEO Radiation Technology bvba, 2320 Hoogstraten, Belgium. The authors acknowledge David Lewis and Andre Micke for thier fruitfull discussions.


Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of a large number of small, simple sensor nodes which support sensing, processing, and wireless transmission capabilities in order to monitor some physical environment. The data that they collect will be transmitted to an information sink where it can be accessed by the user. Due to the vast number of nodes expected in many WSN applications, there is the possibility that at certain times the network may have potentially huge amounts of data to transmit to the sink. The fact that the nodes have limited energy resources means that when a huge amount of data is generated, the nodes' batteries will be depleted at aggressive rates as nodes try to forward this data to the sink. This problem will be particularly severe in regions of the network close to the sink, as nodes in these regions will be responsible for routing the data from large areas of the network to the sink. This phenomenon is often described as a "data-implosion" around the sink. We develop a model of the node data in a wireless sensor network based on a stochastic model of the underlying phenomenon being observed by the network. The model is based on a stationary Gaussian random field and we use this model to study the size and spatial distribution of the sets of nodes that observe statistically high data. This knowledge is exploited in order to ameliorate the data-implosion problem. Effectively, we implement a data suppression scheme that only lets nodes which sense statistically high data attempt to transmit their data to the sink. Further, we also use our model to study network data that belongs to a given contour level and show that we can achieve further data suppression by only transmitting node data if it belongs to some predefined contour level. Finally, we show how the knowledge of the size and spatial distribution of statistically high node data in a WSN can be used to study the traffic in both schedule and contention based MAC protocols.


To get a better understanding of the current population decline of Black-tailed Godwits in The Netherlands, we determined reproductive parameters in two Dutch breeding populations over the period 2002–2005 and investigated the relationship between reproductive output and timing of breeding. Annual median laying dates ranged from 14 to 25 April, and median hatching dates from 11 to 28 May. Sites differed in laying dates but not in hatching dates. Daily survival rate of nests was positively correlated to nest age and was affected by year and by the interaction of year and site, but not by laying date. The number of eggs hatching per successful nest also did not depend on laying date. Maximum chick survival (maximum estimate of the number of chicks fledged divided by the number of chicks hatched from the nest) and the probability of raising at least one chick to fledging declined significantly with hatching date, resulting in a decline of reproductive output with laying date. Minimum chick survival correlated negatively with cumulative minimum temperature during the first week after hatching. Duration of rainfall during the chick-raising period did not affect chick survival. Our estimates of reproductive output were lower than found in previous studies, and in most years reproductive output was too low to compensate for adult and juvenile mortality. Five possible proximate causes for the seasonal decline in chick survival are discussed: parental quality, weather conditions, food availability, predation pressure and mowing of the grassland habitat.


Robot navigation already has many relatively efficient solutions: reactive control, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), Rapidly-Exploring Random Trees (RRTs), etc. But many primates possess an additional inherent spatial reasoning capability: mental rotation. Our research addresses the question of what role, if any, mental rotations can play in enhancing existing robot navigational capabilities. To answer this question we explore the use of optical flow as a basis for extracting abstract representations of the world, comparing these representations with a goal state of similar format and then iteratively providing a control signal to a robot to allow it to move in a direction consistent with achieving that goal state. We study a range of transformation methods to implement the mental rotation component of the architecture, including correlation and matching based on cognitive studies. We also include a discussion of how mental rotations may play a key role in understanding spatial advice giving, particularly from other members of the species, whether in map-based format, gestures, or other means of communication. Results to date are presented on our robotic platform.


The aims of this research project are to investigate color terms, the formation of color terms and the evolution of basic color terms in the Mien language, and the attitudes towards colors of the Mien, living in northern Thailand. The data on Mien colors were collected by interviewing 48 female informants, 20–30 years old, in six villages in the provinces of Chiangrai, Phayao, Nan and Lampang, northern Thailand. Two hundred and twenty one color chips cut from a color chart used in the printing business were used for data elicitation. The research results are as follows: there are six basic color terms in the Mien language, pe '21 WHITE, cia '45 BLACK, si '45RED, ja] 31 YELLOW, me 33 GREEN and bua 454 BLUE. The Mien language is thus in Berlin and Kay's Stage V of color term evolution. It is on its way to reach the sixth stage; that is, the word lua ' PURPLE is becoming a new basic color term. This finding contradicts the theory that the seventh basic color term in Stage VI should be BROWN.


type="main"> Private companies have a natural governance advantage over public companies—one that stems mainly from the presence on their boards of their largest owners. This governance advantage is reflected in the greater effectiveness of private company executive pay plans in balancing the goals of management retention and incentive alignment against cost. Private company investor-directors are more likely to make these tradeoffs efficiently because they have both a much stronger interest in outcomes than public company directors and more company-specific knowledge than public company investors. Furthermore, private company boards do not have to contend with the external scrutiny of CEO pay and the growing number of constraints on compensation that are now faced by the directors of public companies. Such constraints focus almost entirely on one dimension of compensation governance—cost—in the belief that such constraints are required to limit the ability of directors to overpay their CEOs. In practice, any element of compensation can serve to improve retention or alignment, as well as being potentially costly to shareholders. Furthermore, any proscribed compensation element can be "worked around" by plan designers, provided the company is willing to deal with the complexity. For this reason, rules intended to deter excessive CEO pay are now effectively forcing even well-intentioned public company boards to adopt suboptimal or overly complex compensation plans, while doing little to prevent "captured" boards from overpaying CEOs. As a result, it is increasingly difficult for public companies to put in place the kinds of simple, powerful, and efficient incentive plans that are typically seen at private companies—plans that often feature bonuses funded by an uncapped share of profit growth, or upfront "mega-grants" of stock options with service-based vesting.


OBJECTIVE To investigate the association of falling insulin requirements (FIR) among women with preexisting diabetes with adverse obstetric outcomes and maternal biomarkers longitudinally in pregnancy. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A multicenter prospective cohort study of 158 women (41 with type 1 diabetes and 117 with type 2 diabetes) was conducted. Women with FIR of ≥15% from the peak total daily dose after 20 weeks' gestation were considered case subjects (n = 32). The primary outcome was a composite of clinical markers of placental dysfunction (preeclampsia, small for gestational age [≤5th centile], stillbirth, premature delivery [<30 weeks], and placental abruption). Maternal circulating angiogenic markers (placental growth factor [PlGF] and soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase 1 [sFlt-1]), placental hormones (human placental lactogen, progesterone, and tumor necrosis factor-α), HbA1c, and creatinine were studied serially during pregnancy. RESULTS FIR ≥15% were associated with an increased risk of the composite primary outcome (odds ratio [OR] 4.38 [95% CI 1.9–10.3]; P < 0.001), preeclampsia (OR 6.76 [95% CI 2.7–16.7]; P < 0.001), and was more common among women with type 1 diabetes (36.6 vs. 14.5%; P = 0.002). Creatinine was modestly elevated among women with FIR ≥15%; however, there was no difference in HbA1c. The ratio of sFlt-1 to PlGF was significantly higher among women with FIR at 25, 30, and 36 weeks, with differences maintained in the subgroup that developed preeclampsia. There was no difference in placental hormones between the groups. CONCLUSIONS This is the first prospective study to associate FIR with altered expression of placental antiangiogenic factors and preeclampsia. FIR are an important clinical sign, among women with preexisting diabetes, that should alert the clinician to investigate underlying placental dysfunction.


