Understanding the formation of galaxies and studying the expansion of the Universe, need the spectral characterization of faint astronomical objects such as stars or galaxies. From these spectra, the distance, the velocity and the chemical composition of the objects are obtained in order to map them in the Universe. In order to improve the scientific return of an observation with a telescope, astronomers developed a technique called Multi-Object Spectroscopy (MOS), allowing the measurement of tens of thousands of objects simultaneously. Such measurements are feasible only if overlapping of spectra is avoided and if the spoiling sources such as bright stars and background emission can be removed during the observation. Therefore, in MOS, a field selector is placed at the focal plane of the telescope allowing the selection of the astronomical objects. This field selector can be a simple slit mask or a complex Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) device. In this thesis, a micromirror array was developed as a reflective field selector for MOS. Arrays of 2048 micromirrors of 100 × 200 µm2, electrostatically tilted by 24° were modeled, microfabricated and characterized. Electromechanical, optical as well as in a cryogenic environment characterizations were performed. The concept of actuation of the micromirror was based on the electrostatic double plate actuator: when a voltage was applied on the electrode placed underneath the micromirror, the micromirror was attracted towards the electrode and tilted using flexure beams. A precise tilt angle was achieved by stopper beams limiting the motion of the micromirror. The micromirrors were electrically addressed in two ways, line by line or individually. To individually address each micromirror of the array, a line-column concept based on the properties of the tilt angle/voltage hysteresis of the micromirror was used. By finite element modeling, the optimized design for such addressing and a better understanding of the effects of process variations on the behavior of the micromirror were studied. The fabrication process involving two wafer-level bonds (gold-silicon eutectic and fusion bonding) were developed to make micromirror arrays of different sizes (32 × 64, 16 × 32, 8 × 4) but also to be suitable for even larger arrays. To cover high-aspect ratio structures for further processing, a 2 µm-thick silicon dioxide layer was transferred from a wafer on top of these structures by wafer-level fusion bonding and thinning down techniques. Wafer-level eutectic bonding was used to assemble the 2048 micromirrors on their chip electrodes. Characterization was performed on micromirror arrays of 2048 micromirrors driven by a 128 channels high-voltage power supply, developed especially for the actuation of electrostatic MEMS devices. The tilt angle as a function of actuation voltage was measured by white light interferometry. These micromirrors tilted by 24° for an actuation voltage of 124 V. Micromirrors demonstrated an optical fill factor of 82% with respect to their surface and 98% along the micro-mirror in the long slit mode. The peak-to-valley micromirror surface deformation was characterized by phase shift interferometry and silicon micromirrors coated with an adhesion layer of 10 nm of titanium and a layer of 50 nm of gold demonstrated a deformation of 9.8 nm at room temperature. For infrared application, the micromirror array was tested in a cryogenic chamber at a temperature of -111 °C and in vacuum environment. Under these conditions, several lines of 32 micromirrors were successfully tilted by 24° and the micromirrors coated with titanium and gold demonstrated a peak-to-valley surface deformation of 27 nm due to the Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (CTE) mismatch between the gold and the silicon. Line addressing of a micromirror array of 32 × 64 micromirrors was demonstrated. Out of the 17 lines of 32 micromirrors that were wire-bonded 14 were successfully actuated. Individual addressing based on the line-column concept was demonstrated on 2 × 2 micromirrors. This work shows the ability of this new type of programmable slit mask to perform objects selection in future MOS for astronomy.


The ubiquitous spread of English is vividly observed in local linguistic landscapes and urban spaces around the world, and Turkey is no exception. Emerging as a bona fide line of inquiry at the nexus of sociolinguistics, sociology, social psychology, geography and media studies (Sebba, 2010), linguistic landscaping examines the dynamic relationship of English vis-à-vis the local languages, and documents, analyzes and interprets the attributes, patterns, characteristics, meanings and the creative uses of English in such domains as advertising (Kelly-Holmes, 2005; Vettorel, 2013) and shop signs (MacGregor, 2003; Ong, Ghesquière & Serwe, 2013; Schlick, 2002). These studies provide contextualized accounts of language contact situated in local sociolinguistic contexts and contribute to the representation of reflections from various parts of the world (e.g. see Backhaus (2007) and MacGregor (2003) for Japan; McArthur (2000) for Switzerland and Sweden; Griffin (2004) and Ross (1997) for Italy; Schlick (2002) for Austria, Italy and Slovenia; Dimova (2007) for Macedonia; Hasanova (2010) for Uzbekistan; Ong, Ghesquière & Serwe (2013) for Singapore; El-Yasin & Mahadin (1996) for Jordan; Wang (2013) for China; Ben Said (2010) for Tunisia; Schlick (2003) for Slovenia, Austria, Italy, and the UK; Stewart & Fawcett (2004) for Portugal; Thonus (1991) for Brazil; and Baumgardner (2006) for Mexico).


Our overall quality of life depends on balancing the interrelationship between human and ecological health, socio-cultural values, and economic well-being. Achieving appropriate balance of these components is critical to modern enviromnental (e.g., Brownfield site) decision-making. The American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM) is involved in developing a standard guide to facilitate the analysis and management of Quality of Life decision making. This guide will provide a process to help identify, analyze, and resolve stakeholders' issues associated with environmental problems, A key component to the Quality of Life process is to empower the affected stakeholders to enable genuine participation in the decision making and management process. The basic components of the Quality of Life process will be presented along with an example case where the methods have been applied successfully to the development of a Brownfield property in urban Toronto, Canada. The application of the Quality of Life process enabled participation of all the affected stakeholders (people in the community, the developer, local government and regulators) from the very beginning. The stakeholders participated in all decision-making of the redevelopment process; from planning the types and locations of buildings through landscapinglcommunity art for the site, traffic flowlpublic transportation, day-care requirements and a variety of specific community amenities (up-grading lake access portals, various water recreation facilities, community playground equipment). Application of the Quality of Life process resulted in a win-win situation for all stakeholders (i.e., people in the community, regulators and the developer). The derelict industrial property is being replaced by a residential development that will improve the overall quality


The current paradigm surrounding allergen-mediated T helper type 2 (Th2) immune responses in the lung suggests an almost hegemonic role for T cells. Our studies propose an alternative hypothesis implicating eosinophils in the regulation of pulmonary T cell responses. In particular, ovalbumin (OVA)-sensitized/challenged mice devoid of eosinophils (the transgenic line PHIL ) have reduced airway levels of Th2 cytokines relative to the OVA-treated wild type that correlated with a reduced ability to recruit effector T cells to the lung. Adoptive transfer of Th2-polarized OVA-specifi c transgenic T cells (OT-II) alone into OVA-challenged PHIL recipient mice failed to restore Th2 cytokines, airway histopathologies, and, most importantly, the recruitment of pulmonary effector T cells. In contrast, the combined transfer of OT-II cells and eosinophils into PHIL mice resulted in the accumulation of effector T cells and a concomitant increase in both airway Th2 immune responses and histopathologies. Moreover, we show that eosinophils elicit the expression of the Th2 chemokines thymus- and activation-regulated chemokine/CCL17 and macrophage-derived chemokine/CCL22 in the lung after allergen challenge, and blockade of these chemokines inhibited the recruitment of effector T cells. In summary, the data suggest that pulmonary eosinophils are required for the localized recruitment of effector T cells.


Background Ice hockey is a popular winter sport in Canada. Concussion accounts for the greatest proportion of all injuries in youth ice hockey. Research has informed policy change enforcing the no head contact rule in all leagues in Canada in 2011. Objective To determine if the risk of game-related concussion and other injury differ for Pee Wee (ages 11–12) and Bantam (ages 13–14) players following a 2011 rule enforcement policy change compared to players in similar divisions prior to the rule change. Design Historical cohort study. Setting Ice hockey rinks. Participants Historical cohort included Pee Wee (most elite 70%, 2007/08) (n=891) and Bantam (most elite 30%, 2008/09) (n=378) players before the rule change and Pee Wee (2011/12) (n=589) and Bantam (2011/12) (n=244) players in the same levels of play after the policy change. Risk factor assessment Exposure of ice hockey teams before and after a "zero tolerance for head contact" rule enforcement policy change. Risk factors include position, and previous injury/concussion. Main outcome measurements Suspected concussions were identified by a team designate (Pee Wee) or team therapist (Bantam) and referred to a sport medicine physician. Hockey injuries included those requiring medical attention and/or time loss. Results Based on multivariate Poisson Regression (adjusted for cluster, exposure hours, position and previous injury/concussion) the risk of game-related concussion increased following the head contact rule enforcement change in Pee Wee (IRR=1.83 [95% CI; 1.18–2.86]) and Bantam (IRR=2.74 [95% CI; 1.41–5.32]). The risk of injury (excluding concussion) did not change in Bantam (IRR=1.03 [95% CI; 0.59–1.81]). Conclusions The "zero tolerance for head contact or head checks" rule change did not reduce game-related concussion risk in Pee Wee or Bantam ice hockey players. This study will inform future research examining mechanism of injury leading to concussions in youth ice hockey.


Targeted therapy with tumor-specific antibodies established in clinical oncology over the past decades with a variety of approved drugs. However, antibodies targeting cell surface antigens also suffer from limitations. Therapeutic agents must reach all tumor cells in cancer therapy, as untreated regions can lead to tumor recurrence. Poor penetration and drug delivery of conventional antibody-based drugs remain a major challenge for effective treatment of solid tumors. In the context of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), many research efforts focused on new linker chemistry, optimization of cytotoxic drugs and site-specific conjugation technologies. Less attention was drawn to the underexplored targeting scaffold of the antibody portion or antibody alternatives for optimizing drug delivery. Especially, the molecular size of the ADC pharmacodelivery vehicle plays a key role to deliver the cytotoxic payload to tumor cells.

