The prognosis for patients with primary liver cancer (PLC) often depends on tumor recurrence and the development of extrahepatic metastases, particularly after liver transplantation. We have developed a sensitive test to detect both spontaneous circulation of tumor cells and the spread of liver cells due to chemoembolization and alcoholization. Reverse‐transcription polymerase chain reaction was used to search for cells expressing α‐fetoprotein (AFP) messenger RNA in the peripheral blood of 84 patients with PLC and 102 controls (55 patients with chronic hepatitis and/or cirrhosis, 10 patients with benign liver tumors or liver metastases from intestinal cancers, and 37 healthy individuals). By spiking the blood of healthy volunteers with HepG2 cells, we assessed the sensitivity limit: one HepG2 cell mixed with 107 leukocytes. All 102 controls tested negative. In contrast, 28 patients (33.3%) with PLC tested positive. Positivity for the test was significantly associated with portal thrombosis, tumor size, intravascular tumor emboli, serum AFP level, and extrahepatic metastases. Patients were followed up for a mean period of 39 ± 51 weeks: the probability of developing extrahepatic metastases was significantly higher in positive than in negative patients. Eighteen negative patients with PLC were tested before, 1 hour after, and 24 hours after locoregional therapy: 9 tested positive either 1 or 24 hours after alcoholization or chemoembolization. In conclusion, we have developed a highly specific and sensitive test to detect circulating tumor cells in patients with PLC. This test is likely to be clinically useful in evaluating the risk of developing extrahepatic metastases and the possibility of iatrogenic spreading of liver‐derived, possibly tumorous, cells.


(CD) is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the upper small intestine caused by an inflammatory T-cell response to the ingestion or storage proteins in wheat (gliadin), rye (secalin), and barley (hordein), which are collectively called "gluten", and possibly oat products. (ATD) is the most common autoimmune condition, an acting approximately 2% of the female population and 0.2% of the male population. Thyroiditis has been repeatedly associated with celiac disease. (TTG-A) has proved to be a very specific indicator to identify patients with CD. (anti-TPO), (anti-TG) and (anti-TSHR) is a main feature of autoimmune thyroid disease. Methods; One hundred and sixteen submitted in this study 86 patient for CD and 30 control (healthy), tested for (TTG-IgG, TTG-IgA, Anti-TSH Anti-TPO and Anti-TG) by use ELISA method. Results; (TTG-IgG) with (TTG-IgA, Anti-TSH) show statistical significant, (TTG-IgG) with (Anti-TPO, Anti-TG) show statistical non-significant. (TTG-IgA) with (TTG-IgG, Anti-TSH) show statistical significant. (TTGIgA) with (Anti-TPO, Anti-TG) show statistical non-significant. Conclusion; There are a strong association between CD and autoimmune thyroid disorders


This article presents highlights from the forthcoming OECD cross-country study Public Debt Management and Bond Markets in Africa. Debt managers from an increasing number of emerging market jurisdictions face challenges similar to those of their counterparts from advanced markets due to competitive pressures from global finance and the related need to implement OECD leading practices in this policy area. The article shows that OECD standards in public debt management and related market operations are, therefore, of great importance for public debt management and bond market development in Africa. Several African debt managers have introduced the leading debt management practices of OECD countries, use them for designing new debt strategies (including for managing contingent liabilities), and have made impressive progress in developing their local government securities markets. Many countries in the region are taking advantage of debt reduction initiatives. Avoiding falling back into positions of unsustainable debt is identified as a key challenge for many African governments. OECD financial policy makers are increasingly interested in developments in emerging markets, including those on the African continent. Moreover, emerging markets (including the latest emerging market region, Africa) are an increasingly important asset class for investors from the OECD area. Thus, the policy conclusions and priorities identified here are of interest to not only African countries but also the OECD area and other emerging market countries. Local bond markets in several African countries have gained in strength in terms of liquidity and maturity structure, making them more attractive for important categories of OECD investors and less vulnerable to exchange rate shocks.


This article assesses the efficacy of the legal framework for asylees, individuals granted refugee status within the United States, through an examination of the human outcomes following the grant of asylum. To understand how the asylee benefits system actually functions, I conducted more than fifty field interviews with advocates, service providers, and government officials in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Washington DC metropolitan area. This research fills a conspicuous gap in our understanding of what happens after the grant of asylum and reveals a number of insights about the ways in which the prevailing laws, policies and programs yield suboptimal outcomes, even given the limited resources presently devoted to asylee integration. Interviews yielded important findings, including that the current legal structure and attendant administrative programs push asylees quickly into survival jobs, which are often a stark mismatch for their education and skills. For educated asylees, these survival jobs impede both English language acquisition, which is critical to successful integration, and re-credentialing to allow recognition of education and expertise acquired overseas. For less educated asylees, the rush to employment in a survival job similarly impedes successful integration and may result in future costs to counties, states, and the federal government. The subsequent financial distress asylees experience plays a role in housing instability and delays in applying for permanent residence. These problems are compounded by limited ongoing mental health treatment for asylees, who are often survivors of torture or trauma, and delays in the family reunification process. This article offers several prescriptions for reform to help asylees, who have often already survived unthinkable horrors, to thrive in the United States and to allow our society to more fully benefit from asylee contributions. First, revisions to regulations implementing the Refugee Act are necessary to shift from an almost singular focus on rapid employment and economic self-sufficiency to a more holistic approach to asylee integration. Second, the playing field should be leveled for asylees by amending the current benefits package to be more aligned with the benefits received by those who are selected to enter the U.S. as resettled refugees while still overseas. Third, measures should be taken to increase asylee awareness of and access to the benefits to which they are entitled. Finally, short and long-term data gathering on asylee integration must be improved. These prescriptions for reform promise not only a more meaningful chance at life for asylees in the U.S., but will also benefit our communities as asylee contributions are maximized.


IRT equating methods have been used successfully with the TOEFL® test for many years, and for the most part the observed properties of items have been consistent with model predictions. However, items that do not appear to hold their IRT pretest estimates do exist. If relationships can be found between features of TOEFL items in pretest calibrations and subsequent lack of model-data fit when these items are used in final forms, steps to eliminate the use of such items in TOEFL final forms can be taken. The purpose of this study was to provide an exploratory investigation of item features that may contribute to a lack of invariance of TOEFL item parameters.

The results of the study indicated the following: (1) subjective and quantitative measures developed for the study provided consistent information related to the model-data fit of TOEFL test items, (2) for Sections 1 and 2, items that were pretested before 1986 exhibited poorer model-data fit than items that were pretested after 1986, and (3) for Section 3 reading comprehension, model-data fit appeared to be related to changes in the relative position of items within the sections from the pretest to the final form administrations.

Based on the results of the study, it was recommended that (1) the TOEFL program investigate the feasibility of not using pretest IRT statistics for items pretested before 1986 for Sections 1 and 2 and (2) that guidelines be developed for test developers to use with reading comprehension items to limit the change in relative positions of items in the test from pretest to final form administrations.


We acknowledge the contribution of von Stein (2005) in calling attention to the very real problem of selection bias in estimating treaty effects. Nonetheless, we dispute both von Stein's theoretical and empirical conclusions. Theoretically, we contend that treaties can both screen and constrain simultaneously, meaning that findings of screening do nothing to undermine the claim that treaties constrain state behavior as well. Empirically, we question von Stein's estimator on several grounds, including its strong distributional assumptions and its statistical inconsistency. We then illustrate that selection bias does not account for much of the difference between Simmons's (2000) and von Stein's (2005) estimated treaty effects, and instead reframe the problem as one of model dependency. Using a preprocessing matching step to reduce that dependency, we then illustrate treaty effects that are both substantively and statistically significant—and that are quite close in magnitude to those reported by Simmons.


Introduction: To evaluate the association between the first 5-item version of the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5) and Erection Hardness Grading Scale (EHGS) scores in patients who received sildenafil citrate treatment due to erectile dysfunction (ED). Patients and Methods: A total of 81 men with ED lasting for 6 months or longer were included in this study. Mean age was 51 years (range 21–75). All patients were given 50 mg sildenafil citrate (Viagra®) 4 times a week during an 8-week period and they were asked to attempt sexual intercourse when they used the drug. Results: The mean pretreatment IIEF-5 and EHGS scores were 6.7 ± 2.5 and 1.7 ± 0.5, respectively. These values were 15.3 ± 5.1 and 2.8 ± 0.6 after the treatment, respectively. There were statistically significant differences in all scores between before and after treatment for IIEF-5 and EHGS scores (p < 0.001). We found a very strong association between IIEF-5 and EHGS scores in the pretreatment period (gamma = 0.916, p < 0.001). However, there was a fair agreement between IIEF-5 and EHGS scores (kappa coefficient: 0.375). Conclusions: Our experience showed that there was no significant agreement between the IIEF-5 and EHGS scores in patients treated with sildenafil citrate.


Abstract. Coupling between the stratosphere and the troposphere allows changes in stratospheric ozone abundances to affect tropospheric chemistry. Large-scale effects from such changes on chemically produced tropospheric aerosols have not been systematically examined in past studies. We use a composition-climate model to investigate potential past and future impacts of changes in stratospheric ozone depleting substances (ODS) on tropospheric oxidants and sulfate aerosols. In most experiments, we find significant responses in tropospheric photolysis and oxidants, with small but significant effects on methane radiative forcing. The response of sulfate aerosols is sizeable when examining the effect of increasing future nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions. We also find that without the regulation of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) through the Montreal Protocol, sulfate aerosols could have increased by 2050 by a comparable amount to the decreases predicted due to relatively stringent sulfur emissions controls. The individual historical radiative forcings of CFCs and N 2 O through their indirect effects on methane (−22.6 mW m −2 for CFCs and −6.7 mW m −2 for N 2 O) and sulfate aerosols (−3.0 mW m −2 for CFCs and +6.5 mW m −2 for N 2 O when considering the direct aerosol effect) discussed here are non-negligible when compared to known historical ODS forcing. Our results stress the importance of accounting for stratosphere-troposphere, gas-aerosol and composition-climate interactions when investigating the effects of changing emissions on atmospheric composition and climate.


