Industrial production plants traditionally include sensors for monitoring or documenting processes, and actuators for enabling corrective actions in cases of misconfigurations, failures, or dangerous events. With the advent of the IoT, embedded controllers link these 'things' to local networks that often are of low power wireless kind, and are interconnected via gateways to some cloud from the global Internet. Inter-networked sensors and actuators in the industrial IoT form a critical subsystem while frequently operating under harsh conditions. It is currently under debate how to approach inter-networking of critical industrial components in a safe and secure manner.In this paper, we analyze the potentials of ICN for providing a secure and robust networking solution for constrained controllers in industrial safety systems. We showcase hazardous gas sensing in widespread industrial environments, such as refineries, and compare with IP-based approaches such as CoAP and MQTT. Our findings indicate that the content-centric security model, as well as enhanced DoS resistance are important arguments for deploying Information Centric Networking in a safety-critical industrial IoT. Evaluation of the crypto efforts on the RIOT operating system for content security reveal its feasibility for common deployment scenarios.


Alistair Smith - trainer, author and consultant, and described as the UK's leading trainer in modern learning methods - has identified and visited the top performing schools to find out what makes them successful. This timely book is aimed at decision makers in schools and gives sound, evidence-based guidance on how to embark on the learning journey and where to head once the journey has begun. For classroom practitioners, there is also a great deal of practical guidance. It focuses on: Core Purpose; Outcomes; Independent Learning; Classroom Learning; Curriculum; Professional Development; The school as a Community; and, Parents and Carers. This is not intended to be a book of tips. Rather, it is a sound 'how to' guide based on the findings of a detailed study of the best of the best schools and how they have achieved their success.


Objective Patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) generally experience a higher incidence of cancer. However, the association between T2DM and thyroid cancer is inconclusive. Methods Case-control prospective study, where 722 patients were screened for T2DM and prediabetes (PDM) and underwent thyroid ultrasound and biochemical tests. The patients were assigned to groups of PDM (n = 55), T2DM (n = 79) or a non-diabetes group (NDM) (n = 588). Fine-needle aspiration biopsy was carried out in 263 patients. Histological examinations were done for 109 patients after surgery, with findings of 52 benign (BS) and 57 malignant tumors (MS). Results Thirty-three percent of patients with T2DM and especially PDM were newly diagnosed by our screening: 6.5% with T2DM and 72% with PDM, respectively. The percentage of thyroid cancers did not significantly differ between the groups (χ2 test = 0.461; P = 0.794). Relevant positive thyroid predictors for T2DM (t-statistic = 25.87; P < 0.01) and PDM (21.69; P < 0.01) contrary to NDM (−26.9; P < 0.01) were thyroid volume (4.79; P < 0.01), thyroid nodule volume (3.25; P < 0.01) and multinodular thyroid gland (4.83; P < 0.01), while negative relevant predictors included the occurrence of autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) (−2.01; P < 0.05). Conclusion In general, we did not observe an increased risk for thyroid cancer in the diabetic and prediabetic groups in comparison to controls, in spite of well-established increased risk for other malignancies. Structural and benign changes such as larger and multinodular thyroid glands, in comparison to autoimmune thyroid disease, are present more often in diabetics.


Cone-beam CT (CBCT) is being increasingly used in modern radiation therapy for patient setup and adaptive replanning. However, due to the large volume of x-ray illumination, scatter becomes a rather serious problem and is considered as one of the fundamental limitations of CBCT image quality. Many scatter correction algorithms have been proposed in literature, while a standard practical solution still remains elusive. In radiation therapy, the same patient is scanned repetitively during a course of treatment, a natural question to ask is whether one can obtain the scatter distribution on the first day of treatment and then use the data for scatter correction in the subsequent scans on different days. To realize this scatter removal scheme, two technical pieces must be in place: (i) A strategy to obtain the scatter distribution in on-board CBCT imaging and (ii) a method to spatially match a prior scatter distribution with the on-treatment CBCT projection data for scatter subtraction. In this work, simple solutions to the two problems are provided. A partially blocked CBCT is used to extract the scatter distribution. The x-ray beam blocker has a strip pattern, such that partial volume can still be accurately reconstructed and the whole-field scatter distribution can be estimated from the detected signals in the shadow regions using interpolation∕extrapolation. In the subsequent scans, the patient transformation is determined using a rigid registration of the conventional CBCT and the prior partial CBCT. From the derived patient transformation, the measured scatter is then modified to adapt the new on-treatment patient geometry for scatter correction. The proposed method is evaluated using physical experiments on a clinical CBCT system. On the Catphan©600 phantom, the errors in Hounsfield unit (HU) in the selected regions of interest are reduced from about 350 to below 50 HU; on an anthropomorphic phantom, the error is reduced from 15.7% to 5.4%. The proposed method is attractive in applications where a high CBCT image quality is critical, for example, dose calculation in adaptive radiation therapy.


A microtubule-severing protein plays favorites, say Sharma et al. The slicer, called Katanin, builds up microtubules in cilia while it cuts down those in the cell body.

Figure 1

Cells that lack katanin (KO) have more microtubules (green) in the cell body than do normal cells (WT).

All microtubules are not created equal. In Tetrahymena, for example, the polymers come in many flavors, including ciliary extensions, an internal network, and cortical bundles. These subsets, the new results indicate, are differentially affected by katanin activity.