In the presented study, the effect of molecular weight and valency on tumor penetration and efficacy was investigated, introducing a novel ADC design. In this novel design an additional protease cleavage site was engineered into the IgG1 hinge region. This protease site is sensitive to enzymes commonly active in the tumor microenvironment, resulting in the release of 2 Fab-drug conjugates from the original ADC.
The hinge cleavable ADC was evaluated for the tumor penetration ability and efficacy of Fab-drug conjugates (FDCs) that are generated locally by extracellular tumor proteases while retaining the half-life of the full-length antibody in systemic circulation. Homogeneous ADCs and FDCs with cytotoxic payloads MMAE and MMAF were generated by site-specific conjugation to the light chains of antibodies or antibody fragments using sortase A. Proteolytic cleavage reactions and enzyme kinetics displayed a fast and efficient release of FDCs from the full-length ADC by tumor-associated proteases urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) and matriptase (MT-SP1). The designed anti-HER2 Trastuzumab ADCs and FDCs retained antigen binding properties, were stable in mouse serum and demonstrated high in vitro potency and cancer cell killing ability in HER2-overexpressing cell lines. For assessment of a better tumor localization, preparation as antibody-fluorophore conjugates for imaging analysis was achieved with Alexa Fluor 488. Enzymatically generated Fab-fluorophore fragments were able to penetrate and distribute more evenly within tumor spheroids compared to full-length IgG antibodies. A correlation was observed between reduced molecular size of the pharmacodelivery vehicle and tumor penetration and distribution ability. In vitro imaging analysis of tumor spheroids demonstrated increased molecular size and increased cellular binding resulted in decreased tumor penetration.

Hence, the presented work showed promising results for the in situ generation of FDCs from IgG-ADCs that might have a potential benefit against solid tumors in terms of tumor penetration and localization. Moreover, an improved tumor to blood ratio with FDCs can be expected that could also result in reduced adverse effects.
Further in vivo evaluation is necessary to optimize the balance between optimum tumor penetration and accumulation, molecular size of the targeting scaffold and pharmacokinetic properties.


For centuries, humankind aimed in creating habitats that possessed a kind of dominion over local climatic conditions. Over time, large-scale infrastructures were conceived and constructed to deliver a constant supply of resources; electricity, gas and water to buildings, and take away copious amounts of humanand building-generated waste. The effects these human behaviours have on the global-scale, have led scientists to name the current geological period, as the 'Anthropocene' era. As many professions look to deal with the challenges presented by rapidly changing ecosystems across the globe, and the dwindling amount of resources, a growing number of architects actively seek new ways of building, that will support a sustainable future in an Ecocene era. Many architectural designers are breaking the mold and teaming with experts from diverse expertise. Architecture increasingly looks to counteract these destructive human forces, by bringing, back into the living domain of humans, biology and biological systems. By reintroducing 'life' into the built environment, it can be used to replace existing (hard) infrastructures, performing, in a malleable way, through naturally occurring metabolic activities, essential building services, including waste removal, the provision of electricity, biofuel, oxygen and clean water. This paper discusses four case studies that address the problem of limited resources, encountered both on earth and the extended operational architectural field of outer space. A framework for discussion is being established looking at materials and systems. The replacement of industrially processed materials, by living organisms to perform similar functions is explained, as are the systems that govern these living material processes. Projects, Living Architecture (LIAR), a bioreactor building brick (1); Water Walls, modular structures for life-support (2), MEDUSA, integrated life-support and habitat for lunar applications (3), and GrAB, biolab experiments for growing a building (4), serve as case studies for the review of materials and systems in contemporary architecture.


This chapter emerges out of research conducted for the CAPES funded "Creative Industries, Cities and Popular music Scenes" project between Unisinos and the University of Salford looking at popular music scenes in Manchester and Porto Alegre. Taking up this project's central focus on the mutual relations between cities and musical scenes in the two cities, this article will especially focus on the use of cartographic and archaeological research methods in the project, in order to discern not only the spatial distribution and ecologies of specific rock musical genres within the two cities, but also the ways popular music functions as an archive of cultural memory, drawing on media archaeological approaches to the archive such as in the work of Wolfgang Ernst (2013). The key question that the research of the project poses is how might the popular music practices of relatively marginal cities constitute a form of cultural and collective memory (cf. Misztal, 2003), and how might such practices be mapped and archived using digital and mobile technologies. The provisional results of this research suggest that mapping is always already a form of archiving, and therefore has potential for generating rich forms of cultural memory around specific music scenes. The consequence of this is that the assembly of such archives has the possibility of intervening positively in the cultural life of the city from which they emerge, especially if such archives can be organised using interactive digital and mobile technologies. Finally, the article underlines the contribution cartographic and archaeological methodologies can make to studying the complex relations between specific urban environments and both past and present popular music scenes.


A simple method of determining trace amounts of zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu) by wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (WDXRF) is proposed. The method is based on the preparation of special foils enriched with specified trace elements. In the first step, the elements were preconcentrated by liquid-liquid extraction using dithizone in CCl4. In the second step, the obtained extracts containing determined elements were mixed with a solution of polystyrene in CH2Cl2. After the evaporation of the organic solvents the produced foils were peeled off the Petri dish and analyzed by WDXRF. The method of preconcentration of trace amounts of Zn and Cu as well as the procedure of obtaining suitable foils for XRF measurements were optimized. We studied the effects of parameters such as the amounts of complexing agent and selected interfering elements, pH, and volume of analyte solutions on the recovery of Zn and Cu in the extraction process and their determination. The homogeneity of the mass per unit area of the prepared foils was evaluated using the internal standard method. The proposed method allows determination of trace amounts of Zn and Cu with about 98% recovery and 7 ng mL−1 detection limits for 250 mL of water. The method is useful for routine determination of trace metals in aqueous samples by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry.


Preference Inference involves inferring additional user preferences from elicited or observed preferences, based on assumptions regarding the form of the user's preference relation. In this paper we consider a situation in which alternatives have an associated vector of costs, each component corresponding to a different criterion, and are compared using a kind of lexicographic order, similar to the way alternatives are compared in a Hierarchical Constraint Logic Programming model. It is assumed that the user has some (unknown) importance ordering on criteria, and that to compare two alternatives, firstly, the combined cost of each alternative with respect to the most important criteria are compared; only if these combined costs are equal, are the next most important criteria considered. The preference inference problem then consists of determining whether a preference statement can be inferred from a set of input preferences. We show that this problem is coNP-complete, even if one restricts the cardinality of the equal-importance sets to have at most two elements, and one only considers non-strict preferences. However, it is polynomial if it is assumed that the user's ordering of criteria is a total ordering; it is also polynomial if the sets of equally important criteria are all equivalence classes of a given fixed equivalence relation. We give an efficient polynomial algorithm for these cases, which also throws light on the structure of the inference.


Experiments were conducted in a strawberry farm located in Moguer (Huelva, SW Spain) from October to May for three consecutive growing seasons. The objective of this research was to evaluate the use of Trichoderma spp. for biocontrol of anthracnose in large-scale strawberry field experiments. Trichoderma spp. were applied via drip irrigation and dip, by addition to the soil 7-days before planting (10 conidia/m 2 ) , and by dipping strawberry roots in a suspension of Trichoderma (10 6 conidia/ml) prior to planting. A randomised complete block design with four replications was used. Each plot was 12.5 × 3.3 m and had three raised beds. Plants from the nursery were examined during October to detect latent infections of Colletotrichum spp. The highest percentage of anthracnose-infected transplants was detected in the second year. Crown infections were initiated in the nursery but were not apparent until after plants were set in production fields. The fungus continued to grow in infected plants, which later died suddenly following warm weather in the fall and the following spring. Trichoderma applications reduced anthracnose disease incidence and, consequently, plant mortality. This work contributes to the development and optimization of biocontrol with Trichoderma as alternatives to the traditional use of chemicals in strawberry production.


This contribution focuses on two applications of the FESOM model family. On the one hand, recent runs with the finite volume code FESOM2 on large global meshes with regional focus are presented.

FESOM's shallow water branch TsunAWI is the subject of the second part. TsunAWI, still based on finite elements, is used as an operational model in the Indonesia Tsunami Early Warning System (InaTEWS). InaTEWS derives tsunami forecasts in two different ways: from scenarios in a pre-computed database or from an on-the-fly simulation. The pre-computed scenarios are based on TsunAWI simulations with inundation on a triangular mesh with a resolution ranging from 20km in the deep ocean to 300m - 50m in coastal areas. The on-the-fly propagation model EasyWave (Andrey Babeyko, GFZ) solves the linear shallow water equations on a regular finite-difference grid with a resolution of about 1 km and the coast line as a vertical wall. EasyWave is used after a tsunami has been generated in an area not covered by the database or after seismic measurements show an earthquake mechanism not present in the database. As the numerical settings of both models are quite different, variations in the outputs are to be expected; nevertheless, the differences in the warning levels should not be too large for identical sources. In the current study, we systematically compare the warning products like estimated wave height and estimated time of arrival by the two approaches.