Background: Frontal lobe brain tumors often cause psychiatric disorders such as depression, if damage is related to dorsolateral part of the prefrontal cortex.It is more appropriate the term pseudodepression in cases where it is secondary to organic causes, such as in brain tumors. Vice versa, it is a very rare condition in which depressive symptoms anticipate the onset of a brain tumor, as showed by few cases reported in literature.
Procedure: We describe a case of pseudodepression syndrome followed 20 years after, by the appearance of a frontal lobe meningioma.
Conclusions: There are many hypotheses whereby a depression can anticipate the onset of a brain tumor. According to some authors, depression could be a risk factor for the onset of brain tumors. Hence the need, in a subject suffering from depression, to perform periodic control neuroimaging exams, to detect the possible presence of a brain tumor.


Background Ewing Sarcoma (EWS) is a mesenchymal-derived tumor that generally arises in bone and soft tissue. Intensive research regarding the pathogenesis of EWS has been insufficient to pinpoint the early events of Ewing sarcomagenesis. However, the Mesenchymal Stem Cell (MSC) is currently accepted as the most probable cell of origin. Materials and Methods In an initial study regarding a deep characterization of MSC obtained specifically from EWS patients (MSC-P), we compared them with MSC derived from healthy donors (MSC-HD) and EWS cell lines. We evaluated the presence of the EWS-FLI1 gene fusion and EWSR1 gene rearrangements in MSC-P. The presence of the EWS transcript was confirmed by q-RT-PCR. In order to determine early events possibly involved in malignant transformation, we used a multiparameter quantitative strategy that included both MSC immunophenotypic negative/positive markers, and EWS intrinsic phenotypical features. Markers CD105, CD90, CD34 and CD45 were confirmed in EWS samples. Results We determined that MSC-P lack the most prevalent gene fusion, EWSR1-FLI1 as well as EWSR1 gene rearrangements. Our study also revealed that MSC-P are more alike to MSC-HD than to EWS cells. Nonetheless, we also observed that EWS cells had a few overlapping features with MSC. As a relevant example, also MSC showed CD99 expression, hallmark of EWS diagnosis. However, we observed that, in contrast to EWS cells, MSC were not sensitive to the inhibition of CD99. Conclusions In conclusion, our results suggest that MSC from EWS patients behave like MSC-HD and are phenotypically different from EWS cells, thus raising important questions regarding MSC role in sarcomagenesis.


This paper investigates how environmental structure, given the innate properties of a population, affects the degree to which this population can adapt to the environment. The model we explore involves simple agents in a 2-d world which can sense a local food distribution and, as specified by their genomes, move to a new location and ingest the food there. Adaptation in this model consists of improving the genomic sensorimotor mapping so as to maximally exploit the environmental resources. We vary environmental structure to see its specific effect on adaptive success. In our investigation, two properties of environmental structure, conditioned by the sensorimotor capacities of the agents, have emerged as significant factors in determining adaptive success: (1) the information content of the environment which quantifies the diversity of conditions sensed, and (2) the expected utility for optimal action. These correspond to the syntactic and pragmatic aspects of environmental information, respectively. We find that the ratio of expected utility to information content predicts adaptive success measured by population gain and information content alone predicts the fraction of ideal utility achieved. These quantitative methods and specific conclusions should aid in understanding the effects of environmental structure on evolutionary adaptation in a wide range of evolving systems, both artificial and natural.


Biochar produced from swine manure compost was used to evaluate the effect of pH, temperature, size of biochar on ammonium adsorption property considering swine wastewater treatment. The Langmuir model was demonstrated to provide the best fit for the adsorption of ammonium on the biochar. Higher temperature and pH promoted the adsorption capacity of the Langmuir model parameter although the effect of particle size of the biochar was little. The kinetic studies suggested that the adsorption of ammonium on the biochar was described by the pseudo-first order kinetic model and the rate constant was affected by pH. The low removal rate of ammonium at an initial concentration of 1,000 mg-N L 1 considering primary treatment effluent indicated that the roll of adsorption by the biochar was not to remove ammonium completely, but to reduce the nitrogen load for the secondary treatment.


The negotiation of what is to count as mutually acceptable collaborative knowledge is difficult to conduct when participants cannot interact face-to-face. We review certain related work on negotiation support and develop a concept of "knowledge negotiation " that is appropriate for collaborative learning in ALNs used in school classrooms. This concept is situated within the framework of collaborative knowledge building viewed at the group unit of analysis; it contrasts with negotiation as the reconciliation of multiple personal opinions through voting. We then describe an implementation of support for knowledge negotiation in an ALN that is currently being tested in European schools.


Our society is presently seeing a trend of continuous increase of risk with severe consequences, especially those linked to environmental aspects. It has obligated us to reflect on this production and its effects, either positive or negative, and, after a long reflection, to think about the adopted model of civilization and the possibilities of changing such a model. The educational institution is among the social departments responsible for this revision process, since it represents one possibility to promote a more critical vision from society, providing it with tools needed for a more responsible action. However, schools are dominated by a traditional work, which does not allow for enough and proper attention to these relevant and current questions, and which involve a critical analysis of the conceptions and values established by our civilization, resulting in the present patterns of science-technology-society relations and their influence on the environment and health. Several research works have indicated a diversity of barriers that obstruct this necessary change. Since formal education plays an important role in the education of society for this theme, in this paper the possibilities and difficulty dealing with this problem are discussed, focusing on the question of teacher education, based on investigations related to teacher education programs for environmental education. The data collected show the urgency for introducing this theme in teacher training programs, taking into account the fact that educators have their own conceptions, values and attitudes that should be considered in these programs.


The article deals with the crime problems, that have been important to Lithuania during the last decade, i.e. throughout the transitional period and beyond it, when the market economy had been restored, and the democratic system had been more or less developed. The article also discusses and evaluates the changes in the registered and latent crimes. Due to the lack of the evaluation of the kind, there was no proper preparation for combating organized crime in Lithuania. On the basis of it, the organised crime, inherited from the Soviet empire, expressed itself rather agressively during the first five years. After the restoration of independence, and with a sudden increase of numbers in registered crime, essentially only the traditions of violent prevention, inhereted from the authoritarian state existed, even though the country was already underway of creating a democratic state and society. The violent prevention of crime is a special crime prevention (primary, secondary, third etc.) that is carried out by the law enforcement institutions. However, the violent prevention of crime makes up relatively small part of the general prevention. It is not crimonologically grounded to leave all responsibility for the quality and volume of crime prevention solely to the law enforcement institutions. In the countries of West and North Europe, the crisis of the violent prevention of crime had been observed for many years already. For this reason, the countries for the last two decades have implemented practical prevention of crime by applying different methods and means, but trying to reduce imprisonment as the least effective and the most expensive way of crime prevention. The article analyses the problems of crime prevention in a complex way, by opposing the experience of crime prevention in Lithuania to the situation and achievements in other European countries. The relation between theoretical crime development in Lithuania with the tendencies and evaluation of crime prevention, as well as the prevention possibilities at the law enforcement institutions and non-governmental organizations is reviewed. The article discusses the strategic idea suggested by the authors to increase the application of pro-active crime prevention by involving separate members of society, citizen unions, public institutions, but without granting the privilleged status to the above-mentioned, which would violate the constitutional principal of citizen equality. Unfortunately, the supporters of the police, public employees, and citizens, performing the public duty have the privilleged status according to the existing legislation (this, by the way, has remained as a relic of the authoritarian state, since public institutions under the authoritarian regime was a part of the public violence system) and tries to use violence against the fellow citizens.