Objective: To treat long-segment Hirschsprung's disease (HD) in children using a laparoscopic technique and discuss the surgical method and effect of this procedure.
Methods: Thirteen children with long-segment HD, who were admitted for treatment from June 2008 to October 2016, were treated with Swenson's radical operation for HD using laparoscopic Deloyers procedure. The difficult portions of the operation included the dissection of the blood vessels of the mesocolon using a harmonic scalpel and the counterclockwise rotation of the ascending colon. The observation indexes included the surgical times, blood loss volume, postoperative complications, and stool excretion.
Results: The 13 surgeries were all completed using laparoscopy. The surgical times ranged from 142 minutes to 208 minutes, and the mean surgical time was 168 minutes. The largest intraoperative blood loss volume was 28 ml, and the other intraoperative blood loss volumes were all less than 10 ml. The postoperative complications included anastomotic leakage, enteritis, perianal skin erosion, and encopresis. One child with anastomotic leakage underwent an enterostomy and recovered after the stoma was closed two months later. All the 13 children returned to the hospital for further medical consultation after the surgery. The follow-up visits were conducted for a period of 3-48 months. The children defecated two to eight times each day after the surgery. Neither fecal incontinence nor constipation occurred in the children.
Conclusion: The laparoscopic deloyers procedure for longsegment HD is safe, feasible, and effective.


AbstractA convenient preparation of 1-(pyrrolidin-2-yl)-1H-pyrazoles, -imidazoles, and -1H-1,2,4-triazoles, 1-(piperidin-2-yl)-1H-pyrazoles and -1H-1,2,4-triazoles, and 1-(piperidin-3-yl)-1H-1,2,4-triazoles by alkylation of azoles (viz. pyrazoles, imidazoles, and triazoles) with N-Cbz-prolinol mesylate or its analogues and subsequent deprotection is reported. The two-step method allows for synthesis of the title compounds in 16–65% yields. The utility of the procedure has been demonstrated by multigram preparation of a 15-member building block mini-library for the lead-oriented synthesis of compound libraries. These building blocks perfectly fit the definition of low-molecular-weight hydrophilic three-dimensional templates, which leave much room for the lead-oriented synthesis of the compound libraries.


This thesis explores the equity mutual fund industry in Saudi Arabia by investigating the impacts of several variables on fund performance and money flow. The study includes all equity funds that operate in the Saudi Arabian market from the beginning of 2006 until July of 2017, which is the longest period of study has been examined the Saudi mutual fund industry. An extensive list of variables is applied in the empirical work to explore the performance and flow motives. We first investigate the impact of the oil market volatility and other fund investment characteristics on the mutual fund performance. The relationship between return performance and the oil volatility is extended to be examined based on funds investment geographic location focus and funds Shariah compliance. In addition, fund managers skills are investigated to find whether they can gain abnormal returns based on the oil market conditions. Second, we examine the main motives of mutual funds flow in the Saudi Arabian market which helps to understand the behaviour of funds investors. Different factors are applied to provide a conclusion of the determinates of the money flow sensitivity in Saudi Arabian mutual fund market. The oil market volatility is one important variable that is included in this study to examine the investors reactions to the oil market condition. Finally, we investigate whether the distribution channels play a significant role in influencing the performance and money flow of the mutual fund industry. There are only two channels that provide funds shares in the Saudi Arabian market: (bank-managed funds and financial institution-managed funds).


This Article assesses recent efforts to encourage online platforms to use automated means to prevent the dissemination of unlawful online content before it is ever seen or distributed. As lawmakers in Europe and around the world closely scrutinize platforms' "content moderation" practices, automation and artificial intelligence appear increasingly attractive options for ridding the Internet of many kinds of harmful online content, including defamation, copyright infringement, and terrorist speech. Proponents of these initiatives suggest that requiring platforms to screen user content using automation will promote healthier online discourse and will aid efforts to limit Big Tech's power.

In fact, however, the regulations that incentivize platforms to use automation in content moderation come with unappreciated costs for civil liberties and unexpected benefits for platforms. The new automation techniques exacerbate existing risks to free speech and user privacy and create ripe new sources of information for surveillance, aggravating threats to free expression, associational rights, religious freedoms, and equality. Automation also worsens transparency and accountability deficits. Far from curtailing private power, the new regulations endorse and expand platform authority to police online speech, with little in the way of oversight and few countervailing checks. New regulations of online intermediaries should therefore incorporate checks on the use of automation to avoid exacerbating these dynamics. Carefully drawn transparency obligations, algorithmic accountability mechanisms, and procedural safeguards can help to ameliorate the effects of these regulations on users and competition.


This paper deals with the role that the big transnational company Unilever had in the formation of the European Union biofuels policy. This takes in consideration the cooperation that this actor had with philanthropic foundations (like the European Climate Foundation), parliamentarians (the GLOBE EU network) and some of the most influential Environmental-NGO: s working at the European level (Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth Europe). The paper aims to show how the transnational player has acted to advance a legislation (the definition of "Sustainable Biofuels") that has been profoundly beneficiary for them in the end. By the ability to influence important key actors the transnational company has gained the success over the outcome. Unilever is for example one of the biggest importers of Palm Oil in the world and the legislation deeply affects them. This also follows the pattern from the Policy Life Cycle (PLC) model for environmental issues that was developed by Pieter Winsemius (also an adviser to Unilever) from the influential consultancy firm McKinsey and Company in the late 80's and used by some of the key players involved. The paper has its main focus on the period from 2006 to 2010, which is when the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) was prepared, enacted and implemented. The research has been conducted through document analysis.


In this provocative study, economist Ernesto Screpanti argues that imperialism far from disappearing or mutating into a benign globalization has in fact entered a new phase, which he terms global imperialism. This is a phase defined by multinational firms cut loose from the nation-state framework and free to chase profits over the entire surface of the globe. No longer dependent on nation-states for building a political consensus that accommodates capital accumulation, these firms seek to bend governments to their will and destroy barriers to the free movement of capital. And while military force continues to play an important role in imperial strategy, it is the discipline of the global market that keeps workers in check by pitting them against each other no matter what their national origin. This is a world in which the so-called labor aristocracies of the rich nations are demolished, the power of states to enforce checks on capital is sapped, and global firms are free to pursue their monomaniacal quest for profits unfettered by national allegiance. Screpanti delves into the inner workings of global imperialism, explaining how it is different from past forms of imperialism, how the global distribution of wages is changing, and why multinational firms have strained to break free of national markets. He sees global imperialism as a developing process, one with no certain outcome. But one thing is clear: when economic crises become opportunities to discipline workers, and when economic policies are imposed through increasingly authoritarian measures, the vision of a democratic and humane world is what is ultimately at stake."


Nerve injury induces a calcium wave that evicts a histone deacetylase from the nucleus, enabling activation of a regenerative transcriptional program. Although nerves in the central nervous system (CNS) do not regenerate after injury, nerves in the peripheral nervous system, such as sensory neurons or motor neurons, can. This regeneration process involves calcium signals and retrograde transport of signals from the injury site to the cell body and initiation of a proregeneration transcriptional profile. Alterations in histone acetylation, which is dynamically controlled by histone acetyltransferases (HATs) and histone deacetylates (HDACs), are one mechanism to trigger transcriptional reprogramming. HDAC5 is a substrate for protein kinase C (PKC) in injured neurons. Cho et al. examined the role of HDAC5 in the neuronal regeneration response to injury in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons (peripheral neurons) and retinal ganglion cells (RGCs, a model for CNS neurons) in vivo and in culture. Axon cutting (axotomy) of cultured DRG neurons or sciatic nerve injury in vivo triggered calcium-dependent phosphorylation (and activation) of PKCμ, whereas optic nerve injury did not trigger phosphorylation of PKCμ in RGCs. Analysis of trafficking of green fluorescent protein (GFP)–tagged HDAC5 in cultured DRGs after injury revealed that the abundance of HDAC5 in the nucleus decreased. Western blot analysis of the abundance of HDAC5 in the soma or nerve segment near the injury site in mice with sciatic nerve injury also showed that the abundance of HDAC5 in the soma decreased, whereas its abundance near the injury site increased. Optic nerve injury did not increase HDAC5 abundance near the site of injury in RGCs. In peripheral nerves in vitro and in vivo, consistent with the apparent relocalization of HDAC5 from nucleus to injury site (where HDAC5 acetylates microtubules to contribute to promoting growth cone dynamics), the amount of acetylated histone H3 increased. In contrast, acetylated histone H3 abundance decreased after nerve injury in the RGCs in vivo. Knockdown of PKCµ prevented HDAC5 relocalization to the axons in axotomized cultured DRG neurons, and activation of PKCs with ingenol 3-angelate (I3A) stimulated nuclear export in the absence of injury. Expression of a mutant HDAC5 that was retained in the nucleus suppressed axon regeneration of injured cultured DRG neurons, and the regenerative capacity of HDAC5-knockdown neurons was restored by a cytosolic-localized HDAC5 mutant but not the nuclear-localized mutant. Transcriptional microarray analysis confirmed the importance of HDAC5 nuclear export in producing a profile with proregenerative characteristics. In vivo sciatic nerve injury studies examining DRG regeneration or motor neuron regeneration revealed that I3A injection increased the number of axons that regenerated past the injury site (in DRGs) or an increase in the number of reinnervated neuromuscular junctions. Thus, HDAC5 exhibits two key functions in peripheral nerve regeneration: When exported out of the nucleus, HDAC5 enables transcriptional reprogramming to promote regeneration and at the grown cone HDAC5 stimulates cytoskeletal dynamics to promote growth cone migration. Y. Cho, R. Sloutsky, K. M. Naegle, V. Cavalli, Injury-induced HDAC5 nuclear export is essential for axon regeneration. Cell 155, 894–908 (2013). [PubMed]