With the massive growth of Internet video streaming, it is critical to accurately measure video quality subjectively and objectively, especially HD and UHD video which is bandwidth intensive. We summarize the creation of a database of 200 clips, with 20 unique sources tested across a variety of devices. By classifying the test videos into 2 distinct quality regions SD and HD, we show that the high correlation claimed by objective video quality metrics is led mostly by videos in the SD quality region. We perform detailed correlation analysis and statistical hypothesis testing of the HD subjective quality scores, and establish that the commonly used ACR methodology of subjective testing is unable to capture significant quality differences, leading to poor measurement accuracy for both subjective and objective metrics even on large-screen display devices.


The current and also future situation on the work market presents great challenges for the personnel marketing activities of the food producers. At the same time, in the companies the knowledge increasingly prevails, that it is primarily those who succeed in attracting particularly suitable and capable employees in the long term, who achieve economic success. It is predominantly medium sized enterprises in the food industry that have been shown to be particularly affected by this challenge, as they often do not have a pronounced image as an employer and therefore see themselves as being afflicted with a noticeably reduced employer attractiveness to potential applications. Based on this problem, the aim of this work is to systematically investigate the information and decision making behaviour of potential applicants to medium sized enterprises in the food industry. To this end, 671 people were surveyed, who were just about to complete their economics, agriculture, nutritional science or food technology degree. The underlying analysis was carried out using three sub models. In the first sub model the information behaviour of potential applicants is in the foreground, whereby it will be investigated for selected personnel marketing measures, whether the respondents on the one hand know and make use of this, and on the other hand to what extent they find each useful in their choice of employer. A further research question in this sub model was to what extent the above assessment criteria correlated with the socio-demographic and personality specific characteristics of the respondents, and whether the latter had an incremental validity compared to the former. Thereby, positive correlations were shown with the socio-demographic characteristics, particularly the predictors of subject, degree and university type. Furthermore, it was shown that the personality specific characteristics in the form of career orientation in addition to the socio-demographic predictors, could shed light on the variance in the assessment criteria of some marketing measures. However, the effect size of the underlying regression analyses was small, meaning that the correlations should be rated as low overall. The second sub model dealt with the research question - which applicant preferences are crucial for the initial decision to apply to a certain company. In accordance with the model of person organisation adjustment it is hereby postulated that the recruitment success of a company is significantly dependent on the compliance of its workplace characteristics with the preferences of the potential applicants. Thereby, using a total of five workplace characteristics with the help of a decompositional preference measurement procedure - the discrete choice analysis - it was investigated whether and to what extent this influenced choice of positions of potential applicants. The attributes selected here included two quality seals, where it is assumed, that they lead to a high likelihood of vacancies, due to their insecurity reducing signal effect. In addition, the career orientation of potential applicants is integrated into the estimation model, to analyse differential effects of the above workplace characteristics. In contrast to using direct surveying methods, it is shown that potential applicants attribute a great deal of importance to workplace safety. In contrast a performance related variable remuneration leads to lower benefits and consequently a lower likelihood of selecting vacancies. Furthermore, for individual workplace characteristics it can be proven that their influence on the likelihood of selection depends on the personality specific characteristics of potential applicants. The expected positive effects of quality seals however can only be confirmed in the case that the potential applicant does not know them. Otherwise, they do not have a significant effect and/or even have a negative effect on the selection decision of the respondents. The central objective of the third sub model is to identify suitable determinants of the application intent from the theoretical approaches of marketing science and psychological research, and analyse these using a causal model. With the causal model constructed here, it was possible to empirically confirm and further differentiate the contribution of selected predictors to clarifying the intent to apply to medium sized companies in the food industry. The highest predictive contribution to application intent was thereby clearly the perceived employer attractiveness. Furthermore, it was shown that the sector reputation of the food industry has a meaningful position within the causal model, whereby the effectiveness postulated here was conveyed partially or even completely through the sector knowledge. The results of these works clearly show that it is useful to observe the phenomenon of employer selection from interdisciplinary points of view, and targetedly use various existing clarification approaches, to drive forward theory formation in this area. Apart from its scientific contribution, the work also offers personnel officers in medium sized enterprises in the food industry starting points, to orientate future personnel marketing activities in a target group-specific way. Thereby, the knowledge obtained here from the individual sub models presents a significant basis for a meaningful performance, salary and communication policy.


Vast geographical distances in Africa are a leading cause for the so-called digital divide due to the high cost of installing fiber. Free-space optical (FSO) communications offer a convenient and higher bandwidth alternative to point-to-point radio microwave links, with the possibility of repurposing existing infrastructure. Unfortunately, the range of high-bandwidth FSO remains limited. While there has been extensive research into an optimal mode set for FSO to achieve maximum data throughput by mode division multiplexing, there has been relatively little work investigating optical modes to improve the resilience of FSO links. Here, we experimentally show that a carefully chosen subset of Hermite–Gaussian modes is more resilient to atmospheric turbulence than similar Laguerre–Gauss beams, with a predicted upper bound increase in propagation distance of 167% at a mode-dependent loss of 50%.


The rapid growth in interactive bandwidth-hungry services demands ever higher
capacity at various stages of the optical network, leading to a potential capacity exhaust,
termed the capacity crunch. The main aim of the research work described in this thesis
was to help solve the potential capacity crunch by exploring techniques to increase the
data rate, spectral efficiency and reach of optical fibre systems. The focus was on the
use of advanced signal modulation formats, including optical time-division multiplexing
(OTDM), quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK), and 16-state quadrature amplitude
modulation (QAM16). QPSK and QAM16 modulations formats were studied in
combination with coherent detection and digital signal processing (DSP) for the
compensation of transmission impairments. In addition, return-to-zero (RZ) pulses were
explored to increase the tolerance towards nonlinearity for coherently detected signals,
and nonlinearity compensation (NLC) through the DSP.
Initially, to maximise the bit-rate, research was focused on the study of OTDM
transmission at 80Gbit/s with the aim to optimise the phase difference between the
adjacent OTDM channels. A new technique to achieve bit-wise phase control using a
phase-stabilised fibre interferometer was proposed. Faced with a limited fibre capacity,
the need to maximise the spectral efficiency became paramount, and thus the need to
use phase, amplitude and polarisation domains for signal transmission. In combination
with coherent detection the research focused on the performance of optical fibre systems
using QPSK and QAM16 modulation formats, including their generation, transmission
and detection in single-channel and WDM regimes. This included the study of the
impact of pulse shapes, and the mitigation of linear and nonlinear transmission
impairments with receiver-based DSP at bit-rates ranging from 42.7 to 224Gbit/s. The
technique demonstrated for bit-wise phase control for OTDM was successfully used to
demonstrate a new method for QAM16 signal generation. Longest transmission
distances (up to 10160km in 112Gbit/s QPSK, 4240km in 112Gbit/s QAM16, and
2000km in 224Gbit/s QAM16) have been achieved with the use of NLC and RZ pulses.
The efficiency of these two techniques is explored through a comprehensive set of
experiments in both single-channel and WDM transmission experiments. The results
can be used in the design of future optical transmission systems.


Dental erosion is the dissolution of dental hard tissue without the involvement of bacteria. It is well known that acid containing food and beverages lead to the erosive damage of dental enamel. This disease occurs mainly in children and has increased dramatically in the last years and, thus, moved in the focus of scientific investigations. The current work investigated the process of tooth erosion with an in vitro model system and developed new strategies against the process of dental erosion based on the modification of erosion inducing acidic soft drinks. Influencing factors were systematically changed and the erosion effect on in vitro enamel was investigated quantitatively and qualitatively. New insights are presented to much better understand the process of erosion and to possibly reduce the erosion on human dental enamel. Profilometry and AFM-based nanoindentation were used to investigate the long time and the short time erosion process on human dental enamel. Moreover, different food-approved polymers (propylene glycol alginate, high-esterified pectin and gum arabic) were investigated for their erosion inhibiting effects. The addition of these polymers to citric acid solutions showed a significantly reduced hardness loss of enamel compared to enamel treated with unmodified citric acid solutions. The current work gives also insights into the interaction of the polymers and the enamel surface in vitro. This interaction led to the formation of a layer consisting of polymer molecules and hydroxyapatite particles, which protects the underlying enamel against erosion caused by citric acid. In addition, with a proper choice of the acids used for soft drinks, the enamel softening can be significantly influenced. The strategies presented in the current study are based on the modification of acidic soft drinks and give the possibility to significantly reduce the acid triggered process of dental erosion.


Technological innovation is transforming the prevalence and functional impact of child disability, the scale of social disparities in child disability, and perhaps the essential meaning of disability in an increasingly technology-dominated world. In this article, Paul Wise investigates several specific facets of this transformation. He begins by showing how technological change influences the definition of disability, noting that all technology attempts to address some deficiency in human capacity or in the human condition.Wise then looks at the impact of technology on childhood disabilities. Technical improvements in the physical environment, such as better housing, safer roads, and poison-prevention packaging, have significantly reduced childhood injury and disability. Other technological breakthroughs, such as those that identify genetic disorders that may lead to pregnancy termination, raise difficult moral and ethical issues. Technologies that identify potential health risks are also problematic in the absence of any efficient treatment.Wise stresses the imbalance in the existing health care delivery system, which is geared toward treating childhood physical illnesses that are declining in prevalence at a time when mental and emotional conditions, many of which are not yet well understood, are on the rise. This mismatch, Wise says, poses complex challenges to caring for disabled children, particularly in providing them with highly coordinated and integrated systems of care.Technology can also widen social disparities in health care for people, including children with disabilities. As Wise observes, efficacy—the ability of a technology to change health outcomes —is key to understanding the relationship of technology to social disparities. As technological innovation enhances efficacy, access to that technology becomes more important. Health outcomes may improve for those who can afford the technology, for example, but not for others. Hence, as efficacy grows, so too does the burden on society to provide access to technology equitably to all those in need. Without such access, technological innovation will likely expand disparities in child outcomes rather than reduce them.


