Background: Calcium has been implicated in carcinogenesis and linked to the risk of several cancers in epidemiologic studies; however, few studies have investigated the association of calcium intake with lung cancer risk, particularly among nonsmokers. Methods: We evaluated the association of intakes of calcium and related minerals, assessed through a food frequency questionnaire, with lung cancer risk among 71,267 female nonsmokers who were cancer free at baseline in the Shanghai Women's Health Study, a population-based, prospective cohort study. Multivariate Cox regression was used to calculate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: During follow-up through December 2009 (median follow-up time: 11.2 years), 428 incident lung cancer cases accrued. The median intakes of dietary calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus were 441, 266, and 935 mg/d, respectively. Intakes of calcium, phosphorus, and the calcium-to-magnesium (Ca:Mg) ratio were inversely associated with lung cancer risk. The corresponding HRs (95% CIs) for the highest compared with the lowest quartile were 0.66 (0.48, 0.91) for calcium, 0.55 (0.36, 0.85) for phosphorus, and 0.62 (0.47, 0.82) for the Ca:Mg ratio. No association was observed for dietary magnesium intake or the use of calcium- or vitamin D-containing supplements. Conclusions and Impact: Our study provides some of the first evidence suggesting a possible role for increasing dietary calcium intake in lung cancer prevention among female nonsmokers, especially in populations with relatively low calcium intake. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 22(1); 50–7. ©2012 AACR.


During a career as both a lawyer and a Supreme Court justice, Benjamin R. Curtis addressed practically every major constitutional question of the mid-nineteenth century, making judgments that still resonate in American law. Aside from a family memoir written by his brother over one hundred years ago, however, no book-length treatment of Curtis exists. Now Stuart Streichler has filled this gap in judicial biography, using Curtis's life and work as a window on the most serious constitutional crisis in American history, the Civil War. Curtis was the lead attorney for President Andrew Johnson in the Senate's impeachment trial, where he delivered the pivotal argument, and his was an influential voice in the pervasive constitutional struggle between states and the federal government. He is best remembered, however, for dissenting in the Dred Scott case, in which he disputed Chief Justice Taney's proslavery ruling that no black person could ever become a citizen of the United States. In the wake of the decision, Curtis resigned from the court, the only justice in the Supreme Court's history to do so on grounds of principle. Yet he also clashed with Boston's abolitionists over enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, and he opposed the Emancipation Proclamation. In a period when the Constitution was radically transformed from a charter that protected slavery to one that granted all persons equal rights of citizenship, Justice Curtis maintained his faith in the Constitution as an adaptable instrument of self-government and tried to mark out a path for gradual change. Streichler assesses Curtis's common-law methods in the context of his divisive times and shows how the judge's views continue to shed light on issues that have become once again relevant, such as the presidential impeachment process and, after 9/11, the use of military tribunals to try civilians.


Recent research indicates that people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) can meaningfully report on their life. As a result, there is an increasing interest in finding ways to involve persons with AD in qualitative research to ensure their perspectives and experiences are included. However, researchers have largely depended on interview or observation methods to inform their study, acknowledging concern regarding capacity for expressive language. This article reports on the use of photography, specifically photo-elicitation with autodriving, in a qualitative study of happiness in persons with mild to moderate AD, and it explores the opportunities and challenges of using this methodology in this population. Results demonstrate that while photo-elicitation can be an effective tool for the researcher to use to understand the world of the individual with AD, it also presents practical challenges. Thoughtful application of this methodology can overcome these challenges, providing a richer level of understanding than interview alone can generate.


An efficient protein extraction method to ensure successful separation by two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) is a critical step for any proteomics study. The objective of this study was to compare four previously published protein extraction protocols to identify a suitable protein extraction method to extract total proteins from cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) seedlings, a recalcitrant plant tissue. The results suggested that trichloroacetic acid/acetone precipitation combined with phenol extraction method (Method D) produced the purest sample and the most proteins spots (321), particularly basic proteins in the 2-DE image. The extraction method combining acetone precipitation and phenol (Method B) gave 216 spots in the 2-DE image. The trichloroacetic acid/acetone precipitation method (Method A) is not suitable for the cotton seedlings because only small molecular weight proteins were visualized in the 2-DE image. The phenol extraction method (Method C) showed 240 spots in the 2-DE gel but gave higher gel background. We subsequently selected and optimized Method D to extract protein from cotton seedlings. After optimization, more than 900 spots were detected on the 2-DE gel with pH 3-10 nonlinear gradient strip and 10% sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) gel using Coomassie brilliant blue G-250 staining. Our results suggest that the optimized Method D is expected to have excellent applications in proteomic studies of cotton seedlings.


Abstract: Data depth measures the centrality of a point with respect to a given distribution or data cloud. It provides a natural center-outward ordering of multivariate data points and yields a systematic nonparametric multivariate analysis scheme. In particular, the halfspace depth is shown to have many desirable properties and broad applicability. However, the empirical halfspace depth is zero outside the convex hull of the data. This property has rendered the empirical halfspace depth useless outside the data cloud, and limited its utility in applications where the extreme outlying probability mass is the focal point, such as in classification problems and control charts with very small false alarm rates. To address this issue, we apply extreme value statistics to refine the empirical halfspace depth in "the tail". This provides an important linkage between data depth, which is useful for inference on centrality, and extreme value statistics, which is useful for inference on extremity. The refined empirical halfspace depth can thus extend all its utilities beyond the data cloud, and hence broaden greatly its applicability. The refined estimator is shown to have substantially improved upon the empirical estimator in theory and simulations. The benefit of this improvement is also demonstrated through the applications in classification and statistical process control.


Due to emerging technological developments, the practice of engineering is changing remarkably. One of the main concerns of engineering education is to keep up with these revolutionary changes and incorporate them into the engineering curriculum. Social and professional needs have always been involved in the process of curriculum development and competencies set by professional organisations form a reference point for educational institutions. In this paper we argue that academics and administrators in universities are at the heart of change in their role as curriculum developers and implementers. We also propose that matching academic skills with the competencies / standards set by professional organisations can help pave the way in fast evolving technical fields.


1. Exchangeable body sodium was measured in deoxycorticosterone acetate (DOCA) -salt-treated rats by whole body γ-counting after equilibration with a 22 Na isotope. 2. The blood pressure of DOCA-salt-treated rats is positively correlated with their exchangeable body sodium. 3. After pithing, the heart rate is significantly lower in DOCA-salt-treated than in control rats: in conscious DOCA-salt-treated rats the heart rate is also lower than in control rats but the difference was not statistically significant. 4. Cardiac and vascular responses to sympathetic stimulation are positively correlated with exchangeable body sodium in pithed rats, but there is no correlation between either cardiac or vascular responses to noradrenaline injections and exchangeable sodium. 5. Pressor responses to sympathetic stimulation in pithed DOCA-salt-treated rats are potentiated less by cocaine than are responses of untreated control rats. 6. It is suggested that sodium retention in mildly hypertensive rats specifically enhances responses to sympathetic stimulation by increasing the availability of the sympathetic transmitter.


To date almost all pyrogallol[4]arenes reported in the literature have been prepared from alkyl aldehydes. We were interested in preparing more pyrogallol[4]arenes from commercially available benzaldehydes. On synthesising these compounds we discovered that they are structurally unique, compared to previously reported pyrogallol[4]arenes, as they exist in a rctt chair conformation as determined by X-ray crystallography and 1HNMR.

We also discovered from our synthetic studies that the yields for the pyrogallol[4]arenes depend strongly on the electron donating/withdrawing ability of substituents placed in the benzaldehyde, the more electron withdrawing the higher the yield. We also discovered a unique metal salt effect on the condensation of pyrogallol with 4-fluorobenzaldehyde that doubled the yields o f the resulting macrocycle. Interestingly, this effect is absent with the condensation of pyrogallol with alkyl aldehydes. The role of steric effects, using bulky substituted benzaldehydes was also investigated to determine whether the stereochemical outcome for these condensation reactions could be controlled.

The further derivatisation of the pyrogallol[4]arenes was also investigated. The preparation of partially and completely alkylated derivatives of these macrocycles was of interest to us. We found that the introduction of acetate groups could be readily accomplished, however other alkyl groups could not be efficiently introduced into the pyrogallol[4]arenes. The partially and completely alkylated acetate derivatives of pyrogallol[4]arene were screened for biological activity against HIV-1. It was discovered that the partially alkylated derivatives possessed higher selectivity indexes than the completely alkylated derivatives indicating that biological activity may not be dependent on charge.


This letter proposes a novel circuit topology which can realize the power decoupling function without adding additional active switches into the circuit. The dc-link capacitor of a full bridge rectifier is split into two identical parts and the midpoint is connected to one leg through a filter inductor. With such a configuration, this leg can control the current going into the two output capacitors connected in series for power decoupling, and the other leg can control the line current according to active and reactive power requirement. The proposed topology does not require additional passive component, e.g., inductors or film capacitors for ripple energy storage because this task can be accomplished by the dc-link capacitors, and therefore its implementation cost can be minimized. Another unique feature of the proposed topology is that the current stress of power semiconductors can be reduced as compared to other existing active power decoupling circuits. This feature becomes more obvious when the converter operates with capacitive load, e.g., for grid voltage support. The operational principle of the proposed circuit is discussed, and experimental results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed circuit concept.