The dynamics of the key nutrient phosphorus (P) in hypoxic and anoxic marine basins are still incompletely understood. This thesis focuses on the cycling of P in two of such basins: the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. Water column particulates and sediments from the deep basin of the Black Sea were collected during seagoing expeditions with the Dutch research vessel Pelagia, whereas sediments from the Baltic Sea were retrieved during the IODP Baltic Sea Paleoenvironment Expedition 347. A wide range of analytical techniques was applied to study the chemical composition of solutes, bulk sediments, sediment minerals and water column particulates, including sequential extractions for P and iron (Fe) and synchrotron-based X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS). Our results show that sedimentary P burial, the only long-term removal pathway of P in the marine realm, is strongly controlled by the environmental conditions (e.g. salinity and oxygen) in the water column and sediment and varies between different seas. The results show that organic P, authigenic Ca-P (apatite) and P associated with calcium carbonate (CaCO3) are the major P burial phases in sediments in the sulfidic deep basin of the Black Sea. Carbonate-bound P, which may already be present in the water column or that may form in the surface sediments, can thus be an important sink for P in CaCO3-rich sediments of anoxic, sulfidic basins. This P pool should be considered as a potential P sink (and P source in case of CaCO3 dissolution) when reconstructing P dynamics in past oceans. In the CaCO3-poor sediments of the Baltic Sea, vivianite (Fe(II)3(PO4)2·8H2O) was found to act as a key P burial pool. In the deepest basin, the Landsort Deep (437 m water depth), a strong shelf-to-basin shuttling of manganese(Mn)- and Fe-oxides and high inputs of P in settling organic matter were shown to stimulate the formation of vivianite and other P-bearing minerals in the sediments. In the shallow Angermanalven estuary (< 90 m water depth), in contrast, refreshening and re-oxygenation of the basin, caused by gradual isostatic uplift, promoted burial of P (as vivianite) in the sediment. These salinity-related changes in redox conditions and P burial are highly relevant in light of current climate change as increased freshwater input linked to global warming may enhance coastal P retention. This could contribute to oligotrophication in both coastal and adjacent open waters. The post-depositional formation of vivianite at the lake-marine transition in sediments of a hypoxic basin in the Baltic Sea, the Bornholm basin, was also investigated. The results show that vivianite precipitates at the interface where downward diffusing phosphate(PO4) from the organic-rich, brackish-marine sediments meets upward diffusing dissolved Fe from the lake sediments. This formation of vivianite strongly alters the sedimentary P records in the Bornholm Basin and other parts of the Baltic Sea. The possibility of post-depositional vivianite formation should thus be considered when using sediment P proxies to reconstruct paleo-environmental conditions in coastal basins.


The current study attempts to address the paucity of research in examining the
combined effects of adolescent and maternal. background factors, maternal
parenting influences as well as the inherent adolescent academic self-esteem (in
particular the self-efficacy and the locus of control orientation) on the academic
achievement of the adolescent. From an ecological perspective, demographic data
on the adolescent and his mother elucidated further the nature of the parent-child
dyad. Parenting attributes of demandingness and responsiveness were respectively
used to gauge the levels of maternal control and monitoring, and maternal
warmth. A third parenting dimension, involvement (Paulson, 1994) was added to
detect the degree of maternal interest and participation in the academic pursuits of
the adolescent. The information pertaining to the perceptions of parenting, selfefficacy
and locus of control were gathered using a group-administered
questionnaire.The sample of 280 respondents (145 boys and 135 girls) from intact families
were chosen to represent adolescents studying in non-residential schools in the
Kuala Lumpur region. Those selected were from two age cohorts (140 Form Two
and 140 Form Four students).
In the present study, it was of noteworthy importance to state that self-efficacy
and locus of control orientation of the adolescent possessed cogent influences on
achievement In addition, the family size and the age of the adolescent also
significantly predicted the academic achievement of the adolescent In essence, as
it had been established that the self-perceptions and age of the adolescent as well
as family size produced potent effects on achievement, these findings have farreaching
consequences on efforts aimed at enhancing the academic success of adolescents.


In this paper, we consider robust source coding in closed-loop systems. In particular, we consider a (possibly) unstable LTI system, which is to be stabilized via a network. The network has random delays and erasures on the data-rate limited (digital) forward channel between the encoder (controller) and the decoder (plant). The feedback channel from the decoder to the encoder is assumed noiseless. Since the forward channel is digital, we need to employ quantization. We combine two techniques to enhance the reliability of the system. First, in order to guarantee that the system remains stable during packet dropouts and delays, we transmit quantized control vectors containing current control values for the decoder as well as future predicted control values. Second, we utilize multiple description coding based on forward error correction codes to further aid in the robustness towards packet erasures. In particular, we transmit M redundant packets, which are constructed such that when receiving any J packets, the current control signal as well as J-1 future control signals can be reliably reconstructed at the decoder. We prove stability subject to quantization constraints, random dropouts, and delays by showing that the system can be cast as a Markov jump linear system.


Everyday activities are laden with emotional experiences involving sound. Our interactions with products (shavers, hairdryers, electric drills) often cause sounds that are typically unpleasant to the ear. Yet, we may get excited with the sound of an accelerating Harley Davidson because the rumbling sound represents adventure or an espresso machine pouring cappuccino because the sound signals an upcoming relaxing event. These examples demonstrate that it is often difficult to predict how pleasant or unpleasant a product sound is and that the circumstances surrounding sound events (i.e., external factors) can influence our judgment regarding those sounds. This paper discusses these external factors and provides a technical support for this notion. It will further present implications that could influence future product designers. Furthermore, the aim of this paper is to re-position the role of sound in human-product interactions.


Intended as an introductory guide, this work takes for its subject complex, analytic, automorphic forms and functions on (a domain equivalent to) a bounded domain in a finite-dimensional, complex, vector space, usually denoted Cn).Part I, essentially elementary, deals with complex analytic automorphic forms on a bounded domain; it presents H. Cartan's proof of the existence of the projective imbedding of the compact quotient of such a domain by a discrete group. Part II treats the construction and properties of automorphic forms with respect to an arithmetic group acting on a bounded symmetric domain; this part is highly technical, and based largely on relevant results in functional analysis due to Godement and Harish-Chandra. In Part III, Professor Baily extends the discussion to include some special topics, specifically, the arithmetic propertics of Eisenstein series and their connection with the arithmetic theory of quadratic forms.Unlike classical works on the subject, this book deals with more than one variable, and it differs notably in its treatment of analysis on the group of automorphisms of the domain. It is concerned with the case of complex analytic automorphic forms because of their connection with algebraic geometry, and so is distinct from other modern treatises that deal with automorphic forms on a semi-simple Lie group.Having had its inception as graduate- level lectures, the book assumes some knowledge of complex function theory and algebra, for the serious reader is expected to supply certain details for himself, especially in such related areas as functional analysis and algebraic groups.Originally published in 1973.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


The issue of Coverage in visual sensor networks (VSNs) has attracted considerable attention due to sensors unique directional sensing characteristic. It answers the question that how well the target field is monitored by a network of sensors with video/image capturing capability. In floor plan scenario the network is to monitor a plane parallel to the sensors' deployment plane. Coverage probability estimation based on both the sensors and the network related parameters is a fundamental issue in this field. For a large scale application in which the sensors' deployment is done by dropping sensors from an airplane, random sensors' placement and orientation according to their respective distribution is a practical assumption. Although some studies exist on the coverage problem of floor plan VSNs, none of them has derived a closed form solution for the coverage estimation, which is the main contribution of this paper. The Simulation results validated the proposed mathematical.


Traditionally, the vibration test results during a gun firing in the range are expressed by means of curves, tables and words. Although these means can satisfy the needs of the model research of a howitzer, it is difficult to express some important detail. Thus, the video display of the test results is urgently required for the model research of a gun. In order to enrich the output forms, extend the function and meaning of the test results, and play a guiding role more efficiently for the test results, the technology of motion display of the gun firing process based on test data was proposed. The principle and realization technology of the video display of the test data have been described, and the engineering application has also been completed.


We investigated electroless Ni uniformity on Al metal pads connected to different size pads or a pn junction for under bump metallurgy in flip-chip assemblies. In an electrically isolated pad, Ni thickness decreased as the pad size decreased. Because of nonlinear diffusion of Pb2+ stabilizer in the plating solution, fewer electrons were supplied to the smaller pad than to the larger pad by an anodic oxidation reaction on the pad surface. In pads smaller than 50 mum square, the Ni thickness increased when connected to a 100 mum square pad. This increase might be caused by electrons flowing from the 100 mum square pad to the smaller pad to produce an equipotential for the connected pads. In addition, the Ni thickness was increased by electrical connection to an n-type Si in the presence of fluorescent light illumination for a pn junction area larger than 100 mum2. For a pad connected to a p-type Si, however, Ni thickness decreased in comparison to that of an electrically-isolated pad, regardless of the light illumination or pn junction area. The change of Ni height on pads connected to the pn junction is attributable to photoelectrons injected into the n-type Si, or to electron-hole recombination in the p-type Si. These results indicate that the pads should be of the same size within a chip for better Ni uniformity. Moreover, blocking light during Ni electroless plating can eliminate Ni thickness differences due to an n-type Si connection.


