Spiking neural networks (SNNs) are positioned to enable spatio-temporal information processing and ultra-low power event-driven neuromorphic hardware. However, SNNs are yet to reach the same performances of conventional deep artificial neural networks (ANNs), a long-standing challenge due to complex dynamics and non-differentiable spike events encountered in training. The existing SNN error backpropagation (BP) methods are limited in terms of scalability, lack of proper handling of spiking discontinuities, and/or mismatch between the rate-coded loss function and computed gradient. We present a hybrid macro/micro level backpropagation (HM2-BP) algorithm for training multi-layer SNNs. The temporal effects are precisely captured by the proposed spike-train level post-synaptic potential (S-PSP) at the microscopic level. The rate-coded errors are defined at the macroscopic level, computed and back-propagated across both macroscopic and microscopic levels. Different from existing BP methods, HM2-BP directly computes the gradient of the rate-coded loss function w.r.t tunable parameters. We evaluate the proposed HM2-BP algorithm by training deep fully connected and convolutional SNNs based on the static MNIST [14] and dynamic neuromorphic N-MNIST [26]. HM2-BP achieves an accuracy level of 99.49% and 98.88% for MNIST and N-MNIST, respectively, outperforming the best reported performances obtained from the existing SNN BP algorithms. Furthermore, the HM2-BP produces the highest accuracies based on SNNs for the EMNIST [3] dataset, and leads to high recognition accuracy for the 16-speaker spoken English letters of TI46 Corpus [16], a challenging patio-temporal speech recognition benchmark for which no prior success based on SNNs was reported. It also achieves competitive performances surpassing those of conventional deep learning models when dealing with asynchronous spiking streams.


Twitter has become a popular social sensor. It is socially significant to surveil the tweet content under crucial themes such as "disease" and "civil unrest". However, this creates two challenges: 1) how to characterize the theme pattern, given Twitter's heterogeneity, dynamics, and unstructured language; and 2) how to model the theme consistently across multiple Twitter functions such as hashtags, replying, and friendships. In this paper, we propose a dynamic query expansion (DQE) model for theme tracking in Twitter. Specifically, DQE characterizes the theme consistency among heterogeneous entities (e.g., terms, tweets, and users) through semantic and social relationships, including co-occurrence, replying, authorship, and friendship. The proposed new optimization algorithm estimates the weight of each relationship by minimizing the Kullback-Leibler divergence. To demonstrate the effectiveness and scalability of DQE, we conducted extensive experiments to track the theme "civil unrest" across 8 Latin American countries.


Urban societies were greatly affected by the economic crisis in Europe and the politics of austerity that were imposed on them. Urban austerity regimes also turned public space, a common good, into a commodity. In the face of these developments citizen initiatives have produced public spaces alternative to hegemonic urban planning, alternative in their development process, their programme and values. This paper has the aim to analyse the material effects of the crisis on cities and the transformations the governance of public space has undergone. Case studies from Madrid and Berlin give insights into the paradigms of hegemonic urban development and the counter models of public spaces produced by citizen initiatives bottom-up. Theory on invited and irruptive participation and changing government attitudes as an analytic framework serve to break up the complexity of collaboration and counteraction between authorities and citizens in the governance of public spaces and shows the capacity of these spaces to re-politicise urban development models.


In spite of all the debates and controversies, a global consensus has been reached that climate change is a reality and that it will impact, in diverse manifestations that may include increased global temperature, sea level rise, more frequent occurrence of extreme weather events, change in weather patterns, etc., on food production systems, global biodiversity and overall human well being. Aquaculture is no exception. The sector is characterized by the fact that the organisms cultured, the most diverse of all farming systems and in the number of taxa farmed, are all poikilotherms. It occurs in fresh, brackish and marine waters, and in all climatic regimes from temperate to tropical. Consequently, there are bound to be many direct impacts on aquatic farming systems brought about by climate change. The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that certain aquaculture systems are dependent, to varying degrees, on products such as fishmeal and fish oil, which are derived from wild-caught resources that are subjected to reduction processes. All of the above factors will impact on aquaculture in the decades to come and accordingly, the aquatic farming systems will begin to encounter new challenges to maintain sustainability and continue to contribute to the human food basket. The challenges will vary significantly between climatic regimes. In the tropics, the main challenges will be to those farming activities that occur in deltaic regions, which also happen to be hubs of aquaculture activity, such as in the Mekong and Red River deltas in Viet Nam and the Ganges-Brahamaputra Delta in Bangladesh. Aquaculture in tropical deltaic areas will be mostly impacted by sea level rise, and hence increased saline water intrusion and reduced water flows, among others. Elsewhere in the tropics, inland cage culture and other aquaculture activities could be impacted by extreme weather conditions, increased upwelling of deoxygenated waters in reservoirs, etc., requiring greater vigilance and monitoring, and even perhaps readiness to move operations to more conducive areas in a waterbody. Indirect impacts of climate change on tropical aquaculture could be manifold but are perhaps largely unknown. The reproductive cycles of a great majority of tropical species are dependent on monsoonal rain patterns, which are predicted to change. Consequently, irrespective of whether cultured species are artificially propagated or not, changes in reproductive cycles will impact on seed production and thereby the whole grow-out cycle and modus operandi of farm activities. Equally, such impacts will be felt on the culture of those species that are based on natural spat collection, such as that of many cultured molluscs. In the temperate region, global warming could raise temperatures to the upper tolerance limits of some cultured species, thereby making such culture systems vulnerable to high temperatures. New or hitherto non-pathogenic organisms may become virulent with increases in water temperature, confronting the sector with new, hitherto unmanifested and/or little known diseases. One of the most important indirect effects of climate change will be driven by impacts on production of those fish species that are used for reduction, and which in turn form the basis for aquaculture feeds, particularly for carnivorous species. These indirect effects are likely to have a major impact on some key aquaculture practices in all climatic regimes. Limitations of supplies of fishmeal and fish oil and resulting exorbitant price hikes of these commodities will lead to more innovative and pragmatic solutions on ingredient substitution for aquatic feeds, which perhaps will be a positive result arising from a dire need to sustain a major sector. Aquaculture has to be proactive and start addressing the need for adaptive and mitigative measures. Such measures will entail both technological and socio-economic approaches. The latter will be more applicable to small-scale farmers, who happen to be the great bulk of producers in developing countries, which in turn constitute the "backbone' of global aquaculture. The sociological approaches will entail the challenge of addressing the potential climate change impacts on small farming communities in the most vulnerable areas, such as in deltaic regions, weighing the most feasible adaptive options and bringing about the policy changes required to implement these adaptive measures economically and effectively. Global food habits have changed over the years. We are currently in an era where food safety and quality, backed up by ecolabelling, are paramount; it was not so 20 years ago. In the foreseeable future, we will move into an era where consumer consciousness will demand that farmed foods of every form will have to include in their labeled products the green house gas (GHG) emissions per unit of produce. Clearly, aquaculture offers an opportunity to meet these aspirations. Considering that about 70 percent of all finfish and almost 100 percent of all molluscs and seaweeds are minimally GHG emitting, it is possible to drive aquaculture as the most GHG-friendly food source. The sector could conform to such demands and continue to meet the need for an increasing global food fish supply. However, to achieve this, a paradigm shift in our seafood consumption preferences will be needed.


The amorphous phases of antimony oxide at three different oxidation levels have been investigated by ab initio molecular-dynamics calculations using a simulated 'melt-quench' approach. The atomic and electronic structures of the amorphous phases are analyzed and compared to their crystalline counterparts. The amorphous structure of the trioxide (a-Sb2O3) resembles the β-phase of the crystalline form (valentinite), in agreement with previous observations. In the relaxed athermal structure, however, more senarmontite-like structural features are apparent. The phase diagram of the amorphous phases with respect to the oxygen chemical potential has been calculated within the framework of ab initio thermodynamics. At elevated oxidation levels, the resulting tetraoxide and pentoxide materials show distinct variation in electronic structure compared to the trioxide, with the electronic density of states indicating a narrowing of the electronic gap with increasing oxidation level.


Objective To study the injury characteristics in professional football and to follow the variation of injury incidence during a match, during a season and over consecutive seasons. Design Prospective cohort study where teams were followed for seven consecutive seasons. Team medical staff recorded individual player exposure and time-loss injuries from 2001 to 2008. Setting European professional men's football. Participants The first team squads of 23 teams selected by the Union of European Football Associations as belonging to the 50 best European teams. Main outcome measurement Injury incidence. Results 4483 injuries occurred during 566 000 h of exposure, giving an injury incidence of 8.0 injuries/1000 h. The injury incidence during matches was higher than in training (27.5 vs 4.1, p<0.0001). A player sustained on average 2.0 injuries per season, and a team with typically 25 players can thus expect about 50 injuries each season. The single most common injury subtype was thigh strain, representing 17% of all injuries. Re-injuries constituted 12% of all injuries, and they caused longer absences than non re-injuries (24 vs 18 days, p<0.0001). The incidence of match injuries showed an increasing injury tendency over time in both the first and second halves (p<0.0001). Traumatic injuries and hamstring strains were more frequent during the competitive season, while overuse injuries were common during the preseason. Training and match injury incidences were stable over the period with no significant differences between seasons. Conclusions The training and match injury incidences were stable over seven seasons. The risk of injury increased with time in each half of matches.