The Collective Article "New Mediterranean Biodiversity Records" of the Mediterranean Marine Science journal offers the means to publish biodiversity records in the Mediterranean Sea. The current article is divided per countries, listed according to a Mediterranean west-east geographic position. New biodiversity data are reported for 7 different countries, although one species hereby reported from Malta is overall new for the entire Mediterranean basin, and is presumably present also in Israel and Lebanon (see below in Malta). Italy: the rare native fish Gobius kolombatovici is first reported from the Ionian Sea, whilst the alien jellyfish Rhopilema nomadica and the alien fish Oplegnathus fasciatus are first reported from the entire country. The presence of O. fasciatus from Trieste is concomitantly the first for the entire Adriatic Sea. Finally, the alien bivalve Arcuatula senhousia is hereby first reported from Campania (Tyrrhenian Sea). Tunisia: a bloom of the alien crab Portunus segnis is first reported from the Gulf of Gabes, from where it was considered as casual. Malta: the alien flatworm Maritigrella fuscopunctata is first recorded from the Mediterranean Sea on the basis of 25 specimens. At the same time, web researches held possible unpublished records from Israel and Lebanon. The alien crab P. segnis , already mentioned above, is first formally reported from Malta based on specimens collected in 1972. Concomitantly, the presence of Callinectes sapidus in Maltese waters is excluded since based on misidentifications. Greece: the Atlantic northern brown shrimp Penaeus atzecus , previously known from the Ionian Sea from sporadic records only, is now well established in Greek and international Ionian waters. The alien sea urchin Diadema setosum is reported from the second time from Greece, and its first record date from the country is backdated to 2010 in Rhodes Island. The alien lionfish Pterois miles is first reported from Greece and concomitantly from the entire Aegean Sea. Turkey: the alien rhodophyte Antithamnion hubbsii is first recorded from Turkey and the entire eastern Mediterranean. New distributional data are also offered for the native fishes Alectis alexandrina and Heptranchias perlo . In particular, the former record is constituted by a juvenile of 21.38 mm total length, whilst the latter by a mature male. Cyprus: the rare native cephalopod Macrotritopus defilippi , and the alien crab Atergatis roseus , sea slug Plocamopherus ocellatus and fish Cheilodipterus novemstriatus are first recorded from the entire country. Lebanon: the alien crabs Actaea savignii and Matuta victor , as well as the alien fish Synanceia verrucosa , are first recorded from the entire country. In addition, the first Mediterranean record of A. savignii is backdated to 2006, whilst the high number of M. victor specimens observed in Lebanon first suggest its establishment in the basin. The Atlantic fishes Paranthias furcifer and Seriola fasciata , and the circumtropical Rachycentron canadum , are also first reported from the country. P. furcifer record backdate its presence in the Mediterranean to 2007, whilst S. fasciata records backdate its presence in the eastern Mediterranean to 2005. Finally, two of these latter species have been recently ascribed to alien species, but all the three species may better fit the cryptogenic category, if not a new one.


This paper investigates determinants of roll call vote (RCV) request in the European Parliament (EP) since studies on voting behaviour based on the RCV sample have proved to be vulnerable to selection bias. At first I argue that party group leaders, who mainly initiate RCVs, cannot be regarded as parliamentary principals of MEPs who use the RCV to discipline their parliamentarians. Owing to the organisational structure of the board of political groups which mainly consists of leaders of (larger) national delegations, it is impossible to clearly differentiate between the party group leader and the leaders of national delegations. As the former do not possess instruments to enforce party group discipline they should not be considered as principals of MEPs but rather as their agents. Party group leaders, I argue, will therefore use RCVs only if they anticipate cohesion to express their group's policy position. Based on this assumption I develop and test a theoretical model of RCV request. Therefore I gathered data that comprise all votes from the first year of the sixth EP election period. The findings are in line with the theoretical expectations: RCV request is likely if the national delegations are united along the group line and group cohesion can be ensured. Moreover, the misconceptualisation of party group leaders as principals of MEPs and the structure of the RCV sample has led to overestimating the power of political groups in existing studies. My findings suggest that studies based on RCVs need to be interpreted with caution as they do not seem to represent the EP legislative process adequately.


How should a company act when faced with several possible options for network development? Should it support the changing forces in the network, or should it conform to the established practices? In this paper we look deeper into these questions. Our empirical setting is the Japanese seafood distribution network where foreign exporters are trying to shortcut the traditional distribution channels which have been developed over centuries, and which are deeply rooted in Japanese food-culture. These networks now face considerable pressure to change. We follow two distinct distribution patterns; one via the traditional fishmarket network, and one via the more direct route to market. We compare and contrast how activities are performed, resources are developed and how actors cooperate in these two networks. Our results suggest that these distribution systems have developed very differently in the way in which they are organised. Whereas the traditional distribution system is characterized by a "market" based interaction, the evolving direct distribution system is characterized by a "network" based interaction patterns. Each system requires different sets of network capabilities of the actors involved. However, rather than this being an "either/or"- decision, we argue that a company's ability to act is ultimately related to how it decides to network.


In an architectural judgment It is apparent that a mismatch between predicted and exercised conclusions of spatial design process could be recognized specially in the early phase of design; the figure which eventually we call architecture (or built environment) is deep-rooted in the programmatic approach to architectural design or the concepts. In spite of the development of design and documentations of construction arrangements which are normally follow the authorization/legislation organizations formats/templates, the conceptual part as a qualitative/spiritual issue, which is potentially shaping the illustrative/imaginative visual division of built object, seems has been considered as a part of architectural creativity; Traci Matthews (FDOT, 2003) defines process as "a sequence of activities executed by a human or machine, often with the goal of transforming a set of inputs into outputs. A complete description of a process includes naming of the steps within the process and using models of the system in various abstractions". He also adds about method: "A methodology is simply the implementation of a specific process..." Exploration of what –these days- has been calling "architectural concept" and "methods of architectural programming" and the issue of its interrelation to design process and exploration of the conceptual and historical structure that, hopefully, shapes current issues in architectural theories in addition with politics, ideology and, in a general view, the cultural context, whenever we make a revolutionary leap in personal development, scientific theory or any other qualitative or quantum shift of paradigm or framework, that to which subject becomes object for consideration could be considered as our perceptions and evaluations, those things that subject us to themselves, become things we can behold. As psychologist Robert Kegan (1982) has suggested, rather than be held by our perspective, we can hold it and choose our way of thinking. We can thus step back from patterns that bind and keep us in their hold, and instead choose whether to "hold" those ways or other ways. We can either be hold by a thinking pattern or choose to have the pattern. In fact, the space between architectural creativity and a managerial approach to the case of design must be filled with structural process-based components; here the main issue appears, how does this advent happen and how does this understanding occur? Loon (2008) is right when he is talking about computer dominance in architectural offices even in exploration of conceptual design possibilities; it is even overtaking the current methodologies. He believes that "the bridge between the non-cognitive intuitive design process and the ultra- systematic computer as a potential design medium is missing". Nowadays it is not hard to find many types of software which have been designed specifically in order to form generation in architecture; even there are some courses in architectural faculties just for working with form generating computer applications. Special processes like (Building Information Modeling) BIM have been developed just for dealing with building data during its design and construction life cycle. Collier (1995) like many architectural critics/theorists believe that the architecture must be technically/spiritually a value production activity; in the book of "Design, Technology and Development Process" by using a rich and diverse range of examples from different countries, cultures and historical periods, he explains his fundamental ideas. Collier firstly, sets the scene by exploring generation of buildings and types of architecture and structures to illustrate basic ideas that influence them and then, he discuss the nature of the development and analysis its process. Gaver & Martin (2000) have reported mapping a design space for a project on information appliances, "we produced a workbook describing about twenty conceptual design proposals. On the one hand, they serve as suggestions that digital devices might embody values apart from those traditionally associated with functionality and usefulness. On the other, they are examples of research through design, balancing concreteness with openness to spur the imagination, and using multiplicity to allow the emergence of a new design space..." (2000, p209). Tarrah [Designer Magazine] have had the opportunity to hold an mini-brainstorming [idea generation gaming] session in order to bring the creativity and innovation issues in accordance with architectural design up.1. Collier, Tonny. (1995). Design, Technology and the Development Process in the Built Environment (Ed.). New York: E&FN Spon.2. Florida Department of Transport. (2003). the report of "A Process Review and Appraisal of the Systems Engineering Capability for FDOT". Retrieved from: http://www.floridaits.com/SEMP/Files/PDF_Report/030220‐TMI‐V2.pdf3. GAVER, Bill & MARTIN H. (2000). Alternatives: Exploring information appliances through conceptual design proposals. In: CHI '00: Proceedings ofthe SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM Press, pp 209‐216. Retrieved from: http://www.cs.chalmers.se/idc/ituniv/kurser/04/projektkurs/artiklar/p209‐gaver.pdf4. Loon, P.P. (2008). A decision‐based design approach. Design Processes: What Architects & Industrial Designers can teach other about managing the design process. Delft: Delft University Press.5. Kagen, Robert. (1982). The Evolving Self. Boston: Harvard University Press.