Title of dissertation: ROBUST REPRESENTATIONS FOR UNCONSTRAINED FACE RECOGNITION AND ITS APPLICATIONS Jun-Cheng Chen, Doctor of Philosophy, 2016 Dissertation directed by: Professor Rama Chellappa Department of Computer Science Face identification and verification are important problems in computer vision and have been actively researched for over two decades. There are several applications including mobile authentication, visual surveillance, social network analysis, and video content analysis. Many algorithms have shown to work well on images collected in controlled settings. However, the performance of these algorithms often degrades significantly on images that have large variations in pose, illumination and expression as well as due to aging, cosmetics, and occlusion. How to extract robust and discriminative feature representations from face images/videos is an important problem to achieve good performance in uncontrolled settings. In this dissertation, we present several approaches to extract robust feature representation from a set of images/video frames for face identification and verification problems. We first present a dictionary approach with dense facial landmark features. Each face video is segmented into K partitions first, and the multi-scale features are extracted from patches centered at detected facial landmarks. Then, compact and representative dictionaries are learned from dense features for each partition of a video and then concatenated together into a video dictionary representation for the video. Experiments show that the representation is effective for the unconstrained video-based face identification task. Secondly, we present a landmark-based Fisher vector approach for video-based face verification problems. This approach encodes over-complete local features into a highdimensional feature representation followed by a learned joint Bayesian metric to project the feature vector into a low-dimensional space and to compute the similarity score. We then present an automated system for face verification which exploits features from deep convolutional neural networks (DCNN) trained using the CASIA-WebFace dataset. Our experimental results show that the DCNN model is able to characterize the face variations from the large-scale source face dataset and generalizes well to another smaller one. Finally, we also demonstrate that the model pre-trained for face identification and verification tasks encodes rich face information which benefit other face-related tasks with scarce annotated training data. We use apparent age estimation as an example and develop a cascade convolutional neural network framework which consists of age group classification and age regression, and a deep networks is fine-tuned using the target data. ROBUST REPRESENTATIONS FOR UNCONSTRAINED FACE RECOGNITION AND ITS APPLICATIONS


The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between two types of reading methods (reading aloud and silent reading) and two types of learning styles (visual and auditory) to reading comprehension of upper secondary students of SMK
Simunjan No.l. Descriptive statistics was used to collect the intended data. 120 upper secondary students were selected to be part of this study. Their learning styles of the students were identified prior to dividing them into two groups: the Oral Reading Group and Silent Reading Group. A learning style inventory and IELTS Reading Text were employed in this study. The learning style inventory was used to identify the students' learning styles whereas the IELTS Reading Test were used to test the students' reading comprehension. The data was then analyzed using
Independent Sample T-test and Factorial ANOVA. The findings showed that Oral Reading Group scored better in the reading comprehension test than Silent Reading Group. The auditory learners in Oral Reading Group had higher score in reading
comprehension test than those in Silent Reading Group. On the other hand, visual learners obtained slightly higher score in Oral Reading Group than those in Silent Reading Group. However, the data did not show any significance relationship between reading methods and learning styles in students' reading comprehension.
This study helped the teachers to create awareness of the importance of getting know of their students' learning styles prior to planning an effective lesson. By practicing suitable methods that match with students' learning styles, it will enable both
teachers and students to produce a better outcome in teaching and learning process, particularly in reading lesson for language classroom.


In our social semantics review (J. Evol. Biol., 2007, 415–432), we discussed some of the misconceptions and sources of confusion associated with group selection. Wilson (2007, this issue) claims that we made three errors regarding group selection. Here, we aim to expand upon the relevant points from our review in order to refute this claim. The last 45 years of research provide clear evidence of the relative use of the kin and group selection approaches. Kin selection methodologies are more tractable, allowing the construction of models that can be applied more easily to specific biological examples, including those chosen by Wilson to illustrate the utility of the group selection approach. In contrast, the group selection approach is not only less useful, but also appears to frequently have negative consequences by fostering confusion that leads to wasted effort. More generally, kin selection theory allows the construction of a unified conceptual overview that can be applied across all taxa, whereas there is no formal theory of group selection.


We report evidence that carbon impregnated conductive silicone tubing used in aerosol sampling systems can introduce two types of experimental artifacts: (1) silicon tubing dynamically absorbs carbon dioxide gas, requiring greater than 5 minutes to reach equilibrium and (2) silicone tubing emits organic contaminants containing siloxane that are adsorbed onto particles traveling through it and onto downstream quartz fiber filters. The consequence can be substantial for engine exhaust measurements as both artifacts directly impact calculations of particulate mass-based emission indices. The emission of contaminants from the silicone tubing can result in overestimation of organic particle mass concentrations based on real-time aerosol mass spectrometry and the off-line thermal analysis of quartz filters. The adsorption of siloxane contaminants can affect the surface properties of aerosol particles; we observed a marked reduction in the water-affinity of soot particles passed through conductive silicone tubing. These combined observations suggest that the silicone tubing artifacts may have wide consequence for the aerosol community and the tubing should, therefore, be used with caution. Contamination associated with the use of silicone tubing was observed at ambient temperature and, in some cases, was enhanced by mild heating (<70°C) or pre-exposure to a solvent (methanol). Further evaluation is warranted to quantify systematically how the contamination responds to variations in system temperature, physicochemical particle properties, exposure to solvent, sample contact time, tubing age, and sample flow rates.


Abstract Throughout fifty-three years of operations, an estimated 29,300 TBq of tritium have been released to the atmosphere at the Livermore site of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; about 75% of this was released accidentally as gaseous tritium in 1965 and 1970. Routine emissions contributed slightly more than 3,700 TBq gaseous tritium and about 2,800 TBq tritiated water vapor to the total. Mean annual doses (with 95% confidence intervals) to the most exposed member of the public were calculated for all years using the same model and the same assumptions. Because time-dependent tritium models require detailed meteorological data that were unavailable for the large releases, ingestion/inhalation dose ratios were derived from experience with UFOTRI. Even with assumptions to assure that doses would not be underestimated, all doses from routine and accidental releases were below the level (3.6 mSv) at which adverse health effects have been documented, and most were below the current regulatory limit of 100 μSv per year from releases to the atmosphere.


In the information age, the growth in availability of both technology and exploit kits have continuously contributed in a large volume of websites being compromised or set up with malicious intent. The issue of drive-by-download attacks formulate a high percentage (77%) of the known attacks against client systems. These attacks originate from malicious web-servers or compromised web-servers and attack client systems by pushing malware upon interaction. Within the detection and intelligence gathering area of research, high-interaction honeypot approaches have been a longstanding and well-established technology. These are however not without challenges: analysing the entirety of the world wide web using these approaches is unviable due to time and resource intensiveness. Furthermore, the volume of data that is generated as a result of a run-time analysis of the interaction between website and an analysis environment is huge, varied and not well understood. The volume of malicious servers in addition to the large datasets created as a result of run-time analysis are contributing factors in the difficulty of analysing and verifying actual malicious behaviour. The work in this thesis attempts to overcome the difficulties in the analysis process of log files to optimise malicious and anomaly behaviour detection.

The main contribution of this work is focused on reducing the volume of data generated from run-time analysis to reduce the impact of noise within behavioural log file datasets. This thesis proposes an alternate approach that uses an expert lead approach to filtering benign behaviour from potentially malicious and unknown behaviour. Expert lead filtering is designed in a risk-averse method that takes into account known benign and expected behaviours before filtering the log file. Moreover, the approach relies upon behavioural investigation as well as potential for 5 system compromisation before filtering out behaviour within dynamic analysis log files. Consequently, this results in a significantly lower volume of data that can be analysed in greater detail. The proposed filtering approach has been implemented and tested in real-world context using a prudent experimental framework. An average of 96.96% reduction in log file size has been achieved which is transferable to behaviour analysis environments.

The other contributions of this work include the understanding of observable operating system interactions. Within the study of behaviour analysis environments, it was concluded that run-time analysis environments are sensitive to application and operating system versions. Understanding key changes in operating systems behaviours within Windows is an unexplored area of research yet Windows is currently one of the most popular client operating system. As part of understanding system behaviours for the creation of behavioural filters, this study undertakes a number of experiments to identify the key behaviour differences between operating systems. The results show that there are significant changes in core processes and interactions which can be taken into account in the development of filters for updated systems.

Finally, from the analysis of 110,000 potentially malicious websites, typical attacks are explored. These attacks actively exploited the honeypot and offer knowledge on a section of the active web-based attacks faced in the world wide web. Trends and attack vectors are identified and evaluated.


Background and Objectives. Exposure to γ-radiation causes rapid hematopoietic cell apoptosis and bone marrow suppression. However, there are no approved radiation countermeasures for the acute radiation syndrome. In this report, we demonstrate that natural delta-tocotrienol, one of the isomers of vitamin E, significantly enhanced survival in total body lethally irradiated mice. We explored the effects and mechanisms of delta-tocotrienol on hematopoietic progenitor cell survival after γ-irradiation in both in vivo and in vitro experiments.