South Africa's disability grant is critical for the survival of many disabled people and their families, and is especially important to disabled women, who face further disadvantage because of their family responsibilities, their generally deeper poverty and their greater vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and other illnesses. Valuable engagement between feminism and disability theory offers a useful framework for understanding the needs of disabled women in South Africa's social assistance system. This paper sets out the findings of a study of the disability grant system in two provinces in South Africa. It discusses the administrative problems with the system and the financial and other costs that burden the grant applicants and beneficiaries. It proposes that a comprehensive response to poverty, disability and gender inequality is needed, and makes specific recommendations for an improved system.


Water stress is the main factor responsible for decreased productivity, which affects the growth and development of crops. Plants respond to stress by accumulating compatible solutes, which have a key role in osmotic adjustment, thereby resulting in osmoprotection of the plants. The loss of water can increase the concentration of compatible osmolytes and molecules that regulate the plant metabolism. These solutes can be metabolized as sugars (sucrose, fructose, trehalosa), amino acids (proline), an amphoteric quaternary amine (glycine betaine), and other low-molecular-weight metabolites. However, among all these compatible solutes, proline and glycine betaine occur the most. Proline is an amino acid that can accumulate in low concentrations under optimal conditions; however, stress conditions contribute to its increased content. Few data are available regarding the levels of endogenous glycine betaine on Solanaceae, which is considered a nonaccumulator under water deficit conditions. The objective of this research was to evaluate the role of compatible osmolytes, glycine betaine and proline, in Capsicum sp. plants under different water deficit conditions. In this study, the presence of endogenous levels of proline and glycine betaine in two species of pepper (Capsicum chinense var. Genesis and Rex and Capsicum annuum var. Padron) were found. The concentration levels of proline were 362, 292, and 246 μmol·g−1 DW for Genesis, Rex and Padron respectively, and irrigation conditions (rehydration) of proline levels increased to 381, 395, and 383 μmol·g−1 DW at 21 days. However, glycine betaine levels were 30–70 μmol·g−1 DW. The relative water content, electrolyte leakage, and soil water potential were also analyzed; therefore, the information suggests that proline contributes better to tolerance to water deficit in the genus Capsicum after 14 days of water deficit treatment. It seems that the contribution of glycine betaine is less effective than that of proline; therefore, it does not have an important role in osmotic adjustment.


Lynch syndrome (LS) is characterised by the development of colorectal cancer, endometrial cancer and various other cancers, and is caused by a mutation in one of the mismatch repair genes: MLH1, MSH2, MSH6 or PMS2. In 2007, a group of European experts (the Mallorca group) published guidelines for the clinical management of LS. Since then substantial new information has become available necessitating an update of the guidelines. In 2011 and 2012 workshops were organised in Palma de Mallorca. A total of 35 specialists from 13 countries participated in the meetings. The first step was to formulate important clinical questions. Then a systematic literature search was performed using the Pubmed database and manual searches of relevant articles. During the workshops the outcome of the literature search was discussed in detail. The guidelines described in this paper may be helpful for the appropriate management of families with LS. Prospective controlled studies should be undertaken to improve further the care of these families.


The biodiversity crisis -- the extinction of thousands of species of plants and animals -- is not just a faraway problem for scientists to solve. Instead, the crisis is as close as our backyards, our gardens, and our refrigerator shelves. This engaging, practical guide inspires average Americans to wield their consumer power in favor of protecting the world's plant and animal species.Environmentalist activist Martin Teitel offers compelling evidence that by slightly modifying how we shop, eat, and garden, we can collectively influence the operating decisions of today's corporate agribusiness and help preserve our precious genetic resources. Teitel offers strategies so simple that they require no significant lifestyle change or expense.


Nudging policies rely on behavioral science to improve people's decisions through small changes in the environments within which people make choices. This article first seeks to rebut a prominent objection to this approach: furnishing governments with the power to nudge leads to relations of alien control, that is, relations in which some people can impose their will on others—a concern which resonates with republican, Kantian, and Rousseauvian theories of freedom and relational theories of autonomy. I respond that alien control can be avoided, if nudging is suitably transparent and democratically controlled. Moreover, such transparency and democratic control are institutionally feasible. Building on this response, I then provide a novel and surprising argument for more nudging: democratically controlled public policy nudging can often contain the power of private companies to nudge in uncontrolled and opaque ways. Therefore, reducing alien control often requires more rather than less nudging in public policy.


In the United States with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)'s emphasis on learning science while doing science, laboratory activities in the secondary school chemistry continues to be an important component of a strong curriculum. Laboratory equipment and consumable materials create a unique expense which chemistry teachers and schools must deal with if laboratory activities are part of the chemistry curriculum. While other barriers impacting teachers' use of laboratory activities have been researched, the impact of expense on teachers' choices is not as clear. This study sought to understand secondary school chemistry teachers' current laboratory practices and the impact expense has on their use of laboratory activities in their classroom. Using an online survey and follow-up interviews, the study found that a majority of secondary chemistry teachers surveyed use laboratory activities, though not always including scientific practices advocated by NGSS. The frequency of laboratory activities used by teachers was not statistically impacted by school type, available funds for materials, or processes to obtain funds, but was impacted by teachers' personal ideas. Interviews provided more information about the teachers using laboratory activities regularly and those not. While most teachers are using laboratory activities regularly at the current funding levels, expense, in terms of monetary and time expenses, was shown to impact the specific choice of laboratory activity. Implications for chemistry curriculum reform including the usage of laboratory activities in chemistry courses are discussed along with implications for chemistry teacher professional development.


Purpose To evaluate the activity of recombinant adenovirus encoding human vasohibin-1 (Ad-Vasohibin-1) on mouse corneal neovasularization induced by alkali burn. Methods For the treatment group, 50 mice each received subconjunctival injection (5 μl) of 109 plaque forming units of replication-defective Ad-Vasohibin-1. Control group mice received the same dosage of blank adenoviral vector (AdNull). Five days after injection, corneal neovascularization (CNV) was induced by placing 2.5 μl of 0.1 M NaOH on the right cornea for 30 s. Subsequently, CNV was observed and photographed every 3 days for a total duration of 9 days after the alkali burn. The percentage of neovascularized area was measured and compared with the AdNull control. The expression of human vasohibin-1 protein was detected by immunohistochemistry and western blotting at 5, 8, and 14 days after injection. The mRNA expression levels of murine vascular endothelial growth factor (Vegf), VEGF receptor 1 and 2 (Vegfr1, Vegfr2), and vasohibin-1 (Vash1) were analyzed and compared by real time quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction. Results The percentage of neovascularized area within the cornea was significantly reduced in mice treated with Ad-Vasohibin-1 compared to mice treated with AdNull at every time point after alkali-induced injury (7.11%±3.91% and 15.48%±1.79% of corneal area in the treatment and control groups, respectively, on day 3; 31.64%±4.71% and 43.93%±6.15% on day 6, and 45.02%±9.98% and 66.24%±7.17% on day 9, all p<0.001). Human vasohibin-1 protein was detected at the injection sites on day 3 after corneal burn and was highly expressed in the central subepithelial stroma and co-localized with neovascularized vessels within the alkali-treated cornea on day 6. On day 9, the peripheral cornea exhibited a similar staining pattern as the central cornea, but a more intense vasohibin-1 immunostaining signal was detected in the deep stroma. Some of the vasohibin-1 stain signal diffused into the frontal and deep stroma of the central cornea and was not co-localized with new vessels. By contrast, in mice injected with AdNull or normal corneas, no vasohibin-1 stain signal was detected within the corneas. Vasohibin-1 protein expression within treated corneas was also further confirmed by western blotting on day 5. Expression appeared to peak by day 8 and was maintained at high levels until day 14. However, Vasohibin-1 protein was not detected in the corneas of normal mice or mice treated with AdNull. Real-time quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction analysis showed that expression of Vegfr2 and endogenous Vash1 mRNA were significantly decreased in the treatment versus control group (t1=–2.161, p1=0.047; t2=–2.236, p2=0.041). In contrast, there were no significant differences in Vegf and Vegfr1 mRNA expression levels between the treatment and control groups (p>0.05 for both). Conclusions Subconjunctival injection of Ad-Vasohibin-1 significantly reduces corneal neovascularization in alkali-treated mouse corneas. This effect of anti-neovascularization may be related to the downregulation of Vegfr2 expression.


The SU(3) flavour symmetry breaking expansion in up, down and strange quark masses is extended from hadron masses to meson decay constants. This allows a determination of the ratio of kaon to pion decay constants in QCD. Furthermore when using partially quenched valence quarks the expansion is such that SU(2) isospin breaking effects can also be determined. It is found that the lowest order SU(3) flavour symmetry breaking expansion (or Gell-Mann--Okubo expansion) works very well. Simulations are performed for 2+1 flavours of clover fermions at four lattice spacings.