Cellulose of microbial origin is becoming a commodity structural material with promise in a myriad of potential applications. The range of applications can be further enlarged by nanocomposites that provide additional functional properties to the bacterial cellulose. Here, bacterial cellulose films nanocomposited with iron oxide nanoparticles are fabricated by microwave-assisted thermal decomposition within only 5 min and without the need for any post-synthetic treatment. The in situ synthesized nanoparticles are crystalline, less than 10 nm in size, and with a narrow particle-size distribution. Control over the magnetic fraction (from 4 to 40 wt%) is achieved either by employing undried cellulose, cellulose films dried by different methods, or by adjusting the initial iron precursor concentration. Structural, magnetic, and mechanical characterization of the materials is included. All films react easily to an external magnetic field, present a superparamagnetic behavior at room temperature, and are flexible enough to be bent and folded into complex origami shapes. Interestingly, films with low magnetic fraction are also transparent which is a highly attractive property for magnetic materials since most of them are either metallic or absorb visible light. Finally, preliminary results on a strategy to selectively pattern bacterial cellulose with nanoparticles are presented that pave the way to new uses of functional bacterial cellulose.


Based on the "New York" Convention of 1958 [1] arbitration has become a true and efficient alternative of the common law jurisdiction. The regulation of arbitration in the new Civil Procedure Code [2] is found in the same Book (Book 4), divided into 7 Titles, instead of 11 Chapters. As a concept, the regulation of different specific arbitration institutions is similar to that provided for by the actual Book 4. The 7 Titles includes the general provisions on arbitration, arbitration agreements, arbitration tribunal, arbitral procedures and institutionalized arbitration (Art 533-612). Regarding arbitration procedure, it regulates the notification of the arbitration tribunal, arbitration trial, arbitration expenses and the decision of arbitration. Institutionalized arbitration is, for the first time settled by Art 607-612 of the Civil Procedure Code. Also, Title 4 of Book 7, named "International civil trial", settles the international arbitration (Art 1096-1118).


This co-authored paper surveys practices of drawing used in collaboration with specialist practitioners in non fine art disciplines. It will layout a group of artists who enter into dialogue with other research professionals outside the creative arts to address a common concern. We are interested in how this type of drawing can disrupt established ways of thinking both within the disciplines that it engages with and effect change in drawing itself. This is a timely undertaking: there are a growing number of artists seeking conversation and dialogue outside fine art, attempting to use drawing to address matters which matter. Here we refer to artists drawing with archaeologists, medics, farmers, pilots, geologists; each imparting aspects of their specialist knowledge and praxis to their artists collaborator. While each 'other' may not mark the page itself, each context contributes its particular inflection, which in turn shapes the outcome of the drawing. So within what is now broadly accepted as the expanded field of drawing it is timely and pertinent to look at collaboration in these terms. Using specific examples from our own drawing practice and that of other artists we look at the impact of the collaboration on the drawing, examining the influence of the other realm. What might drawing gain from this mode of collaboration? What are the challenges? And what do we as the drawing community at large, stand to gain from these divergent individual approaches?


Complete rectal prolapse is the protrusion of the entire thickness of the rectal wall through the anal sphincter complex. Women aged 50 and older are 6 times as likely as men to present rectal prolapse. Two thirds of women patients are multiparous and 15 to 30% report associated urinary dysfunction and vaginal prolapse.The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) has been used increasingly in recent years for studies in bio-medical fields. The primate institute in National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry Japan was founded in 2005. Since then the number of marmoset gradually increased and 320 to 350 marmosets were housed in 2012. Averaged number of housed marmosets throughout the period is about 300. In the history of the institute, two cases of traumatic rectal prolapse, which had not been reported in marmosets, were found. This paper reports the etiology and the possible surgical treatment of marmoset rectal prolapse.


The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region has a third of the world's fresh water resources, and more than a quarter of the world's medium to high potential farmland. The region as a whole is already the largest net food exporting region in the world, and it still has achieved only a small fraction of its potential to expand agricultural production for regional consumption and global export. The essential building blocks for massive and sustainable agricultural growth are already in place. But in order for the entire LAC region to deliver on its enormous agricultural potential, many 'moving parts' will have to be brought into harmony. How to do that is the subject of this report. Drawing on the knowledge and experience of over 30 partners, including the private sector, academia, multilaterals, and NGOs, this policy paper offers a compelling multi-stakeholder set of issues, recommendations and action items for governments and policy makers, the donor community, farmers, agribusiness, and civil society aimed at supporting global food security.


Wage-earners voluntarily accept to work under the control, and for the account of, firms run by entrepreneurs1; they do not decide what, how and how much, they must produce; wage-earners are not responsible for the consequences of their activities when they comply with entrepreneurs' orders12; inside the firm, wage-earners are subordinates. Outside the firm, wage-earners freely choose the way they spend their wages in the markets for commodities and services. Such is the 'stylised fact' which characterises the wage relationship in our economies. Any theory of the wage relationship should account for this 'stylised fact' by deriving it from a consistent set of assumptions and propositions. Three main propositions are advocated in this paper: Mainstream economists conceive the 'wage' as being the price of a commodity ('labour power' or 'human labour') determined by a market – as for any other commodity and service. As a consequence, the wage relationship is thought of as an exchange relation ruled by equivalence; this view cannot be derived from the usual basic assumptions without violating the very logic of mainstream theory. Following this logic: either the wage relationship should be thought of as a relation between human beings having such different conditions that it cannot be interpreted as an exchange ruled by equivalence or 'human labour' is not to be found within the commodity space. In any case, the 'stylised fact' mentioned above is not accounted for by mainstream theory. 'Wage' is the name of the payment entrepreneurs give to other people with the view to making them participate in production under their control and for their account; wage payment is neither a purchase nor a sale – it just allows wage-earners to enter the market and spend in order to acquire the commodities they desire Wage-earners are, economically speaking, a means used by entrepreneurs for their own ends; exploitation (Fleurbaey's M-exploitation) is inherent in the wage relationship. Propositions 2 and 3 do not fit general equilibrium theory (inspired by Walras and rationalised by Arrow- Debreu); they do not fit modern mainstream theory either. They have no room in the theory of prices of production (inspired by Ricardo and rationalised by Sraffa). Moreover, they are not compatible with Marx's theory of labour power. An alternative approach is needed to satisfy them. Paving the way for that alternative theory requires us to show that 'human labour' cannot belong to the commodity space from the very point of view of mainstream theory; a sharp incompatibility between assumptions and conclusions would follow, and justify resorting to an alternative approach. This is our first step. A second step is to effectively resort to a monetary analysis – the alternative approach to real analysis, according to Schumpeter in his History of economic analysis. In a nutshell, we have to discard the commodity space postulate, and to think of economic relations as money mediation. Instead of a commodity space, we presuppose money to be a unit of account ($) combined with a means of payment. Instead of a permutation of goods and services exchanged amongst people, economic relations are payments. Individuals are no longer endowments and preferences, but accounts into which payments write down quantities of $. Conditions of people may differ according to the form of money circulation – this view allows us to deal with different types of economic relations; for what matters here, the wage relationship involves a specific form of circulation not reducible to that of exchange. The final step is to suggest that exploitation is inherent in the wage relationship; such exploitation has nothing to do with justice, since there is no norm whatsoever for the level of wage; it is also quite different from the exploitation Marx thought he had unveiled. This exploitation is simply due to the special situation of wage-earners vis-a-vis the market, which a specific form of circulation makes clear. 1 'Entrepreneur' here means, following Coase, 'the person or persons who, in a competitive system, take the place of the price mechanism in the direction of resources' (Coase, 1937, p. 388). 2 David Ellerman distinguishes between factual/de facto and legal or de jure responsibility. What I mean here is economic responsibility only. Another way at looking at it may use David Ellerman's propositions. The 'Invisible Judge' market gives the entrepreneur the property of raw material and labour – and also of the finished product sold in the market. The market gives nothing to the wage-earner inside the firm; outside the firm it gives her the property of consumption of goods she acquires out of her wage. Inside the firm, the wage-earner is not economically responsible. Arguing that if she kills someone, the wage- earner is responsible has nothing to do with the 'Invisible Judge'!


In this challenging book, John King makes a sustained and comprehensive attack on the dogma that macroeconomic theory must have 'rigorous microfoundations'. He draws on both the philosophy of science and the history of economic thought to demonstrate the dangers of foundational metaphors and the defects of micro-reduction as a methodological principle. Strong criticism of the microfoundations dogma is documented in great detail, from some mainstream and many heterodox economists and also from economic methodologists, social theorists and evolutionary biologists. The author argues for the relative autonomy of macroeconomics as a distinct 'special science', cooperating with but most definitely not reducible to microeconomics.


In recent 5G standardization activities, finely granular HARQ feedback (CBG HARQ) for partial retransmissions was introduced to support high data rates, while enabling coexistence with ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC). However, the CBG HARQ scheme comes with the drawback of increased feedback payload. In this paper, we discuss two reduced HARQ feedback schemes for using partial retransmissions, as used in CBG HARQ, while decreasing the feedback overhead implicated by finely granular feedback. These schemes exploit information on the location of puncturing by URLLC traffic, designated as Preemption Indication (PI). In this work, we show that these schemes achieve a similar performance to the regular CBG HARQ scheme, while significantly lowering the feedback overhead burden on the communication system.