This commentary argues that the story of Indonesia's rise since the turn of the millennium has remained largely untold. Little is known about the country and its people to an outside world far more awed with the rapid rise of China and India. This is a problem of the way Indonesia is being mediated, both at home and globally. But change is coming. Democracy, and the freedoms that come with it, has unleashed the creativity and energy of the young nation to begin to assert itself in the world, aided by the steady economic growth since the beginning of the millennium. The mediating of Indonesia will develop accordingly, with more Indonesians now directly engaging in the national conversation, and with it, the sense of nationhood is growing stronger.


Fertilized frog eggs (and cell-free extracts) undergo periodic oscillations in the activity of "M-phase promoting factor" (MPF), the crucial triggering enzyme for mitosis (nuclear division) and cell division. MPF activity is regulated by a complex network of biochemical reactions. Novak and Tyson, and their collaborators, have been studying the qualitative and quantitative properties of a large system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations that describe the molecular details of this system as currently known. Important clues to the behavior of the model are provided by bifurcation theory, especially characterization of the codimension-1 and -2 bifurcation sets of the differential equations. To illustrate this method, I have been studying a system of 9 ordinary differentail equations that describe the frog egg cell cycle with some fidelity. I will describe the bifurcation diagram of this system in a parameter space spanned by the rate constants for cyclin synthesis and cyclin degradation. My results suggest either that the cell cycle control system should show dynamical behavior considerably more complex than the limit cycles and steady states reported so far, or that the biochemical rate constants of the system are constrained to avoid regions of parameter space where complex bifurcation points unfold.


The adversarial vulnerability of deep neural networks has attracted significant attention in machine learning. As causal reasoning has an instinct for modelling distribution change, it is essential to incorporate causality into analyzing this specific type of distribution change induced by adversarial attacks. However, causal formulations of the intuition of adversarial attacks and the development of robust DNNs are still lacking in the literature. To bridge this gap, we construct a causal graph to model the generation process of adversarial examples and define the adversarial distribution to formalize the intuition of adversarial attacks. From the causal perspective, we study the distinction between the natural and adversarial distribution and conclude that the origin of adversarial vulnerability is the focus of models on spurious correlations. Inspired by the causal understanding, we propose the Causal inspired Adversarial distribution alignment method, CausalAdv, to eliminate the difference between natural and adversarial distributions by considering spurious correlations. Extensive experiments demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method. Our work is the first attempt towards using causality to understand and mitigate the adversarial vulnerability.


Threshold (or relative magnitude) search is traditionally performed iteratively in a bit-serial manner in optical data-base/knowledge-base machines, which results in an execution time proportional to the operand size. We present a single-step threshold search algorithm and its optical implementation. The proposed algorithm performs magnitude comparison in constant time, independent of the operand size, and consequently it greatly increases the performance of optical data-base/knowledge-base processing operations such as searching, selection, retrieving, and sorting.


Introduction: Professional autonomy plays an important role in nurses' job satisfaction and the outcomes of patient care. A review of literature shows the presence of nurses' dissatisfaction in regard to their professional autonomy. Aim: To assess the Iranian nurses' perspectives of their professional autonomy. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study 150 nurses with bachelor or higher academic degrees and clinical experiences participated. The professional autonomy questionnaire by Blegen MA, composed of the domains of decision-making for ward's affairs and decision-making for patient care, were used for data collection. The data was collected from November 2015 to April 2016 and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The mean (SD) of professional autonomy was 152.06 (28.181). Also, the means of professional autonomy in the domains of decision-making for ward's affairs and decision-making for patient care were 71.91 (17.687) and 80.15 (13.088), respectively. The majority of the nurses (66.7) stated that they had high levels of professional autonomy. There were statistically significance relationships between the nurses' age, work experience and educational level and nurses' professional autonomy (p<0.05). Conclusion: The nurses had high levels of professional autonomy. Also, the nurses' autonomy in decision-making for patient care was greater compared with decision-making in ward's affairs. Nurse's managers need to consider our findings for improving the condition of nurses' autonomy in healthcare settings.


Voting rules are powerful tools that allow multiple agents to aggregate their preferences in order to reach joint decisions. A common flaw of some voting rules, known as the no-show paradox, is that agents may obtain a more preferred outcome by abstaining from an election. We study strategic abstention for set-valued voting rules based on Kelly's and Fishburn's preference extensions. Our contribution is twofold. First, we show that, whenever there are at least five alternatives, every Pareto-optimal majoritarian voting rule suffers from the no-show paradox with respect to Fishburn's extension. This is achieved by reducing the statement to a finite--yet very large--problem, which is encoded as a formula in propositional logic and then shown to be unsatisfiable by a SAT solver. We also provide a human-readable proof which we extracted from a minimal unsatisfiable core of the formula. Secondly, we prove that every voting rule that satisfies two natural conditions cannot be manipulated by strategic abstention with respect to Kelly's extension. We conclude by giving examples of well-known Pareto-optimal majoritarian voting rules that meet these requirements.


The current paper maps versions of Faff's (2015a, b) pitching research template designed for student tasks/assessment into the research skill development (RSD) framework of Willison and O'Regan (2007). Moreover, using the 7-level RSD7 version, we explain how meaningfully layered pitching tasks can be designed to give a wide range of students an appropriately calibrated research challenge – from elite year 12 students at high school, all the way through to early-stage PhD students at university. Four key dimensions of the pitching research setting enable a clear and easily implementable pedagogic strategy. Specifically, the four dimensions relate to whether the pitch/pitch task: (a) is a partial vs. a full exercise; (b) is reverse-engineered on an existing paper vs. a "real" pitch on a yet to be executed study; (c) is totally prescribed by the "pitchee" (educator/supervisor) vs. full choice pitch; (d) is a "third-party" exercise vs. totally "owned" by the pitcher. At one end of the spectrum, a "Level 1" "prescribed research" task (i.e. lowest degree of difficulty in the RSD7 framework) would be a "partial" pitch based on reverse-engineering a designated short and simple research article that has been authored by a third party. At the other end of the spectrum, a "Level 7" "enlarging research" challenge (i.e. highest degree of difficulty in the RSD7 framework) would be involve a full pitch of a brand new idea, with choice on each and every dimension totally in the hands of the pitcher (student/researcher) about their own research plan(s) (e.g. a plan for one essay in their PhD thesis).