We present aspects of the deployment of a remotely operable telescope for teaching practical science to distance learning undergraduate students. We briefly describe the technical realization of the facility, PIRATE, in Mallorca and elaborate on how it is embedded in the Open University curriculum. The PIRATE teaching activities were studied as part of a wider research project into the importance of realism, sociability and meta-functionality for the effectiveness of virtual and remote laboratories in teaching practical science. We find that students accept virtual experiments (e.g. a telescope simulator) when they deliver genuine, 'messy' data, clarify how they differ from a realistic portrayal, and are flagged as training tools. A robotic telescope is accepted in place of on-site practical work when realistic activities are included, the internet connection is stable, and when there is at least one live video feed. The robotic telescope activity should include group work and facilitate social modes of learning. Virtual experiments, though normally considered as asynchronous tools, should also include social interaction. To improve student engagement and learning outcomes a greater situational awareness for the robotic telescope setting should be devised. We conclude this report with a short account of the current status of PIRATE after its relocation from Mallorca to Tenerife, and its integration into the OpenScience Observatories.


We have derived a parameterization consisting of a set of analytical expressions that approximate the predictions by the California Institute of Technology - Carnegie-Mellon University (CIT) Urban Airshed Model for the net export to the environment (i.e., effective emissions) of several chemical species, as functions of 14 input parameters. For each species, effective emissions are a function of actual urban emissions of this and other species and of other urban domain properties such as meteorology. Effective emissions may be "aged" emissions of primary pollutants or actual production of secondary pollutants. To develop the parameterization we have applied the probabilistic collocation method, which uses the probability density functions of the inputs to generate a set of orthogonal polynomials. These polynomials are then used as the basis for a polynomial chaos expansion that approximates the actual response of the CIT model to its inputs. We assume that seasonal variations can be represented by sinusoidal functions. The parameterization provides a computationally very efficient simulation of the actual model behavior. We have compared the outputs of the parameterization with the outputs of the CIT model, and we conclude that it gives a quite good approximation for effective emissions, at least in the regions of highest probability of the input parameters. This parameterization is applicable to detailed uncertainty and sensitivity analyses and enables computationally efficient inclusion of urban-scale processes as subgrid scale phenomena in global-scale models.


Using the Cloud for large-scale distributed simulations, such as agent-based traffic simulations, sounds like a good idea, as it is possible to provision and release easily processing nodes (e.g., Virtual machines) in the Cloud. However, the question is complex as it involves users' objectives, such as, time to process the simulation and cost of the simulation, and because the workload evolves in distributed simulations, in each node and the whole system, and this impact the resource provisioning plans. This paper proposes two main contributions: (i) a method for efficient utilization of computational resources for distributed agent-based simulations, providing a mechanism that adapts the resource provisioning to users' objectives and workload evolution, and (ii) a staged asynchronous migration technique to limit the migration overhead when the number of workers change. Our preliminary experimental results on a 24 hour scenario of traffic in the city of Tokyo show that our system outperforms a static provisioning by 12% in average and 23% during periods when workload changes a lot.


In this paper, we establish the effectiveness of using hard negatives, coupled with a siamese network and a suitable loss function, for the tasks of answer selection and answer triggering. We show that the choice of sampling strategy is key for achieving improved performance on these tasks. Evaluating on recent answer selection datasets - InsuranceQA, SelQA, and an internal QA dataset, we show that using hard negatives with relatively simple model architectures (bag of words and LSTM-CNN) drives significant performance gains. On InsuranceQA, this strategy alone improves over previously reported results by a minimum of 1.6 points in P@1. Using hard negatives with a Transformer encoder provides a further improvement of 2.3 points. Further, we propose to use quadruplet loss for answer triggering, with the aim of producing globally meaningful similarity scores. We show that quadruplet loss function coupled with the selection of hard negatives enables bag-of-words models to improve F1 score by 2.3 points over previous baselines, on SelQA answer triggering dataset. Our results provide key insights into answer selection and answer triggering tasks.


We describe the effects of substrate parasitics in silicon-based processes and present a methodology for designing low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) in silicon processes. Our techniques resulted in excellent agreement between simulations and measurements for a test case LNA design for 802.11a. This LNA, which covers 5-6 GHz and has gain switching is designed in a 0.8 μm SiGe bipolar technology with f/sub T/ of 50 GHz. The LNA exhibits a gain of more than 24 dB in the 5-6 GHz band with a noise figure (NF) less than 2.5 dB. The agreement between simulation and measured data is demonstrated.


Automated theorem provers have traditionally relied on manually tuned heuristics to guide how they perform proof search. Deep reinforcement learning has been proposed as a way to obviate the need for such heuristics, however, its deployment in automated theorem proving remains a challenge. In this paper we introduce TRAIL, a system that applies deep reinforcement learning to saturation-based theorem proving. TRAIL leverages (a) a novel neural representation of the state of a theorem prover and (b) a novel characterization of the inference selection process in terms of an attention-based action policy. We show through systematic analysis that these mechanisms allow TRAIL to significantly outperform previous reinforcement-learning-based theorem provers on two benchmark datasets for first-order logic automated theorem proving (proving around 15% more theorems).


As the existing team literature mostly excludes context and culture, little is known about how these elements affect real-life team working (Engestrom, 2008; Salas & Wildman, 2009), and how teams work in non-Western settings, such as in Chinese firms (Phan, Zhou, & Abrahamson, 2010).This research addresses this issue by investigating how new product design (NPD) teams use team working to carry out product innovation in the context of Chinese family businesses (CFBs) via an indigenous psychology perspective. Unlike mainstream teamwork literature which mostly employs an etic design, an indigenous psychology perspective adopts an emic approach which places emphasis on understanding real-life phenomena in context through a cultural-insider perspective (Kim, 2000). Compatible with this theoretical position, a multiple qualitative case study approach was used as the research methodology. Three qualitative case studies were carried out in three longstanding family-run manufacturing firms in Taiwan, where family firms have been the pillars of high economic growth in the past five decades (W.-w. Chu, 2009). Two salient findings were established across the three case studies. First, the team processes identified across the three family firms are very similar with the exception of owners' involvement and on-the-job training. All three family firms' NPD teams are managed in a highly hierarchical manner, with considerable emphasis placed on hierarchical ranking, cost-effectiveness, efficiency, practicability, and interpersonal harmony. Second, new products developed by CFBNPD teams are mostly incremental innovation or copycat innovation, while radical or original products are rare. In many ways, CFBNPD teams may not be the ideal incubators for innovation. This is because several aspects of their unique context can cast constraints on how they work and innovate, and thus limit the ratio of radical innovation. A multi-level review into the facilitators and inhibitors of creativity or innovation in CFBNPD teams is provided. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings and the limitations of the study are also addressed.


This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the German adaptation of the Traumatic Experiences Checklist (TEC), a comprehensive questionnaire for the assessment of adverse and potentially traumatic experiences in childhood and adult life. Participants were recruited from in- and outpatient units of 7 psychiatric services in Switzerland and Germany and from private practitioners of psychiatry and psychotherapy (N = 287). Participants were assessed by self-rating scales, diagnostic checklists, and diagnostic interviews. A subgroup of 67 participants recompleted the TEC 3 to 5 weeks following the first assessment. High correlations between TEC scores and Childhood Trauma Questionnaire scores confirmed criterion validity of the TEC. Construct validity was confirmed by the association of TEC scores with symptom scores of posttraumatic stress, dissociation, anxiety, and depression. The TEC showed high reliability (Cronbach's α = 0.85 to 0.94 for total scores, test-retest correlation = 0.94 to 0.95 for total scores). The psychometric properties of the German adaptation of the TEC are excellent. The TEC is useful to assess adverse and potentially traumatic experiences in clinical work and research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)


Recently, the sensor worm attack has been identified to be one of the serious threats to the wireless sensor networks. However, sensor nodes do not have complicated hardware architectures or operating systems to protect program safety. Sensor worms can exploit the vulnerabilities of sensor nodes, such as the vulnerability of the buffer-overflow. In this paper, we utilize a software diversity approach to defend the sensor worm attacks. A Worm Attack DEfence (WADE) problem, which is to minimize the total number of defective edges with limited software versions, is defined in this paper. To solve the WADE problem, we present a role-base graph coloring scheme. Simulation results illustrate the efficiency and efficacy of our approach.


Research has shown that child and maternal factors contribute to parenting stress and depression among mothers of children with AD/HD. The purpose of the current study was to identify the extent to which maternal cognitive distortions are associated with parenting stress and depression. Twenty-four mothers of children with AD/HD completed measures of child and maternal psychopathology as well as maternal cognitive distortions. Both maternal depression and parenting stress were predicted by maternal characteristics above child characteristics. Child internalizing behaviors and parenting-specific cognitive distortions predicted whether mothers were classified as stressed or stressed and depressed. The results indicated that cognitive distortions, especially those pertaining to parenting, play a significant role in the distress experienced by mothers of children with AD/HD.


A new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has provided vital information about the numbers, demographic characteristics, and health and welfare status of the Stolen Generations and their descendants, which will influence future policy and service development.  It has also measured the ongoing impact of past policies which led to the forced removal of tens of thousands of children from their families, by documenting high levels of disproportionate disadvantage across most of 38 critical health and welfare factors analysed. By showing that the Stolen Generations and their families experience greater levels of adversity than other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (who are already at a disadvantage in Australia), we can see a direct link between traumatic childhood experiences, inter-generational trauma, and many of the social and health issues in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities today. The Healing Foundation is using this data to help build an Action Plan for Healing and promote the need for increased and specific healing-centred services across areas of Australia where the Stolen Generations and their descendants live.