As middle-class Indian women become economically more active, it is worth exploring who is doing the housework. Are gender roles shifting within the household across the board in urban India? This paper shifts research attention away from the metropolitan cities to a small mofussil town, a relatively conservative urban centre where gender roles have so far been more resistant to transformation than in metropolitan cities that are undergoing radical changes about which much has been written. The methodological tool used in the study is a time-use survey, aimed primarily at extracting quantitative data, to make visible the unseen, unpaid and underpaid work and activities undertaken by women. Individual interviews were used to measure the actual workload of the women as a proxy indicator of gender disparities at the intra-household scale. The paper concludes that conventional sex segregation in household tasks has not changed significantly, and that women's various engagements in the public sphere have doubled the burden of responsibilities. The conceptual and methodological implications of the investigation lie in a reinterpretation of what constitutes 'work' for middle-class women, offering renewed understanding of the ways in which women (re)negotiate gendered responsibilities at home and outside of it in rapidly changing times.


ABSTRACT With the Church of England's ([2014. Formation Criteria with Mapped Selection Criteria for Ordained Ministry in the Church of England. https://www.churchofengland.org/media/2139103/formationcriteriaforordainedministryapprovedhofbpsdec2014.docx]) recent formation criteria now requiring ordinands to have a greater degree of reflexive capability, this article considers the pedagogy of Reflective Practice Groups in ordination training and focuses on how reflexivity can be developed in a group context, towards fostering greater spiritual formation, theological reflection, self-awareness, relational practices for pastoral encounter, resilience and self-care practices for ministry. Some 'foci for reflexivity' are advocated for use within Reflective Practice Groups in ordination training.


The theory of flute waves (with arbitrary spatial scales compared to the ion Larmor radius) driven by the Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) is developed. Both the kinetic and hydrodynamic models are considered. In this way we have extended the previous analysis of RTI carried out in the long wavelength limit. It is found that complete finite ion Larmor radius stabilization is absent when the ion diamagnetic velocity attains the ion gravitation drift velocity. The hydrodynamic approach allowed us to deduce a new set of nonlinear equations for flute waves with arbitrary spatial scales. It is shown that the previously deduced equations are inadequate when the wavelength becomes of the order of the ion Larmor radius. In the linear limit a Fourier transform of these equations yields the dispersion relation which in the so-called Pade approximation corresponds to the results of the fully kinetic treatment. The development of such a theory gives us enough grounds for an adequate description of the RTI stabilization by the finite ion Larmor radius effect.


The last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century has been one of the most challenging periods for the generally accepted assumptions of international law. This book, first published in 2006, grapples with these long-held assumptions (such as the consent basis of international law norms, equality of nations, restrictive or text-based treaty interpretations and applications, the monopoly of internal national power, and non-interference), and how they are being fundamentally altered by the forces of globalization. It also examines the challenges facing the WTO as a component of international economic law, and how that field is inextricably linked to general international law.


The concept of a holiday at sea evokes a range of reactions among consumers. For some people the prospect of a cruise conjures up images of relaxation, luxury and exclusivity. Conversely, for others a set of more negative associations surface in relation to this type of travel, for example seasickness, or a sense of con!nement brought about by the spatial constraints and bounded nature of a ship at sea. Given the inaccessibility of cruise ships and the limited opportunities for consumers to 'pre-view' this type of holiday space prior to consumption, a cruise can be considered a relatively high-risk purchase. This is particularly so for those yet to experience a cruise holiday !rst-hand. Moreover, despite competitive pricing amongst providers, and an assertion of value for money, cruise holidays remain relatively expensive purchases. Consequently, it is not just the ideas and impressions that people form about what a cruise holiday entails that it is important to understand, but signi!cantly how these ideas and impressions come into being.


In the present case report, an adult man underwent three separate hair transplantation procedures over a course of 5 years, followed by one tattoo procedure 2 years after completion of hair transplantation, to conceal and prevent hair loss. Still unsatisfied with his hairline and the unnatural look of the tattoo, the man returned to discuss options for another operation. After doing so, he decided to undergo an alternative hair transplant surgery whereby 1,750 follicular units were removed from his beard (below the jaw line) and transplanted into his temple; the procedure both esthetically improved the patient's hairline and camouflaged the tattoo.


This study overviews current research on the role of motivation in second or foreign language learning. Motivation is an important factor for explaining the success or failure of any complex task. In this paper, the researcher defines the term motivation, explains different types of motivation, reviews previous studies about the role of motivation in language learning, mentions conditions of motivation, and finally states key factors of motivation. The review of literature indicated that motivation has a very important role in learning English as a foreign or second language successfully.


Although there is a growing number of publications concerning applicant reactions to different selection instruments, the relationships between individual differences and applicant reactions have largely remained unexplored. The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of several testing-related and general individual differences (anxiety, self-evaluations, and personality) on the most commonly studied dimension of applicant reactions, namely the perceived job relatedness of selection instruments. Participants were 153 psychology students, who completed a cognitive ability test and a multimedia situational judgment test as part of their educational program. Our results indicated that computer anxiety negatively affected perceived job relatedness and core self-evaluations, subjective well-being, agreeableness, emotional stability, and openness to experience positively affected perceived job relatedness. Openness to experience was the most consistent predictor of perceived job relatedness. The results of our study suggest that certain individuals may be more predisposed to react positively to selection instruments. Therefore, we concluded that the nature of the applicant pool should be carefully considered when designing interventions to improve applicant reactions.


The ext2 and ext3 filesystems on Linux R © are used by a very large number of users. This is due to its reputation of dependability, robustness, backwards and forwards compatibility, rather than that of being the state of the art in filesystem technology. Over the last few years, however, there has been a significant amount of development effort towards making ext3 an outstanding filesystem, while retaining these crucial advantages. In this paper, we discuss those features that have been accepted in the mainline Linux 2.6 kernel, including directory indexing, block reservation, and online resizing. We also discuss those features that have been implemented but are yet to be incorporated into the mainline kernel: extent maps, delayed allocation, and multiple block allocation. We will then examine the performance improvements from Linux 2.4 ext3 filesystem to Linux 2.6 ext3 filesystem using industrystandard benchmarks features. Finally, we will touch upon some potential future work which is still under discussion by the ext2/3 developers.


Objectives: Data mining can complement traditional hypothesis-based approaches in characterizing unhealthy work exposures. We used it to derive a hypothesis-free characterization of working hour patterns in shift work and their associations with sickness absence (SA). Methods: In this prospective cohort study, complete payroll-based work hours and SA dates were extracted from a shift-scheduling register from 2008 to 2019 on 6029 employees from a hospital district in Southwestern Finland. We applied permutation distribution clustering to time series of successive shift lengths, between-shift rest periods, and shift starting times to identify clusters of similar working hour patterns over time. We examined associations of clusters spanning on average 23 months with SA during the following 23 months. Results: We identified eight distinct working hour patterns in shift work: (i) regular morning (M)/evening (E) work, weekends off; (ii) irregular M work; (iii) irregular M/E/night (N) work; (iv) regular M work, weekends off; (v) irregular, interrupted M/E/N work; (vi) variable M work, weekends off; (vii) quickly rotating M/E work, non-standard weeks; and (viii) slowly rotating M/E work, non-standard weeks. The associations of these eight working-hour clusters with risk of future SA varied. The cluster of irregular, interrupted M/E/N work was the strongest predictor of increased SA (days per year) with an incidence rate ratio of 1.77 (95% confidence interval 1.74–1.80) compared to regular M/E work, weekends off. Conclusions: This data-mining suggests that hypothesis-free approaches can contribute to scientific understanding of healthy working hour characteristics and complement traditional hypothesis-driven approaches.


In this paper, natural convection heat transfer over a vertical plate in a Darcy porous medium saturated with a nanofluid subject to heat generation/absorption was theoretically studied. The governing partial differential equations were transformed to a set of ordinary differential equations using similarity transformations and solved using finite difference method. The influence of parametric variation of the Brownian motion parameter, thermophoresis parameter and heat generation/absorption parameter on velocity, temperature and nanoparticles concentration profiles was graphically shown. Impact of non-dimensional parameters on the reduced Nusselt number and reduced Sherwood number was also investigated. The results showed that an increase in the heat generation/absorption parameter would increase temperature and velocity profiles; but, it would decrease concentration profiles. Increase of thermophoresis parameter increased magnitude of concentration profiles while not showing any significant effect on velocity and temperature profiles. The results also indicated that increase of Brownian motion parameter did not demonstrate any significant effect on the magnitude of velocity and temperature profiles. It was found that an increase in the heat generation/absorption parameter decreased the reduced Nusselt number whereas it increased the reduced Sherwood number. For negative values of the Brownian motion parameter, increase of the thermophoresis parameter increased the reduced Nusselt and Sherwood numbers.


type="main"> We study incentives to invest in platform quality in open-source and proprietary two-sided platforms. Open platforms have open access, and developers invest to improve the platform. Proprietary platforms have closed access, and investment is done by the platform owner. We present five main results. First, open platforms may benefit from limited developer access. Second, an open platform may lead to higher investment than a proprietary platform. Third, opening one side of a proprietary platform may lower incentives to invest in platform quality. Fourth, the structure of access prices of the proprietary platform depends on (i) how changes in the number of developers affect the incentives to invest in the open platform, and (ii) how investment in the open platform affects the revenues of the proprietary platform. Finally, a proprietary platform may benefit from higher investment in the open platform. This result helps to explain why the owner of a proprietary platform such as Microsoft has chosen to contribute to the development of Linux.