The counterpart city represents an attempt to conceptualize the hidden spaces inhabited by social problems and 'problem' people who are counter to the mainstream, or included, modes of contemporary urban social life. This 'opposite', or negative, space comprises the spatially withdrawn and socially excluded who are largely outside the purview of the comfortable classes of the same cities.Not only has residential segregation been sustained over recent decades, so too have mobile circuits of mutual exclusion been created, which enable higher-income groups to avoid the associated negative externalities of poverty (visibility, disorder, aggression and so on). As responsibility for dealing with social risks has become devolved to the level of the household, the desire for social evasion, as politicians, media systems and welfare patterns mark out threatening territories, has become more evident. The counterpart city is shunned in ever more elaborate ways and with the support of public policies. As the 'spatial' social policies, housing and urban, have become increasingly criminalized in the focus of their agendas, such interventions expend energy to facilitate this separation between affluent and poor. Traditional imperatives for public intervention are diminished as poverty has become more concealed from affluence – its costs and impacts evaded by technologies, socio-spatial circuits and policies that skirt those who are locked into places of poverty and abject marginality, a constellation of social forces and effects I term the great cut.


Although Stirling heat-pumps and refrigerators offer the possibility of environmentally-friendly operation by using air as the refrigerant, the Coefficient of Performance (COP) of low-cost Stirling systems is only about the same as that of conventional vapour-compression technology. For this reason, Stirling machines have been perceived as lacking the significant advantages required to supplant vapourcompression systems in heat-pump and refrigerator applications. This paper discusses a new open regenerative cycle for heat-pumps and refrigerators that offers similar performance to practical Stirling systems. Additionally, it eliminates the need for a heat absorbing heat-exchanger (the most costly component of conventional vapour-compression heat-pumps), and has inherent frost-free operation (frosting significantly degrades the performance of conventional vapour-compression heat-pumps at low temperatures). An experimental prototype has been designed by modifying the MAG1 Regenerator Test Rig. Sage simulations of the experimental prototype suggest that an indicated Heating COP of at least 3.4 may be possible at the standard heat-pump rating temperatures of 20oC (hot space) and 5oC (cold space). Although the new open regenerative cycle has low Heating and Refrigeration Effect per unit volume, it appears to offer a number of potential advantages over both Stirling and conventional vapourcompression machines in the context of small systems.


Stress induces JNK phosphorylation of a mitochondrial fusion protein, leading to its degradation, mitochondrial fragmentation, and apoptosis. Mechanistic links between cell stress and mitochondrial integrity remain elusive, despite both being implicated in apoptosis. Leboucher et al. found that the genotoxic chemotherapeutic agent doxorubicin caused fragmentation of mitochondria in U2OS cells. Doxorubicin caused a decrease in the abundance of the mitochondrial fusion protein mitofusin 2 (Mfn2) and an increase in amounts of ubiquitylated Mfn2. In cells exposed to doxorubicin, knockdown of Mfn2 increased the abundance of cleaved caspase-3, a marker of apoptosis. Pulse-chase metabolic labeling experiments showed that Mfn2 degraded faster in cells exposed to doxorubicin, and this increase in rate was abrogated by knockdown of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), which was activated by exposure of the cells to doxorubicin. Tandem mass spectrometry analysis of Mfn2 purified from U2OS uncovered a phosphorylation site at Ser27. Coimmunoprecipitation studies with an antibody specific to this site and in vitro kinase assays demonstrated that JNK phosphorylated Mfn2 at this site. In the presence of proteasome inhibitor MG132 and doxorubicin, the abundance of phosphorylated Mfn2 was increased, and knockdown of JNK abrogated the doxorubicin-induced increase in phosphorylation. A phosphomimetic S27D mutant of Mfn2 displayed an increased degradation rate in pulse-chase experiments and increased abundance of ubiquitylated species compared with wild-type or an unphosphorylatable S27A mutant. Exposure of cells to doxorubicin shifted the wild-type Mfn2 degradation rate to that of the S27D mutant. Overexpression of wild-type Mfn2 or either mutant decreased the amount of doxorubicin-induced mitochondrial fragmentation, caspase-3 activation, or cell death (cells positive for annexin V), with the most stable S27A mutant most effective and the least stable S27D mutant least effective. The S27D, but not the S27A, mutant coimmunoprecipitated with a catalytically inactive mutant of Huwe1, an E3 ubiquitin ligase. Knockdown of Huwe1 inhibited doxorubicin-induced Mfn2 degradation, mitochondrial fragmentation, and cell death, but cell death occurred when Mfn2 was also knocked down, suggesting that Mfn2 was the relevant target of Huwe1 in this process. These studies identify a signaling axis whereby genotoxic stress prevents mitochondrial fusion by inducing JNK phosphorylation of Mfn2, which associates with Huwe1, leading to Mfn2 ubiquitylation and proteasomal degradation, thus precipitating mitochondrial fragmentation and apoptosis. G. P. Leboucher, Y. C. Tsai, M. Yang, K. C. Shaw, M. Zhou, T. D. Veenstra, M. H. Glickman, A. M. Weissman, Stress-induced phosphorylation and proteasomal degradation of mitofusin 2 facilitates mitochondrial fragmentation and apoptosis. Mol. Cell. 47, 547–557 (2012). [PubMed]


Prior research has amply documented that happy music tends to be faster, louder, higher in average pitch, more variable in pitch, and more staccato in articulation, whereas sad music tends to be slower, lower, less variable, and more legato in articulation. However, the bulk of existing studies are either correlational or allow these expressive cues to covary freely, thereby making it difficult to confirm the causal influence of a given cue. To help address this gap, we experimentally assessed whether the average height (F0) of a pitch gamut independently impacts the perceived emotional expression of melodies derived from the gamut. Study participants rated the perceived happiness/sadness of a set of isochronous and semi-random tone sequences derived from the Bohlen-Pierce scale, an unconventional scale based on pitch intervals that do not appear in common practice music. Results were consistent with the notion that higher average pitch height communicates happiness and/or that lower pitch height communicates sadness. Moreover, they suggested that the effect is: (1) sufficiently robust to be detected using rudimentary melodies based on an unconventional musical scale; and, (2) independent of interval size.