Design and Methods. CD2F1 mice and human hematopoietic progenitor CD34+ cells were treated with delta-tocotrienol or vehicle control 24 h before or 6 h after γ-irradiation. Effects of delta-tocotrienol on hematopoietic progenitor cell survival and regeneration were evaluated by clonogenicity, flow cytometry, and bone marrow histochemical staining. Delta-tocotrienol and γ-irradiation-induced signal regulatory activities were assessed by immunofluorescence staining, immunoblotting and siRNA assay.

Results. Delta-tocotrienol displayed significant radioprotective effects. A single injection of delta-tocotrienol protected 100% of CD2F1 mice from total body irradiation-induced death as measured by 30-day post-irradiation survival. Delta-tocotrienol increased cell survival, and regeneration of hematopoietic microfoci and lineage-negative/Sca-1-positive/ckit-positive stem and progenitor cells in irradiated mouse bone marrow, and protected human CD34+ cells from radiation-induced damage. Delta-tocotrienol activated Erk1/2 phosphorylation and significantly inhibited formation of DNA-damage marker γ-H2AX foci. In addition, delta-tocotrienol upregulated mTOR and phosphorylation of its downstream effector 4EBP-1. These alterations were associated with activation of mRNA translation regulator eIF4E and ribosomal protein S6, which is responsible for cell survival and growth. Inhibition of Erk1/2 expression by siRNA abrogated delta-tocotrienol-induced mTOR phosphorylation and clonogenicity, and increased γ-H2AX foci formation in irradiated CD34+ cells.

Interpretation and Conclusions. Our data indicate that DT3 protects mouse bone marrow and human CD34+ cells from radiation-induced damage through Erk activation-associated mTOR survival pathways.


From the Publisher:
From 1983 to 1986, the legendary physicist and teacher Richard Feynman gave a course at Caltech called "Potentialities and Limitations of Computing Machines." Although the lectures are over ten years old, most of the material is timeless and presents a "Feynmanesque" overview of many standard and some not-so-standard topics in computer science. These include compatibility, Turing machines (or as Feynman said, "Mr. Turing's machines"), information theory, Shannon's Theorem, reversible computation, the thermodynamics of computation, the quantum limits to computation, and the physics of VLSI devices. Taken together, these lectures represent a unique exploration of the fundamental limitations of digital computers. Feynman's philosophy of learning and discovery comes through strongly in these lectures. He constantly points out the benefits of playing around with concepts and working out solutions to problems on your own - before looking at the back of the book for the answers. As Feynman says in the lectures: "If you keep proving stuff that others have done, getting confidence, increasing the complexities of your solutions - for the fun of it - then one day you'll turn around and discover that nobody actually did that one! And that's the way to become a computer scientist."


Exploring Monte Carlo Methods is a basic text that describes the numerical methods that have come to be known as "Monte Carlo." The book treats the subject generically through the first eight chapters and, thus, should be of use to anyone who wants to learn to use Monte Carlo. The next two chapters focus on applications in nuclear engineering, which are illustrative of uses in other fields. Five appendices are included, which provide useful information on probability distributions, general-purpose Monte Carlo codes for radiation transport, and other matters. The famous "Buffon's needle problem" provides a unifying theme as it is repeatedly used to illustrate many features of Monte Carlo methods.

 This book provides the basic detail necessary to learn how to apply Monte Carlo methods and thus should be useful as a text book for undergraduate or graduate courses in numerical methods. It is written so that interested readers with only an understanding of calculus and differential equations can learn Monte Carlo on their own. Coverage of topics such as variance reduction, pseudo-random number generation, Markov chain Monte Carlo, inverse Monte Carlo, and linear operator equations will make the book useful even to experienced Monte Carlo practitioners.

 Provides a concise treatment of generic Monte Carlo methods
 Proofs for each chapter
 Appendixes include Certain mathematical functions; Bose Einstein functions, Fermi Dirac functions, Watson functions


Aged mice treated peripherally with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) show an exaggerated neuroinflammatory response and cognitive deficits compared to adults. Considerable evidence suggests resveratrol, a polyphenol found in red grapes, has potent antiinflammatory effects in the periphery, but its effects on the central inflammatory response and cognitive behavior are unknown. Therefore, the current study investigated if resveratrol dietary supplementation would inhibit neuroinflammation as well as behavioral and cognitive deficits in aged mice given LPS to mimic a peripheral infection. In initial studies, adult (3-6 months) and aged (22-24 months) mice were provided control or resveratrol-supplemented diet for 4 weeks and then injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) with saline or LPS, and locomotor activity and spatial working memory were assessed. As anticipated, deficits in locomotor activity and spatial working memory indicated aged mice are more sensitive to LPS compared to adults. More importantly, the LPS-induced deficits in aged animals were mitigated by dietary supplementation of resveratrol. In addition, resveratrol consumption reduced LPS-induced interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta) in plasma and the IL-1beta mRNA in the hippocampus of aged mice. Finally, pretreatment of BV-2 microglial cells with resveratrol potently inhibited LPS-induced IL-1beta production. These data show that aged mice are more sensitive than adult mice to both the inflammatory and cognitive effects of peripheral immune stimulation and suggest that resveratrol may be useful for attenuating acute cognitive disorders in elderly individuals with an infection.


Distributing power and ground to a vertically integrated system is a complex and difficult task. Interplane communication and power delivery are achieved by through silicon vias (TSVs) in most of the manufacturing techniques for three-dimensional (3-D) circuits. As shown in this paper, these vertical interconnects provide additional low impedance paths for distributing power and ground within a 3-D circuit. These paths, however, have not been considered in the design process of 3-D power and ground distribution networks. By exploiting these additional paths, the IR drop within each plane is reduced. Alternatively, the routing congestion caused by the TSVs can be decreased by removing stacks of metal vias that are used within a power distribution network. Additionally, the required decoupling capacitance for a circuit can be reduced, resulting in significant savings in area. Case studies of power grids demonstrate a significant reduction of 22% in the number of intraplane vias. Alternatively, a 25% decrease in the decoupling capacitance can be achieved.


The purpose of this paper is to explore the development of knowledge about facilities management (FM), in particular, the management of FM services in practice, education and research. The paper questions whether we know more about optimal models for in-house or outsourcing FM after 25 years of applied research and development of best practices.,The paper is based on literature reviews, case studies and personal experiences from practice for over 25 years, concentrating on the public sector. The paper maintains an international focus on the FM development, with particular focus on the development in Norway and the Nordic countries. The knowledge development triangle, and its integration of education, research and practice, is used as an underlying theoretical framework.,The knowledge regarding management of FM services in both the public and private sector has been developed over the past two decades. The changes in both sectors is reflected in all the three aspects of the knowledge triangle. While the use of outsourcing increased significantly in popularity during the past 25 years, the Norwegian profile continues to have limited use of outsourcing.,The paper is based on a qualified selection of doctoral theses, research reports and scientific articles published in the period 1990-2015. The explorations include limited quantitative data.,The choice for FM in practice, whether fully or partly to produce services with internal resources or to make arrangements with external suppliers, is an important strategic decision regarding the choice of a procurement strategy for the company or the organisation. This decision is not necessarily about outsourcing or in-house but rather the strategic sourcing and management of the needed services.,A total of 25 years of research have shown that a simple solution and answer to the questions about in-house or outsourcing FM services is lacking. To find a good solution, it is necessary to understand the content of FM services with respect to quality and efficiency, and to understand the interaction between FM, the core activities and the users.


This report will review the similarities and differences of four species of pine seed caching members of the avian family Corvidae that live on the slopes and base of the San Francisco Peaks in north-central Arizona. The four species include the Clark's nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana), pinyon jay (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus), western scrub-jay (Aphelocoma californica), and Mexican jay (A. ultramarina). These corvids demonstrate a specialization gradient for the harvesting, transporting, caching and recovering of buried pine seeds. This gradient is reflected in their dependence on cached pine seeds for winter and early spring survival and reproduction. Species most dependent on these cached seeds have the greatest number of adaptations for utilizing these seeds which is especially evident in their spatial memory abilities to locate their caches. The two most dependent species, nutcrackers and pinyon jays have spatial memory abilities more accurate than in the species less dependent on cached seeds, western scrub-jays and Mexican jays. Using converging operations to test these memory abilities, comparative tests were conducted in an open field cache/recovery experiment, an analogue radial maze test and operant tests of spatial and non-spatial memory. Also discussed are the techniques used by nutcrackers to recognize and relocate caching sites. These birds have the ability to learn and generalize geometric rules about the placement of landmarks. This geometry, especially using multiple landmarks, aids this species greatly. The use of the sun compass by pinyon jays, scrub jays and nutcrackers reveal that in experimental conditions where birds are clock-shifted they respond to this shift, thus digging for caches in locations predicted by the shift. It appears that pinyon jays are converging on a distant relative the nutcracker in many characteristics, thus diverging from their close relatives the western scrub-jay and Mexican jay. Each species has a suite of adaptive traits that reflects its natural history and life history. Chapter Outline and Navigation


Ice sheet flow organises sediment into undulating landforms called subglacial bedforms, making their genesis pertinent to understanding ice flow mechanics. Currently, there is a lack of consensus regarding their formation. An array of different theories exist which seek to explain specific types of bedform, e.g. flutes, drumlins, ribbed moraine, mega-scale glacial lineations (MSGL). In contrast, other theories appeal to the hypothesis that these landforms are actually the same phenomena that steadily vary on a scale and shape continuum and that possibly share the same mechanism of formation. Here we test the idea of a continuum by analysing the largest dataset of subglacial bedform morphometrics ever reported (n 100,000). Scatter graphs of bedform size and shape metrics (length, width and elongation) reveal two separate clouds of data. The first is comprised of flutes, which form a separate distinct cluster to all other subglacial bedforms. The second, much larger, cloud of data comprises all remaining subglacial bedforms, which form a continuum of size and shape metrics. Hence, it is impossible to quantitatively differentiate previously assigned and commonly used landform labels based on their morphometry. Drumlins merge into MSGL forming subglacial lineations (aligned with flow direction), and these are adjoined to subglacial ribs (orthogonal to flow) by quasi-circular bedforms which occur within transition zones between ribbed moraine and drumlins. We interpret this as showing that a separate mechanism is required for flute generation and that the other landforms sit along a subglacial bedform continuum of ribs-circles-lineations, consistent with unifying theories for their formation.