Recently, several online social networking sites (OSNs; e.g., FourSquare) have emerged that allow people to record and broadcast their presence at physical locations. We examined the viability of using images of frequent patrons listed on an establishment's FourSquare page to infer the ambiance of the establishment. In Study 1, 10 judges independently rated 25 bars and 24 cafes in Austin, Texas. Ratings were based on the profile pictures of 25 randomly selected persons who frequented each establishment. Ratings tapped ambient physical and psychological qualities (e.g., loud, creepy), typical-patron personalities (e.g., extraverted), and likely patron activities (e.g., dancing). Results indicated considerable inter-judge consensus across the attributes rated (mean ICCs averaged .32, .69. and .33 for the ambiance, patron-personality, and patron-activity variables respectively). In Study 2, a second team of 10 observers visited each target establishment during business hours and rated each location on the same set of variables. These ratings also showed strong inter-judge consensus (mean ICCs averaged .69, .79. and .62 for the ambiance, patron-personality, and patron-activity variables respectively). Correlations between the ratings obtained in Studies 1 and 2 showed surprisingly strong convergence suggesting that the profile photos conveyed valid information about the target establishments.


In this article I shall explore the theme of the ethnographic present from various perspectives. My point of departure is a view of anthropology as practice, that is a mode of doing or of acting and creating (cf. Fabian 1986). The anthropological practice consists of two intimately linked processes, of fieldwork and writing. The use of the ethnographic present in anthropological writings has been seriously criticized as reflecting a particular relationship of observation and distancing to the object (Fabian 1983:86). It has been described as a vague and essentially atemporal moment (Stocking 1983:107) reflecting the ahistorical or synchronic pretense of anthropology (Crapanzano 1986:51). The ethnographic present is, evidently, a literary device, and as such it needs to be questioned along with other conventions of representation in anthropology. However, it is not solely an accidental temporal mode loosely linked to the "synchronic" nature of fieldwork as suggested by Marcus and Fischer (1986:96). Much more importantly, the ethnographic present is a logical corollary of the peculiar nature of the anthropological practice. As I see it, it is a necessary construction of time, because only the ethnographic present preserves the reality of anthropological knowledge. This will be substantiated in the course of this article. Before I proceed a note of warning should be made. If it appears anachronistic to defend the ethnographic present in the critical postmodernist era, this is not so. My defense is actually made from this critical perspective, and I contend that although the modernist choice of tense was right, it rested on false assumptions. We are now in a position to reassess our assumptions and to reinvent the ethnographic present without the previous connotations, however. While encircling the theme, my exposition will touch upon several general issues in the anthropological debate. They are fieldwork, the writing of cultures, presence and representation, silence and semantic density, cultural translation, and the prophetic condition of anthropology. Toward the end of this ambitious path, we shall return to the present-in order to get on with ethnography.


This research was carried out with the aim of improving the conservation and feed value characteristics of citrus pulps. In order to ensure and improve citrus pulp conservation even for short periods (1 week), several methods intended to inhibit yeast activity were examined. Orange and grapefruit pulps were used as feed materials and three heads of merino male yearlings fitted with rumen cannula were used as animal materials. Pulps were treated with Ca(OH)2, NaOH, urea, sorbic acid, dehydration and blanching. After these treatments, pulps were ensiled in glass jars equipped with a lid that enabled gas release only. The jars were stored at 18 - 2iC in laboratory conditions. Three jars from each treatment were sampled for chemical and microbiological analysis on days 5 and 90 of fermentation. At the end of the ensiling period (90 days), the rumen degradability characteristics of the pulps were determined. In conclusion, all of these treatments seemed to inhibit yeast activity, and therefore reduce ensiling losses. The mould, enterobacteria and clostridia, which also cause spoilage in silages, were eliminated from all silages. All treatments reduced ensiling losses and increased the ensilability and feed value characteristics of citrus pulp silages. However, the best results were achieved with blanching at 80iC and sorbic acid 0.1% treatments.


Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, by Norman G. Finkelstein. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. 2005. xi + 226 pages. Appends, to p. 317. Index to p. 332. $22.50. Norman Finkelstein, of DePaul University, devotes the first section of Beyond Chutzpah to books written by Phyllis Chesler, Gabriel Schoenfeld, and Abraham Foxman about the "New Anti-Semitism." With considerable sarcasm and scorn (e.g., "Poor Elie [Wiesel] is shocked shocked!..." (p. 61), he dismisses these discussions of anti-Semitism as exaggerated, hysterical, paranoid, and cynically calculated to parry and taint any criticism of Israel. There is not a word in this section about the undeniably scurrilous anti-Jewish material emanating in abundance from Arabic circles in Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere in recent years, extensively documented by MEMRI (The Middle East Media Research Institute), which Finkelstein never mentions. Most of the book is a sustained attack on Harvard Law School's Alan Dershowitz, focused especially on his The case for Israel.1 Finkelstein's method is to rebut assertions favorable to Israel with long quotations from the publications of B 'Tselem (The Israel Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. Their reports attacking Israeli policy and behavior are presented as sacred authorities that need merely be quoted to establish facts. There is no effort to analyze, to balance, or to contextualize. Not only the "facts" but the judgments in these publications are taken to be self-evidently true: Israel's behavior in Jenin was a "war crime" because "that's exactly how Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch portrayed it" (p. 52). To use an analogy from the US legal system, this book is the brief of a prosecutor whose purpose is to marshal every witness and every piece of evidence useful to establish guilt, and to rebut or dismiss every claim of the defense attorney. Especially useful rhetorically is the material from Israeli sources - B'Tselem, Israel's "New Historians," and its left-wing columnists - although the fact that, alone in the Middle East, Israeli society tolerates and even celebrates such self-criticism remains unacknowledged and its implications unexplored. Much time and energy appears to have gone into this enterprise, and the documentation of his sources is rigorous. Yet Finkelstein not infrequently gets carried away with his rhetoric. The material benefits that (citing the Peel Report) he concedes accrued to the Arabs from Jewish immigration "vanished, as it were, overnight when the Zionist movement ethnically cleansed Palestine in 1948" (p. 191, my emphasis, MS). But the fact is that Palestine was not "ethnically cleansed" of Arabs in 1948; significant populations of Arabs remained on the West Bank, in Gaza, and in the newly declared State of Israel. …


Michael Marx, senior director, Visa Research Insights, conducted a workshop in 2009 at the Payment Cards Center (PCC) as the economy was emerging from a recession. At that time, it appeared that the recession had affected consumer payment preferences, especially those related to cash and credit cards. To get an update on consumers' use of the various payment methods, the PCC invited Marx to facilitate another workshop in 2014. More recent findings from the Visa Payment Panel Study reveal declines in cash use ― a return to the long-term trend ― and increases in credit card use, perhaps signaling some return of confidence among consumers. Check use continued its unbroken long-term decline, and debit card growth has slowed. Private label cards have also registered a steady decline in their share of spending volume for a number of years. Their revolving credit utility, however, remains consequential in financing consumer purchases.


Parental depression has been highlighted as a major risk factor for the development of psychopathology in children and adolescents (Mars et al, 2012; Sellers et al, 2013). Garber & Martin (2002) suggest that the primary environmental stressor that children living with depressed parents are exposed to relates to the impact of maternal depression on marital conflict. Interparental conflict has been demonstrated to have negative effects on various aspects of family functioning and relationships. Strong associations between conflict levels in parental relationships and negative parent-child relationships support this theory (Erel & Burmann, 1995). The parent- child relationship is viewed as a central mechanism for the transmission of psychopathology across generations of a family (Rutter et al., 2010).

This thesis examines the relationship between parental depression and family processes (specifically interparental and parent-child relationships) on the development of depressive and aggressive symptoms in children and adolescents. Four data sets examine these associations: a high risk sample of parents with recurrent depression and their adolescent children (Early Prediction of Adolescent Depression, EPADS), a community sample of low-risk adolescents and their families (Welsh Family Study, WFS), a sample of families who have conceived children using Artificial Reproductive Technologies (the Cardiff IVF Study, C-IVF) and a longitudinal adoption study (Early Growth and Development Study, EGDS). Findings from this thesis presents evidence that a process exists by which parental depressive symptoms contribute to the development of psychopathology in children and adolescents through disrupted interparental and parent-child relationships. Parental depression was consistently associated with interparental conflict, which in turn was associated with higher levels of parent-child hostility. For child outcomes, the most consistent finding was the association between parent-child hostility and child and adolescent symptoms of aggression. This was observed in all four data sets, in a variety of samples and across a range of developmental periods. The association was observed where adolescents were classed as being at either a high or low-risk for the development of psychopathology, and for those families where parents were rearing genetically related and genetically unrelated children.