After knocking out Tetrahymena katanin, the authors found that cilia were missing their central microtubules and had shorter outer doublets. Cortical bundles and internal microtubules, by contrast, were more abundant and unusually stable. These inner polymers were more heavily laden with posttranslational modifications, including acetylation, glutamylation, and glycylation.

These modifications normally increase as microtubules age, so their accumulation might be a simple byproduct of the loss in severing activity, which may keep the polymer dynamic. The katanin mutants, however, resembled a β-tubulin mutant lacking the glutamate and glycyl projections. The similarity suggests that microtubule modifications might activate katanin, thereby focusing its activity on long, old filaments.

Why cilial microtubules were shorter or missing is unclear. Cilia that were lopped off regrew to a similarly stunted length, suggesting that free tubulin subunits were available. Perhaps katanin cuts microtubules to a particular length that can be transported into or along the cilia, as has been suggested for axons.

Reference:

Sharma, N., et al. 2007. J. Cell Biol. 178:1065–1079. [PubMed]


Expansion microscopy evolved as an interesting alternative in the field of super-resolution microscopy by physically expanding the target sample to increase its size by a multiple and to subsequently image the sample by conventional fluorescence microcopy. But the quantitative determination of the expansion factor remains challenging, since microscopic measurement standards are missing. Here we use DNA nanorulers in combination with expansion microscopy to expand the fluorescently marked rulers in 2D and to determine the intermark distances before and after expansion. We compare macroscopic and microscopic expansion factors where we found substantial deviations, which should be considered for the quantitative discussion of expansion microscopy data of biological cells and tissues. The demonstrated proof-of-principle opens a new field with the potential to answer questions with respect to quantitation of microscopic magnification and the introduced expansion nanorulers present a powerful tool to reveal the true origin of anisotropy and heterogeneity in expanded microscopy specimen.


Aeschylus (525-456 BC) brought a new grandeur and epic sweep to the drama of classical Athens, raising it to the status of high art. "The Persians", the only Greek tragedy to deal with events from recent Athenian history, depicts the final defeat of Persia in the battle of Salamis, through the eyes of the Persian court of King Xerxes, becoming a tragic lesson in tyranny. In "Prometheus Bound", the defiant Titan Prometheus is brutally punished by Zeus for daring to improve the state of wretchedness and servitude in which mankind is kept. "Seven Against Thebes" shows the inexorable downfall of the last members of the cursed family of Oedipus, while "The Suppliants" relates the pursuit of the fifty daughters of Danaus by the fifty sons of Aegyptus, and their final rescue by a heroic king.


We're all aware of getting older and may obsess over how our bodies gradually change with the years. Have you ever wanted to step back a few years and reconnect with a younger self? Would it be amusing or just plain creepy? Back to the Future is a book by Argentine artist Irina Werning, who takes old pictures and then mimics them years later with the subjects dressed, styled, and posed exactly as they were in the original. The results are quirky and a fascinating insight into the aging process. Surprisingly, the subjects often slip seamlessly into their old persona, so that even though their physical appearance may have changed, the spirit is still plainly the same.


The manufacture and use of the powders of non-ferrous metals has been taking place for many years in what was previously Soviet Russia, and a huge amount of knowledge and experience has built up in that country over the last forty years or so. Although accounts of the topic have been published in the Russian language, no English language account has existed until now.Six prominent academics and industrialists from the Ukraine and Russia have produced this highly-detailed account which covers the classification, manufacturing methods, treatment and properties of the non-ferrous metals ( aluminium, titanium, magnesium, copper, nickel, cobalt, zinc, cadmium, lead, tin, bismuth, noble metals and earth metals).The result is a formidable reference source for those in all aspects of the metal powder industry.* Covers the manufacturing methods, properties and importance of the following metals: aluminium, titanium, magnesium, copper, nickel, cobalt, zinc, cadmium, noble metals, rare earth metals, lead, tin and bismuth. * Expert Russian team of authors, all very experienced * English translation and update of book previously published in Russian.


This work provides an inventory of water resources and presents the current status of water supply, water quality as well as wastewater management in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, established after the break-up of former Yugoslavia. All three countries are very rich in water resources, pertaining in a large percentage to the Adriatic and Black Sea basins. However, this richness is not adequately reflected in the current status of the public water supply. Water supply is satisfactory only in bigger cities, whereas rural populations still grossly depend on the local sources. Furthermore, with respect to integrated water management, there is a big discrepancy between the capacities of water supply and drainage and those for the municipal and industrial wastewater treatment. Only a small percentage of wastewaters receive at least some treatment, putting the receiving natural waters at considerable risk. Nevertheless, available reports on water quality of ambient waters do not reveal the existence of this problem on a wider scale, but indicate only few hot-spots. To these exceptions belong microbiological pollution nearby big cities and patchy elevated levels of heavy metals and organic pollutants around industrial plants and agricultural lands. Such a relatively favourable situation is, partly, a consequence of a significant decrease of the economic activities, which is characteristic for all transition countries, but it also reveals the impact of the recent wars in the region. Political and military conflicts in the region generated mutual distrust and lack of co-operationbetween the three countries. However, the attempts are being made to resolve most of the issues related to cross-border contamination by signing international and regional treaties. As a part of pre-accession activities, all three states are harmonizing their legislation with the EU and are joining scientific projects on water protection of other Western countries. This is expected to bring considerable benefits to the local population and make economic development more vigorous.