Some ecological aspects of mochokid catfishes in River Ase, Southern Nigeria were studied for a period of two years (March 1982- February, 1984) using bottom-set drifting nets, surface-set drifting nets, cast nets, drag nets, and atalla lift nets of different mesh sizes. Fifteen species (15) accounting for 303 individuals and wet weight of 46,147.40g were captured. By number and weight, the fifteen species contributed to 7.17% and 13.30% of all total fishes caught respectively. Synodontis schall, Hemisyndontis membraceous and Synodontis budgetti were the prominent species. The monthly condition factors of all the 15 species ranged from 2.30 to 3.60 indicating well-being. Seventy two (72) individuals representing 12 species were captured between 0900 and 1200hrs. On seasonal basis, more fish species and individuals were caught during the rainy season than during the dry season. Apart from Synodontis omias, Synodontis violaceous and Synodontis courteti that were rare and represented by only one individual in some stations, all other species were heterogeneous among the five stations studied. Some ecological aspects of the mochokid species in River Ase have been discussed and compared to the findings of earlier studies carried out elsewhere. Key words : ecology, mochokids, Ase River, Nigeria


Notwithstanding the rise of evidence-based practice, other tendencies within social work scholarship are also discernible. One of these is the study of the everyday, routine accomplishment of practice, drawing on microsociological methods and techniques. In this article, I apply techniques drawn from narrative and discourse analysis to the study of reflective practice accounts, which hold an important place in social work education. In particular, it is relevant to examine the form that reflective accounts take and the rhetorical and narrative devices deployed within them to accomplish a competent professional identity. My argument is not that such accounts of practice are untruthful, rather I propose that we would do well to move beyond taking texts (and talk) for granted and treating language as merely the medium for expressing inner thoughts and feelings. Social work should take seriously the need to explore its modes of representation and to cultivate a more self-conscious approach to the way professional and client identities are produced in practice.


It is time for the noon conference. Your job is to impart a career-changing experience in ethics to a group of students and interns gathered from four different schools with varying curriculums in ethics. They have just finished 1½ h of didactic sessions and lunch. One third of them were on call last night. Your first job is to keep them awake. The authors argue that this "tragic case" approach to ethics education is of limited value because it limits understanding of moral problems to dilemmas; negates the moral agency of the student; encourages solutions that are merely intellectual; and suggests that ethical encounters are a matter for experts. The authors propose an alternative that focuses on three issues: the provider-patient relationship, the relationships between providers in the everyday world of health work and, the social position of healthcare providers in society. In this approach, teachers are not experts but more like guides on a journey who help students to learn that much of ethical practice comprises living through difficult situations of caring for vulnerable others and who help students to navigate some of these difficulties.


Previous research has revealed that social workers struggle with recognising,
naming and intervening in cases of emotional abuse (Iwaniec et al. 2007). A
possible reason for this is that the impact on children of emotional abuse is
experienced and played out predominantly within the psychosocial rather than the
physical domain. With the effects being less observable, they are more challenging
to attribute directly to emotionally abusive behaviours by parents and caregivers
(Glaser and Prior 1997). Not enough is yet understood about the challenges that
working with emotional abuse in families present to child protection social workers
in England.
This Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded PhD project seeks to
advance knowledge of this topic by exploring some of the emotional and cognitive
processes social workers follow when working in situations with children and
families where emotional abuse is a concern. A key focus of the research is social
workers' subjectivity and the ways in which this influences their practice. Aspects of
practice including reflexivity, intuition and emotional self-efficacy are explored,
alongside the use of law and policy and more formal assessment tools. The
supportive measures social workers use to process and contain the complex
feelings they experience in their daily work are investigated in relation to the
decisions they make.
The research is small-scale and qualitative in nature. The data have been
gathered from a sample of child protection social workers from two local authorities
in the South East of England. Two focus groups were conducted, designed to
generate broad themes to be further explored in individual interviews. Eight social
workers were interviewed individually twice, with their follow-up interview held
approximately two months after the first to give the interviewee an opportunity to
reflect on the subject matter. The semi-structured interview schedule included
exploration of how factors such as previous practice experiences, educational
training and cultural background contribute to participants' decision-making
processes during assessment and intervention with cases of emotional abuse.
Underpinned by a psychosocial approach, the analysis looks 'under the surface' of
participants' responses to consider what may be subjective or unconscious in their
narratives, and what might be hidden or denied. This enabled a deeper exploration
of the nuances of practice with emotional abuse, allowing the individual social
workers to emerge as three-dimensional human beings with vulnerabilities and
strengths.
The research findings indicate that individual social workers approach identifying,
assessing and intervening with children and families where emotional abuse is a
concern in different ways. The social workers interviewed had clear individual
strengths as a consequence of their particular approach, but struggled with
reconciling their weaknesses if the impact of their day-to-day experiences of the
work was not managed effectively. Defended responses to their own emotional
reactions resulted in anxiety, lack of self-efficacy and splitting. Supportive
mechanisms identified in the data as important to improving work with emotional
abuse are containing supervisory relationships, sustained peer support and a
secure workplace environment that promotes a feeling of connectedness to the
wider team. The aim of the research is to contribute guidance to support social
workers in their work with children and families where emotional abuse is, or may
be present.


Ronald Coase's essay on "The Problem of Social Cost" introduced the world to transaction costs, and the introduction laid the foundation for an ongoing cottage industry in law and economics. And of all the law-and-economics scholarship built on Coase's insights, perhaps the most widely known and influential contribution has been Calabresi and Melamed's discussion of what they called "property rules" and "liability rules." Those rules and the methodology behind them are our subjects here. We have a number of objectives, the most basic of which is to provide a much needed primer for those students, scholars, and lawyers who are interested but not particularly fluent in the economic analysis of law. Like Coase before them, Calabresi and Melamed figure regularly in the work of the legal academy, but-again like Coase before them-their ideas are not understood as well as they should be, notwithstanding an excellent explanation by Professor Polinsky published some fifteen years ago. Since Polinsky's contributions have been all too routinely ignored, we shall restate several of his central points emphatically. But we also take issue with parts of Polinsky's analysis, and we aim, in any event, to extend his account, and the literature on property rules and liability rules generally, into previously undiscovered territory. In Parts I and II we set out first the background and next the conventional understanding of the "four rules" that figure in the work of Calabresi and Melamed. Then, in Part II, the centerpiece of our discussion, we shift from description to critique and from the familiar to the novel. We question some of the typical thinking about transaction costs, and about "objective" versus "subjective" accounts of reality (as in objective versus subjective damages). We consider the irony in the standard analysis of "extortion" and the paradox of Calabresi and Melamed's so-called rule four of reverse damages. We present a way out of the paradox-namely reverse-reverse damages, or what we prefer to call "the double reverse twist" - and in the course of doing so introduce a "best-chooser" principle that adds a new element to the conventional methodology. We then use the best-chooser principle to show that much that seems strange in our account is in fact familiar, provided one thinks about legal institutions in a sufficiently systematic way. Throughout, we mean to be both constructive and critical, trying to enhance a useful method of legal analysis but at the same time questioning whether the method, rightly understood, entices its practitioners into a game not worth the candle. So there is a tension in our account. It is addressed in the Conclusion.


Coloring algebra (CA) [1] captures common ideas of feature oriented programming (FOP), a general programming paradigm that provides formalisms, methods, languages, and tools for building maintainable, customisable, as well as extensible software. FOP has widespread applications from network protocols and data structures to software product lines. It arose from the idea of level-based designs, i.e., the idea that each program (design) can be successively built up by adding more and more levels (features). Later, this idea was generalised to the abstract concept of features. The algebra itself is based on rings and offers simple and concise axioms for feature composition and feature interaction. From these two operations algebraic laws describing products, product lines and other concepts of FOP can be derived. The talk will start with a brief introduction to coloring algebra. In particular I will discuss the interplay between feature composition and interaction. I will also present different models and discuss their relationship to and applicability for feature oriented programming. The examples will show that the choice for defining feature composition is limited. In fact, I will prove that the composition operator is always isomorphic to symmetric-difference in a set-theoretic model. The proof can easily be derived from Kronecker Basis Theorem (e.g. [3]). By this result we have "half" a representation theorem for CA. A detailed understanding of feature interaction is missing for the characterisation and the proof of a full representation theorem. Therefore, I will conclude the talk with some observations and conjectures on the structure of coloring algebra, which hopefully helps to come up with a full representation theorem.


Published macroeconomic data traditionally exclude most intangible investment from measured GDP. This situation is beginning to change, but our estimates suggest that as much as $800 billion is still excluded from U.S. published data (as of 2003), and that this leads to the exclusion of more than $3 trillion of business intangible capital stock. To assess the importance of this omission, we add intangible capital to the standard sources-of-growth framework used by the BLS, and find that the inclusion of our list of intangible assets makes a significant difference in the observed patterns of U.S. economic growth. The rate of change of output per worker increases more rapidly when intangibles are counted as capital, and capital deepening becomes the unambiguously dominant source of growth in labor productivity. The role of multifactor productivity is correspondingly diminished, and labor's income share is found to have decreased significantly over the last 50 years.