Two geophysical onshore-offshore lines on the southern margin of Africa form the Agulhas-Karoo Geophysical Transect (AKGT) and cross prominent geological features such as the Karoo Basin, Cape Fold Belt (CFB) and the Beattie Magnetic Anomaly (BMA). Geophysical data acquired along this AKGTransect between 2004 and 2007 within the Inkaba yeAfrica (lyA) framework, provide the platform for constructing a deep crustal section (IyA-200501) for the centre 100 km of the western AKGT-transect in order to resolve these features at depth. We present a detailed deep crustal model constructed from the joint interpretation of:
i. archive data comprising surface geology, aeromagnetic data, nearby deep boreholes, teleseismic receiver functions and regional seismic reflection profiles, and
ii. line coincident newly acquired high-resolution geophysical data consisting of near vertical seismic reflection data, shallow P- and S-wave velocity data, wide-angle refraction data, high resolution magnetotelluric data and impedance spectroscopy measurements on borehole samples.
Our model differentiates four components in the up to 45 km thick crust:
1. a ~2 to 5 km thick folded Karoo Supergroup, disrupted by low-angle thrust faults rooted in a zone of local decollements in the
lower Ecca Group and resting paraconformably on
2. a continuous undeformed sub-horizontal ~1.5 to 10 km thick wedge of the Cape Supergroup (CSG). This CSG wedge stretches
from the Escarpment in the north to the tectonic front of the CFB in the south, and rests on an unconformity that dips about three degrees to the south. The angular unconformity is interpreted as an erosional peneplain that separates the CSG wedge from component
3. the ~13 to 21 km mid-crust basement below. The mid-crust contains a distinct north-dipping seismic fabric, here interpreted as ~1.4 to 1.0 Ga Mesoproterozoic Namaqua-Natal Metamorphic Belt (NNMB) crust. A south-dipping mid-crustal detachment, interpreted as a ductile thrust zone, separates the mid-crust from component
4. a highly reflective ~10 to 24 km thick lower crust. The latter is interpreted as an older Palaeoproterozoic section of the NNMB (or even Archean cratonic basement), and bounded by a ~2 to 5 km thick, highly reflective bottom layer below that lies sub- parallel to a clear Moho. This bottom layer is interpreted as a mafic underplate, metasomatic reaction zone, or lower-crust to mantle transition zone.
Collectively the seismic reflection and wide-angle refraction data support an interpretation that the NNMB mid-crustal layer
contains the BMA source, possibly connected to two zones of strong reflectivity: a ~10 to 12 km wide northern zone and a ~5 to 7 km wide southern zone, both about 5 km thick and 7 to 8 km below surface. We interpret the BMA source to be at least in part, a Namaqua-like massive to disseminated, deformed/metamorphosed stratiform sulphide-magnetite ore body with metasomatic overprint.
The seismic reflection and -refraction data support an interpretation that a Pan-African suture zone at the BMA is absent and that instead, the NNMB continues below the CFB tectonic front, probably up to the continental margin and the Agulhas Fracture Zone. The seismic reflection data also supports a thin-skinned tectonic thrust model for the evolution of the CFB without significant fore-deep stratigraphic thickening of the Karoo Basin strata. A compatible tectonic model implies a Palaeozoic collision orogen setting, coupled to a south verging subduction zone much farther south of the CFB. Similarly, the geophysical data support a south dipping subduction zone during the amalgamation of the NNMB in the Mesoproterozoic.
Current reconstructions of the Rodinia supercontinent link the NNMB and the Grenville Province of North America across the Grenville-Kibaran orogen. Our seismic section tests this reconstruction through a direct comparison with seismic profiles on the opposite flank of the orogen. Although the once adjacent continental blocks are now 1000s of kilometres apart, the seismic images show a good correlation and support the reconstruction.


Intersymbol interference (ISI) caused by intermodal dispersion in multimode fibers is the major limiting factor in the achievable data rate or transmission distance in high-speed multimode fiber-optic links for local area networks applications. Compared with optical-domain and other electrical-domain dispersion compensation methods, equalization with transversal filters based on distributed circuit techniques presents a cost-effective and low-power solution. The design of integrated distributed transversal equalizers is described in detail with focus on delay lines and gain stages. This seven-tap distributed transversal equalizer prototype has been implemented in a commercial 0.18-/spl mu/m SiGe BiCMOS process for 10-Gb/s multimode fiber-optic links. A seven-tap distributed transversal equalizer reduces the ISI of a 10-Gb/s signal after 800 m of 50-/spl mu/m multimode fiber from 5 to 1.38 dB, and improves the bit-error rate from about 10/sup -5/ to less than 10/sup -12/.


The degree of commonality between the perceptual mechanisms involved in processing faces and objects of expertise is intensely debated. To clarify this issue, we recorded occipito-temporal event-related potentials in response to faces when concurrently processing visual objects of expertise. In car experts fixating pictures of cars, we observed a large decrease of an evoked potential elicited by face stimuli between 130 and 200 msec, the N170. This sensory suppression was much lower when the car and face stimuli were separated by a 200-msec blank interval. With and without this delay, there was a strong correlation between the face-evoked N170 amplitude decrease and the subject's level of car expertise as measured in an independent behavioral task. Together, these results show that neural representations of faces and nonface objects in a domain of expertise compete for visual processes in the occipito-temporal cortex as early as 130200 msec following stimulus onset.


Interest in tunable solid state lasers has grown rapidly from the initial demonstration of sources based on vibronic transitions broadened by strong electron-phonon coupling, such as those found for many transition metal ions in crystalline hosts. The properties of transition metal ions in insulating matrices have received renewed interest since the first demonstration of the Ti:Al2O3 laser in 1982 [1]. This laser is based on electron transitions that can occur when a Ti3+ ion is introduced at an octahedral site, presenting well-understood spectroscopic characteristics when uniformly doped in a sapphire crystal during the growth process. The broad fluorescence band, high absorption cross section and short lifetime have been extensively studied. The progress made in the understanding of the basic optical spectroscopic properties of similar systems provide the basis for technological achievements in the laser field, with new materials covering the near infra-red region. In this paper, the spectroscopic properties of a sapphire crystal locally doped with Ti by thermal indiffusion in an inert atmosphere are presented. The fluorescence spectrum for a diffused sample is found to extend from a wavelength of approximately 600nm into the near infra-red, with a maximum at around 725nm, and exhibits significant polarisation dependence. The lifetime of the diffused Ti ions is measured to be 3.2 ±0.25 µs at room temperature. These results compare well with previously published data for bulk doped Ti:Al2O3 [2] Spatially resolving the fluorescence spectrum at a polished edge of the sample shows that the Ti ions are contained within 1 µm of the surface and these results will be discussed in the light of the Ti diffusion profile obtained by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). These results demonstrate that Ti ions may be introduced into sapphire by thermal indiffusion, and the fluorescence spectrum shows that a significant proportion of the Ti is incorporated in the trivalent state following the diffusion process. Local doping of Ti3+ by thermal diffusion in a sapphire host has enormous potential for the realisation of a broadly tunable active integrated optical source in a sapphire host.


As a comprehensive indicator of mathematical thinking and intelligence, the number sense (Dehaene 2011) bridges the induction of symbolic concepts and the competence of problem-solving. To endow such a crucial cognitive ability to machine intelligence, we propose a dataset, Machine Number Sense (MNS), consisting of visual arithmetic problems automatically generated using a grammar model—And-Or Graph (AOG). These visual arithmetic problems are in the form of geometric figures: each problem has a set of geometric shapes as its context and embedded number symbols. Solving such problems is not trivial; the machine not only has to recognize the number, but also to interpret the number with its contexts, shapes, and relations (e.g., symmetry) together with proper operations. We benchmark the MNS dataset using four predominant neural network models as baselines in this visual reasoning task. Comprehensive experiments show that current neural-network-based models still struggle to understand number concepts and relational operations. We show that a simple brute-force search algorithm could work out some of the problems without context information. Crucially, taking geometric context into account by an additional perception module would provide a sharp performance gain with fewer search steps. Altogether, we call for attention in fusing the classic search-based algorithms with modern neural networks to discover the essential number concepts in future research.


Abstract. Digital elevation model, showing the physical and topographical situation of the earth, is defined a tree-dimensional digital model obtained from the elevation of the surface by using of selected an appropriate interpolation method. DEMs are used in many areas such as management of natural resources, engineering and infrastructure projects, disaster and risk analysis, archaeology, security, aviation, forestry, energy, topographic mapping, landslide and flood analysis, Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Digital elevation models, which are the fundamental components of cartography, is calculated by many methods. Digital elevation models can be obtained terrestrial methods or data obtained by digitization of maps by processing the digital platform in general. Today, Digital elevation model data is generated by the processing of stereo optical satellite images, radar images (radargrammetry, interferometry) and lidar data using remote sensing and photogrammetric techniques with the help of improving technology. One of the fundamental components of remote sensing radar technology is very advanced nowadays. In response to this progress it began to be used more frequently in various fields. Determining the shape of topography and creating digital elevation model comes the beginning topics of these areas. It is aimed in this work , the differences of evaluation of quality between Sentinel-1A SAR image ,which is sent by European Space Agency ESA and Interferometry Wide Swath imaging mode and C band type , and DTED-2 (Digital Terrain Elevation Data) and application between them. The application includes RMS static method for detecting precision of data. Results show us to variance of points make a high decrease from mountain area to plane area.