This study offers an investigation of the implementation of a World Bank anti-corruption program, by applying various relevant social science theories and methods. The aim of the program is to provide countries with tools to build a relevant and participatory anti-corruption program. The study begins with a reconstruction of the underlying assumptions, or 'theory' of the World Bank program. This theory was assessed on its scientific validity, using insights from existing theories and research. Overall, the program theory was found to be relatively sound. A potential flaw is the extent to which country context interferes with the success of anti-corruption reforms. For example, for many reforms to sort effect, a minimum communication infrastructure and a minimum level of civil and political liberties is required. Subsequently, it was assessed to what extent the program was actually implemented in each of the seven African countries: Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. Policy documents were scrutinised and experts were interviewed. Only parts of the original program turned out to be incorporated in 'national action plans'. What is more, interesting variation was found in terms of (a) 'decisiveness', i.e. the extent to which substantive policy decisions were made and (b) the 'level of reform' in these policy decisions, as compared to the status quo. For example, in Benin and Tanzania (followed by Ghana) relatively many and far-reaching anti-corruption decisions were made, whereas no decisions were made in Malawi and Uganda. To reconstruct the activities of the individual program participants and others involved, an in-depth comparative case study of Kenya and Tanzania was conducted. This comparative case study also yielded preliminary explanations for program implementation. For example, the growth of Kenya's parliamentary anti-corruption opposition after 2001 could be ascribed to the slightly stronger political competition in this country. Moreover, the relatively many and far-reaching reforms in Tanzania seem related to the country's high financial dependence on the international donor community. To explore how come the program was implemented, quantitative analyses were performed on the data from all seven African countries. The focus was on the processes of decision-making on substantive policy issues, such as the installment of an anti-corruption bureau, or the revision of legislation. Hypotheses were derived from general theories of decision-making, as well as from theories of political-administrative reform. First, within-country mechanisms that either drive or impede anti-corruption reforms were investigated. Both the 'decisiveness' of policy makers and the 'level of reform' increased with: the involvement of only a small number of decision-makers in the issue and the involvement of the international donor community. What is more, the level of reform increased as soon as highly conservative decision-makers became more reform-oriented. To account for the differences in program implementation between the seven African countries, the connection between these mechanisms and the countries' political-administrative context was studied, including the dependence on foreign aid. The level of reform was found to increase with a higher level of political and civil liberties. Apart from adding to our understanding of anti-corruption reforms, the systematic approach in this study can be used to evaluate programs similar to the World Bank's.


Top–down control exerted by macroconsumers can strongly affect lower trophic levels and ecosystem processes. Studies of effects on primary consumers in streams have been focused on algae, and effects on bacteria are largely unknown. We manipulated the density of an omnivorous, grazing minnow, the central stoneroller (Campostoma anomalum), in experimental stream mesocosms (treatments with 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 individuals) to understand consumer effects on algal and bacterial abundance (chlorophyll a [Chl a] extraction, bacterial cell counts, biomass measurements) and bacterial diversity and community composition (via Illumina MiSeq sequencing of the V4 region of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene). Increasing C. anomalum density reduced algal biomass until density reached ~2 fish (5 g fish biomass/m2), and higher fish densities did not affect algal biomass. Fish biomass did not affect bacterial cell counts. Biofilm organic matter decreased with increasing C. anomalum biomass. Bacterial community composition was not affected by fish biomass, but variation in community composition was correlated with shifts in bacterial abundances. Evenness of bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) decreased with increasing C. anomalum biomass, indicating that bacterial communities exhibited a greater degree of OTU dominance when fish biomass was higher. These findings suggest that this grazing fish species reduces algal abundance and organic matter in low-nutrient streams until a threshold of moderate fish abundance is reached and that it reduces evenness of benthic bacterial communities but not bacterial biomass. Given the importance of biofilm bacteria for ecosystem processes and the ubiquity of grazing fishes in streams, future researchers should explore both top–down and bottom–up interactions in alternative environmental contexts and with other grazing fish species.


(English translation from Japanese text)
What is more beautiful on a cold winter's night than catching a glimpse of the northern lights or "aurora borealis" dancing across the sky? For thousands of years people in the northern part of the world have marveled at the spectacular displays that occasionally light up the night sky. This stunning phenomenon is deeply embedded in the mythology of many cultures, and in the past, the causes of northern lights were ascribed to everything from dancing spirits to God's anger. But no one suspected a connection with the Sun until a little more than a hundred years ago, when an eccentric Norwegian scientist, Kristian Birkeland, realized that the Sun bombards the Earth with particles. After decades of research, we now know that auroras appear when charged particles from the Sun interact with the Earth's magnetic field, which directs the particles into the atmosphere where they collide with gases and emit the light that we call auroras. By monitoring the activity of the Sun it is therefore possible to forecast the strength and location of the aurora. When is the best time to see auroras? Where is the best place to go? How to plan a trip? What is needed to be able to observe auroras? How to photograph auroras with a digital camera? By answering these and many other questions, this book is the ultimate guide and an ideal companion for anyone who wishes to learn more about auroras, when and where strong northern lights are likely to occur and how to best observe and photograph this spectacular natural phenomenon with a digital camera.


Cinematic Virtual Reality has been increasing in popularity over the last years. Watching omnidirectional movies with head mounted displays, viewers can freely choose the direction of view, and thus the visible section of the movie. In order to explore the users' viewing behavior, methods are needed for collecting and analyzing data. We developed an analyzing tool, the CVR-Analyzer, which can be used for inspecting head pose and eye tracking data of viewers experiencing CVR movies. The visualized data are displayed on a flattened projection of the movie as flexibly controlled augmenting annotations, such as tracks or heatmaps, synchronously with the time code of the movie and allow inspecting and comparing the users' viewing behavior in different use cases.


Hyperlocal media is a form of online, alternative community media created by citizens to service their locality. To date, much of the scholarly work in this area has focused on editorial practice, non-UK contexts, or frames these practices as response to receding mainstream local journalism and concerns of civic engagement. In this study I take a different approach, exploring instead the everyday, functional and social contexts which are established in the audience's highly participatory use of hyperlocal Facebook Pages. I conceptualise such spaces as fields which are integrated both in the individual user's media ideology, but also amongst a wider sense of overlapping fields of local information and socialites, both online and offline. This work emerges from ethnographic studies of two hyperlocal communities in the West Midlands, in which information was gathered through participant observation, interview, and via an innovative Community Panel approach.
I argue that Facebook Pages play a key role for many people in engaging with their neighbourhoods, but not exclusively so, as I demonstrate their place amongst other sources of information and social life. The Pages benefit from being mediated by their editors to create online spaces that welcome participation partly shaped by the audience's engagement and contribution, thus creating alternative streams of local information that challenge agendas set out by mainstream media. These become integrated into the everyday practices of the audience, therefore, care must be taken to recognise to what extent the broader experience of the neighbourhood is represented in such online practices, and I argue that certain narratives and discourses of the locality are contributed to and constructed online, and not always helpfully so, as in depictions of crime. Where the audience might challenge such depictions, and hold authority to account (the police, for example), this public sphere ideal is not typically acted through. Whilst this does not bode well for the literature's hopes for political or civic engagement, this thesis demonstrates that audiences develop such spaces in their own vision, to enact and share a capital of local knowledge and information, sometimes innovating in their own ways using mobile technologies in order to do so. This thesis concludes by saying that such online spaces demonstrate the role of media technologies in everyday life, and the extent to which they are perpetuated and maintained by practitioners and their increasingly capable and enabled audiences.


This paper focuses on regional integration through the lenses of the Water–Food–Energy (WEF) nexus, a concept putting strong emphasis on cross-sectoral and multi-level interactions as well as on resource interdependencies. There is an extensive amount of published research focusing on the Aral Sea basin. In this paper, the authors build upon these different contributions and provide a meta-analysis of the literature of WEF nexus opportunities in Central Asia (CA) countries. This paper contributes to ongoing discussions regarding how the WEF Nexus can represent an opportunity for reinforced collaboration regarding resources management. To do so, focusing on existing literature, this paper first (1) explores how the nexus can be a relevant instrument for regional integration. Second (2), it provides an overview of water, food, energy conditions and challenges in the Aral Sea basin in particular. Third (3), synthesizing existing research, the authors identify critical variables to be considered as hurdles or leverage points for WEF nexus implementation in the Aral Sea basin. Finally (4), we go back to our initial set of questions and identify some possible avenues for future research.