Molecular dynamics simulation is an important and powerful tool in studying physical and chemical properties of materials, in particular, at the nanoscales. Conventional molecular dynamics, as oppose to the ab initio molecular dynamics, adopts the Newton's second law to predict particle position in the next time step with the assistance of empirical interatomic potential to calculate the forces between neighboring particles. Large-scale MD systems, consisting millions of atoms, require sophisticated parallelization in computer codes to improve computational efficiency. In this work, the IBM Blue Gene/P, a linux PC cluster and GPU/CUDA are used to test the computation performance of the MD code, LAMMPS, and other codes. Furthermore, strong and weak scaling were tested to determine the parallel efficiency of the codes, and to study effects of system size and number of computing cores. It is found that both strong and weak scaling are achievable in the tested problem sizes. Furthermore, due to reduced CPU clock frequency in the Blue Gene/P machine, its performance is inferior than that of the linux cluster if the number of the computing cores involved is small. Effects of computation algorithms also strongly influence the performance of the codes on the machines. Blue Gene/P is extremely suitable for large-scale problem sizes with many processors involved. When the problem fits in the GPU architecture, the performance of the GPU/CUDA may be comparable with that of Blue Gene/P. In addition to the parallel performance, the accuracy of the physical problem is verified to ensure the MD simulation produce correct results.


This work examines the relation between the concept of "the people" and the design of the American constitution. It asks such questions as: Who is included among the people?; How are the people politically configured?; How may the people act?; and how do the people relate to government structures? The author considers historical material from the antebellum period, such as the opinions of the US Supreme Court justices in the Dred Scott case, and different perspectives from the writings and speeches of Frederick Douglass. Influential thinking from the founding period is covered; and there is also an examination of issues raised by claims of state interpretive autonomy. The conclusion models various dimensions of the constitutional order as a whole.


Excitotoxicity resulting from excessive Ca2+ influx through glutamate receptors contributes to neuronal injury after stroke, trauma, and seizures. Increased cytosolic Ca2+ levels activate a family of calcium-dependent proteases with papain-like activity, the calpains. Here we investigated the role of calpain activation during NMDA-induced excitotoxic injury in embryonic (E16–E18) murine cortical neurons that (1) underwent excitotoxic necrosis, characterized by immediate deregulation of Ca2+ homeostasis, a persistent depolarization of mitochondrial membrane potential (Δψm), and insensitivity to bax-gene deletion, (2) underwent excitotoxic apoptosis, characterized by recovery of NMDA-induced cytosolic Ca2+ increases, sensitivity to bax gene deletion, and delayed Δψm depolarization and Ca2+ deregulation, or (3) that were tolerant to excitotoxic injury. Interestingly, treatment with the calpain inhibitor calpeptin, overexpression of the endogenous calpain inhibitor calpastatin, or gene silencing of calpain protected neurons against excitotoxic apoptosis but did not influence excitotoxic necrosis. Calpeptin failed to exert a protective effect in bax-deficient neurons but protected bid-deficient neurons similarly to wild-type cells. To identify when calpains became activated during excitotoxic apoptosis, we monitored calpain activation dynamics by time-lapse fluorescence microscopy using a calpain-sensitive Förster resonance energy transfer probe. We observed a delayed calpain activation that occurred downstream of mitochondrial engagement and directly preceded neuronal death. In contrast, we could not detect significant calpain activity during excitotoxic necrosis or in neurons that were tolerant to excitotoxic injury. Oxygen/glucose deprivation-induced injury in organotypic hippocampal slice cultures confirmed that calpains were specifically activated during bax-dependent apoptosis and in this setting function as downstream cell-death executioners.


Islands are either of continental or oceanic origin, and the biota of such islands are a result of vicariance and dispersal, respectively. New Caledonia, in the South Pacific, is a part of former Gondwana, but the origin of its biota is heavily debated. Geological studies show that the island was submerged in the Eocene, and that oceanic crust was obducted onto New Caledonia leaving a thick layer of ultramafic rocks on top of the island. We tested the null hypothesis that New Caledonian biota are a result of old Gondwanan vicariance by fitting diversification models on phylogenies from the literature and calculating the gamma statistic. According to the null hypothesis diversification is gradual over time. If on the other hand the biota are a result of recent dispersal or have survived in refugia we would expect slowing of diversification over time. Based on our results we can reject the null hypothesis of old vicariance for the New Caledonian biota. The caddisfly (Trichoptera) fauna on New Caledonia is exceptionally rich with around 600 species, and more than 99.9% are endemic. Molecular phylogenetic hypotheses for three monophyletic caddisfly radiations, Xanthochorema, Caledopsyche et al. and Agmina, are presented. Age estimates agrees with the geological evidence. Three new species of Xanthochorema are described and more than 63% of the Agmina species are new to science. The ultramafic rock substrate, with high heavy metal concentration, has led to high levels of plant adaptation on New Caledonia. We show that caddisflies adapted early to this substrate and subsequently dispersed to non-ultramafic substrate several times, with significantly fewer dispersal events back to the toxic substrate, indicating that adaptation to ultramafic substrate is required and recolonization is difficult when this adaptation has been lost. Ultramafic substrate and other environmental factors have been important in driving the diversification of New Caledonian caddisflies.