Using intracoronary imaging modalities like intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) has a positive impact on the results of percutaneous coronary interventions. Efficient extraction of important vessel metrics like lumen diameter, vessel wall thickness or plaque burden via automatic segmentation of IVUS images can improve the clinical workflow. State-of-the-art segmentation results are usually achieved by data-driven methods like convolutional neural networks (CNNs). However, clinical data sets are often rather small leading to extraction of image features which are not very meaningful and thus decreasing performance. This is also the case for some applications which inherently allow for only small amounts of available data, e.g., detection of diseases with extremely small prevalence or online-adaptation of an existing algorithm to individual patients. In this work we investigate how integrating scattering transformations as special forms of wavelet transformations into CNNs could improve the extraction of meaningful features. To this end, we developed a novel network module which uses features of a scattering transform for an attention mechanism. We observed that this approach improves the results of calcium segmentation up to 8.2 % (relatively) in terms of the Dice coefficient and 24.8 % in terms of the average Hausdorff distance. In the case of lumen and vessel wall segmentation, the improvements are up to 2.3 % (relatively) in terms of the Dice coefficient and 30.8 % in terms of the average Hausdorff distance. Incorporating scattering transformations as a component of an attention block into CNNs improves the segmentation results on small IVUS segmentation data sets. In general, scattering transformations can help in situations where efficient feature extractors cannot be learned via the training data. This makes our attention module an interesting candidate for applications like few-shot learning for patient adaptation or detection of rare diseases.


If legislatures, courts and policy makers fail to distinguish among the differing roles of ISPs, irrational liability decisions may be the result THE rise of the Internet has challenges for the judiciary: they now will be required to apply laws that were written for the tangible world of paper and telephone to the new world factual setting created by computers. Can the old doctrines be boldly lifted and applied to the new concepts? This is the challenge. It is vitally important to any intelligent discussion of Internet-related law that the participants understand the fundamentals of Internet transmission and the relationships between the parties. It also is important for the participants to understand the different services--World Wide Web, e-mail, Usenet--that collectively comprise what the end user perceives as the "Internet." CONTENT CREATION V. DISTRIBUTION There is a fundamental distinction between the entities that create Internet content and those that merely distribute it or provide access to content. With a few exceptions--for example, issues involving jurisdiction and applicable law--the Internet does not provide significant new legal challenges for content providers. Although there are some state-level common law issues, such as defamation, privacy, torts, etc., the substantive bodies of law that have generated the most reported litigation to date are typically federal and statutory--copyright, trademark, patent, etc. Conventional application of existing legal doctrines usually will be reliable in determining the liability of content providers. The Internet merely introduces problems of scale by amplifying content providers' potential scope of liability. Most of the more significant unsettled Internet liability issues involve the vicarious or secondary liability of service providers or distributors. This introduces the classic "deep- pockets" policy concern. To what extent is it fair to impose secondary liability to ensure that a plaintiff can find a solvent defendant? The Internet introduces several unique considerations to the standard tort liability calculus. First, there is the strong public policy consideration of maintaining free access to information. Lawmakers and courts are justifiably concerned about hampering the limitless potential benefits of friction-free Internet commerce and information exchange. Second, imposition of liability on service providers introduces problems of scale. If vicarious liability is aggressively imposed, it is difficult to articulate a legal standard that would not impose liability on every entity involved in the transmission of the offensive or illegal material. Finally, in order to preserve innovation, legislation must be flexible and minimal in order to provide needed technological and legal standardization while preserving the delicate balance between the private entities that comprise the Internet. Since a service providers' liability for subscriber-generated content typically involves the degree of control that the provider can exercise over that content, some of the key issues are: * What is a "copy" in the digital realm? * How transient is the material (i.e., does the provider host content or merely pass digital data through its network)? * Was the material posted by a subscriber, or was the material automatically forwarded by another provider's subscriber? * How much similar material is present (i. e., is it feasible to monitor large volumes of data)? * Is it possible for the provider to determine that a particular item of content is offensive or illegal (e.g., is the message unreadable or encrypted)? * Should the fact that provider has voluntarily undertaken to monitor or screen content increase its liability? LEGISLATIVE DEVELOPMENTS In the United States, Congress attempted to respond to these concerns in late 1998 with the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). …


Objective
To analyze the causes of visual impaired and explore the visual improvement with aids, application effects and problems.

Methods
A series of cases study was adopted.Seven hundred and ninety-seven patients with visual impairment were selected from January 2012 to December 2016 in Tianjin Medical University Eye Hospital.The etiological analysis, visual function evaluation and visual aids fitting were performed for 797 patients with visual impairment.After 6 months, 400 patients were randomly selected for follow-up, and application effects, daily use time and the reasons for abandon were evaluated and analyzed.This study followed the Helsinki declaration and was approved by Ethic Committee of the Tianjin Medical University Eye Hospital.

Results
The causes for top three in 797 visual impairment patients were high myopia, congenital eye diseases and diabetic retinopathy respectively.With distant optical visual aids, distance vision of the patients was significantly improved.Thereinto, 66.3% patients used visual aids occasionally every day.The overall effective rate of visual aids fitting was 86.92%, the efficiency of electronic visual aids is obviously higher than that of other near optical visual aids, and the use effect evaluation of electronic aids is also the best.It is found that poor vision, inconvenient use and inability to use are common influencing factors, among which poor vision is the main reason.

Conclusions
High myopia has become the leading cause of visual impairment.Professional visual aids fitting can greatly improve residual vision and effectiveness of visual aids.During the process of application, most of the patients usually don't use the devices for longer duration due to severe eye diseases.Once visual aids meet the patients' visual demands in a certain, they work effectively.

Key words:
Visual impairment; Low vision; Visual aids; Evaluation


A series of core and core-shell nanoparticles with superparamagnetic properties were synthesised and surface functionalised using three different amino-silanes by a chemical conjugation method. The functionalised nanoparticles were characterised and further modified by chemical conjugation with two different classes of bio-molecules; (i) enzymes and (ii) single stranded DNA primers. The resultant nanoparticles (nano-bio conjugates) were used for applications in (i) enzyme catalysis and (ii) bio-separation / bio-sensing.

Magnetite and amorphous silica-coated core-shell nanoparticles were synthesised on both small (5 g) and large (20 g) scales and were characterised using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area measurement and vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM). Silica-coated core-shell nanoparticles were functionalised by silanisation with three different aminosilanes [3-aminopropyl tri-ethoxysilane (APTS), 3-aminopropyl di-ethoxymethylsilane (APDS) and 3-aminopropyl mono-ethoxydimethylsilane (APMS)] and two different methods: water (classical method) or a Tri-phasic Reverse Emulsion (TPRE) using toluene and a surfactant (Triton X-100). It was observed that the materials prepared using the TPRE method produced higher surface amine density values on average.

The first application involved bio-catalysis where lipases [Pseudomonas Fluorescens lipase (PFL) and Candida Rugosa lipase (CRL)] were chemically conjugated (covalently linked) via glutaraldehyde-modification onto the amino-functionalised nanoparticles for applications such as: (i) hydrolysis of p-nitrophenyl palmitate to produce palmitic acid and p-nitrophenol (model reaction), (ii) transesterification of ethyl butyrate with n-butanol to produce butyl butyrate and (iii) partial and selective hydrolysis of cis-3,5-diacetoxy-1-cyclopentene to produce pharmaceutically important and expensive chiral intermediate molecules. Various reaction parameters such as (a) water concentration in a bi-phasic solvent mixture and (b) temperature were investigated to determine the optimum conditions. All reactions were carried out using free lipases and the physically adsorbed lipases in order to compare the performance with chemically conjugated nano-biomaterials.

It was observed from the bio-catalytic reaction (i) that the conversion values given by lipase-immobilised materials were comparable to those given by free lipases with the added advantage of being re-usable for further catalytic cycles. PFL-immobilised nanoparticles were shown to be more effective catalysts than CRL-immobilised materials. In the bio- catalytic reaction (ii), Lipase-immobilised materials were shown to exhibit reasonable conversion values (maximum 53%) along with easy separability by one-step magnetic separation from the reaction mixture and re-usability. Finally, in the bio-catalytic reaction (iii), lipase-immobilised materials were shown to give lower total conversion values compared to free enzymes, but a higher proportion of desired products [(1S,4R)-cis-4-acetoxy-2-cyclopenten-1-ol and (1R,4S)-cis-4-acetoxy-2-cyclopenten-1-ol]. PFL (both free and immobilised) materials were shown to give higher conversion and enantioselectivity towards the desired (1S,4R)-enantiomer (93-100% ee) than CRL materials (30-40% ee).

The second application involved bio-separation and bio-sensing where 5ʹ-NH2-modified oligonucleotide sequences specific to either Listeria Monocytogenes (LM) or Escherichia Coli (EC) were immobilised onto the surface of glutaraldehyde modified nanoparticles to assess the specific capture and enhance the sensitivity of detection of pathogenic bacterial DNAs from food samples. Firstly, the oligonucleotide-grafted nanoparticles were used in a hybrid capture assay (model assay) at UCLan using specific single stranded DNA primers of our interest followed by the application in real food samples at Q-Bioanalytic GmbH, Germany. Capture of the complementary sequences was reasonably high (48-70% for LM-specific materials and 48-55% for EC-specific materials) when calculated as a molar ratio of conjugated oligonucleotides to complementary oligonucleotides captured. Specific capture was determined to be 33-52% for LM-specific oligonucleotide-grafted nano-materials and 59-60% for EC-specific oligonucleotide-grafted nano-materials. Dehybridisation of captured sequences was shown to be efficient for all oligonucleotide-grafted materials (72-97% for LM-specific materials and 86-87% for EC-specific materials), indicating that the materials were ready for real applications using food matrices at Q-Bioanalytic GmbH, Germany.