Background: Gastroesophageal reflux symptoms are frequent in the general population, but there is a lack of information about its prevalence and valid and reliable scales to determine it. Aim: To design a valid and reliable scale to determine gastroesophageal reflux disease. Subjects and methods: A Cross-sectional study with patients and controls was conducted. The diagnosis of gastroesophageal reflux was based of clinical plus radiological, endoscopic or pathologic criteria. A structured questionnaire was built, containing items covering different clinical manifestations of gastroesophageal reflux disease. All subjects were subjected to 24 h esophageal pH monitoring. Internal consistency of items, interobserver reliability, criterion and construct validity, sensitivity, specificity and predicted values were obtained. Results: One hundred thirteen subjects (74 female and 39 male with a mean age of 46 years old) were studied. Seventy three had gastroesophageal reflux and 40 were controls. Internal consistency of the score was 0.82. Inter observer reliability was greater than 0.80 and a significant association was observed between the score and 24 h esophageal pH monitoring (p <0.001). Instrument sensitivity was 97% and specificity 83%. Conclusions: The designed scale proved to be a valid and reliable instrument to measure gastroesophageal reflux symptoms, that can be used for future prevalence studies.


This master thesis deals with the behavior of steel girder highway bridges under small vehicle fires. Fire at and below highway bridges are a common problem for bridge structures. Unlike in tunnels or buildings the consideration of fire hazard is no mandatory aspect of bridge design. However, the high amount of fire incidents on highways and the important function that bridges have in the infrastructure resulted in a few case studies to explain the failure process of a bridge. All of these case studies deal with collapses of the bridge structure caused by gasoline tanker fires. The behavior of steel girder bridges under small vehicle fires without a collapse of a bridge is not included in any case study yet. This thesis shall establish understanding of the post-fire behavior of a steel girder under a vehicle fire with several boundary conditions. A special topic in this thesis is the analysis of a micro-crack included in the steel girder. Micro-cracks can be caused by fatigue or by the fabrication of the girder among other things. This is also a first attempt to consider the condition of a highway bridge in the analysis of a steel girder bridge under a fire impact. The fire impacts used in this thesis contains temperatures less than hydrocarbon fires (maximum temperature of 1100◦C), that are used to represent gasoline tanker fires, but higher temperatures than external fires which are not caused by fuel or gas (maximum temperature of 600◦C 700◦C). The case study provided in this thesis is carried out using the finite element software Abaqus. The structural model of the chosen hypothetical highway bridge is a two span beam. To simplify the numerical model just one steel girder connected to a concrete deck instead of a complete bridge is used. This offers detailed modeling of the structure and the consideration of many possible mechanisms of the structure. The numerical model considers a variation of the fire impact, the fire location, horizontal restrains and the number of spans of the bridge. The results of the case study can be transferred to a complete highway bridge. The results can also be transferred to different static models of bridges.


The purpose of this study is to determine the status of computer usage and the attitudes toward computers of teachers and to investigate of several variables on their attitudes. For this purpose, "Information form about using computer" and "Scale of the attitudes for computers" was applied to 172 teachers. This study was conducted with survey methods). The data is analyzed through standard deviation and mean value as well as t-test and one way ANOVA for group comparison, besides to find which group causes the difference in the group comparison, a post hoc Tukey HSD test is employed. At the end of the study it is determined that the teachers use computers more at home and internet cafes and their levels of using computer programme are intermediate or upper. It is also determined that there is a significant difference according to the variables of taking computer classes, having a computer, level of using a computer, frequency of using computer, experience of using computer and class of the scores of attitudes toward computers.


The relationship between socio-economic status and student achievement is well documented and a widespread literature indicates that students from more advantaged backgrounds perform better at school. Despite this relationship, several international assessments have highlighted that in each country there is a relevant proportion of "resilient students", i.e. students who come from a disadvantaged socio-economic background but achieve relatively high levels of educational performance. In this paper, the determinants of resilience in the Italian educational system are investigated analysing data from the OECD-PISA 2009 edition, with a specific focus on the role of school-level variables that could help more students succeed. The aim is to target a specific category of resilient students, namely those who are characterised by a low socioeconomic background both at family level and at school level; therefore a novel statistical procedure is proposed to derive a sample of disadvantaged students who attend disadvantaged schools. Afterwards a multilevel logistic approach is adopted to determine which characteristics of students, families and schools, tend to give disadvantaged students a higher probability of becoming a resilient. Our results confirm that not only individual-level characteristics, but also some school factors (i.e. extracurricular activities and school leadership) play a role in this direction, suggesting policy and managerial implications.


AUSTRALIAMELBOURNE-- Last week the Australian government announced a new budget that biomedical scientists hail as a first step in changing the country's notoriously conservative investment climate. Its plan to more than double spending on basic medical research over 6 years--to $235 million by 2004-05--mirrors a recommendation last December by a high-level review panel looking at ways to improve the country's competitiveness in health and medical research. Scientists are optimistic that support for reform of tax laws to encourage venture capitalism is not far behind.


Semicarbazone derivatives are most effective anticonvulsant agents. Anticonvulsant effect of numerous semicarbazone derivatives has been demonstrated in a wide range of preclinical anticonvulsant models.Semicarbazones and its analogs are versatile substrates and these have been utilized as constructing unit in the synthesis of various heterocyclic compounds. Semicarbazone derivatives have been used in obtaining new products that retains different biological activities. Here, we presented a detailed evaluation of semicarbazone derivatives for their significant anticonvulsant activity along with discussion of recent synthetic advancements in semicarbazones as anticonvulsants.


Ticlopidine, clopidogrel and prasugrel are thienopyridine derivatives used for inhibition of platelet aggregation in several cardiovascular diseases. Besides hepatotoxicity, also bone marrow toxicity may limit their use. The mechanisms associated with myelotoxicity of thienopyridines are currently unclear. Uncovering the mechanism by which thienopyridines lead to these adverse effects is therefore of great importance. In this thesis, three different cell systems which include human hematopoietic stem cells isolated from umbilical cord blood, neutrophils isolated from peripheral blood and human promyelocytic leukemia cell line were used. The main aims of this thesis were to investigate whether the mother substance and/or the active metabolites are responsible for myelotoxicity and whether the inactive clopidogrel metabolite clopidogrel carboxylate contributes to myelotoxicity. Apart from the well-known CYP-mediated metabolism of thienopyridines in liver, MPO present in neutrophils also metabolise clopidogrel, ticlopidine, prasugrel, and clopidogrel carboxylate. In contrast, clopidogrel carboxylate was not metabolized by human CYP3A4. MPO-dependant metabolism of clopidogrel, ticlopidine, prasugrel, and clopidogrel carboxylate showed dose dependent cytotoxicity. Similarly, CYP3A4-mediated metabolism showed dose dependent cytotoxicity of all drugs except clopidogrel carboxylate. Taking into account the pharmacokinetics in humans, we conclude that the myelotoxic principle of clopidogrel is most probably associated with metabolite formation from clopidogrel carboxylate by myeloperoxidase. For ticlopidine and prasugrel the mother substance itself and metabolites formed by myeloperoxidase are myelotoxic. Both mother substance and metabolites formed by MPO or CYP3A4 showed mitochondrial mediated cytotoxicity.


In our complementary geochemical study (Part 1), the Malaysian granitoids of the Southeast Asian tin belt were divided into a Middle Permian to Late Triassic I-type–dominated Eastern province (Indochina terrane) and a Triassic to Early Jurassic transitional I/S-type Main Range province (Sibumasu terrane), separated by the Bentong-Raub suture zone which closed in the Late Triassic. Previous geochronology has relied on only a few U-Pb zircon ages together with K-Ar and whole rock Rb-Sr ages that may not accurately record true magmatic ages. We pre sent 39 new high-precision U-Pb zircon ion microprobe ages from granitoids and vol canics across the Malay Peninsula. Our results show that ages from the Eastern province granitoids span 289–220 Ma, with those from the Main Range province granitoids being entirely Late Triassic, spanning 227–201 Ma. A general westerly younging magmatic trend across the Malay Peninsula is considered to refl ect steepening and roll-back of the Bentong-Raub subduction zone during progressive closure of Paleo-Tethys. The youngest ages of subduction-related granites in the Eastern province roughly coincide with the youngest ages of marine sedimentary rocks along the Paleo-Tethyan suture zone. Our petrogenetic and U-Pb zircon age data support models that relate the Eastern province granites to pre-collisional Andean-type magmatism and the western Main Range province granites to syn- and post-collisional crustal melting of Sibumasu crust during the Late Triassic. Tin mineralization was mainly associated with the latter phase of magmatism. Two alternative tectonic models are discussed to explain the Triassic evolution of the Malay Peninsula. The fi rst involves a second Late Triassic to Jurassic or Early Cretaceous east-dipping subduction zone west of Sibumasu where subduction-related hornblende and biotite–bearing granites along Sibumasu are paired with Main Range crustal-melt tinbearing granites, analogous to the Bolivia Cordilleran tin-bearing granite belt. The second model involves westward underthrusting of Indochina beneath the West Malaya Main Range province, resulting in crustal thickening and formation of tin-bearing granites of the Main Ranges. Cretaceous granitoids are also present locally in Singapore (Ubin diorite), on Tioman Island, in the Noring pluton, of the Stong complex (Eastern Province), and along the Sibumasu terrane in southwest Thailand and Burma (Myanmar), refl ecting localized crustal melting.


Phellinus laevigatus s. l. has evolved as a ring species, which was distributed in Paleocene from the eastern part of Asia via North America to Europe and further to West Siberia. As a result of clinal variation of basidiospores, three allopatric taxa in two species evolved. Of the two species (European–West Siberian Ph. laevigatus s. str. and Ph. betulinus (Murrill) Parmasto, comb. nova), latter is composed of two subspecies (ssp. betulinus and ssp. orienticus Parmasto ssp. nova), one distributed in North America and the other in East Asia.