This paper reports an investigation of the nature o f allophonic variation in the single liquid phoneme of standard Korean. Alveolar tap and alveolar lateral allophones are in strict complementation, and an intervocalic length contrast of singleton ta p vs. geminate lateral also arises on the surface. These are sometimes cited as reasons Koreans do better at the English .k.,.q. distinction than other learners who similarly lack an underlying L1 contrast. To investigate native perception of the two intervocalic possibilities, waveform editing was used to eliminate the duration difference between geminate laterals and singleton taps in recordings of natural speech. In a forced-choice test, all listeners identify the edited stimuli as containing the lateral (90.5% identification rate), suggesting that duration is not a deciding factor in identification. Instead, Korean L1 speakers appear sensitive to non-durational differences, and thus effectively have a latent .k.,.q. contrast.


Patentees sometimes license their inventions through field-of-use licenses, which permit licensees to use the inventions, but only in specified ways. Field-of-use licensing is often procompetitive, because the ability to provide different licensing terms for different users can encourage broader licensing of inventions. But in recent United States cases, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals and lower courts have upheld field-of-use licenses prohibiting activities that licensees would otherwise have been permitted by patent law, such as the repair and resale of patented products. The recent cases rely on the Federal Circuit's decision in Mallinckrodt, Inc. v. Medipart, Inc., where the court effectively allowed the patentee to use contract to avoid limitations on infringement liability. The opportunities that Mallinckrodt made available to patentees were anticipated by several commentators at the time of the decision in 1992, but the exploitation of those opportunities has recently accelerated. This article seeks to demonstrate the dramatic expansion of patent law that has resulted, and to do so specifically by showing how the courts have allowed patentees to expand the range of acts that constitute patent infringement. The article also briefly compares these effects in patent law to the analogous effects of shrink-wrap licenses and the DMCA in copyright law, and it assesses the potential for similar expansion of patent infringement liability in Europe.


Earthquakes are among the most important natural hazards confronting engineers, regulatory authorities, and the public at large. The assessment of structural seismic vulnerability has become the subject of intensive research. In this paper, a mathematical framework for seismic vulnerability assessment of building structures is presented, and the concept of vulnerability function is introduced and mathematically described, which is integrally related to the fragility assessment and reflects the susceptibility of a system to serious consequences. The limit state of a building structure is stated as the structural demand exceeding the structural capacity, so the methodology is developed based on a systematic treatment of uncertainties in seismic hazard, structural demands due to seismic hazard, and capacities of building structures in resisting limit states. The methods and assessment procedures are illustrated through a steel building frame, showing the presented methodology is an efficient tool in support of seismic vulnerability assessment. The explicit consideration of uncertainty is an integral part of the engineering risk management and decision process, and the methodology can also be applied to other buildings, bridges or civil infrastructure systems.


How should we understand biblical texts where God is depicted as acting irrationally, violently, or destructively? If we distance ourselves from disturbing portrayals of God, how should we understand the authority of Scripture? How does the often wrathful God portrayed in the Old Testament relate to the God of love proclaimed in the New Testament? Is that contrast even accurate? Disturbing Divine Behavior addresses these perennially vexing questions for the student of the Bible. Eric A. Seibert calls for an engaged and discerning reading of the Old Testament that distinguishes the particular literary and theological goals achieved through narrative characterizations of God from the rich understanding of the divine to which the Old Testament as a whole points. Providing illuminating reflections on theological reading as well, this book will be a welcome resource for any readers who puzzle over disturbing representations of God in the Bible.


We perform first-principles molecular dynamics of liquid oxygen in which the magnetic structure evolves according to a generalized density-functional scheme allowing for noncollinear spin configurations. We investigate both structural correlations between the orientations of the molecular axes and magnetic correlations between the orientations of the molecular magnetic moments, demonstrating a clear relation between the local molecular configuration and the relative magnetic arrangement. The nuclear structure factor obtained from the simulation is found to agree well with the experimental one. The calculated magnetic structure factor shows antiferromagnetic correlations between molecules in the first shell, in accord with spin-polarized neutron scattering measurements. We observe the formation of dynamically coupled molecules, known as O-4 units, in which the molecular moments are aligned in an antiferromagnetic fashion. An analysis based on the life time of such units, revealed that in most cases the O-4 units occur as transient configurations during collisions. However, we also observed a small fraction of O-4 units surviving for relatively long periods. To account for electronic excitations which are missed in our density-functional scheme, we complement our description with a mean field model for the thermal fluctuations of the magnetic structure. The combined scheme is found to improve the description of the magnetic neutron structure factor and allows us to study the dependence of the magnetic susceptibility on temperature.


The continual advancements in major technological sectors and their immediate relevance to society has led to significant changes in the way people interact in their homes and in society. Similarly, and consequently, advances in science have considerably improved our ability to study microorganisms and have brought about major developments in characterising microbial symbiotic populations in our body (microbiota) as well as the environment. The availability of antimicrobial technologies has led to improvements in hygiene and has introduced a new standard in developed and developing countries. It has been suggested, however, that improvements in hygiene, may have contributed directly or indirectly to a rise in our tendency to develop allergic diseases (atopy). In this review we will provide the most up to date evidence that will shed light into a new perspective surrounding this theory. We will provide insights into current research focusing on the role of hygiene especially in regard to the hygiene practice improvements made recently in industrialised society. Furthermore, we will discuss the evidence surrounding the reasons behind the unprecedented rise in atopic disease in relation to existing hygiene trends, particularly in domestic settings. This review will finally address the question whether a reduction in public hygiene would be beneficial for public health and relate this to current research evidence.