Nucleic acid DNA was extracted from a real food sample inoculated with either LM or EC and the extracted DNA was used for specific capture using the oligonucleotide-grafted materials tested at UCLan. Dehybridised oligonucleotides were amplified and analysed using quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR). The results showed that using a one-step hybrid capture assay, LM-specific oligonucleotide-grafted materials were successful at detecting LM from an undiluted solution of LM only and from a 1:1 mixture of LM and EC. Using a two-step assay where the forward and reverse oligonucleotide-grafted materials were applied for capture separately, only EC-specific materials were successful for the detection of EC from an undiluted solution, and also from a 1:1 mixture of LM and EC.


It has been hypothesised that larvae of neritic fishes are exposed to cross-shelf (offshore) transport during formation of meso-scale anti-cyclonic eddies of the Leeuwin Current and this could result in increased larval mortality and reduced recruitment. A month-long multidisciplinary voyage in May 2006 off south-western Australia allowed for in situ examination of the meso-scale oceanography and the process of cross-shelf transport during formation of an anti-cyclonic eddy. Coupled with oceanographic analyses, larval fish assemblages were used as tracers to ascertain the timing, sources and pathways for the incorporation of neritic larval fishes into an eddy. Distinct larval fish assemblages characterised the shelf, meander/eddy and surrounding ocean. Compared with the surrounding ocean, larval fishes were concentrated in the eddy and the assemblage was a mixture of both meso-pelagic and neritic species. The Leeuwin Current was identified as the major transport route for the incorporation of neritic larval fishes into the eddy. Prior to this, mixing between Leeuwin Current and shelf waters occurs through upstream incursions of the current onto the shelf and this appears to be important for the initial entrainment of neritic larvae. In contrast, high concentrations of early-stage larvae of meso-pelagic fishes (e.g. Myctophidae) in the eddy appear to be the product of localised spawning in or near the eddy. Night-time vertical distributions of larval fishes showed high concentrations in the upper 80m of the water column and patterns were investigated relative to thermal stratification, the deep chlorophyll maximum and the horizontal velocity field.


Introduction The objective of anesthesia has always been to enable correction of surgical pathology with the best technique and minimum risk to the patient. The aim of the present study was to determine clinically, without using a peripheral nerve stimulator, whether continuous infusion or intermittent bolus dosing of rocuronium bromide yielded a better clinical condition during general anesthesia. Patients and methods The study was carried out on 60 adult patients. A common technique of general anesthesia was used in all patients. Patients were randomized to receive either a continuous infusion (group I, n = 30) or intermittent bolus dosing (group II, n = 30) of rocuronium bromide. Intraoperatively (a), hemodynamic parameters (heart rate and arterial pressure), (b) clinical relaxation by a grading technique, (c) total drug requirement, (d) recovery status by modified Steward score were assessed and were compared between the two groups. Results The mean heart rate and mean arterial pressure at different time intervals after intubation with rocuronium were not significantly different between the two groups. The total drug requirement was significantly greater in patients who received an intermittent bolus dose of rocuronium than those who received a continuous infusion. Clinical relaxation and recovery status in patients receiving rocuronium infusion were significantly better. Conclusion Rocuronium infusion offers a better and stable degree of relaxation compared with intermittent bolus dosing for intermediate duration of operation, which can be assessed using the clinical relaxation grading system. Rocuronium is a rapidly acting and hemodynamically stable nondepolarizing muscle relaxant with fewer drug requirements and provides better quality of recovery status during a continuous infusion.


Within the coastal zone, waterfront development has caused severe loss of shallow- water habitats, such as salt marshes and seagrass beds. Although the effects of habitat degradation on community structure within intertidal marshes have been well studied, little is known about the impact of habitat degradation on, and the ecological value of, subtidal shallow-water habitats, de- spite the prevalence of these habitats in coastal ecosystems. In coastal habitats, bivalves are domi- nant benthic organisms that can comprise over 50% of benthic prey biomass and are indicative of benthic production. We quantified bivalve diversity, density, and biomass in deep and shallow (<1.5 m MLW) unstructured subtidal habitats in 2 tributaries of lower Chesapeake Bay (Elizabeth- Lafayette River system and York River). We also examined the effects of shoreline alteration in shal- low habitats by contrasting the benthos of the subtidal areas adjacent to natural marsh, bulkhead, and rip-rap shorelines. Bivalve diversity, density, and biomass were significantly higher in shallow than in deep benthic habitats in both systems. Benthic abundance and diversity were higher in subti- dal habitats adjacent to natural marsh than those adjacent to bulkhead shorelines; abundance and di- versity were intermediate in rip-rap shorelines, and appeared to depend on landscape features. Predator density and diversity tended to be highest adjacent to natural marsh shorelines, and density of crabs was significantly higher in natural marsh than in bulkhead habitats. There is thus a crucial link between natural marshes, infaunal prey in subtidal habitats, and predator abundance. Conse- quently, the indirect effects of coastal habitat degradation upon secondary production in the shallow, subtidal habitats adjacent to salt marshes may be as great as or greater than direct habitat effects.


From 2001 to 2006, 71 pop-up satellite archival tags (PSATs)
were deployed on five species of pelagic shark (blue shark [Prionace glauca]; shortfin mako [Isurus oxyrinchus]; silky shark [Carcharhinus falciformis]; oceanic whitetip shark
[C. longimanus]; and bigeye thresher [Alopias superciliosus]) in the central Pacific Ocean to determine species-specific movement patterns and survival rates after release from longline fishing gear. Only a single postrelease mortality could be unequivocally documented:
a male blue shark which succumbed seven days after release.
Meta-analysis of published reports and the current study (n=78 reporting PSATs) indicated that the summary
effect of postrelease mortality for blue sharks was 15% (95% CI, 8.5–25.1%) and suggested that catch-and-release
in longline fisheries can be a viable management tool to protect parental biomass in shark populations. Pelagic sharks displayed species-specific depth and temperature ranges, although with significant individual temporal and spatial variability in vertical movement patterns, which
were also punctuated by stochastic events (e.g., El Nino-Southern Oscillation). Pelagic species can be separated
into three broad groups based on daytime temperature preferences by using the unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic averaging clustering on a Kolmogorov-Smirnov
Dmax distance matrix: 1) epipelagic species (silky and oceanic whitetip sharks), which spent >95% of their
time at temperatures within 2°C of sea surface temperature; 2) mesopelagic-I species (blue sharks and shortfin makos, which spent 95% of their time at temperatures from 9.7°
to 26.9°C and from 9.4° to 25.0°C, respectively; and 3) mesopelagic-II species (bigeye threshers), which spent 95% of their time at temperatures from 6.7° to 21.2°C. Distinct
thermal niche partitioning based on body size and latitude was also evident within epipelagic species.


Islands are hotspots of biodiversity, with a disproportionately high fraction of endemic lineages, often of ancient origin. Nevertheless, intra‐island phylogeographies are surprisingly scarce, leading to a scanty knowledge about the microevolutionary processes induced on island populations by Plio‐Pleistocene climatic oscillations, and the manner in which these processes contributed to shape their current genetic diversity. We investigated the phylogeography, historical demography and species distribution models of the Corsican endemic newt Euproctus montanus (north‐western Mediterranean). As for many island endemics, the continuous distribution of E. montanus throughout its range has hitherto been considered as evidence for a single large population, a belief that also guided the species' categorization for conservation purposes. Instead, we found a geographic mosaic of ancient evolutionary lineages, with five main clades of likely Pliocene origin (2.6–5.8 My), all but one restricted to northern Corsica. Moreover, the copresence between main lineages in the same population was limited to a single case. As also suggested by growing literature on intra‐island phylogeographic variation, it seems that the extensive use of simplifying assumption on the population structure and historical demography of island populations—both in theoretical and applicative studies—should be carefully reconsidered, a claim that is well exemplified by the case presented here.


Aspects of the neurodegenerative mechanism in AD remain unknown therefore studies on alternative models of cerebral amyloidosis, such as familial British dementia (FBD) and familial Danish dementia (FDD) may contribute to a better understanding of the neurodegenerative process. FBD and FDD are neurodegenerative disorders caused by mutations in the BRI2 gene. Both mutations cause elongation of the precursor proteins, the furin-like cleavage of which results in the formation of amyloidogenic peptides, ABri in FBD and ADan in FDD. Extensive morphological examinations of FBD and FDD were undertaken using antibodies recognising ABri and ADan, establishing a regional distribution of CNS peptide deposits in either amyloid or pre-amyloid configuration in both diseases, including cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) formation. Amyloid associated proteins (AAP) are able to modify Afi aggregation and are implicated in AD pathogenesis. Establishing whether AAPs are implicated in the pathogenesis of other cerebral amyloidoses, AAP deposition was investigated and found associated with ABri and ADan amyloid and preamyloid parenchymal lesions. Inflammatory mechanisms, including activation of the complement pathways, initiated by AJ3 deposition strongly are implicated in AD pathogenesis. The presence of the complement pathways were shown in FBD and FDD, highlighting the importance of chronic inflammation in the neurodegenerative diseases. Biochemical analysis of extracted ABri and ADan species indicates that as solubility of the deposits decrease heterogeneity and complexity of extracted peptides increases, including post-translational modification of glutamate to pyroglutamate. The production and cellular origin of the precursor proteins and the localisation of fiirin expression were investigated. Evidence is presented that BRI2 mRNA and furin are found in neurons and glia, suggesting that cleavage of the wild type and mutated precursor proteins can take place in these cells. The absence of BRI2 mRNA in cerebrovascular cells indirectly supports the drainage hypothesis of CAA.