Objective: To describe telehealth interventions and determine their effect on medication adherence for patients with type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and/or dyslipidemia. Data Sources: PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, CINAHL Plus, PsycINFO, Academic Search Ultimate, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, Scopus, Web of Science, WHO Global Index Medicus, association websites, and gray literature were searched from January 1, 1998, to December 31, 2019. Study Selection and Data Extraction: Eligible studies reported eHealth, mobile health, and telehealth interventions for adult patients prescribed medications for chronic condition management (eg, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and/or dyslipidemia). Studies were required to evaluate medication adherence outcomes (eg, medication possession ratio [MPR], proportion of days covered (PDC)]. Randomized controlled trials, cohort studies, and controlled before-and-after studies were included. Multiple reviewers independently extracted data and evaluated risk of bias. Data Synthesis: Of 8693 studies identified, 13 reported either an MPR or PDC and were included in the systematic review. The systematic review demonstrated that electronic health (eHealth) and telehealth interventions were successful at improving medication adherence, whereas mobile health interventions did not improve medication adherence. Relevance to Patient Care and Clinical Practice: This systematic review highlighted the available research and findings of studies assessing interventions to improve medication nonadherence among patients with type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and/or dyslipidemia. The evaluated findings lend support to the need for targeted medication adherence interventions based on patient population and practice settings. Conclusions: Telehealth modalities include telephonic outreach and specialized tools designed to increase health literacy. eHealth and telehealth medication adherence interventions were associated with improved MPR and/or PDC rates.


The purpose of the present study was to investigate the extent of antisocial attitudes present in a non-offender sample, using the Measures of Criminal Attitudes and Associates (MCAA) and the Criminal Sentiments Scale-Modified (CSS-M). Despite the recognition of the importance of antisocial attitudes for predicting criminal and antisocial behaviour, there is a lack agreement on the specific conceptualisation of antisocial attitudes. Although there is promising research using reliable and valid attitude measures with offenders, it is unsure whether these attitudes are specific to offenders, and can be used to differentiate between offending and non-offending groups. In addition, these attitude measures have been used little with offenders, or non-offenders in New Zealand. The College of Education students in the present study were found to have less antisocial attitudes than Canadian offenders, but had more antisocial attitudes than expected. It was also found that antisocial attitudes as measured by the MCAA, could significantly explain antisocial behaviour in this sample, as measured by the Self-Report Early Delinquency Instrument (SRED). Issues with particular items on the MCAA and CSS-M are explored and it is suggested that these measures may need to be modified for use with a New Zealand population. However the MCAA shows promise in explaining antisocial behaviour, and its potential uses are explored. Implications for the assessment and treatment of offenders are discussed, as well as future directions for antisocial attitudes research.


We report a low complexity, non-iterative method for enhancing the sharpness, brightness, and contrast of the pictorial content that is recorded in a digital hologram, without the need of re-generating the latter from the original object scene. In our proposed method, the hologram is first back-projected to a 2-D virtual diffraction plane (VDP) which is located at close proximity to the original object points. Next the field distribution on the VDP, which shares similar optical properties as the object scene, is enhanced. Subsequently, the processed VDP is expanded into a full hologram. We demonstrate two types of enhancement: a modified histogram equalization to improve the brightness and contrast, and localized high-boost-filtering (LHBF) to increase the sharpness. Experiment results have demonstrated that our proposed method is capable of enhancing a 2048x2048 hologram at a rate of around 100 frames per second. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time real-time image enhancement is considered in the context of digital holography.


Most of us at some point in our lives will be struck by major traumas such as the sudden death of a loved one, a debilitating disease, assault, or a natural disaster. Resilience refers to the ability to 'bounce back' after encountering difficulty. This book provides a guide to building emotional, mental and physical resilience by presenting ten factors to help anyone become more resilient to life's challenges. Specific resilience factors such as facing fear, optimism, and social support are described through the experiences and personal reflections of highly resilient survivors. These survivors also describe real-life methods for practicing and benefiting from the resilience factors. As resilience is the complex product of genetic, psychological, biological, social, and spiritual factors, the authors investigate resilience from multiple scientific perspectives. They synthesize the latest literature on the topic, describe their own research on resilience, and quote from their interviews with highly resilient people.


Spatial-temporal variability and changes of Greenland ice sheet elevation from 1992 to 2008 are analyzed from merged ERS-1, ERS-2, and Envisat satellite radar altimeter data. A methodology for determining intersatellite biases was developed and applied in order to merge measurements from these different satellites and to create continuous and consistent time series. Intersatellite biases of elevation and backscatter coefficient have shown to be significantly affected by the bias between measurements in ascending and descending orbits. Adjustment of elevation time series for its dependence on backscatter coefficient and other waveform parameters performed in this paper substantially reduced the amplitude of elevation seasonal variations and locally corrected elevation change-rate estimates by up to several centimeters per year. It was found that the correction depends not only on the variations in the waveform parameters but also on the temporal variations of the correlation gradients, which represent the sensitivity of the elevation change to the change in the waveform parameters. An elevation change rate of +2.8 ±0.2 cm/year from 1992 to 2008 over 76% of the Greenland ice sheet area was found. Increases in surface elevation from 1995 observed over the high-elevation regions of Greenland were followed by an elevation decrease from 2006. For the whole period of 1992-2008, the elevation increase is 4.0 ± 0.2 cm/year over 87% of the area above 1500 m. In contrast, over 38% of the low-elevation areas below 1500 m, the rate of elevation change is -7.0 ±1.0 cm/year, and the surface elevation decrease that started from 2000 has continued.


Violence and tragedy are inseparable. Like myths, the bases for most tragic storylines, antique tragedies also depict innumerable murders, sacrifices, suicides, etc. This paper focuses on how death is depicted in Aeschylus's tragedy "Agamemnon" in order to examine how the tragedy portrays violent death. The paper further explores the ritual markers of murder, dying as a boundary-crossing process and the different attitudes towards and beliefs about death and the dead found in the tragedy.  Despite a lack of any kind of written source or comment on the conventions of depicting death in antique Greek tragedies, we know that, whether it was in the interest of credibility or for some other reason, portraying death and violent events on stage was avoided. Blood baths and murders were not shown physically on stage, but were rather conveyed verbally using various narrative means (a messenger's or the choir's text, a character's account, etc.). Many different explanations have been given for these conventions of depicting death, such as the limited number of actors in Greek theatre, religious taboos, ethical beliefs, technical limitations on stage, as well as dramatic reasons. Since the act of murder isn't shown on stage, a study of the representation of violent death can only analyse the way that murder is described in the text.  In the tragedy "Agamemnon", one must distinguish between the deaths that occurred in the past, before the actions that take place on stage, such as Iphigenia and the warriors who fought in Troy (as recounted by the choir), and those that take place during the play, i.e. the murders of Agamemnon and Cassandra. If we take a closer look at these two murders, the disproportionate amount of attention given to them stands out. Agamemnon dies three times for the public: first in Cassandra's prophetic vision (1100-1130), which she presents to the choir, then his "real" death behind closed doors (1343-1345), and, finally, a third time in Clytemnestra's victorious recounting of the blood bath (1380-1395). Whereas Cassandra's death is but briefly mentioned in Clytemnestra's account (1440-1448). In the threefold presentation of Agamemnon's murder, all categories of time are powerfully combined – the future, the present and the past. Cassandra's prophetic view of the future describes in explicit detail, though metaphorically, the fate about to befall Agamemnon. Clytemnestra's retrospective description of the murder is cold-blooded and precise. But both help to create a vivid image of the terrible event for the viewer by the end of the play. Poetic suggestiveness and layers of description (direct and metaphorical) give the otherwise dramatically wan murder scene the dimensions of a larger event.  Cassandra's and Clytemnestra's descriptions of the murder evoke a sense of ecstasy and ritual. Agamemnon's murder gives symbolic weight to many objects, conferring upon them a deeper, ritual meaning in the tragedy. These objects include the bath and robe/trap that Clytemnestra uses during the murder ritual, but also the blood spilled so violently as a libational sacrifice to the gods. The central images in the murder scenes, the references to an altar and comparing the dying to a sacrificed animal, all allude to Greek sacrifice customs. Agamemnon's death can thus be seen as a metaphoric rite of sacrifice. Such "sacral violence" isn't ritual per se, but it essentially imitates cult practices.  The victim's journey from the world of the living into the reality of the dead can be seen as a transition ritual and the dying as a liminal process. In the context of Juri Lotman's cultural semiotics and his theory of boundaries, the opposition between "in" and "out" allows death to be placed on the life/afterlife, seen/unseen, known/unknown axes. The spatial structure of the tragedy "Agamemnon" is also a spatial model of the universe (according to Greek cosmology). Space in the tragedy's text is organized according to concepts of "in" and "out" and, on the vertical axis, "above" and "below", wherein the synonyms for "in" are "closeness" and "belonging" and for "out" are "distance" and "the unknown". With death, there is movement from "in" to "out" and from "above" to "below" and, with these concepts, come the binary oppositions of "day" and "night" and "light" and "darkness". Day and daylight symbolize life but death is darkness and the "setting of life" (1120-1225). Thus, Hades is depicted as an obscure, hopeless place.  The clear outlines given to death in the tragedy as well as the depiction of Hades are in line with the general religious traditions of fifth century Greece. Death was feared and it elicited emotions of horror and negativity. Though it wasn't possible to return to the land of the living, death wasn't considered to be the end of existence, merely its continuation in the next actuality, where new rules applied. In conclusion, violent death as an aspect of society is depicted in this tragedy mainly in descriptions of the horrors of war and the story of Iphigenia's sacrifice. However, the personal horror of death emerges in the depiction of the familial blood feud and the descriptions of Agamemnon's murder. "Agamemnon" contains little reference to the Greek underworld and beliefs about death. The tragedy mostly focuses on the ways of, and reasons for, leaving life and gives a detailed description of violent death.