This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on executive compensation. We start by presenting data on the level of CEO and other top executive pay over time and across firms, the changing composition of pay; and the strength of executive incentives. We compare pay in U.S. public firms to private and non-U.S. firms. We then critically analyze three non-exclusive explanations for what drives executive pay - shareholder value maximization by boards, rent extraction by executives, and institutional factors such as regulation, taxation, and accounting policy. We confront each hypothesis with the evidence. While shareholder value maximization is consistent with many practices that initially seem inefficient, no single explanation can account for all facts and historical trends; we highlight major gaps for future research. We discuss evidence on the effects of executive pay, highlighting recent identification strategies, and suggest policy implications grounded in theoretical and empirical research. Our survey has two main goals. First, we aim to tightly link the theoretical literature to the empirical evidence, and combine the insights contributed by all three views on the drivers of pay. Second, we aim to provide a user-friendly guide to executive compensation, presenting shareholder value theories using a simple unifying model, and discussing the challenges and methodological issues with empirical research.


Innovation commons – which we define as repositories of freely-accessible, "open source" innovation-related information and data - are a very significant resource for innovating and innovation-adopting firms and individuals: Availability of free data and information reduces the innovation-specific private or open investment required to make the next innovative advance. Despite the clear social welfare value of innovation commons under many conditions, academic innovation research and innovation policymaking have to date focused almost entirely on enhancing private incentives to innovate by enabling innovators to keep some types of innovation-related information at least temporarily apart from the commons, via intellectual property rights. In this paper, our focus is squarely on innovation commons theory, evidence, and policy implications. We first discuss the varying nature of and contents of innovation commons extant today. We summarize what is known about their functioning, their scale, the value they provide to innovators and to general social welfare, and the mechanisms by which this is accomplished. Perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, and with the important exception of major digital platform firms, we find that many who develop innovation-related information at private cost have private economic incentives to contribute their information to innovation commons for free access by free riders. We conclude with a discussion of the value of more general support for innovation commons, and how this could be provided by increased private and public investment in innovation commons "engineering", and by specific forms of innovation policymaking to increase social welfare via enhancement of innovation commons.


Abstract. Amazonian podzols store huge amounts of carbon and play a key role in transferring organic matter to the Amazon River. In order to better understand their C dynamics, we modelled the formation of representative Amazonian podzol profiles by constraining both total carbon and radiocarbon. We determined the relationships between total carbon and radiocarbon in organic C pools numerically by setting constant C and 14C inputs over time. The model was an effective tool for determining the order of magnitude of the carbon fluxes and the time of genesis of the main carbon-containing horizons, i.e. the topsoil and deep Bh. We performed retrocalculations to take into account the bomb carbon in the young topsoil horizons (calculated apparent 14C age from 62 to 109 years). We modelled four profiles representative of Amazonian podzols, two profiles with an old Bh (calculated apparent 14C age 6.8  ×  103 and 8.4  ×  103 years) and two profiles with a very old Bh (calculated apparent 14C age 23.2  ×  103 and 25.1  ×  103 years). The calculated fluxes from the topsoil to the perched water table indicate that the most waterlogged zones of the podzolized areas are the main source of dissolved organic matter found in the river network. It was necessary to consider two Bh carbon pools to accurately represent the carbon fluxes leaving the Bh as observed in previous studies. We found that the genesis time of the studied soils was necessarily longer than 15  ×  103 and 130  ×  103 years for the two younger and two older Bhs, respectively, and that the genesis time calculated considering the more likely settings runs to around 15  ×  103–25  ×  103 and 150  ×  103–250  ×  103 years, respectively.


This thesis is essentially about human interaction and engagement with ICTs, in this case the internet. Its primary objective is to explain how human-techno relationships are constructed, maintained and modified, and to assess a number of social factors influential in the shaping process.

The thesis presents a qualitative in-depth analysis of 16 households, in order to provide an understanding of the intricate and subtle processes of domestication and how they are influenced by a range of social factors. In Ireland, traditional studies of internet users have been general and wide-scale. Thus, a small scale, userfocused qualitative analysis of the ways internet technologies are becoming technologies of everyday life is timely. Therefore, the present study marks a move away from determinist-focused reports, towards a social shaping of technology perspective, in order to analyse the influence of social factors on the domestication and consumption of the internet in the household.

The major conclusion of this research is that one must look beyond a single influence or social factor to accurately portray the nature of domestic internet consumption. The current study presents a multi-layered analysis of how social factors, especially social class, gender, age and economic factors influence the use and consumption of the internet. In addition, case-studies of individual households are used to examine the influence of such factors in depth. A user-based analysis of the domestication process, rendered from an application of the Silverstone model, is constructed. Through this practical application, an understanding is gained of the complex processes of domestication involved in acquisition, use, consumption and conceptualisation of technologies in 'everyday' life. The present thesis provides concrete examples and experiences of social factors working together to shape the ways people create themselves as users, and the ways they form relationships with and engage with the artefact.


We discuss ways in which the optomechanical coupling provided by radiation pressure can be used to cool macroscopic collective degrees of freedom such as the vibrational modes of movable mirrors. Cooling is achieved with a phase-sensitive feedback loop that effectively overdamps a mirror's motion without increasing the thermal noise. The feedback that results can bring macroscopic objects down to the quantum limit. In particular, it is possible to achieve squeezing and entanglement.