Photonics is a term often used in relation to light-based circuits, but it is actually more inclusive, including the generation, emission, transmission, modulation and signal processing of light. Biophotonics is therefore a term which can be used to describe the development and application of optical techniques for the study of biological molecules, cells and tissues. This book presents some of the most promising new image-based and related technologies which have evolved in the last few years for the study, visualization, characterization and analysis of abnormal cells and tissues, and discusses their current and potential applications in experimental pathology and clinical pathological diagnosis. The book contains more than a dozen papers contributed by experts in the field, and the technology is described in a manner accessible to an audience of pathologists, cell biologists and biochemists as well as biomedical engineers. Subjects covered include: advanced methods in fluorescence microscopy, automated image interpretation and computer-assisted diagnostics, magnetic resonance microscopy, impedence measurements in the biomedical sciences and raman scattering in pathology, among others. There is an increasing convergence of radiology and pathology, and although this book has been written from the perspective of pathology, it demonstrates a confluence of methodologies similar to those applied in radiology with morphological analysis at the cellular and tissue level, and will also be of interest to radiologists, as well as to other scientists and engineers working in overlapping areas. Rated ****By DoodyAEs Review Service (December 2013)Plus top rating for oworthwhile contribution to the fieldo oThe book presents more than a dozen excellent research papers written by world experts in the field with an effort to present some of the most novel and promising image-based technologies to the new generation of pathologists, biochemists, cell biologists, biomedical engineers, mathematicians and health informaticians. Dr. Stanley Cohen is a well-known expert in the field. o


Culture is one of the classic and most widely studied topics in the field of technology. People of different cultural backgrounds interpret, consume, and disseminate technology differently. One conspicuous aspect of culture is communication. The expression, conversational patterns, and contextual nuances of different languages make communication a distinct cultural experience. Culture influences how communication functions between different people in different social contexts. It is also an underlying feature of encoded messages; a knowledge of the sender's culture helps to discern his or her intention. Communication technology is also susceptible to the influence of culture. The mobile and social aspects of technology add another dimension to the communication process. Twitter, a leading social medium run on a mobile communication device, is a good example. This empirical study examines the use of Twitter in users with two distinctly different cultural ideologies: individualism (characteristic of the U.S.A.) and collectivism (common in Korea). Participants in both countries took part in a four-man group decision-making experiment. The groups were given decision tasks to complete within a timed period. The study yielded the following results: 1) the Korean participants tweeted significantly more often than the American participants; 2) the Korean participants initiated significantly more new tweets than the American participants; 3) the Korean participants sent significantly more friendly tweets than the American participants; 4) the American participants expressed disagreement significantly more often than the Korean participants; and 5) the Korean participants exhibited a significantly higher level of group cohesiveness than the American participants. These results shed light on the cultural applications of this new, emerging technology which is becoming essential to personal and business information sharing and communication of people of different cultures all over the world. Data analysis, discussion, and implications are provided.


Gravitational deformation strongly infl uences the structure and eruptive behavior of large volcanoes. Using scaled analog models, we characterize a range of structural architectures produced by volcano sagging and volcano spreading. These arise from the interplay of variable basement rigidity and volcano-basement (de-)coupling. From comparison to volcanoes on Earth (La Reunion and Hawaii) and Mars (Elysium and Olympus Montes), the models highlight a structural continuum in which large volcanoes throughout the Solar System lie.


Airlines need to pay special attention to flights that may be liable to produce undesired downstream effects if subjected to delay. A mathematical formulation is proposed to identify these critical flights by defining a set of temporal intervals, called time window, which must be met during the flight execution. The width of the time window is variable because it reflects all known constraints on runway capacities or on congested en route sectors that the flight will go through, or both. The set of optimal time window that maximizes their overall width was chosen, thus providing airline operators with the largest degree of flexibility to perform their flights. Three possible approaches are presented to compute the utilization of the system capacity. By means of a computational analysis, it is shown that the solution of the time window model is insensitive about the formulation used for the capacity constraints.


This work proposes a lossless data compression algorithm for short data blocks. The proposed compression scheme combines a modified move-to-front algorithm with Huffman coding. This algorithm is applicable in storage systems where the data compression is performed on block level with short block sizes, in particular, in non-volatile memories. For block sizes in the range of 1kB, it provides a compression gain comparable to the Lempel–Ziv–Welch algorithm. Moreover, encoder and decoder architectures are proposed that have low memory requirements and provide fast data encoding and decoding.


There is growing concern about and evidence of emergent language and meaning problems in the environmental domain, where natural science and social science terminology and assumptions, management speak and lay language come together without a common understanding. This research examined environment-specific meanings and uses of the abstract word 'values' that are dependent upon lexical and experiential context through language and prior knowledge. The aims were to examine and document an environmental vocabulary and associated meanings in naturally occurring contexts that appear to have multiple cultures of use and meaning, and to consider theoretical and practical implications concerning multifarious meanings of terms and constructs.

The research investigated naturally occurring language use in the protected area domain of a World Heritage Area (WHA). This applied context encompasses multiple language and meaning issues in natural resource management, research and monitoring, and community consultation and participation, where effective communication is essential between stakeholder groups with often differing cultures of use and meaning for particular core terms and constructs. Theoretical perspectives that informed the research embrace cognitive scientific and social psychological theories of mental and social representations, and knowledge acquisition, elicitation and representation. The principle methodologies employed were text analysis, a lexical decision task, and concept mapping. Participants and document samples were drawn from three groups involved in environmental research, management and conservation activism in the Wet Tropics WHA in Australia.

Study 1, involving text analysis, indicated that meanings commonly assigned to 'values' in the WHA context reflect intersecting semantic domains of economic worth, abstract moral principles, and biophysical attributes. Study 2 compared environment specific word use with general use in the British National Corpus, and confirmed that word associations with 'values' in general use differ from those in the specific WHA context. Study 3 examined the role of specific background knowledge on word recognition. Results suggest that experts and novices use qualitatively different strategies for recognising low frequency environment words. Study 4 examined the conceptual content and structure of an 'environmental values' construct, revealing 81 items in seven clusters along two dimensions (affect and social orientation). The content and structure are similar to 'values' typologies derived from different theoretical and methodological approaches, pointing to an underlying conceptual structure within broader 'values' research. The four studies, taken together, clearly establish that serious language use and meaning problems and confusions exist relating to 'environmental and world heritage values', that there is potential for problems with effective communication and credible natural resource management and science because of these unresolved language and meaning issues, and that these problems are evident in underlying language and concept processing as well as in text-based and informal communication contexts. A clear management challenge in the protected area management domain is the management of environmental discourse for effective research, monitoring, and management of protected environments. It is recommended that the importance and role of language in designating, specifying, and communicating about important environmental constructs relating to human-environment interactions, conservation, and management be given a clearer and distinct status as an important and neglected research area and need.


Background  Recent studies have suggested that cognitive biases may play an important mediating role in aggressive outbursts from people with mild intellectual disabilities (IDs). Essentially, some individuals may frequently perceive other people as acting towards them in a hostile fashion. This biased perception may develop through repeated adverse experiences, and may make them more likely to respond, likewise, in an aggressive manner. These studies have led to the development of a cognitive behavioural model of aggression, incorporating factors both intrinsic and extrinsic to the individual. This study aimed to explore one facet of this model: a putative relationship between anger-arousal level, problem-solving ability and perception of hostile intent in others.