For simulating physical and chemical processes on molecular level, asynchronous cellular automata with probabilistic transition rules are widely used being sometimes referred to as Monte-Carlo methods. The simulation requires a huge cellular space and millions of iterative steps for obtaining the CA evolution representing a real scene of the process. This may be attained by allocating the CA evolution program onto a multiprocessor system. We propose a new parallelization method of asynchronous CA based on its stochastic properties. The efficiency assessment and experimental results are presented.


This book compares, from a historical and sociopolitical perspective, the respective systems and contents of music education in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan in response to globalization, localization and Sinificiation, with particular reference to Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei.


Informed by psychoanalytic criticism, and rooted principally in deconstructive practice, this paper aims to add to the growing scholarship on EL James's controversial trilogy by considering a significant and hitherto unexplored aspect of their engagement with female identity: that is, motherhood. I argue that while the novels can be seen to be positioned ambivalently in terms of sexual relationships, it is beyond the bedroom that the real violence of the texts resides. At the center of this is Ana's own positioning as both literal and figurative mother. Ana's mothering of Christian is in both Freudian and Lacanian terms essential to the success of their relationship. Reading James's construction of motherhood through Jacques Derrida's deconstruction of the maternal ideal in his philosophy, it is possible to see James's mother figures as incomplete renderings of the maternal ideal, who in fact evidence the mother instead as eternal mimic. However, this reading relies upon a poststructuralist practice than denies the largely conservative positioning of mothers in the texts. Overwhelmingly, James's novels can be seen to contribute to the reproduction of the maternal ideal, a discourse that is being widely consumed and further reproduced via social media and fan fiction related to the books' success.


Sojourner Truth's great contributions to the nineteenth-century abolitionist debate and the struggle for woman suffrage are extraordinary in both form and content. Far from excluding her from the discourse of politics, her illiteracy provided a foundation for the development of her ideology. She also proved to be adept at turning her audiences' beliefs and laws into justifications for her own unpopular views. Truth drew on a uniquely modern and secular source of authorization and empowerment - what she called "the deeds of my body" - and she is rightfully remembered, not only for her thoughtful and systematic attacks on inequality, but also for recognizing the coming crisis in the relationship between feminist and abolitionist factions. To this day Truth's legacy challenges deep-rooted historical beliefs about cultural ownership, about the qualifications for citizenship and suffrage, and about the role played by African American women in claiming those rights. Even a brief review of the stories of Truth's life shows why it is not surprising that she is more commonly thought of as a legendary than a public figure. There is considerable evidence that Truth and those around her used and cultivated her heroic image. Contradictions in the various life stories of this nineteenth-century freedwoman are therefore no less relevant to her success and influence than the limited information we can prove by consulting records of her participation in the abolition and woman suffrage movements. Recognizing this, Erlene Stetson and Linda David have embraced the uncertainty surrounding Isabella Bomefree's history to go beyond biography. The authors have traced not only the life, but also the lifework ofSojourner Truth, providing the reader with a context for Truth's own manipulations of language and fact, as well as those of her supporters, opponents, and even "unbiased" reporters of contemporary events. Stetson and David place the various sources for information about this le


Permutation tests are important in ecology and evolution as they enable robust analysis of small sample sizes and control for various forms of dependencies among observations. A common source of dependence is spatial autocorrelation. Accounting for spatial autocorrelation is often crucial, because many ecological and evolutionary processes are spatially restricted, such as gene flow, dispersal, mate choice, inter‐ and intraspecific competition, mutualism and predation. Here we discuss various ways of controlling for spatial autocorrelation in permutation tests; we highlight their particular properties and assumptions and introduce a new permutation technique which explores and controls for spatial autocorrelation: the floating grid permutation technique (FGPT). The FGPT is a method to randomize observations with known geographical locations. Within the randomization process, the probability an observation is assigned to any of the spatial locations is a negative function of the distance between its original and assigned location. The slope of this function depends on a preset parameter, and by exploring its parameter space, non‐random ecological and evolutionary processes can be both assessed and controlled at multiple spatial scales. We show that the FGPT has acceptable type‐I‐error rates. We applied the FGPT to simulated univariate and bivariate data sets in which both negative and positive spatial autocorrelation were present. In comparison with a method that uses eigenvector decomposition to separate negative from positive spatial autocorrelation, the FGPT performed better for negative spatial autocorrelation alone, equal for positive spatial autocorrelation alone and equal or slightly worse for simultaneous negative and positive spatial autocorrelation. For the bivariate data, it performed equally to a bootstrapping technique in which sampling probabilities were weighted by distance. The FGPT benefits from a large flexibility for application to bivariate (e.g. dyadic interactions) and multivariate observations (e.g. genetic marker‐based relatedness measures) and has a large freedom in the choice of test statistic. It also has the potential to identify two spatial autocorrelation patterns, even if both result in positive spatial autocorrelation, given that they operate at different spatial scales. The Floating Grid Permutation Technique is available as the R‐package fgpt in CRAN.


Background: The prevalence of obesity and physical inactivity in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has been escalating to levels that are threatening the public health of the entire KSA population, especially the female population. However, both physical activity (PA) education and research have only focused to a limited extent on women's health status.Objectives: The overall aim of this thesis was to increase our knowledge on the current health situation of both a hospital-based and a healthy female population in the KSA with regard to nutritional status, habits, practices, and PA.Methods: This thesis contains four Papers (I–IV) whose data were collected in the southwestern region of the KSA. A total of 166 hospital patients (60 women and 106 men) were screened regarding their nutritional status, 15 registered nurses were interviewed, and 663 female university students self-reported their PA levels and nutritional habits and had their anthropometrics measured. The data were analyzed using SPSS (Papers I, III, and IV) and latent content analysis (Paper II).Findings: Significantly more women (29%) than men (10%) were found to be obese in Paper I. There was no significant difference in the prevalence of patients at risk for undernutrition between women and men (40% vs. 38%), but significantly more women than men received care targeting undernutrition in the hospital-based study population. Individual interviews with nurses in Paper II showed that nurses were "bridging malnutrition and physical inactivity" by identifying "potentials to provide good nutrition and PA" to the patients and their relatives and by stating their "ability to provide patients with good nutrition and PA". The majority (57.0%) of the female participants in Papers III and IV were of normal weight, 19.2% were underweight, and 23.8% were overweight/obese. The mean body mass index (BMI) of the students in relation to high, moderate, and low levels of PA was 23.0, 22.9, and 22.1, respectively. Significant associations were found between PA and marital status, the mother's education level, the participant's BMI, and residential proximity to parks and recreational facilities. Several variables were found to correlate with dietary habits, underweight, and overweight/ obesity. Of special interest were the negative and positive associations between the number of siblings and the participants' BMI and dietary habits.Interpretations: The results of these studies emphasize the coexistence of underweight and overweight/obesity among both healthy persons and hospital patients. The total prevalence of overweight/obesity among both hospital patients and female university students is higher in the KSA compared to other international settings. Furthermore, the fact that patients at risk of undernutrition or with manifest undernutrition do not get adequate nutritional care is understandable given our results showing that the interviewed nurses were not given the authority to provide the nutritional care that they thought necessary.Conclusions: This thesis suggests that the promotion of PA and nutritional education for women should be a major target for policy makers as well as public health practitioners and researchers. The goal for such activities would be to prevent the inevitable health complications related to poor dietary habits and lack of PA.


Liberty analysis under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has been enormously inconsistent throughout the history of constitutional jurisprudence. In construing the meaning of "liberty," the Supreme Court has utilized a variety of interpretive methods but has never settled on any one in particular. Liberty jurisprudence is thus unpredictable, because the Court chooses among its various methods on a case-by-case basis. This is not desirable, because it encourages biased and personal value-based decision-making. There is a better solution. The Court's various interpretive methods over the past century reveal certain recurring objective analytical elements, although these elements are not always used, and have never been articulated together in a unified liberty test. These elements should be synthesized into one multi-dimensional interpretive test to further neutral and enduring liberty jurisprudence.


This Clypeodytes was taken from a small stream crossing the road from Tunduma, which lies on the border between Tanganyika and Northern Rhodesia, to Fort Hill in Northern Nyasaland. The locality was within the Northern Rhodesian boundary, so to avoid confusion in distributional records, it has not been included in 'The Dytiscidae of Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland' although it was taken on the same expedition and the locality was only just inside the Northern Rhodesian border.


Force exertion is an integral part of cellular behavior. Traction force microscopy (TFM) has been instrumental for studying such forces, providing both spatial and directional force measurements at subcellular resolution. However, the applications of classical TFM are restricted by the typical planar geometry. Here, we develop a particle-based force sensing strategy, specifically designed for studying ligand-dependent cellular interactions. We establish an accessible batch approach for synthesizing highly uniform, deformable and tunable hydrogel particles. In addition, they can be easily derivatized to trigger specific cellular behavior. The 3D shape of such particles can be resolved with superresolution (< 50 nm) accuracy using conventional confocal microscopy. We introduce a computational method that allows us to infer surface traction forces with high sensitivity (~ 10 Pa), directly from the particle shape without embedding tracers in the particle. We illustrate the potential and flexibility of this approach by measuring forces throughout phagocytic engulfment. This strategy can readily be adapted for studying cellular forces in a wide range of applications.