Abstract Moving target detection and tracking algorithm research content is very broad and complex applications, without and different target features directly affects the detection of selected tracking algorithm. So far still does not exist a universal algorithm for perfect can be suitable for various applications, so the detection and tracking of moving targets is still a valuable research subject of. The research work in this paper is in the field, the moving target detection spatiotemporal correlation and difference contour tracking algorithm based on a fixed background. The algorithm in the background under the condition of fixed to pay a smaller time complexity, the target detection and tracking has a good effect, so it has higher application value. Based on solving the detection and location of moving target tracking in real-time and accuracy requirements, a new moving target detection spatiotemporal correlation and difference contour tracking scheme based on the practical implementation, at the same time analysis and the experimental results are given. In the moving target tracking, tracking method is mainly traditional correlation method target based on template matching. The matching process is time consuming, so the actual use of more of the improved algorithm of correlation method, the improved algorithm attempts to improve the efficiency of feature matching and search range, and also achieved a certain effect, the some excellent tracking algorithm. This paper presents an improved active contour model tracking algorithm, improve the tracking efficiency and quality, the algorithm first from the frame difference detection results to find the moving target coarse contour, and then the convergence of coarse contour by using improved Snake algorithm, the right edge to get the target in the course of the campaign, in order to achieve the tracking of moving objects.


A smart grid-base AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure), which checks electricity consumption and controls the electric energy used with the demand response technique, is necessary for remotely managing the load of the energy and power consumed in order to comprise energy efficiency for electrical devices in homes. The smart controller calculates the amount of electricity consumed by customer on real time basis from the utility supplier like electric supply company. In this paper, we propose the hardware architecture and software of the smart controller for use as the platform in smart grid system to reduce energy consumption. The smart controller can be installed on the electric plug of the electric appliance. The smart controller grasps the energy amount used in the electric appliance and delivers to the AMI / EMS (Energy Management Server). In addition, we evaluated an experimental system to practically verify functions of the smart controller which is attached to the lighting device. From the system, we showed that the electric source of the illumination can be controlled according to the load change and saved energy effectively. We also confirmed the structural benefit and the energy-efficient effect through the verification of the smart controller.


The throughput benefits of random linear network codes have been studied extensively for wirelined and wireless erasure networks. It is often assumed that all nodes within a network perform coding operations. In energy-constrained systems, however, coding subgraphs should be chosen to control the number of coding nodes while maintaining throughput. In this paper, we explore the strategic use of network coding in the wireless packet erasure relay channel according to both throughput and energy metrics. In the relay channel, a single source communicates to a single sink through the aid of a half-duplex relay. The fluid flow model is used to describe the case where both the source and the relay are coding, and Markov chain models are proposed to describe packet evolution if only the source or only the relay is coding. In addition to transmission energy, we take into account coding and reception energies. We show that coding at the relay alone while operating in a rateless fashion is neither throughput nor energy efficient. Given a set of system parameters, our analysis determines the optimal amount of time the relay should participate in the transmission, and where coding should be performed.


This paper presents a high-efficiency parallel architecture for a turbo decoder using a quadratic permutation polynomial (QPP) interleaver. Conventionally, two half-iterations for different component codewords alternate during the decoding flow. Due to the initialization calculation and pipeline delays in every half-iteration, the functional units in turbo decoders will be idle for several cycles. This inactive period will degrade throughput, especially for small blocks or high parallelism. To resolve this issue, we impose several constraints on the QPP interleaver and rearrange the processing schedule; then the following half-iteration can be executed before the completion of the current half-iteration. Thus, it can eliminate the idle cycles and increase the efficiency of functional units. Based on this modified schedule with 100% efficiency, a parallel turbo decoder which contains 32 radix-24 SISO decoders is implemented with 90 nm technology to achieve 1.4 Gb/s while decoding size-4096 blocks for 8 iterations.


An all-optical serial-to-parallel converter (SPC) utilizing two cascaded phase modulators and optical band-pass filters (OBPFs) is experimentally investigated and applied to demultiplex an 80-GBd optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM) return-to-zero (RZ) differential quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) signal. Two 40-GBd OTDM tributaries are error-free demultiplexed with a power penalty of approximately 4 dB in the worst case. With its advantages of compact structure, high speed, low power penalty, simultaneous two-tributary operation, and no assistance from a light source, the SPC has potential for use in future OTDM networks. However, the performance of the SPC still needs improvement.


Flow over arrays of cubes is an extensively studied model problem for rough wall turbulent boundary layers. While considerable research has been performed in computationally investigating these topologies using DNS and LES, the ability of sublayer-resolved RANS to predict the bulk flow phenomena of these systems is relatively unexplored, especially at low and high packing densities. Here, RANS simulations are conducted on six different packing densities of cubes in aligned and staggered configurations. The packing densities investigated span from what would classically be defined as isolated, up to those in the d-type roughness regime, filling in the gap in the present literature. Three different sublayer-resolved turbulence closure models were tested for each case; a low Reynolds number k-ε model, the Menter k-ω SST model, and a full Reynolds stress model. Comparisons of the velocity fields, secondary flow features, and drag coefficients are made between the RANS results and existing LES and DNS results. There is a significant degree of variability in the performance of the various RANS models across all comparison metrics. However, the Reynolds stress model demonstrated the best accuracy in terms of the mean velocity profile as well as drag partition across the range of packing densities.