The export-led growth paradigm is a development strategy aimed at growing productive capacity by focusing on foreign markets. It rose to prominence in the late 1970s and became part of a new consensus among economists about the benefits of economic openness. According to Thomas I. Palley, this paradigm is no longer relevant because of changed conditions in both emerging-market (EM) and developed economies. He outlines the stages of the export-led growth paradigm leading to its adoption worldwide, as well as the various critiques of this agenda that have become increasingly prescient. He concludes that we should reduce reliance on strategies aimed at attracting export-oriented foreign direct investment and institute a new paradigm based on a domestic demand–led growth model. Otherwise, the global economy is likely to experience asymmetric stagnation and increased economic tensions between EM and industrialized economies.


The insiders who run the criminal justice system - judges, police, and especially prosecutors - have information, power, and self-interests that greatly influence the criminal justice process and outcomes. Outsiders - crime victims, bystanders, and most of the general public - find the system frustratingly opaque, insular, and unconcerned with proper retribution. As a result, a spiral ensues: insiders twist rules as they see fit, outsiders try to constrain them, and insiders find new ways to evade or manipulate the new rules. The gulf between insiders and outsiders undercuts the instrumental, moral, and expressive efficacy of criminal procedure in serving the criminal law's substantive goals. The gulf clouds the law's deterrent and expressive message and efficacy in healing victims; it impairs trust in and the legitimacy of the law; it provokes increasingly Draconian reactions by outsiders; and it hinders public monitoring of agency costs. The most promising solutions are to better inform crime victims and other affected locals and to give them larger roles in criminal justice. It might be possible to better monitor and check insiders, but the prospects for empowering and educating the general public are dim.


These volumes contain selected papers from the Second International Conference on Contrastive Semantics and Pragmatics that was held at Newnham College, University of Cambridge, in September 2000. They include papers on negation, temporality, modality, evidentiality, eventualities, grammar and conceptualization, grammaticalization, metaphor, cross-cultural pragmatics and speech acts and the semantics-pragmatics boundary. There are contributions by, amongst many others, Les Bruce, Ilinca Crainiceanu, Thorstein Fretheim, Saeko Fukushima, Ronald Geluykens, Javier Gutierrez-Rexach, Klaus von Heusinger, K. M. Jaszczolt, Susumu Kubo, Akiko Kurosawa, Eva Lavric, Didier Maillat, Marta Maleczki, Steve Nicolle, Sergei Tatevosov, L. M. Tovena, Jacqueline Visconti and Krista Vogelberg.


The aim of this study was to understand better the pathophysiology of this intoxication by evaluating the effect of mad honey ingestion on Inferior Vena Cava (IVC) diameters and IVC Collapsibility Index (IVC-CI) and develop an objective algorithm for the duration of fluid replacement and observation. The patients with the medical history of mad honey ingestion and admitted to the emergency service due to the signs of mad honey poisoning were analysed. Their data concerning age, gender, admission symptoms and the time of onset of these symptoms, the vital signs during admission, the administered treatment, the post-treatment recovery time and vital signs were all recorded. The inferior vena cava diameter and the IVC collapsibility index were assessed by ultrasonography. Of 29 patients included in the study, 79.31% were male, the average age was 52.76 ± 17.52 years, and the most common cause of admission was dizziness. While 0.9% saline solution was administered to all patients, in 82.75% intravenous atropine was started. Significant differences were determined between the vital signs, the inferior vena cava diameters, and the collapsibility indexes of the pre and post treatment periods. The ingestion of mad honey should be questioned in the medical history in patients who were admitted to the emergency services due to hypotension, bradycardia, and syncope. The assessment of the vital signs and the measurement of the inferior vena cava diameters of the patients should be the parts of the follow-up. The monitoring of the responses to the administered atropine and/or normal saline solutions should be made by the ultrasonographic assessment of the inferior vena cava diameter and the IVC Collapsibility Index (IVC-CI), in addition to monitoring the vital signs.


As people age there tends to be an increase in their number of comorbidities and, consequently, an increase in the number of medications they take. With Australia's ageing population, concerns regarding polypharmacy, such as increased risk of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and financial costs, are set to rise.1 While polypharmacy is appropriate in many individuals, up to 60% of older people are exposed to inappropriate medication use (IMU; ie, use of a medication when the harms outweigh the benefits in an individual). Medications that may initially have been appropriately prescribed can, with ageing and new medical conditions, become inappropriate.2 Evidence to date indicates that ceasing use of medication is at least as complicated as initiating treatment, and the term "deprescribing" was coined to describe the complex process that is required.1 Deprescribing has the potential to greatly improve health outcomes through stopping or reducing the dose of inappropriate medications; but, currently, concrete evidence regarding its effect is equivocal. In addition, deprescribing is not free from harm, and the potential adverse consequences of medication withdrawal must therefore be considered.


The temperature dependence of surface tension and viscosity has been investigated in two multi-component liquid hydrocarbons, namely, crude oil samples with different API numbers. The surface tension is found to decrease linearly with temperature whereas viscosity exhibits Arrhenius type variation. These measured values along with the ultrasound velocity, density and the isothermal compressibility have been used to estimate a number of physical parameters such as the activation energy, attenuation factor and the shear wave velocity. Crude oil with larger API was found to have smaller activation energy. Shear velocity decreases exponentially with increasing temperature while the attenuation factor is found to increase linearly with temperature. The ratio of the surface tension to viscosity varies linearly as the square root of temperature. The product of the surface tension and the isothermal compressibility, often characterized as a fundamental or correlation length of the surface of the liquid, was found to yield a constant value for both samples.


This thesis reports the search for the Higgs boson decaying to a pair of tau leptons, where one tau decays leptonically and the other decays semi-hadronically. The search was conducted by the ATLAS experiment on the proton-proton collisions supplied by the LHC in 2012. It is complicated by background from a mix of known processes from the Standard Model of Particle Physics. It makes use of boosted decision trees to separate the Higgs signal from the background. The gluon-gluon fusion and the vector boson fusion production mechanisms are searched for separately. The statistical significance of the excess observed over the background-only hypothesis is 3.3 standard deviations, and reaches 4.1 standard deviations when combined with other ditau channels. The observed signal appears fully compatible with the Higgs boson of the Standard Model.


This paper investigates the exchange rate dynamics implied by a heterogeneous agent model proposed in De Grauwe and Grimaldi (2006). The two groups of agents, chartists and fundamentalists, use simple forecasting rules and the ex post relative profitability to decide whether to switch to the other group. We extend this model by introducing a simple evolutionary selection mechanism which allows agents not only to switch between groups but also to adapt the forecasting rule of each group over time. Two results stand out: (i) This selection process naturally leads agents to choose forecasting rules over time which results in the convergence of the exchange rate to its fundamental value; and (ii) The learning rule is not robust to the introduction of shocks to the fundamental. Once we allow for random variation in the fundamental, the model exhibits again all of the nonlinear features discussed in De Grauwe and Grimaldi (2006): the disconnect puzzle, volatility clustering and fat tails.


Gene synthesis, the process of assembling gene-length fragments from shorter groups of oligonucleotides (oligos), is becoming an increasingly important tool in molecular and synthetic biology. The length, quality, and cost of gene synthesis is limited by errors produced during oligo synthesis and subsequent assembly. Enzymatic error correction methods are cost-effective means to ameliorate errors in gene synthesis. Previous analyses of these methods relied on cloning and Sanger sequencing to evaluate their efficiencies, limiting quantitative assessment and throughput. Here we develop a method to quantify errors in synthetic DNA by next-generation sequencing. We analyzed errors in a model gene assembly and systematically compared six different error correction enzymes across 11 conditions. We find that ErrASE and T7 Endonuclease I are the most effective at decreasing average error rates (up to 5.8-fold relative to the input), whereas MutS is the best for increasing the number of perfect assemblies (up to 25.2-fold). We are able to quantify differential specificities such as ErrASE preferentially corrects C/G → G/C transversions whereas T7 Endonuclease I preferentially corrects A/T → T/A transversions. More generally, this experimental and computational pipeline is a fast, scalable, and extensible way to analyze errors in gene assemblies, to profile error correction methods, and to benchmark DNA synthesis methods.


As readers, we seem to be increasingly fascinated by studies of individual lives. In this timely, unusual and exhilarating collection Hermione Lee is concerned in different ways with approaches to 'life-writing': the relation of biography to fiction and history; the exploration of writers' lives in connection with their works; the new and changing ways in which biographies, memoirs, diaries and autobiographies can be discussed. As the title suggests, she also unravels the complex links between physical, sensual details and the 'body' of a work. 'Shelley's Heart and Pepys' Lobsters', for example, deals with myths, contested objects and things that go missing, while 'Jane Austen Faints' takes five varied accounts of the same dramatic moment to ask how biography deals with the private lives of famous women, a theme taken up in 'Virginia Woolf's Nose', on the way that the author's life-stories have been transformed into fiction and film. Rich, diverting and entertaining, these brilliant studies by a leading critic and internationally acclaimed biographer raise profound and intriguing issues about every aspect of writing, and reading, a life.