The competencies of interior designers managing construction projects, particularly in project management have frequently been questioned. Central to this argument is the claim that the interior designer competencies, which was developed through education and practice tend to be very biased on design skills and knowledge at the expanse of project management. To date, there has been little research to justify the validity of the argument. In seeking to address this argument, this research was undertaken to establish to what extent is project management neglected in the academic and practice of interior design, and if so, where are the gaps. A mixed method research method was employed for the research. A quantitative research method with seventy-eight respondents was first adopted to establish the validity and extent to which project management was lacking in interior design practice. This was followed with a qualitative research method to identify precisely where the gap in project management education and interior design practice exists. To identify the gaps, fourteen key respondents were selected for interviews during the data collection. This was triangulated with content analysis method, which critically analyses the interior design syllabus offered by four leading local higher institutions. Activities undertaken by the interior design professional associations were also analysed. The findings found significant gaps in learning project management in the interior design higher education and interior design practice. The most important solutions to bridge the gaps is to improve the project management competencies of interior designers through education and practice were identified and suggested. To aid a holistic conceptualization of the project management skills and knowledge for the developmement of their competencies which can be added to the interior design education and practice, a framework was proposed. Significant new knowledge relating to interior design competencies was identifed through this research. This encompases the identification of the actual project management skills and knowledge required to improve the current interior design education curriculum offered by higher education. The skills and knowledge required in practice which should be promoted by the interior design professional associations was also identified. Notwithstanding, more research is suggested to follow through with this framework to structure and improve interior design curriculum in higher education. Research on how the project management skills and knowledge can be incorporated into the interior design continuing professional development program (CPD) can also be introduced.


The popularity of Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD) has rapidly soared over the years due to the numerous advantages it offers over other display technologies. This application note provides an introduction to the basics of LCD; its construction, physics behind its operation, and the different factors affecting its properties and performance. Moreover, 8-bit PIC® microcontrollers with integrated LCD controllers are also introduced. Prominent features of the LCD Driver module of these MCU families are discussed, including contrast control, drive waveforms, biasing methods, power modes, and other LCD circuit design considerations. Lastly, the code samples for a 1-Hour Countdown Timer application for both the PIC16 and PIC18 devices are presented. The application uses the segmented and dot matrix LCD for the two families, respectively.


"Electricity suppliers, in accordance with the appropriation of the European Union, the
Hungarian government, and the Hungarian Energy and Public Utility Regulatory Authority,
have begun the preparations for implementing the so
-
called smart measurement
system."
–
That
is how those consumers who were planned to receive a smart meter in their household were
notified.
The new meter was planned to have been set up within a month by the company's employed
mechanics.
These are the reasons why I have chosen t
o examine the installment of smart meters from the
viewpoint of the consumers. What benefits would this change bring to them? How can they
save money by using smart meters? How can they influence their consumption? Are they
willing to change their consumpt
ion habits? In my work, the starting point will be a
sociodemographic attitude research that has already been carried out.
Besides all this, I am going to describe the disadvantages of smart meters as well. I am going
to present what other inventions supp
liers are planning after the installment of smart meters by
performing some calculations with the smart web portal's smart tariff calculator. Finally, I am
going to summarize the most important thoughts and conclusions.


On a recent visit to the United States of America, I spent half a day with a medium to large size law firm with offices in Wall Street, New York. My interest was mainly in office administration and I felt that a few of my brief impressions may be of some interest to fellow attorneys in South Africa. At the outset it must be remembered that the Americans do not have our dual system of Bar and Side-Bar practising separately, but instead have the unitary system which enables them to have much larger firms relative to South African standards.


We describe an importance-sampling method for approximating likelihoods of population parameters based on multiple summary statistics. In this first application, we address the demographic history of closely related members of the Drosophila pseudoobscura group. We base the maximum-likelihood estimation of the time since speciation and the effective population sizes of the extant and ancestral populations on the pattern of nucleotide variation at DPS2002, a noncoding region tightly linked to a paracentric inversion that strongly contributes to reproductive isolation. Consideration of summary statistics rather than entire nucleotide sequences permits a compact description of the genealogy of the sample. We use importance sampling first to propose a genealogical and mutational history consistent with the observed array of summary statistics and then to correct the likelihood with the exact probability of the history determined from a system of recursions. Analysis of a subset of the data, for which recursive computation of the exact likelihood was feasible, indicated close agreement between the approximate and exact likelihoods. Our results for the complete data set also compare well with those obtained through Metropolis-Hastings sampling of fully resolved genealogies of entire nucleotide sequences.


The theme that was not studied in Lithuania is surveyed in the article. The problems of possibilities to control the risk are interesting for a long time to researchers and practices of surveillance activity. However, neither the phenomena of a risk nor possibilities of controling it up to here are not investigated enough. That is why the usage of term "risk" in the context of the other sciences and different law branches is presented in the article. There is the opinion substantiated that the officials of subjects of surveillance activity while realizing their tasks always work in the conditions of a risk that always exsist and that are coused of the specificity of surveillance activity as itself (that is public and secret activity of secret-service character). The exsisting interior and exterior factors reveal themselves in the forms of different threats, and dangers and conflicts form presumption of risk while fulfilling the surveillance actions. It is possible to realize the process of rulling and controlling the risk only planning, organizing and carrying out the tactics of surveillance actions. The attention is paid to the subject of several elements of tactics of surveillance actions, the need to improve them in order to achieve the process of a risk control more effective. In the article the conclusion is drawn that the most improvable elements of the tactics that have the largest importance in the process of risk control while carrying out surveillance actions are following: 1) the collecting of surveillance information, the evaluation of reliability, usefulness and informativity of its content and analytical activity; 2) making of surveillance tactical decision. So the most attention is given to the content of tactical elements of surveillance actions. The opinion that the process of risk control can be more effective if the factor of unexpectedness and surveillance combinations will be used carrying out surveillance actions is presented in the article. It should be noted that the conception of risk control carrying out surveillance actions is formulated not for a single surveillance action but for the whole tactical activity of surveillance subjects.


Diabetic subjects have previously been found to have increased secretion of immunoreactive gastric inhibitory polypeptide (IR-GIP) in response to oral glucose or triglyceride compared with normal subjects. In the present study, a group of 19 diabetics was selected with milder glucose intolerance (fasting plasma glucose = 109 mg. per deciliter) than those reported previously. In these diabetics no enhancement of IRGIP responses was found to either 75 gm. oral glucose or 50 ml. oral corn oil when compared with 13 subjects with normal carbohydrate tolerance. Some of the subjects were obese and, when assessed independently from glucose tolerance, obesity was associated with higher integrated IRGIP responses to oral glucose but not to oral corn oil. The degree of obesity (92 to 154 per cent ideal body weight) did not correlate with fasting or stimulated IRGIP responses of the 32 subjects. One hour after ingestion of 50 ml. corn oil, when IRGIP concentrations were maximal but glucose and insulin remained unaffected, the diabetic subjects showed increased relative acute-phase insulin secretion to a 20 gm. pulse of intravenous glucose compared with that from a glucose pulse alone (p < 0.01). Subjects with normal carbohydrate tolerance had no increase in relative acute insulin response to glucose after triglyceride priming. The relative second-phase insulin response (10 to 30 min.) increased significantly with triglyceride priming in both diabetics (p < 0.01) and nondiabetics (p < 0.05). Although glucose disappearance rates (Kg) correlated with relative insulin responses, the increase in insulin secretion with triglyceride priming was not associated with an increase in Kg. Although obese subjects show increased stimulated GIP responses to oral glucose, patients with mild diabetes have normal GIP secretion to oral glucose and to triglyceride, but show a GIP-associated increase in both phases of glucose-induced insulin secretion.


Speed limits of motorized vehicles have been widely used for the purpose to reduce noise and to promote road safety. Unfortunately, there has been little research on speed limits for electric bicycles (EB). In this paper, field speed data were collected from eleven segments of separated bicycle lanes in Hangzhou, China. The speeding behaviors of different types of bicycles were analyzed under different speed limits. Mixed logistic models were proposed for modeling the speeding and its influencing factors. Then, the 85th percentile speeds under different conditions were calculated as the speed limits. The stepwise regression models were proposed for modeling the relationships between the 85th percentile speeds and their influencing factors, and the speed limits for different types of bicycles were determined. It is recommended that the speed limits of purely EBs traffic were 25-30 and 30-35 km/h for the widths of bicycle lanes less than 3 m and great than 3 m, respectively. Meanwhile, the recommended speed limit for heterogeneous bicycle flow was 25 km/h. The results will help for the improvement and change of the speed limit laws and policies for bicycle traffic.