PURPOSE: To describe our experience with congenital anomalies of the posterior arch of the atlas, with a review and classification of these defects and a note on their clinical significance. METHODS: We report six children and one adult, the mother of one of the children, with an anomalous posterior arch of the atlas. The diagnosis was made on lateral films of the neck. Three patients also had axial CT of the cervical spine. RESULTS: The anomalies encountered in the seven patients were absence of the posterior arch of the atlas (four patients), bilateral clefts (two patients), and unilateral cleft (one patient). In three patients the anomaly was discovered as an incidental asymptomatic finding; three other patients presented with transient neck pain or transient neurologic symptoms after head and neck trauma, and one patient (an adult woman) described neck symptoms of 1-year duration. CONCLUSIONS: On the basis of these seven cases we conclude that congenital defects of the posterior arch of the atlas may be discovered as incidental asymptomatic findings, but symptoms occurring after trauma to the head and neck or sponta neously also may be encountered.


Plant cells are constantly bombarded with information to which they must react. Signal transduction, the means whereby cells construct responses to a signal, is a recently defined focus of research in plant biology. The application of biochemical and molecular genetic techniques has resulted in major advances in elucidating the mechanisms that regulate gene expression and in identifying components of many signal transduction pathways in diverse physiological systems. Today, signal transduction research contributes to all aspects of plant science, linking many fields of study in much the same way that signal transduction pathways link myriad cellular processes. C H A P T E R 18


The Web and web-based technologies have become widely acceptable and feasible in the modern society. It has created a new paradigm in various areas, including the field of education. Web-based learning, as a strong manifestation of e-learning, has also become indispensible within the tertiary education context. Web-based learning is powerful in many aspects in both traditional curriculum as well as online courses. The Web provides teaching staff and students with a powerful source for interactive communication, placement of teaching materials, assessment and evaluation. As the main stakeholders in Web-based learning are students and teaching staff, it is important to understand their views and attitudes toward the Web as a learning resource.
This research involved the participation of 502 students and 100 teaching staff from seven faculties/disciplines at the University of Tasmania. The aim of this study was to investigate the significance of the Web as a learning resource in this university context. It examined the views of teaching staff and students toward the significance of the Web in teaching and learning practices, and identified the environment in which the Web was used to facilitate teaching and learning. This study used both quantitative and qualitative methods for data collection and analysis. It involved two stages of data collection. One questionnaire and two sets of interview questions were used respectively. The statistical data were analysed using the SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) software version 18.0. The textual data collected from the interviews, were analysed using the NVivo qualitative data analysis software version 8. Constructivist grounded theory and thematic analysis were the basis of qualitative data analysis.
The results of this study indicated a strong recognition of the role of the Web as a learning resource at the University of Tasmania. The Web was recognised as performing an essential role in the processes of communication, information retrieval, collaborative learning and assessment. Also, the Web and web-based technologies were seen as an important supplementary tool for face-to-face learning. However, there were differences between perceived expectations of web-based education by teaching staff and students, and the ways in which it was conducted and managed. By discussing the end-users" views and evaluations, recommendations are made on the further development and modification of the Web adoption. It suggests that taking student expectations and needs into consideration can help create a more supportive and meaningful web-based learning environment. Training for both staff and students is also desired to enhance their skills in using the Web as a learning resource and to provide standard web-based support in all courses.


The paper considers the merits of rules and discretion for monetary policy when the structure of the macroeconomic model and the probability distributions of disturbances are not well defined. It is argued that when it is costly to delay policy reactions to seldom-experienced shocks until formal algorithmic learning has been accomplished, and when time consistency problems are significant, a mixed strategy that combines a simple verifiable rule with discretion is attractive. The paper also discusses mechanisms for mitigating credibility problems and emphasizes that arguments against various types of simple rules lost their force under a mixed strategy.


. This paper is twofold. First, the authors analysed the state of the art on the explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) applied to affective computing, emotion analysis, and sentiment analysis. Second, based on Kaptein's approach and using the personality, emotion, and mood model proposed by Egges, the authors tested an Emotion-aware XAI framework to determine the affective state of predefined-behaviour autonomous entities in uncertainty contexts. The affective state analysis of eight selected formal use cases was divided into four stages: personality settings, event evaluation, emotions and moods generation, and results classification. Findings suggest that the affective state depends on the type of predominant personality and the influence of the events in the environment.


ABSTRACT The research impact agenda is frequently portrayed through 'crisis' accounts whereby academic identity is at risk of a kind of existential unravelling. Amid reports of academics under siege in an environment in which self-sovereignty is traditionally preferred and regulation is resisted, heightened emotionalism, namely fear and dread, dominates the discourse. Such accounts belie the complexity of the varying moral dispositions, experiences and attitudes possessed by different individuals and groups in the academic research community. In this article, we attempt to examine the role of the affective in response to a particular research policy directive – the impact agenda. In doing so, we reveal the contributing factors affecting the community's reaction to impact. In cases where personal, moral and disciplinary identities align with the impact agenda, the emotional response is positive and productive. For many academics, however, misalignment gives rise to emotional dissonance. We argue that when harnessed, further acknowledgement of the role of emotion in the academy can produce a more socially and morally coherent response to an impact agenda. We review academic responses from the UK and Australia (n = 51) and observe a community heavily emotionally invested in what they do, such that threats to academic identity and research are consequently threats to the self.


We examine bond covenants of 29 New Zealand bond issues between 2001 and 2007. Results from the study indicate that protection provided for bondholders is weak and limited. On average, only 2-3 types of covenants are embedded with the issues and only 27% of these covenants provide full protection to the bondholders. However, bondholders are not compensated for taking the additional risk. We propose an alternative assessment framework that directly assesses the level of protection offered to bondholders. We calculate the covenant quality score for the issues and classify them into four levels of protection: very high protection, moderate, low and very low. Recent legislative changes will go some way towards improving investor protection and confidence, but the effect is yet to be seen. This proposed scoring framework can be used by potential investors to complement the traditional credit ratings when making their investment decisions.