Background Sarcoidosis is a poorly understood chronic inflammatory condition. Infiltration of affected organs by lymphocytes is characteristic of sarcoidosis, however previous reports suggest that circulating lymphocyte counts are low in some patients with the disease. The goal of this study was to evaluate lymphocyte subsets in peripheral blood in a cohort of sarcoidosis patients to determine the prevalence, severity, and clinical features associated with lymphopenia in major lymphocyte subsets. Methodology/Principal Findings Lymphocyte subsets in 28 sarcoid patients were analyzed using flow cytometry to determine the percentage of CD4, CD8, and CD19 positive cells. Greater than 50% of patients had abnormally low CD4, CD8, or CD19 counts (p<4×10−10). Lymphopenia was profound in some cases, and five of the patients had absolute CD4 counts below 200. CD4, CD8, and CD19 lymphocyte subset counts were significantly correlated (Spearman's rho 0.57, p = 0.0017), and 10 patients had low counts in all three subsets. Patients with severe organ system involvement including neurologic, cardiac, ocular, and advanced pulmonary disease had lower lymphocyte subset counts as a group than those patients with less severe manifestations (CD4 p = 0.0043, CD8 p = 0.026, CD19 p = 0.033). No significant relationships were observed between various medical therapies and lymphocyte counts, and lymphopenia was present in patients who were not receiving any medical therapy. Conclusions/Significance Significant lymphopenia involving CD4, CD8, and CD19 positive cells was common in sarcoidosis patients and correlated with disease severity. Our findings suggest that lymphopenia relates more to disease pathology than medical treatment.


We present the first calculations to follow the evolution of all stable nuclei and their radioactive progenitors in stellar models computed from the onset of central hydrogen burning through explosion as Type II supernovae. Calculations are performed for Population I stars of 15, 19, 20, 21, and 25 M☉ using the most recently available experimental and theoretical nuclear data, revised opacity tables, neutrino losses, and weak interaction rates and taking into account mass loss due to stellar winds. A novel "adaptive" reaction network is employed with a variable number of nuclei (adjusted each time step) ranging from ~700 on the main sequence to ≳2200 during the explosion. The network includes, at any given time, all relevant isotopes from hydrogen through polonium (Z = 84). Even the limited grid of stellar masses studied suggests that overall good agreement can be achieved with the solar abundances of nuclei between 16O and 90Zr. Interesting discrepancies are seen in the 20 M☉ model and (so far, only in that model) are a consequence of the merging of the oxygen, neon, and carbon shells about a day prior to core collapse. We find that, in some stars, most of the "p-process" nuclei can be produced in the convective oxygen-burning shell moments prior to collapse; in others, they are made only in the explosion. Serious deficiencies still exist in all cases for the p-process isotopes of Ru and Mo.


Romania is well known in the delivery field of bee products and beekeeping, is known for this ancient occupation. Beekeeping in Romania leads to large amounts of bee products. As the main purpose of ecological beekeeping is obtaining quality products without the use of other replacement substances. To achieve organic beekeeping must follow these steps: organizing a hive, the first step in beekeeping, apiary hearth choice, choice of hive type, bee families purchase. Both conventional and ecological beekeeping have similarities and differences. Conventional beekeeping is losing ground to the ecological because now customers consume more and more eco products without various additives and is more natural. To be considered ecological bee products must pass a period of one year; in this time these products are not considered ecological. In ecological beekeeping rules need to be observed and also labor is different from that used in conventional beekeeping. Also, nutritional value and quality of ecological products are different from conventional. As a conclusion, both types of beekeeping are differentiated by the process of obtaining the product, but are similar in the principles for achieving sustainable production. The ecological beekeeping and the conventional need collaboration at the national and international level for these industries to develop more and more.


After six years of secret negotiations the agreed text of the trade agreement between the European Union and Canada was released in September 2014. The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) must still be ratified by the respective legislatures. Agricultural trade was expected to be a contentious issue in the negotiations with both Canada and the EU having sensitive areas where liberalization would be difficult. In Canada, the domestic policy for dairy and poultry -supply management- requires support from high trade barriers. In the EU, some SPS barriers are non-negotiable- GMOs and the use of growth hormones in beef production. The eventual bargain leaves these trade inhibiting measures largely intact. Some liberalization was achieved in other areas such as recognition of EU geographical indications in Canada, reduced barriers to sales of EU wine, increased market access for EU cheeses and expansion in EU TRQs for wheat, hormone free beef and pork.


Modeling pavement deterioration and predicting the pavement performance is crucial for optimum pavement network management. Currently only a few models exist that incorporate the structural capacity of the pavements into deterioration modeling. This thesis develops pavement deterioration models that take into account, along with the age of the pavement, the pavement structural condition expressed in terms of the Modified Structural Index (MSI). The research found MSI to be a significant input parameter that affects the rate of deterioration of a pavement section by using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). The AIC method suggests that a model that includes the MSI is at least 10 21 times more likely to be closer to the true model than a model that does not include the MSI. The developed models display the average deterioration of pavement sections for specific ages and MSI values. Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) annually collects pavement condition data on road sections with various lengths. Due to the nature of data collection practices, many biased measurements or influential outliers exist in this data. Upon the investigation of data quality and characteristics, the models were built based on filtered and cleansed data. Following the regression models, an empirical Bayesian approach was employed to reduce the variance between observed and predicted conditions and to deliver a more accurate prediction model.


Schema mappings express the relationships between sources in data interoperability scenarios and can be expressed in various formalisms. Source-to-target tuple-generating dependencies (s-t tgds) can be easily used for data transformation or query rewriting tasks. Second-order tgds (SO tgds) are more expressive as they can also represent the composition and inversion of s-t tgds. Yet, the expressive power of SO tgds comes with the problem of undecidability for some reasoning tasks. Nested tgds and plain SO tgds are mapping languages that are between s-t tgds and SO tgds in terms of expressivity, and their properties have been studied in the recent years. Nested tgds are less expressive than plain SO tgds, but the logical equivalence problem for nested tgds is decidable. However, a detailed characterization of plain SO tgds that have an equivalent nested tgd is missing. In this paper, we present an algorithmic solution for translating plain SO tgds into nested tgds. The algorithm computes one or more nested tgds, if a given plain SO tgd is rewritable. Furthermore, we are able to give a detailed characterization of those plain SO tgds for which an equivalent nested tgd exists, based on the structural properties of the source predicates and Skolem functions in the plain SO tgd. In the evaluation, we show that our algorithm covers a larger subset of plain SO tgds than previous approaches and that a rewriting can be computed efficiently although the algorithm has the exponential complexity.


In recent decades, the industry has observed a significant shift towards the use of renewable energy, such as solar, wind and geothermal. The Chilean scenario has not been an exception, and much progress has been made in sustainable energy prospection and implementation, especially in the electricity sector, where solar and wind power amount 2300 MW, and since April 2017, the first geothermal power plant (48 MW) has come into operation. In the area of low enthalpy geothermal energy, the use is around 19 MW. The Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Chile has been contributing to this transformational process, with its Sustainable Campus initiative. The first step of this initiative is the introduction of renewable energy on site, which has been achieved through the installation of a solar photovoltaic plant of 15 kW. Along this line, the design and implementation of a geothermal air conditioning system (HAVC) is underway, which will serve the classrooms and offices in the traditional engineering building of the campus. The technology to be used in this project is the Ground Heat Pump (GHP). The present paper includes an introduction of the applications of low enthalpy geothermal energy in Chile, a description of the Office of Engineering for Sustainable Development at the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and the design of a geothermal HAVC system in the university campus, considering economic, environmental, technical and social aspects. Besides the operation of the GHP, the system will be used for teaching purposes to incorporate sustainable development in the curriculum of the university. The expected savings of the geothermal system versus an aerothermal design are 41,070 kWh annually, considering both cooling and heating.


Standing at the junction of psychology, neuroscience, and biology, cognitive neuroscience seeks to provide brain-based accounts of mental functions such as language, memory, perception, action, emotions, and decision-making. Its emergence as a coherent discipline came about relatively recently through the amalgamation of techniques that had already been in existence (such as research into the effects of brain lesion on cognition, and electrical recordings of the brain) with newly established techniques (principally brain-imaging methods), originally developed for medical diagnostic purposes. As cognitive neuroscience flourishes as never before, this new title in Psychology Press?s Major Works series, Critical Concepts in Psychology, meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of the subject?s already vast literature and the continuing explosion in research output. Edited by a prominent scholar, and the author of the field?s leading student textbook, Cognitive Neuroscience is a four-volume collection of foundational and contemporary contributions. The four volumes are divided into eight principal sections: History, Methods, and Key Concepts; Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience; Perception and Attention; Action; Learning and Memory; Language; Executive Functions and Decision-Making; and Emotions and Social Neuroscience. The collection is also fully indexed and has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editors, which places the collected material in its historical, intellectual, and practical context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and students of cognitive neuroscience as a vital one-stop research tool.


Polarization reversal in BiFeO3 (BFO) thin films in a parallel-plate capacitor configuration has been explored using piezo-force microscopy (PFM). Through-electrode mapping of the local piezoresponse allows for direct observation of the domain growth, which is being driven by a uniform electric field. Despite a good agreement between the measured switching curves and the classic Kolmogorov-Avrami-Ishibashi (KAI) model, the analysis of the polarization reversal maps reveals a more complicated switching behavior. A significant variation of the domain growth speed, strong asymmetry of the domain growth, blocked domain boundaries and presence of the insulated areas with nucleation-limited (NL) switching kinetics suggest a rather complex switching behavior that cannot be described by a simple KAI model.