We explore the interaction between labour market reforms and financial frictions. Our study combines a new cross-country reform database on labour market reforms with matched firm-bank data for nine euro area countries over the period 1999 to 2013. While we find that labour market reforms are overall effective in increasing employment, restricted access to bank credit can undo up to half of long-term employment gains at the firm-level. Entrepreneurs without sufficient access to credit cannot reap the full benefits of more flexible employment regulation.


We consider the problem of a user querying semistructured data such as RDF without knowing its structure.  In these circumstances, it is helpful if the querying system can perform an approximate matching of the user's query to the data and can rank the answers in terms of how closely they match the original query. We show that our approximate matching framework allows us to incorporate RDFS inference rules as well as standard notions of approximation such as edit distance, thereby capturing semantic as well as syntactic approximations.  The query language we adopt comprises conjunctions of regular path queries, thus including extensions proposed for SPARQL to allow for querying paths using regular expressions.  We provide an incremental query evaluation algorithm which runs in polynomial time and returns answers to the user in ranked order.


Peripheral vascular disease (PVD) affects more than 30 million people worldwide, most often individuals over age 65. Despite this, PVD remains a disease with which many clinicians are unfamiliar. The authors provide a description of relevant vascular anatomy and pathophysiology, a focused review of diagnostic modalities used in screening for PVD, and contemporary medical and interventional treatments used for PVD. Generous use of bullet points, condensed tables, high-quality figures, and diagrams facilitate easy comprehension of a multifaceted and serious condition.


We have studied the possible advantages of a wide-area approach (long-baseline differential positioning with GPS) for the precise kinematic trajectory determination of aircraft in support of airborne scanning lidar altimeter surveys, over the usual and more labor and resource intensive short-baseline approach with locally deployed ground receivers. In this form of remote sensing, the GNSS data are used to find very precisely the aircraft position and, combining it with inertial data, the aircraft orientation, in order to georeference the scanning laser measurements within very strict tolerances.
If proved useful, the adoption of the wide-area approach, compared to present practice, could result in a substantial reduction of costs and in more flexibility when confronted with changing weather conditions or dealing with priority response situations. Such situations, at present, may require postponing a survey, or redeploying ground receivers and personnel on short notice.
We have conducted three successful tests: two with data collected during the survey of large areas in the northeast of the state of New South Wales, in Australia, and a third one with data from a system calibration flight over a pre-surveyed area around the Bathurst airport, also in that state.
These tests were organized and conducted by the NSW Government's Land and Property Management Authority (LPMA), in collaboration with the University of New South Wales, in June of 2009 and July of 2010. The baselines from the reference stations to the aircraft were as long as 1100 km.
The wide-area reference stations used in the tests are part of CORSnet-NSW, a network of continuously operating reference stations run by LPMA in the state of New South Wales. As of September of 2010 this network consisted of 43 stations; and the goal is to reach a total of 70 by 2012. All receivers in the network collected data at the rate of 1 Hz; on the aircraft 2 Hz data were collected. The solutions were calculated in post-processing mode, at 2 Hz.
To verify the quality of the aircraft trajectories determined by the wide-area technique, they were compared to the customary short-baseline solutions with local reference stations set up within a few kilometers of the flight path of the airplane. Finally, the digital elevation model (DEM) obtained from the calibration flight data and a precise wide-area GNSS trajectory was compared to the DEM made with the usual short-baseline method. In all cases the agreement was excellent.


Single particle fluorescence spectroscopy coupled with AFM observation is reported for perylene nanocrystals. Fluorescence spectral measurement for individual nanocrystals with the size from 100 nm to 500 nm and fluorescence anisotropy analysis demonstrate that the size dependence in fluorescence is in the intrinsic nature of nanometer-sized crystal of perylene. Single nanoparticle fluorescence shows the enhanced monomer (M-) emission compared to the bulk crystal and a blue-shift of excimer (E-) emission peak wavelength by decreasing the nanoparticle size. It is found for the first time that the size dependence is correlated well to the surface-to-volume ratio of nanocrystal. The size-dependent fluorescence is not attributed to a quantum confinement effect of exciton, but to a change in the elastic properties of nanocrystal with size, which in turn affects excimer formation. We discuss the decrease in elastic constant of crystalline lattice due to large surface-to-volume ratio, and propose an empirical formula on the size-dependence of E-emission peak in the framework of the strong coupling model of exciton-phonon interaction.


Gaussian processes with absorbing barriers have been the subject of much study because of their numerous applications. The reliability of a brittle prismatic bar under uniform tension and whose strength has a stationary Gaussian distribution leads to one such problems. A particular choice of the autocorrelation function of strength allows translating the problem into a partial differential equation that admits an expedient numerical solution. Therein lies the main attractiveness of the problem. By changing the boundary, a generalization will furnish the reliability of prismatic bars under variable tension and of nonprismatic bars, as well as the solution to other problems of nonstationary Gaussian processes with absorbing barriers. The formulation can also be reinterpreted as pertaining to non-Gaussian probability distribution of strength provided the autocorrelation function is treated appropriately.


Human capital (HC) represents the cumulative tacit knowledge that is embedded in the minds of people in organisations. HC is important to organisations because it serves as a source of innovation and strategic renewal. Individuals carry HC when they join an organisation and take their talent, skills and tacit knowledge with them when they leave the organisation. Thus HC is volatile in nature. Organisations are therefore keen to do what they can to foster and develop HC as a means of achieving sustainable competitive advantage. This paper argues that neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) has the potential of developing and enhancing the stock of HC in organisations. NLP emerged in the 1970s from the University of California, USA. NLP suggests that subjective experience is encoded in terms of three main representation systems: visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic (VAK). NLP practitioners claim that people tend to have one preferred representation system over another in a given context. Despite that previous research has shown that NLP can assist in facilitating knowledge and learning capabilities, very limited research is conducted using NLP in nurturing HC in organisations. This paper critically reviews the literature and theoretically argues that NLP can be used as a practical approach to develop HC in organisations. This is because NLP primarily focuses on individual internal learning and that learning likely leads to the accumulation of HC in organisations. In other words, organisational members may find it more effective to enhance their tacit knowledge, both individually and collectively, if they adopt the NLP approach in their day-to-day work. Examples on how NLP may be used to develop HC in organisations will be provided. Future research direction and limitations will also be discussed.


This article introduces a new analytic framework to assess the risk/return profile of hedge funds and funds of hedge funds. As alternatives to the traditional time-series mean and standard deviation, the cross-sectional average and dispersion of the terminal wealth accumulated from an investment in baskets of hedge funds are used here. The end-of-period wealth approach circumvents well-known statistical biases marring parametric time-series analysis, especially the under-estimation of risk. Simulations performed in this article indicate that the risk of single hedge funds is much higher within a terminal wealth framework as compared to the traditional framework. However, this higher risk exposure can be channeled by investing in funds of hedge funds, the diversification benefits of which are found to be substantial. In addition, a small number of funds are necessary to diversify risk away. The terminal wealth framework should be particularly relevant for investors with fixed investment horizons and predefined liabilities to meet, such as pension funds and insurance companies


In the last decade, HundrED has collaborated and learned from a diverse global community of innovators, educators, school leaders, and other stakeholders in over 100 countries. This paper begins to address questions from our research agenda, particularly those related to the complex process of innovation implementation at scale. We define the messy middle as the phase marked by complexity and uncertainty that occurs after an innovation has been tested and validated but before it has been institutionalised as part of standard practice in a classroom, school, or system. Following Rogers' diffusion theory, we understand implementation asputting an innovation into use as part of multiple decision-making processes by teachers, schools, and organisations that move an innovation toward institutionalisation. We examine five diverse cases to delve into the complexities of the messy middle. These are (1) HundrED's Tailor-Made collaboration with Helsinki EducationDivision in Finland, which introduced two wellbeing innovations from international contexts into the primary school curriculum (2) HundrED's Tailor-Made collaboration with the Parents as Allies project in the U.S., led by the non-profit organisation Kidsburgh, that supports schools and families to co-design innovative solutions that promote family engagement (3) Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL), an approach to learning that groups students according to their learning levels rather than age or grade. We explore implementation in countries in sub-Saharan Africa (4) Geneva Global's Speed School and Luminos Fund's Second Chance, two accelerated learning programs, and whose implementation in Ethiopia is the focus of our case (5) Sapieduca, a classroom-level, gamified application in Brazil initially developed to increase student engagement. These cases reveal that the messy middle involves learning by doing in a sense-making process of understanding the who, why, what and how of an innovation in practice.


This one day workshop examines the interactions and the space between HCI (Human Computer Interaction) and ACI (Animal Computer Interaction) focusing on the transferability of methods and ideas between the two fields. The workshop will begin with short presentations followed by plenary discussions. The aim is to strengthen connected thinking whilst highlighting the exchangeable connecting methods from both ACI and HCI and their subfields including Child Computer Interaction (CCI) and Human Robot Interaction (HRI), discussing what these fields learn from each other with their similarities and differences mapped. The output of this workshop will be an initial mapping of the ACI and HCI field's interchange of methods and learning transferability as well as an advanced understanding of how the two fields are useful to each other.