Method  Single-case methodology was utilized, and a 44-year-old man with a mild ID and a history of difficulties with aggression participated. A series of vignettes, containing potentially provocative social interactions, were read to the participant. His perception of hostile intent, and suggestions of possible behavioural responses were recorded as dependent variables. Anger-arousal was manipulated, through autobiographical recall, as a dependent variable.

Results  Although not conclusive, results indicate that anger-arousal may act in an interactive fashion to increase perception of hostile intent. No effect of anger-arousal was observed on problem-solving ability; however, floor-effects in the task used may provide an explanation for this.

Conclusions  A high level of anger-arousal may exacerbate the probability of a frequently aggressive individual perceiving others as acting in a hostile manner. However, future research should take the limitations of this study into account, and continue development of a cognitive model of frequent aggression in those with a mild ID.


Schools in Scandinavia are buildings where there is a need of cooling only for a short period of time. Due to the large number of students the ventilation system often cannot provide the necessary cooling without causing draught. We introduce additional cooling by an internal high velocity system that cool people. This system creates a downward air stream of five minutes duration that blows the rising thermal plume above a person away, thus exposing the student to an enhanced convective cooling. As the heat load was high the occupants were at the same time exposed to a rising room temperature. Assessments have been made where groups of subjects were exposed to velocity variations respectively constant low velocity. The mean thermal votes and air quality were measured during 80 minutes. The results are analysed as differences between the two groups in change over time.


The WASP consortium is conducting an ultra-wide field survey of stars between 8–15 mag from both hemispheres. Our primary science goal is to detect extra-solar 'hot-Jupiter '-type planets that eclipse (or transit) bright host stars and for which further detailed investigation will be possible. We summarize the design of the SuperWASP instruments and describe the first results from our northern station SW-N, sited in La Palma, Canary Islands. Our second station, which began operations this year, is located at the South African Astronomical Observatory. Between April and September, 2004, SW-N continuously observed y6.7 million stars. The consortium's custom-written, fully automated data reduction pipeline has been used to process these data, and the information is now stored in the project archive, held by the Leicester database and archive service (LEDAS). We have applied a sophisticated, automated algorithm to identify the low-amplitude (y0.01 mag), brief (yfew hours) signatures of transiting exoplanets. In addition, we have assessed each candidate in the light of all available catalogue information in order to reject data artefacts and astrophysical false positive detections. The highest priority candidates are currently being subjected to further observations in order to select the true planets. Once the exoplanets are confirmed, a host of exciting opportunities are open to us. In this paper, we describe two techniques that exploit the transits in order to detect other objects within the same system. The first involves determining precise epochs for a sequence of transit events in order to detect the small timing variations caused by the gravitational pull of other planets in the same system. The second method employs ultra-high precision photometry of the transits to detect the deviations caused by the presence of exoplanetary moons. Both of these techniques are capable of detecting objects the size of terrestrial planets. Received 26 June 2006, accepted 6 August 2006


Objective To describe the extent to which different categories of anaesthesia provider are used in humanitarian surgical projects and to explore the volume and nature of their surgical workload. Design Descriptive analysis using 10 years (2008–2017) of routine case-level data linked with routine programme-level data from surgical projects run exclusively by Médecins Sans Frontières-Operational Centre Brussels (MSF-OCB). Setting Projects were in contexts of natural disaster (ND, entire expatriate team deployed by MSF-OCB), active conflict (AC) and stable healthcare gaps (HG). In AC and HG settings, MSF-OCB support pre-existing local facilities. Hospital facilities ranged from basic health centres with surgical capabilities to tertiary referral centres. Participants The full dataset included 178 814 surgical cases. These were categorised by most senior anaesthetic provider for the project, according to qualification: specialist physician anaesthesiologists, qualified nurse anaesthetists and uncertified anaesthesia providers. Primary outcome measure Volume and nature of surgical workload of different anaesthesia providers. Results Full routine data were available for 173 084 cases (96.8%): 2518 in ND, 42 225 in AC, 126 936 in HG. Anaesthesia was predominantly led by physician anaesthesiologists (100% in ND, 66% in AC and HG), then nurse anaesthetists (19% in AC and HG) or uncertified anaesthesia providers (15% in AC and HG). Across all settings and provider groups, patients were mostly healthy young adults (median age range 24–27 years), with predominantly females in HG contexts, and males in AC contexts. Overall intra-operative mortality was 0.2%. Conclusion Our findings contribute to existing knowledge of the nature of anaesthetic provision in humanitarian settings, while demonstrating the value of high-quality, routine data collection at scale in this sector. Further evaluation of perioperative outcomes associated with different models of humanitarian anaesthetic provision is required.


This pioneering book describes the applications of agent-based modeling to financial markets. It presents a new paradigm for finance, where markets are treated as complex systems whose behavior emerges as a result of interactions of market participants, market institutions, and market rules. This includes both a presentation of the conceptual model and its software implementation. It also summarises the result of the profound research on the successful practical application of this new approach to answer questions regarding the Nasdaq Stock Market s decimalization that was implemented in 2001. The book presents conceptual foundations for modeling markets as complex systems. It describes the agent-based model of the Nasdaq stock market, including strategies used by market-makers and investors, market participants interactions, and impacts of rules and regulations. It includes analyses of simulation behavior, comparison with the behaviors observed in the real-world markets (existence of fat tails, spread clustering, etc.), and predictions about possible outcomes of decimalization. A framework for calibrating the market behavior and individual market-makers strategies to historical data is also presented.


The aim of this study was to determine trends over time and geographical differences in prescribing for gastro-oesophageal reflux (GOR) and gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) in infants aged 0-1 year in Scotland. National prescribing data obtained from the Information Services Division of NHS Scotland (ISD Scotland) was quantitatively analysed using the software tool Minitab16. Prescribing of the three key medicines, alginate, omeprazole and ranitidine, used in the management of GOR and GORD in infants aged 0-1 year increased in Scotland over the 7 years between 2010 and 2016. The rise in the prescribing rates of alginate, omeprazole and ranitidine is a cause for concern given the uncertainty regarding the efficacy of these medicines in this age group, and that omeprazole and ranitidine are not licensed for use in infants under 1 year of age in the UK. While the data suggest that the prescribing rate of alginate may have stabilised, the increasing trends for omeprazole and ranitidine show no sign of abating and this may have financial implications for the NHS, as well as potential ethical and health implications for young infants.


"Homeland Security: A Complete Guide to Understanding, Preventing and Surviving Terrorism" is the authoritative textbook on one of the most important topics facing our nation. From complex policy issues to common terrorist tactics, "Homeland Security" provides a practical foundation for professionals, students, and concerned citizens alike. Designed for readers who need to understand both the 'big picture' and their own roles in the war against terror, this book provides a clear, comprehensive and fascinating overview of an increasingly complex and misunderstood topic. This indispensable reference, filled with fascinating real-life examples and tips, covers the basics of homeland security such as: national strategies and principles; federal, state and local roles; terrorist history and tactics; cyber-terrorism; business preparedness; critical infrastructure protection; weapons of mass destruction; and, key policy issues. Perfect for academic and training classrooms, each chapter includes an overview, learning objectives, source document, discussion topic, summary, and quiz. Media Reviews: '"Homeland Security" is much more than a textbook. It is an indispensable reference resource for those seeking to understand how terrorists operate and the structures and mechanisms that have been developed to respond to the magnitude of the terrorist threats confronting us' - "Washington Times", "Securing America" by Joshua Sinai, August 2, 2005.