Background: There is epidemiological evidence that suggests there are beneficial effects of ionizing radiation at low doses. Some experimental studies confirmed this hormetic effect with doses of about 1 cGy/day, but no data concerning very low dose rates are available. Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the life span of mice exposed to very low doses of ionizing radiation. Methods: Six hundred female C57BL/6 mice, 1 month old, were exposed to chronic gamma irradiation at very low dose rates of 7 or 14 cGy/year. These doses are about 25 or 50 times higher than background, but much lower than the doses of about 1 cGy/day used in previous experiments. Three hundred mice living in the same room were used as controls. Results: The life span, after the beginning of the experiment, determined by the survival time of 50% of each population, is increased in irradiated mice: 549 days in controls, 673 days in both irradiated groups. The differences are significant between the control and the irradiation mice. Differences between mice irradiated with 7 or 14 cGy are not significant. Conclusions: These results confirm the possibility of a nonharmful effect (hormesis) of ionizing radiation. They demonstrate that the paradigm, which states that low-dose effects can be predicted high-dose effects, cannot be systematically applied in radiation biology in general and gerontology in particular.


This book presents adaptive logics as an intuitive and powerful framework for modeling defeasible reasoning. It examines various contexts in which defeasible reasoning is useful and offers a compact introduction into adaptive logics. The author first familiarizes readers with defeasible reasoning, the adaptive logics framework, combinations of adaptive logics, and a range of useful meta-theoretic properties. He then offers a systematic study of adaptive logics based on various applications. The book presents formal models for defeasible reasoning stemming from different contexts, such as default reasoning, argumentation, and normative reasoning. It highlights various meta-theoretic advantages of adaptive logics over other logics or logical frameworks that model defeasible reasoning. In this way the book substantiates the status of adaptive logics as a generic formal framework for defeasible reasoning.


Blazars can be divided into two subtypes, flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) and BL Lac objects, which have been distinguished phenomenologically by the strength of their optical emission lines, while their physical nature and relationship are still not fully understood. In this paper, we focus on the differences in their variability. We characterize the blazar variability using the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) process, and investigate the features that are discriminative for the two subtypes. We used optical photometric and polarimetric data obtained with the 1.5-m Kanata telescope for 2008-2014. We found that four features, namely the variation amplitude, characteristic timescale, and non-stationarity of the variability obtained from the light curves and the median of the degree of polarization (PD), are essential for distinguishing between FSRQs and BL Lac objects. FSRQs are characterized by rare and large flares, while the variability of BL Lac objects can be reproduced with a stationary OU process with relatively small amplitudes. The characteristics of the variability are governed not by the differences in the jet structure between the subtypes, but by the peak frequency of the synchrotron emission. This implies that the nature of the variation in the jets is common in FSRQs and BL Lac objects. We found that BL Lac objects tend to have high PD medians, which suggests that they have a stable polarization component. FSRQs have no such component, possibly because of a strong Compton cooling effect in sub-pc scale jets.


The years since the Oslo agreement have seen a marked deterioration in Palestinian economic life and an accelerated de-development process. The key features of this process have been heightened by the effects of closure, the defining economic feature of the post-Oslo period. Among its results are enclavization, seen in the physical separation of the West Bank and Gaza; the weakening of economic relations between the Palestinian and Israeli economies; and growing divisions within the Palestinian labor market, with the related, emerging pattern of economic autarky. In the circumstances described, the prospects for sustained economic development are nonexistent and will remain so as long as closure continues.


Despite the Aristotelian renaissance in the philosophy of education, the development of virtue has not received much attention. This is unfortunate, because an attempt to draft an Aristotelian model of moral development can help philosophers to evaluate the contribution Aristotelian virtue ethics can make to our understanding of moral development, provide psychologists with a potentially richer account of morality and its development, and help educators to understand the developmental phase people are in. In the article, it is argued that the Aristotelian categories of the 'morally indifferent', 'un-self-controlled', 'self-controlled' and 'properly virtuous' can be interpreted as the successive stages or levels of a comprehensive developmental model. For each stage, it will be made clear whether people are committed to virtue, whether they act virtuously or not, whether they act with pleasure or pain, and which desires and reasons they have for acting. The article closes with suggestions about what needs to be done if the proposed Aristotelian account of moral development is to become psychologically more realistic and educationally useful.


The dynamic nexus between money supply, fiscal deficit, inflation, output and exchange rate management has recently generated much debate in economic literature in Nigeria. To contribute to this debate, this paper uses the co-integration and error correction framework of analysis and also conducts policy simulation experiments to investigate how monetary variables interact with aggregate supply, demand and prices in order to aid stabilization policies. The results show that monetary variables and government finance are linked through government's net indebtedness to the banking system. The simulation results show that a 20 per cent monetary squeeze would reduce the inflation rate faster than if the reduction in money supply were 10 per cent. This reduction in money supply would also lead to a reduction in output, employment and government expenditure, which may hurt the domestic economy. The paper thus concludes that there is a trade-off between higher GDP growth and inflation in Nigeria.


The study investigates contextual effects on the processing of pre-verbal (preVf) and postverbal (postVf) focus sentences in an eye-tracking experiment. For comparison, lexically marked focus (only-f) sentences were also included. The test sentences were presented following two types of linguistic context: restrictive or non-restrictive. It was hypothesized that if preVf exhaustivity is purely structurally encoded, gaze will converge on the exhaustive target image at a similar rate in the two contexts, just as it does in the case of only-f. However, if context also has an effect on the emergence of exhaustivity in preVf, gaze should converge more slowly on the exhaustive target in the non-restrictive context than in the restrictive context as predicted in postVf. The results support the latter prediction: fixation patterns diverge in the case of both preVf and postVf sentences, while they do not in the case of the baseline only-f.


OBJECTIVE
The main purpose of this study was to investigate the class I HLA antigens and class II HLA allele frequencies in 164 patients with leukemia: 35 patients with ALL (acute lymphoid leukemia), 50 with AML (acute myeloid leukemia) and 78 with CML (chronic myeloid leukemia).

METHODS
The genotyping of class I HLA was performed by microlymphocytotoxicity and of class II by PCR-SSP (polymerase chain reaction - sequence specific of primers) (One Lambda, Canoga Park, CA, USA).

RESULTS
In patients with LLA, frequencies of HLA-B45 and HLA-B56 were higher (P = 0.02; OR = 3.13; 95%IC = 0.94-10.44; P = 0.03; OR = 3.61; 95%IC = 0.47-27.64, respectively), than in controls. In patients with AML, the frequency of HLA-B7 (P = 0.01; OR = 2.41; 95%IC = 1.25-4.67) was higher than in controls. The presence of HLA-B45 (P= 0.01; OR = 3.29; 95%IC = 1.46-7.40), HLA-DRB1*04 (P = 0.002; OR = 2.17; 95%IC = 1.36-3.46) and HLA-DRB1*08 (P = 0.004; OR = 2.36; 95%IC = 1.34-4.16) was associated to increased risk of CML developing.

CONCLUSION
Our results suggest that variants of HLA confer susceptibility to the same forms of leukemia, and could provide new tools for the investigation of genetics and etiology of this disease.


Capturing the value that solar photovoltaic (PV) systems may add to home sales transactions is increasingly important. Our study enhances the PV-home-valuation literature by more than doubling the number of PV home sales analyzed (22,822 homes in total, 3,951 of which are PV) and examining transactions in eight states that span the years 2002–2013. We find that home buyers are consistently willing to pay PV home premiums across various states, housing and PV markets, and home types; average premiums across the full sample equate to approximately $4/W or $15,000 for an average-sized 3.6-kW PV system. Only a small and non-statistically significant difference exists between PV premiums for new and existing homes, though some evidence exists of new home PV system discounting. A PV green cachet might exist, i.e., home buyers might pay a certain amount for any size of PV system and some increment more depending on system size. The market appears to depreciate the value of PV systems in their first 10 years at a rate exceeding the rate of PV efficiency losses and the rate of straightline depreciation over the asset's useful life. Net cost estimates—which account for government and utility PV incentives—may be the best proxy for market premiums, but income-based estimates may perform equally well if they accurately account for the complicated retail rate structures that exist in some states. Although this study focuses only on host-owned PV systems, future analysis should focus on homes with third-party-owned PV systems.


The successful introduction of the digital economy into the information space of the Russian Federation involves the solution of several problems associated with the transition to a new paradigm of economic development based on the digitization of social and economic processes. At the same time, the existing regulatory mechanisms and legislation do not create optimal conditions for the development of the market of new financial instruments and technologies in Russia today. There are socio-economic risks, the key ones including an increase in the outflow of capital and innovative projects to other countries, a lack of confidence on the part of potential investors in new financial instruments, a decrease in the stability of traditional financial institutions. On this basis, the following tasks have been set in this article. To consider the terminology in the field of digital economy from the theoretical aspect; to identify trends and justify the need for digitalization of economic processes based on the use of new financial technologies; to reveal the informative characteristics of financial technologies promising for Russia. This article ends with a conclusion that the development of the digital economy in Russia is due to the need to ensure the information and economic security of the state, realize the potential of the new economy to improve the standard of living and national well-being through the introduction of innovative communication and financial technologies. The impact of the "digital economy" on socio-economic processes is multifaceted. It is sustainable and permeates all spheres of life, being an integral part of modern society.