Thumb-indexed edition A hundred years of experience in dictionary publishing lies behind this edition of the famous Cassell's French Dictionary. After more than thirty impressions of the previous edition this entirely new dictionary has been compiled by a team of eminent linguists. Reviewing the new dictionary The Times Educational Supplement said: "One handles this dictionary with the same pleasure that a craftsman feels when he finds that a tool, dulled and blunted by long use and passage of time, has come back sharpened and polished, refurbished and fit once more for long years of useful service. Everyone has his testing-points for a dictionary and the present reviewer, after submitting this one to the ordeal, awarded it a tentative full marks. Its minor defects pale into insignificance before the scholarly achievement of a work for which the publishers can rightly claim that it is ?the most authoritative, up-to-date and, within the limits of size, the most comprehensive French dictionary available."


The growing interdependence between states with regard to diverse issues such as trade, security, human rights and the environment has compelled the creation of international and regional organisations, often with supranational characteristics, as instruments to regulate newly emerging international issues. International and regional organisations are increasingly viewed as new lawmaking actors, which are to some extent autonomous from the states that establish them. This article, with specific reference to the European Union and African Union, investigates the relationship between regional organisations and their members with regard to the authority to make and apply legislation.


In this article, we study the behaviour of the RLC cells for the four configurations that we presented earlier in Abi Zeid Daou et al. (2009a). An electric circuit is used in order to study the fractional behaviour and the robustness of these RLC operators and compare their responses to the behaviour of the fractance which is an ideal fractional operator (Moreau et al., 2003). This analysis is conducted for both natural and forced responses. In more details, the initial conditions of the capacitors and inductances are neglected in the first case and they are taken into consideration in the second one. The number of initial conditions is related to the number of RLC cells used. The robustness of all arrangements is analysed by varying the unsteady parameter value which is represented by an inductance in the electrical circuit. This inductance represents a different variable parameter in each field of application. For example, in the hydropneumatic domain, this inductance refers to the mass of the vehicle as the mass has the main influence on the dynamics and the robustness when designing the active suspension (Moreau et al., 2001). A conclusion will sum up the results for all four arrangements and a confirmation that the phase constancy and the robustness are present in both modes.


In France, the Paris region is the traditional centre for decision-making and creative functions. Unsurprisingly, it respectively concentrates 75% and 90% of audiovisual producers and technicians, and 52% of video games employees (IAURIF, 2010). The aim of this paper is to analyse if the Parisian media sector has developed a clustering dynamics. Following the rediscovery of Alfred Marshall's academic publications during the eighties, a widening number of research papers - mainly draft in Europe and United-States - concentrates on explaining the ins and outs of the spatial and relational proximities. The unsettled notion of cluster popularized from 1990 by Michael Porter had a coronation within the academic community, instead of the substantial conceptual limits underline by various schools of thought. Consequently, the concept of innovation cluster blows in the communications of the spatial economists achieving scientific works on high-tech sector. Unlike the classical approach, innovative clusters assert at least three new features: - The regional scale (Enright, Dodwell et Scott, 1996), - The collaborative process of governance (Ehlinger, Perret and Chabaud, 2007 ; Den Hertog and Roelandt, 1999) which gathers the Triple Helix actors Etzkowitz and Leydersdorff, 1997): firms, training and R&D facilities, and public authorities. - The non-immediately-marketable aspect of the relationships undertook within the cluster (Glon, 2007). The Paris region concentrates 10.000 multimedia firms, including a great number of SME which sometimes have established networks with some multinational media groups. However, the relations are extremely limited with the regional schools and research laboratories. The economic situation of SME remains very fragile. That's explain the launching in 2005 by the Ile de France Regional Council of a cross-media professional association, Cap Digital, labellized competitiveness cluster. On the regional scale, this association gathers 450 firms, 50 schools or universities and 170 research laboratories in audiovisual, video games, software, Internet and telecommunications industries. In spite of a rapid growth of the sector and 150 projects labellized on the regional scale, collaborations within the cluster still remain very recent, rarely include a cross-media approach and hesitate to develop partnerships with research units. According to J-C Daumas (2007), clusters are characterized by several phases: emergence, growth, decline and rebirth. We can consider that the Parisian multimedia cluster as a growth and structuring cluster.


This paper presents a fast fixed-point implementation of MPEG-2 AAC-LC (Advanced Audio Coding, Low Complexity profile defined in ISO/IEC13818-7) audio decoder. By analyzing the decoding algorithm, we propose tuned optimization strategies for improving the decoding speed of the main modules of the decoder. After these optimizations, the designed fixed-point AAC-LC decoder is proved to be 20% faster than the reference decoder, FAAD2, an open source AAC. The decoding result also illustrates the high quality as the reference.


Ducted fan vehicles possess a superior ability to maximize payload capacity while minimizing vehicle size. Their ability to both hover and fly at high speed is a key advantage for information-gathering missions, particularly when close proximity to a target is essential. However, the ducted fan''s aerodynamic characteristics pose difficulties for stable vehicle flight and therefore require complex control algorithms. In particular, they exhibit a large nose-up pitching moment during wind gusts and when transitioning from hover to forward flight. Understanding ducted fan aerodynamic behavior and how it can be altered through flow control techniques are the two prime objectives of this work. This dissertation provides a new paradigm for modeling the ducted fan''s nonlinear behavior and new methods for changing the duct aerodynamics using active flow control. Steady and piezoelectric synthetic jet blowing are employed in the flow control concepts and are compared. The new aerodynamic model captures the nonlinear characteristics of the force, moment, and power data for a ducted fan, while representing these terms in a set of simple equations. The model attains excellent agreement with current and legacy experimental data using twelve nondimensional constants. Synthetic jet actuators (SJA) have potential for use in flow control applications in UAVs with limited size, weight, and power budgets. Piezoelectric SJAs for a ducted fan vehicle were developed through two rounds of experimental designs. The final SJA design attained peak jet velocities in the range of 225 ft/sec (69 m/s) for a 0.03"" x 0.80"" rectangular slot. To reduce the magnitude of the nose-up pitching moment in cross-winds, two flow control concepts were explored: flow separation control at the duct lip, and flow turning at the duct trailing edge using a Coand surface. Both concepts were experimentally proven to be successful. Synthetic jets and steady jets were capable of modifying the ducted fan flow to reduce pitching moment, but some cases required high values of steady blowing to create significant responses. Triggering leading edge separation on the duct lip was one application where synthetic jets showed comparable performance to steady jets operating at a blowing coefficient an order of magnitude higher.


Organ growth in many flowering plants progresses through two phases: cell proliferation and cell elongation. Recent work has indicated that class 1 KNOX genes regulate cell proliferation. These genes encode transcription factors that are largely responsible for a steady supply of undifferentiated stem cells. Moreover, KNOX gene expression is detectable in lateral organs of different plants such as compound leaves, suggesting a role in sculpting organ shape. The association of KNOX genes with stem cells suggests a role for these genes in the cell division phase of plant development. This suggests that a specific lateral organ, petal spurs, may be built in part using KNOX genes. Indeed, previous work has shown that KNOX gene over-expression in petals may cause spur-like outgrowths. In Aquilegia, a short proliferation phase gives rise to nascent spurs, which is followed by a cell elongation phase. We investigated KNOX gene expression and found by using Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction, that expression of KNOX genes was detectable, but not uniformly so, suggesting that there may be either a highly cell-specific expression of KNOX genes or extremely low expression in petal spurs. Future tests with micro dissected tissue samples may prove to be helpful but it can be concluded for now that KNOX genes are not highly or consistently expressed in Aquilegia petal spurs, and their role in this organ is an ongoing mystery.


This paper describes a project where a MOOC (Massiv e Open Online Course) was developed in order to blend a Circuits and Electron ics course taught to non-majors at Georgia Tech. The MOOC platform contains videos of all the course lectures, online homework, and quizzes. Over 400 students take this course on cam pus each term. Since these students were spread over eight to nine sections, consistency of overage and of grading was a major motivation for inverting this course. Another major motivation for the course inversion was to be able to introduce hands-on activities into the clas sroom so that students can get small-scale laboratory experiences within a lecture-based cours e. A number of different assessment methods are on-going with this course.


At an historic White House bill-signing ceremony on August 15, 1994, Public Law 103-296--Social Security Independence and Program Improvements Act of 1994--was signed into law. President Bill Clinton symbolically used one of the pens President Franklin Roosevelt had used when he signed the original Social Security Act 59 years ago, on August 14, 1935. The new legislation officially separates the Social Security Administration (SSA) from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), effective March 31, 1995, and restores the SSA to its original status as an independent Federal agency. (Since 1939, SSA has operated under the direction of a "parent" agency.) A single administrator will lead the agency with a seven-member bipartisan advisory board. Also contained in the new law is a number of other major changes affecting the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs. Historical Background What is today the Social Security Administration was established in 1935 as the Social Security Board, managed by a three-member bipartisan board, and operated as a e-standing entity within the Executive Branch. The Social Security Board chairman reported directly to the President. The members of the board, including the chairman, were nominated by the President, and appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate. In the 1939 U.S. Government Reorganization Act, the Federal Security Agency was created and the Social Security Board became one of its components, no longer reporting directly to the President. In 1946, the three-member Board was abolished and an Office of Commissioner of Social Security was created to run what became the Social Security Administration, still a part of the Federal Security Agency. In 1953, the agency was replaced with the creation of the cabinet-level Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), and SSA consequently became a component of HEW. When in 1979 the educational components of HEW were spun off and reorganized into a new cabinet-level Department of Education, the remaining components (SSA, Public Health Service, Health Care Financing Administration, Office of Human Development Services, and Office of the Secretary) were reconstituted as the Department of Health and Human Services, which continued as SSA's parent agency until March 31, 1995. Since the Social Security Board was abolished in 1946, 18 persons have served in the position of Commissioner or Acting Commissioner of Social Security, with tenure in office ranging from as little as a few months to as long as 11 years. The agency's internal organizational structure has also undergone many changes. The most recent reorganizations occurred in 1975, 1977, 1979, and 1994. In its nearly 60 years of operations, SSA has been assigned diverse responsibilities under a myriad of programs (see Milestones). Currently, SSA has principal responsibility for Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI), Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Black Lung art B) programs. It receives support from the Treasury Department--which collects Social Security taxes and disburses benefit check--the Postal Service, General Services Administration, and the Office of Personnel Management. Independent Agency Issue The impetus behind an independent SSA emanated primarily from a desire to separate Social Security policymaking from economic and budgetary decisions affecting the rest of the Federal Government. Considering Social Security unique among Federal social programs because of its self-financing nature and "implied compact' with the Nation's workers to pay "earned" retirement, survivor, and disability benefits, proponents of SSA's independence wanted to insulate it from everyday political, fiscal, and operational policy decisions of the Government. Support for independence began to emerge in the early 1970's. It can be traced to the decision taken under the Johnson Administration to create a Unified Federal Budget in which Social Security program revenues and outlays were shown together with other government operations. …