This review is written for those of you who believe that the DSM-5 has a place in your practice. I don't intend to critique the DSM-5 itself or to reflect on the ways in which it is better or worse than the DSM-IV-TR. I want to focus on the usefulness or otherwise of this particular book. I find this book very readable. Even though it is published in New York by The Guilford Press and written by James Morrison, an Affiliate Professor of Psychiatry from Portland, Oregon it remains suitable for the Australian or European reader. The stories that it tells are compassionately written and mostly seem to fit our mainstream cultural context well.


Numerical simulations have been performed to study the stability of heated, incompressible Taylor-Couette flow for a radius ratio of 0.7 and a Prandtl number of 0.7. As Gr is increased, the Taylor cell that has the same direction of circulation as the natural convection current increases in size and the counterrotating cell becomes smaller. The flow remains axisymmetric and the average heat transfer decreases with the increase in Gr. When the cylinder is impulsively heated, the counterrotating cell vanishes and n = 1 spiral is formed for Gr = 1000. This transition marks an increase in the heat transfer due to an increase in the radial velocity component of the fluid. By slowly varying the Grashof number, the simulations demonstrate the existence of a hysteresis loop. Two different stable states with same heat transfer are found to exist at the same Grashof number. A time-delay analysis of the radial velocity and the local heat transfer coefficient time is performed to determine the dimension at two Grashof numbers. For a fixed Reynolds number of 100, the two-dimensional projection of the reconstructed attractor shows a limit cycle for Gr = −1700. The limit cycle behavior disappears at Gr = −2100, and the reconstructed attractor becomes irregular. The attractor dimension increases to about 3.2 from a value of 1 for the limit cycle case; similar values were determined for both the local heat transfer and the local radial velocity, indicating that the dynamics of the temperature variations can be inferred from that of the velocity variations.


This review considers some aspects of the biochemistry of beta-amyloid, a protein which produces insoluble deposits in the brain. These deposits are a specific morphological feature of Alzheimer's disease, Down's syndrome, and senile dementia. Our contribution to the concept of a soluble form of beta-amyloid as of a normal human protein is presented.


Developing normative foundations for optimal play in two‐player zero‐sum games has turned out to be surprisingly difficult, despite the powerful strategic implications of the minimax theorem. We characterize maximin strategies by postulating coherent behavior in varying games. The first axiom, called
 consequentialism, states that how probability is distributed among completely indistinguishable actions is irrelevant. The second axiom,
 consistency, demands that strategies that are optimal in two different games should still be optimal when there is uncertainty regarding which of the two games will actually be played. Finally, we impose a very mild
 rationality assumption, which merely requires that strictly dominated actions will not be played. Our characterization shows that a rational and consistent consequentialist who ascribes the same properties to his opponent has to play maximin strategies. This result can be extended to characterize Nash equilibrium in bimatrix games whenever the set of equilibria is interchangeable.


A tensor description of perturbative Einsteinian gravity about an arbitrary background spacetime is developed. By analogy with the covariant laws of electromagnetism in spacetime, gravito-electromagnetic potentials and fields are defined to emulate electromagnetic gauge transformations under substitutions belonging to the gauge symmetry group of perturbative gravitation. These definitions have the advantage that on a flat background, with the aid of a covariantly constant timelike vector field, a subset of the linearized gravitational field equations can be written in a form that is fully analogous to Maxwell's equations (without awkward factors of four and extraneous tensor fields). It is shown how the remaining equations in the perturbed gravitational system restrict the time dependence of solutions to these equations and thereby prohibit the existence of propagating vector fields. The induced gravito-electromagnetic Lorentz force on a test particle is evaluated in terms of these fields together with the torque on a small gyroscope. It is concluded that the analogy of perturbative gravity to Maxwell's description of electromagnetism can be valuable for (quasi-)stationary gravitational phenomena but that the analogy has its limitations.


Abstract. Indoor positioning has attracted much attention in recent years due to the trend of Internet of Things (IoT), which is capable of providing numerous applications such as personal tracking, vehicle locator, and Location-Based Service (LBS). To put LBS into practice, positioning and navigation are one of the necessary techniques. Using the smartphone to process indoor positioning also become more and more usual. The most common algorithm in the inertial navigation system is Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR), utilizing sensors built-in the smartphones to conquer the strait of GNSS-denied environment. However, for the purpose of eliminating the error accumulated with time, PDR combining with other algorithms, for instance, updating some geospatial information steadily is a better way to solve this problem. Therefore, this research proposes the imaged based aided algorithm. Moreover, in this study, a novel Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) embedded the system is proposed. The self-designed georeferenced markers and the indoor floor plan will be produced by an Indoor Mobile Mapping System (IMMS) in advance. This research proposed using Cascade-Correlation neural Network (CCN) to estimate the distance between the marker and the smartphone camera. The accuracy using this method can achieve to 0.27 meter. As if at least three coordinates and the distance can be obtained simultaneously, the position of the user can be calculated by the trilateration method. From the experiment, the accuracy of the positioning is about 0.5 meter. This way seems to have the high potential to bring into play on the real-time indoor positioning.


This report presents estimates of the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW) for a representative sample of Canadian households in 1999 and 2005. The results indicate that there was only modest growth in the average Canadian household's total command over economic resources in the six years between 1999 and 2005. Although inequality in economic well-being increased slightly over the 1999-2005 period, the LIMEW was more equally distributed across Canadian households than more common income measures (such as after-tax income) in both 1999 and 2005. The median household's economic well-being was lower in Canada than in the United States in both years.


Many books have been written on the topic of governance as it relates to family wealth. In this first in a series of three articles, the author notes that there are three separate family entities, each of which requires its own governance system. The series will outline the differences in the three entities and their respective governance systems, why they matter, and how acknowledging those differences from a governance perspective can empower families and their enterprises. By examining the purpose of each form of governance relative to the entity it serves, the author reveals an approach to governance which fosters smoother operations of the family business, the family office, and the family, while enabling each entity to thrive and more easily adapt to change. Building on the premise set forth by the author in "How Family Dynamics Influence the Structure of the Family Office" (Fall Issue, 2005)—that generational perspectives and family dynamics directly influence family office structure and wealth management decisions—this series of articles goes beyond the boundaries of the family office to explore the validity of the 'three forms of governance' approach and how the three forms integrate to foster, transfer, and protect the wealth of the family.


Numerical simulations of the flowfield in a hybrid rocket engine are carried out with a multispecies chemically reacting Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) solver which includes detailed gas–surface interaction (GSI) modeling based on surface mass and energy balances. The oxidizer is gaseous oxygen which is homogeneously fed into single-port cylindrical grains. The modeling of GSI already developed and validated for pyrolyzing fuels such as hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB), is extended to the case of liquefying fuels, such as paraffin wax. A simplified two-step global reaction mechanism is considered for the gas-phase chemistry to model the combustion process inside the chamber. Numerical simulations performed at different gas/melt-layer interface temperatures and oxygen mass fluxes show a considerable increase of fuel regression rate, in the range of 3 up to 5 times, for the liquefying fuel with respect to the pyrolyzing one. Results show that the regression rate enhancement is significant only when the gas/melt-layer interface of the liquefying fuel is close to the melting temperature. At increasing gas/melt-layer interface temperatures, the regression rate decreases following an inverse power law and gets close to that of a pyrolyzing fuel for the same operating conditions. Finally, regression rate behavior at varying oxygen mass flux of liquefying fuels is not substantially altered from that of pyrolyzing fuels as the oxidizer flux exponent remains rather constant.


We present observational signatures of solar cycle 25 onset. Those signatures are visibly following a migratory path from high to low latitudes. They had starting points that are asymmetrically offset in each hemisphere at times that are 21-22 years after the corresponding, same polarity, activity bands of solar cycle 23 started their migration. Those bands define the so-called "extended solar cycle." The four magnetic bands currently present in the system are approaching a mutually cancelling configuration, and solar minimum conditions are imminent. Further, using a tuned analysis of the daily band latitude-time diagnostics, we are able to utilize the longitudinal wave number (m=1) variation in the data to more clearly reveal the presence of the solar cycle 25 bands. This clarification illustrates that prevalently active longitudes (different in each hemisphere) exist at mid-latitudes presently, lasting many solar rotations, that can be used for detailed study over the next several years with instruments like the Spectrograph on IRIS, the Spectropolarimeter on Hinode, and, when they come online, similar instruments on the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) as we watch those bands evolve following the cancellation of the solar cycle 24 activity bands at the equator late in 2019.


Establishing long-term allograft acceptance without the requirement for continuous immunosuppression, a condition known as allograft tolerance, is a highly desirable therapeutic goal in solid organ transplantation. Determining which recipients would benefit from withdrawal or minimization of immunosuppression would be greatly facilitated by biomarkers predictive of tolerance. In this study, we identified the largest reported cohort to our knowledge of tolerant renal transplant recipients, as defined by stable graft function and receiving no immunosuppression for more than 1 year, and compared their gene expression profiles and peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets with those of subjects with stable graft function who are receiving immunosuppressive drugs as well as healthy controls. In addition to being associated with clinical and phenotypic parameters, renal allograft tolerance was strongly associated with a B cell signature using several assays. Tolerant subjects showed increased expression of multiple B cell differentiation genes, and a set of just 3 of these genes distinguished tolerant from nontolerant recipients in a unique test set of samples. This B cell signature was associated with upregulation of CD20 mRNA in urine sediment cells and elevated numbers of peripheral blood naive and transitional B cells in tolerant participants compared with those receiving immunosuppression. These results point to a critical role for B cells in regulating alloimmunity and provide a candidate set of genes for wider-scale screening of renal transplant recipients.