Abstract. The reconstruction of droughts is essential for the understanding of past drought dynamics and can help evaluate future drought scenarios in a changing climate. This article presents a reconstruction of summer droughts in France based on annually resolved, absolutely dated chronologies of oxygen isotope ratios (δ18O) in tree ring cellulose from Quercus spp. Samples were taken from living trees and timber wood from historic buildings at two sites: Fontainebleau (48°23′ N, 2°40′ E; 1326–2000 CE) and Angouleme (45°44′ N, 0°18′ E; 1360–2004 CE). Cellulose δ18O from these sites proved to be a good proxy of summer climate, as the trees were sensitive to temperature and moisture availability. However, offsets in average δ18O values between tree cohorts necessitated a correction before joining them to the final chronologies. Using the corrected δ18O chronologies, we developed models based on linear regression to reconstruct drought, expressed by the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI). The significant correlations between the SPEI and cellulose δ18O (r ≈ −0.70), as well as the verification of the models by independent data support the validity of these reconstructions. At both sites, recent decades are characterized by increasing drought. Fontainebleau displays dominantly wetter conditions during earlier centuries, whereas the current drought intensity is not unprecedented in the Angouleme record. While the δ18O chronologies at the two studied sites are highly correlated during the 19th and 20th centuries, there is a significant decrease in the correlation coefficient between 1600 and 1800 CE, which indicates either a weaker climate sensitivity of the tree ring proxies during this period, or a more heterogeneous climate in the north and the south of France. Future studies of tree ring isotope networks might reveal if the seasonality and spatial patterns of past droughts can explain this decoupling. A regional drought reconstruction based on a combination of the two sites shows good agreement with historical records of grape harvest dates in France, which provide another proxy of summer climate.


Mechanical cleavage by Scotch tape was the first method to produce graphene and is still widely used in laboratories. However, a critical problem of this method is the extremely low yield. We have tailored ball milling conditions to produce gentle shear forces that produce high quality boron nitride (BN) nanosheets in high yield and efficiency. The in-plane structure of the BN nanosheets has not been damaged as shown by near edge X-ray absorption fine structure measurements. The benzyl benzoate acts as the milling agent to reduce the ball impacts and milling contamination. This method is applicable to any layered materials for producing nanosheets.


This book looks at dreams from a twenty-first century perspective. It takes its inspiration from Freud's insights, but pursues psychoanalytic interest into both neuroscience and the modern psychoanalytic consulting room. The book looks at laboratory research on dreaming alongside the modern clinical use of dreams and links together clinical and empirical research, integrating classical ideas with the plurality of psychoanalytic theoretical constructs available to modern researchers.

Psychoanalysts writing about dreams have traditionally represented the cutting edge of clinical and theoretical development, and this book is no exception. Many of the contributions, as well as the epistemological position taken by the writers, represent a kind of radical openness to new ways of thinking about the clinical situation and about theory. In line with the ambition of the editors, this volume represents an integration of theories and disciplines, and a scientific context for modern psychoanalysis.

The link between clinical research and extraclinical research via the royal road of dreaming is a theme that runs through all the contributions. These cover dreaming as it sheds light on clinical conditions such as depression and trauma, or dreams as they form a core aspect of clinical work; be that as a co-construction, or as shared play between therapist and patients. The book provides insight through dreams to understanding mental functions in all clinical situations and across all conditions.


Traditional camera models are often the result of a compromise between the ability to account for non-linearities in the image formation model and the need for a feasible number of degrees of freedom in the estimation process. These considerations led to the definition of several ad hoc models that best adapt to different imaging devices, ranging from pinhole cameras with no radial distortion to the more complex catadioptric or polydioptric optics. In this paper we propose the use of an unconstrained model even in standard central camera settings dominated by the pinhole model, and introduce a novel calibration approach that can deal effectively with the huge number of free parameters associated with it, resulting in a higher precision calibration than what is possible with the standard pinhole model with correction for radial distortion. This effectively extends the use of general models to settings that traditionally have been ruled by parametric approaches out of practical considerations. The benefit of such an unconstrained model to quasi-pinhole central cameras is supported by an extensive experimental validation.


Multitenancy is an essential cloud computing property where a single instance of an application serves multiple tenants. Multitenancy introduces significant challenges when deploying application components to the cloud due to the demand for different degrees of isolation between tenants. At the very basic degree of isolation, tenants still share application components as much as possible. However, while some components may benefit from low degree of isolation between tenants, others may need a higher degree of isolation, for instance, in a situation where a component is too critical to be shared, or needs to be configured specifically for individual tenants. This paper describes COMITRE (COmponent-based approach to Multitenancy Isolation Through request RE-routing) to empirically evaluate the degree of isolation between tenants enabled by three multitenancy patterns (i.e., shared component, tenant-isolated component, and dedicated component) for cloud-hosted Global Software Development (GSD) tools. We developed a multitenant component for each multitenancy pattern, integrated it within Hudson, and then compared their impact on different tenants. The study revealed among other things that a component deployed based on shared component offers a lower degree of tenant isolation (than tenant-isolated component and dedicated component) when one of the tenants is exposed to a demanding deployment condition (e.g, large instant loads). We also provide some recommendations to guide an architect in implementing multitenancy isolation on a set of GSD tools: Hudson, Subversion and Bugzilla.


The vertical columns of formaldehyde (HCHO) retrieved from two satellite instruments, the Global Ozone Monitoring Instrument-2 (GOME-2) on Metop-A and the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on Aura, are used to constrain global emissions of HCHO precursors from open fires, vegetation and human activities in the year 2010. To this end, the emissions are varied and optimized using the adjoint model technique in the IMAGESv2 global CTM (chemistry-transport model) on a monthly basis and at the model resolution. Given the different local overpass times of GOME-2 (09:30 LT) and OMI (13:30 LT), the simulated diurnal cycle of HCHO columns is investigated and evaluated against ground-based optical measurements at 7 sites in Europe, China and Africa. The modelled diurnal cycle exhibits large variability, reflecting competition between photochemistry and emission variations, with noon or early afternoon maxima at remote locations (oceans) and in regions dominated by anthropogenic emissions, late afternoon or evening maxima over fire scenes, and midday minima in isoprene-rich regions. The agreement between simulated and ground-based columns is found to be generally better in summer (with a clear afternoon maximum at mid-latitude sites) than in winter, and the annually averaged ratio of afternoon to morning columns is slightly higher in the model (1.126) than in the ground-based measurements (1.043).

The anthropogenic VOC (volatile organic compound) sources are found to be weakly constrained by the inversions on the global scale, mainly owing to their generally minor contribution to the HCHO columns, except over strongly polluted regions, like China. The OMI-based inversion yields total flux estimates over China close to the bottom-up inventory (24.6 vs. 25.5 in the a priori) with, however, pronounced increases in the Northeast China and reductions in the south. Lower fluxes are estimated based on GOME-2 HCHO columns (20.6 TgVOC), in particular over the Northeast, likely reflecting mismatches between the observed and the modelled diurnal cycle in this region.

The resulting biogenic and pyrogenic flux estimates from both optimizations generally show a good degree of consistency. A reduction of the global annual biogenic emissions of isoprene is derived, by 9 and by 13% according to GOME-2 and OMI, respectively, compared to the a priori estimate of 363 Tg in 2010. The reduction is largest (up to 25–40%) in the Southeastern US, in accordance with earlier studies. The GOME-2 and OMI satellite columns suggest a global pyrogenic flux decrease by 36 and 33%, respectively, compared to the GFEDv3 inventory. This decrease is especially pronounced over tropical forests such as Amazonia and Thailand/Myanmar, and is supported by comparisons with IASI CO observations. In contrast to these flux reductions, the emissions due to harvest waste burning are strongly enhanced in the Northeastern China plain in June (by ca. 70% in June according to OMI) as well as over Indochina in March. Sensitivity inversions showed robustness of the inferred estimates, which were found to lie within 7% of the standard inversion results at the global scale.


Optoelectronic techniques for generation and detection of terahertz (THz) signals have been reviewed. The operation principles of THz photomixer sources and THz parametric sources have been studied and recent developments in these areas have been presented. The performances of developed THz optoelectronic sources have been discussed and compared.


The past twenty years have witnessed significant advances in formal modeling, system verification and testing of network protocols. However a long-standing challenge in these approaches is the decoupling of formal reasoning process and the actual distributed implementation. This talk presents my thesis work on bridging formal reasoning and actual implementation in the context of today's Internet routing. I will present the Formally Safe Routing (FSR) toolkit, that combines the use of declarative networking, routing algebra, and SMT solver techniques, in order to synthesize faithful distributed routing implementations from verified network models. Next, I will describe our work on scaling up formal analysis of lnternet-scale configurations. Our core technique uses a configuration rewriting calculus for transforming large network configurations into smaller instances, while preserving routing behaviors. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of my ongoing and future work, on synthesizing provably correct network configurations for the emerging Software Defined Networking (SDN) platforms. Bio:


Abstract. Under the protocols of phase 3 of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project, a number of simulations were produced that provide a range of potential climate evolutions from the last millennium to the end of the current century. Here, we present the first simulation with the Community Earth System Model (CESM), which includes an interactive carbon cycle, that covers the last millennium. The simulation is continued to the end of the twenty-first century. Besides state-of-the-art forcing reconstructions, we apply a modified reconstruction of total solar irradiance to shed light on the issue of forcing uncertainty in the context of the last millennium. Nevertheless, we find that structural uncertainties between different models can still dominate over forcing uncertainty for quantities such as hemispheric temperatures or the land and ocean carbon cycle response. Compared to other model simulations, we find forced decadal-scale variability to occur mainly after volcanic eruptions, while during other periods internal variability masks potentially forced signals and calls for larger ensembles in paleoclimate modeling studies. At the same time, we were not able to attribute millennial temperature trends to orbital forcing, as has been suggested recently. The climate–carbon-cycle sensitivity in CESM during the last millennium is estimated to be between 1.0 and 2.1 ppm °C−1. However, the dependence of this sensitivity on the exact time period and scale illustrates the prevailing challenge of deriving robust constraints on this quantity from paleoclimate proxies. In particular, the response of the land carbon cycle to volcanic forcing shows fundamental differences between different models. In CESM the tropical land dictates the response to volcanoes, with a distinct behavior for large and moderate eruptions. Under anthropogenic emissions, global land and ocean carbon uptake rates emerge from the envelope of interannual natural variability by about year 1947 and 1877, respectively, as simulated for the last millennium.