We investigate the use of correlated photon pair sources for the improved quantum-level detection of a target in the presence of a noise background. Photon pairs are generated by spontaneous four-wave mixing, one photon from each pair (the herald) is measured locally while the other (the signal) is sent to illuminate the target. Following diffuse reflection from the target, the signal photons are detected by a receiver and non-classical timing correlations between the signal and herald are measured in the presence of a configurable background noise source. Quantum correlations from the photon pair source can be used to provide an enhanced signal-to-noise ratio when compared to a classical light source of the same intensity.


In this study, the effects of long-term NaCl treatment were investigated in two cultivars of peanut designated as drought-resistant and drought-sensitive. Growth parameters, changes in the concentrations of MDA, H 2 O 2 and proline, and the activities of antioxidant enzymes were determined under salinity stress. Growth parameters indicated the superiority of cv. Florispan to cv. Gazipasa under milder salinity stress treatment. However, comparative analysis of the two cultivars showed that MDA, H 2 O 2 , ion leakage levels and photosystem II activities were not significantly different, except for the proline activity, which increased only in Florispan leaf tissues under 100 mM salt treatment. Among the processes that govern the tolerance in peanut tissues, proline level and the activity of glutathione reductase (GR) appeared to be only components that play an important part in salt stress protection.


Written by experts in the field, the book focuses on structural and functional imaging methodologies that have recently been applied to study the natural history of Parkinson's disease, with emphasis on the development of the major motor manifestations of the illness as well as cognitive impairment and dementia. Individual chapters address the role of imaging in differential diagnosis and in the evaluation of pharmacologic and surgical treatment effects. In-depth discussion of the use of imaging tools to study disease mechanisms is also provided, with emphasis on the roles of neuroinflammation, protein aggregation, and abnormal network organization in parkinsonism. Additionally, the text covers a number of relevant novel topics including recent advances in volumetric and functional MRI, echosonography, dopaminergic and cholinergic neurotransmitter imaging, and applications to experimental interventions such as gene therapy and transplantation.


Abstract:This article argues that the classical verse of three twentieth-century writers, Chen Yinke 陳寅恪 (1890–1969), Nie Gannu 聶紺弩 (1903–86), and Wang Xindi 王辛笛 (1912–2004), is significant to the canon of contemporary Chinese literature. The literary historical merit of their poetry is due not only to its aesthetic accomplishments but even more to the poets' specific responses to the challenges posed to human dignity during the thought reform campaigns of the 1950s and the Cultural Revolution. Whereas ChenYinke's last twenty years demonstrate the faith and hauteur of a scholar who wore the mantle of the entire classical tradition, Nie Gannu expresses the deepest despair through deceptively humorous rustic topics, and Wang Xindi's grief over separation and loss recall Du Fu's poetry of the An Lushan Rebellion. Although the thirty years between the establishment of the People's Republic of China through the end of the Cultural Revolution may have been a time when intellectuals were intimidated into conformity or silence, these three poets show that such hardship created an opportunity to exalt the spirit of individual dignity, if only through poetry.


Cenozoic sediments, mainly carbonates, of the passive margin of Western Australia have been deposited during four cycles of sedimentation: late Paleocene to early Eocene, middle to late Eocene, late Oligocene to middle Miocene, and late Miocene and younger. The Western Australian margin is suitable for a study of the cycles as it has not been deformed except for postrift downwarp, and the low relief of the hinterland has resulted in little deposition of terrigenous sediments during most of the Cenozoic. The cycles may reflect large sea-level fluctuations probably caused by events of global significance. The inferred sea-level variation is greater than that caused by Quaternary glacial eustasy. Present-day sea level is close to the maximum sea level attained during the Cenozoic.


The arterial adventitia has been long considered an essentially supportive tissue; however, more and more data suggest that it plays a major role in the modulation of the vascular tone by complex interactions with structures located within intima and media. The purpose of this review is to summarize these data and to describe the mechanisms involved in adventitia/media and adventitia/intima cross-talk. In response to a plethora of stimuli, the adventitia undergoes remodeling processes, resulting in positive (adaptive) remodeling, negative (constrictive) remodeling, or both. The differentiation of the adventitial fibroblast into myofibroblast (MF), a key player of wound healing and fibrosis development, is a hallmark of negative remodeling; this can lead to vessel stenosis and thus contribute to major cardiovascular diseases. The mechanisms of fibroblast-to-MF differentiation and the role of the MF in adventitial remodeling are highlighted herein.


ObjectivesTo assess the effectiveness of an intervention for providing information, and support to HIV-positive donors on changes in their sexual behavior, and to assess which donor characteristics are predictive of behavior change. DesignSubjects were randomly assigned to a structured intervention or community referral group. Follow-up assessments were conducted every 6 months. SettingNew York City, New York, USA. ParticipantsA cohort of 271 HIV-infected persons who donated blood to the New York Blood Center. InterventionDonors randomized to the structured intervention program met individually with a nurse for counseling, and were offered a six-session support group. The program was designed to provide information, encourage safer sexual behavior, and provide support. Main outcome measuresSexual behavior, psychological distress, and psychological help seeking, and immune function. ResultsIn both groups there was a large decrease over time in reports of unsafe sexual activity. However, more than 30% of participants in both groups reported unsafe sexual activity at the 1-year follow-up visit. Donors randomized to the structured intervention program did not report significantly more behavior change at the 1-year follow-up. ConclusionsBetter programs to promote behavior change in seropositive individuals are needed.


Abstract

This issue includes five of the best papers, from six different countries, presented in the Cladea Assembly of 2015. This introduction summarises the papers and presents an analysis of Latin American publications on management, and of the advantages and conditions for international collaboration. The first article looks at the positive impact of the decentralization of decision-making processes and the formalisation of work in the innovation of small and medium enterprises. The second studies the fear of failure in work and its relationship to demographic variables. The third analyses the impact of the domestic violence suffered by workers on customer services in Puerto Rican companies. The fourth discusses the relationship between teleworking and the work-family conflict, and finally, the fifth is aimed at optimising the management of dependent demand inventory systems.

This issue includes five articles chosen among the best papers presented at the Cladea Assembly of 2015 organised by Universidad de Valparaiso (Chile). The articles were sent in from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Spain, and Puerto Rico, and were the best assessed in the fields of organisational behaviour, leadership and human capital management, entrepreneurships and SMEs, technology management and innovation, and operations management and value chains.

The selection process began with the evaluation of the works sent to the conference for each topic. The author wish to thank the organisers, those in charge of each topic, and all the evaluators that helped select the best works. In particular, we thank Sergio Olavarrieta, Jose Ernesto Amoros, Jorge Ayala, Silvio Borrero, Daniel Cabrera, Reinaldo Calvo, Consuelo Garcia, Valeska Geldres, Jorge Gilbert, Olga Pizarro, Jose Antonio Robles, and Jorge Tarzijan. Authors interested in publishing their articles were asked to send in a revised version. These new versions were then subjected to a double blind evaluation, and subsequent revisions until reaching the current publication. This has been a collective process in which dozens of academics from all the Cladea schools and countries have taken part.


In Addition-Rotation-Xor (ARX) ciphers, the large domain size obstructs the application of the boomerang connectivity table. In this paper, we explore the problem of computing this table for a modular addition and the automatic search of boomerang characteristics for ARX ciphers. We provide dynamic programming algorithms to efficiently compute this table and its variants. These algorithms are the most efficient up to now. For the boomerang connectivity table, the execution time is 42(n − 1) simple operations while the previous algorithm costs 82(n − 1) simple operations, which generates a smaller model in the searching phase. After rewriting these algorithms with boolean expressions, we construct the corresponding Boolean Satisfiability Problem models. Two automatic search frameworks are also proposed based on these models. This is the first time bringing the SAT-aided automatic search techniques into finding boomerang attacks on ARX ciphers. Finally, under these frameworks, we find out the first verifiable 10-round boomerang trail for SPECK32/64 with probability 2−29.15 and a 12-round trail for SPECK48/72 with probability 2−44.15. These are the best distinguishers for them so far. We also perceive that the previous boomerang attacks on LEA are constructed with an incorrect computation of the boomerang connection probability. The result is then fixed by our frameworks.