The continuous and simultaneous monitoring of physiological parameters represents a key aspect in clinical environments, remote monitoring and occupational settings. In this regard, respiratory rate (RR) and heart rate (HR) are correlated with several physiological and pathological conditions of the patients/workers, and with environmental stressors. In this work, we present and validate a wearable device for the continuous monitoring of such parameters. The proposed system embeds four conductive sensors located on the user's chest which allow retrieving the breathing activity through their deformation induced during cyclic expansion and contraction of the rib cage. For monitoring HR we used an embedded IMU located on the left side of the chest wall. We compared the proposed device in terms of estimating HR and RR against a reference system in three scenarios: sitting, standing and supine. The proposed system reliably estimated both RR and HR, showing low error averaged along subjects in all scenarios. This is the first study focused on the feasibility assessment of a wearable system based on a multi-sensor configuration (i.e., conductive sensors and IMU) for RR and HR monitoring. The promising results encourage the application of this approach in clinical and occupational settings.


Abstract Similar peers are more likely to become friends, but it remains unclear how the combination of multiple characteristics, known as multidimensional similarity, influences friendships. This study aimed to investigate whether similarity in gender (attribute) and bullying or victimization (network position) contributes to friendships. The school-level networks of friendships and victim-bully relationships in 17 Dutch elementary schools (2,130 students) were examined using multiplex longitudinal social network models (RSiena). The results showed that friendships were more likely to occur between same-gender peers and between bullies sharing their targets of victimization. Multidimensional similarity (similarities in gender as well as bullying) increased the likelihood of friendships for same-gender bullies targeting the same victims, but not for same-gender victims sharing bullies. The findings underline the importance of unraveling the interplay between different dimensions of similarity for children's relationships and surpass unidimensional similarity based on single attributes.


Many software engineering research papers rely on time-based data (e.g., commit timestamps, issue report creation/update/close dates, release dates). Like most real-world data however, time-based data is often dirty. To date, there are no studies that quantify how frequently such data is used by the software engineering research community, or investigate sources of and quantify how often such data is dirty. Depending on the research task and method used, including such dirty data could affect the research results. This paper presents the first survey of papers that utilize time-based data, published in the Mining Software Repositories (MSR) conference series. Out of the 690 technical track and data papers published in MSR 2004–2020, we saw at least 35% of papers utilized time-based data. We then used the Boa and Software Heritage infrastructures to help identify and quantify several sources of dirty commit timestamp data. Finally we provide guidelines/best practices for researchers utilizing time-based data from Git repositories.


Mr. T is a 28-year-old Singaporean with a longstanding history of schizophrenia characterised by prominent paranoid delusions and command auditory hallucinations. He struggled academically in school and had difficulties making friends, but reported no significant behavioural problems. Like all young Singaporean males, Mr. T enlisted into the compulsory National Service at the age of 18. A month into his basic military training, he started believing that his platoon commander was part of a conspiracy to kill him. Mr. T was referred to the state mental hospital by the medical officer. In the hospital, he revealed to the attending psychiatrist that he was part of a secret intelligence organisation and that he could hear the enemies conspiring to take control of his mind and kill him.Antipsychotic medication was started with subsequent resolution of the psychotic symptoms. He was discharged from the army and was eventually able to secure employment with a family friend at the local fish market. There, he met his wife-to-be. He told her that he had previously been admitted to the state mental hospital but she felt that she could help him. They married and moved into a one-bedroom flat.18 months later, he was brought back to the hospital by police after threatening his wife with a knife, believing that she was part of a conspiracy that was monitoring him. It was revealed that he had stopped seeing his psychiatrist and had discontinued his medication for more than three months as he did not think that there was anything wrong with him. Antipsychotic medication was started and psycho-education was also given to him and his wife. The delusion resolved and he was discharged.Over the four years, Mr. T was re-admitted to the hospital on another four occasions following an exacerbation of his illness after he stopped his medication on his own accord. Each time, he was brought in by the police following reports of domestic violence where he would threaten his wife with a knife and accuse her of being an enemy agent trying to control his mind. After being released, his symptoms would resolve but he continues to lack any awareness that he has an illness and, after awhile, refuses to take his medication and see his psychiatrist. He has also vehemently refused any depot antipsychotics. He has recently been discharged from the hospital and has again refused to take his medication. Mrs. T is terrified that he will become unwell again and has come to see the psychiatrist at the clinic. She wants to collect Mr. T's medication and tells the psychiatrist that she intends to give them to him covertly in his food.


This is the proven program used by 600,000 job hunters! You put hours and hours of hard work into your job search and the companies you've contacted never call. It's a story all too common in the fast-paced, highly competitive world of job hunting. Nothing is more discouraging than sending one resume after another into the job-hunting void. Eventually, you expect silence from the other end. "The Unwritten Rules of the Highly Effective Job Search" was written so this never happens to you again. These techniques, developed by author Orville Pierson, have been used successfully for ten years by Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH), the world's premier career services company. Here, Pierson provides you with the job-search techniques that up to now have been limited to the LHH consultants he trains.Orville Pierson has helped thousands of job hunters during his career, taking note of the characteristics that have led to success as well as failure. In "The Unwritten Rules of the Highly Effective Job Search", he supplies key information on how professional job search consultants structure the job search project so you can apply the same winning strategies to your own search. You'll also be privy to inside information on how decision makers operate, enabling you to get the inside track on job openings before they are announced.This insider's guide covers every phase of the job search, leading you step by step through the process of creating a clear-cut plan - essential to every job search. Using the Pierson Method, you'll learn how to: develop a target list (the key ingredient to every job search); measure your progress; create a "core message" about yourself that decision makers won't forget; and present yourself in the best possible light to prospective employers. Using these strategies, Orville Pierson and LHH have helped 600,000 people land great new jobs. Employ the Pierson Method in your hunt for employment and you'll soon be doing what you love in the company that's right for you.


Are there negative health effects from losing the job? We analyze the causal effect of job displacement on diabetes incidence and prevalence. Type 2 diabetes is an illness that is directly affected by lifestyle factors and psychosocial stress, and with severe side-effects deteriorating the quality of life. We use rich Swedish register data that allows us to identify workers displaced through plant downsizing between 2002 and 2004, matched to detailed information on diabetes status from the Swedish National Diabetes Register. As those displaced at large layoffs may still be a selective group with respect to health we match them to comparable workers not being displaced. On average we do not find signs for a significant increase in the diabetes onset in case an individual is mass-laid off. However, we find substantial effect heterogeneity when distinguishing between different socio-economic characteristics which additionally differ between men and women. For example, the probability of the onset of diabetes increases due to being mass laid off in case men do not have a partner. In addition there are signs that women in case of having a partner and a child below 18 also suffer in terms of diabetes incidence in case they are mass-laid off


The purpose of this study was to design a developmental reading program for high school, which will (1) give basic instruction in reading to all students as a part of the curriculum; (2) provide guidance for the improvement of instruction in adjusting skills and abilities to the demands of the content fields; (3) assist with corrective and remedial reading instruction; (4) stimulate broad and extensive reading of literature so that students can expand their interests and improve their tastes; and, (5) aid students to make the best possible use of the library in supplementing this program. The study was in practice in the term of 1963-64 at the Community High School of Lane County, Dighton, Kansas. Subjects participating in the study were 210 high school students enrolled in high school. Reading instruction was provided in the content fields, instruction in the use of the library, and through special reading instruction which consisted of an advanced reading class and a corrective reading class. Reading and library instruction designed to meet the needs of each student was provided in the classroom and in the reading center extending over the semester. This instruction was provided by working with students in groups, individually, and with the class as a whole. The evaluation of the study was made on the basis of information obtained from standardized tests, questionnaires, and by teachers' observations. Initial and final reading and library tests were administered to determine (1) the approximate initial reading status of each student and (2) growth in reading and library skills occurring during the semester of instruction. The mean gain on the average total reading for the corrective reading class was .17 month. The greatest gain was shown in comprehension and rate. The class as a whole showed no gain in vocabulary. The advanced reading class showed the greatest gain. In conclusion, the writer believes that reading and study skills can be improved in high school by an intensive reading program and that the phenomena of very fast reading speeds deserves attention and study. Vocabulary gains in this study showed best results when the words were introduced in conjunction with meaningful context and when they have emotional overtones for the learner. Another beneficial aspect of the program was the cooperation of the teachers, who observed and helped provide instruction for the semester period. The following recommendations are suggested by this investigation: 1. that teachers continue to seek ways of improving students' vocabulary skills in all the content areas, with emphasis on abstract terms, technical terms, and specialized terms. 2. That teachers continue to enforce the rule of making speed relate to purpose. 3. That more research and experimentation be conducted to investigate: (a) the value of a developmental reading program in high school; and (b) better techniques for conducting reading programs for secondary schools.