Extracted from text ... World-class, Proudly South
African and branding:
critical features in business
Management Today October 2006 53
MT: How does HR fit into this equation
and what contribution should it make at
corporate strategy level? Is there room
for HR to become a strategic business
partner?
SAMPSON: Human resources play a critical
role, but the driving force needs to be a
corporate strategy as agreed to by the entire
business. If organisations do not employ
the best people and invest in them
they will be unable to deliver on that strategy.
MT: Being in the FMCG industry and
with poverty being so ..


In the past decade the 'creative cluster' has become a driver of urban renewal in China. Many cluster developments attract human capital and investment to post-industrial spaces. This paper looks at two developments which are more post-agricultural than post-industrial: the first is Songzhuang, a large scale contemporary art community situated on the eastern fringe of Beijing, the second is Hangzhou's White Horse Lake Creative Eco-City, a 'mixed variety' cluster model which integrates elements of art, fashion, design and animation. The common factor in both cases is how they came into existence. In both districts urban creative workers moved into a rural environment. Drawing on interviews with planners, officials, and residents we investigate the challenges of sustaining such fringe clusters.


This book updates and advances the theory of expected utility as applied to risk analysis and financial decision making. Von Neumann and Morgenstern pioneered the use of expected utility theory in the 1940s, but most utility functions used in financial management are still relatively simplistic and assume a mean-variance world. Taking into account recent advances in the economics of risk and uncertainty, this book focuses on richer applications of expected utility in finance, macroeconomics, and environmental economics. The book covers these topics: expected utility theory and related concepts; the standard portfolio problem of choice under uncertainty involving two different assets; P the basic hyperplane separation theorem and log-supermodular functions as technical tools for solving various decision-making problems under uncertainty; s choice involving multiple risks; the Arrow-Debreu portfolio problem; consumption and saving; the equilibrium price of risk and time in an Arrow-Debreu economy; and dynamic models of decision making when a flow of information on future risks is expected over time. The book is appropriate for both students and professionals. Concepts are presented intuitively as well as formally, and the theory is balanced by empirical considerations. Each chapter concludes with a problem set.


Abstract Omariniite, ideally Cu8Fe2ZnGe2S12, represents the Ge-analogue of stannoidite and was found in bornite-chalcocite-rich ores near the La Rosario vein of the Capillitas epithermal deposit, Catamarca Province, Argentina. The mineral is associated closely with three other Ge-bearing minerals (putzite, catamarcaite, rarely zincobriartite) and bornite, chalcocite, digenite, covellite, sphalerite, tennantite, luzonite, wittichenite, thalcusite and traces of mawsonite. The width of the seams rarely exceeds 60 μm, their length can attain several 100 μm. The mineral is opaque, orange-brown in polished section, has a metallic lustre and a brownish-black streak. It is brittle, and the fracture is irregular to subconchoidal. Neither cleavage nor parting are observable in the sections. In plane-polarized light omariniite is brownish-orange and has a weak pleochroism. Internal reflections are absent. The mineral is distinctly anisotropic with rotation tints varying between brownish-orange and greenish-brown. The average result of 45 electron-microprobe analyses is Cu 42.18(34), Fe 9.37(26), Zn 5.17(43), In 0.20(6), Ge 11.62(22), S 31.80(20), total 100.34(46) wt.%. The empirical formula, based on Σ(Me + S) = 25, is Cu8.04(Fe2.03In0.02)Σ2.05Zn0.96 Ge1.94S12.01, ideally Cu8 +Fe2 +Zn2+Ge2 4+S12 2-. Omariniite is orthorhombic, space group I222, with unit-cell parameters: a = 10.774(1), b = 5.3921(5), c = 16.085(2) Å, V = 934.5(2) Å3, a:b:c = 1.9981:1:2.9831, Z = 2. X-ray single-crystal studies (R 1 = 0.023) revealed the structure to be a sphalerite derivative identical to that of stannoidite. Omariniite is named after Dr. Ricardo Héctor Omarini (1946–2015), Professor at the University of Salta, for his numerous contributions to the geology of Argentina.


The web is a potentially useful corpus for language study because it provides examples of language that are contextualized and authentic, and is large and easily searchable. However, web contents are heterogeneous in the extreme, uncontrolled and hence 'dirty,' and exhibit features different from the written and spoken texts in other linguistic corpora. This article explores the use of the web and web search as a resource for language teaching and learning. We describe how a particular derived corpus containing a trillion word tokens in the form of n-grams has been filtered by word lists and syntactic constraints and used to create three digital library collections, linked with other corpora and the live web, that exploit the affordances of web text and mitigate some of its constraints.


We investigate general principles implemented in a lexical Database named LEXICOGRAF. In our Database lexical definition is divided into a sequence of syntactically independent semantic components. The priority is given to those components that can be used to predict and to explain non-trivial peculiarities of surface behaviour shared by a class of words such as co-occurrence restrictions, systematic polysemy etc. The Database is associated with what may be called a Knowledge Base a repository of general rules and regularities pertaining to theoretical lexicography. The paper presents a description and a linguistic substantiation of an expert system named LEXICOGRAF The project is being carried out at VINITI, Moscow, by an interinstitutional research group supervised by Elena V. Padutcheva.The basic idea is to present lexicographic information in the form of a lexical data base of a relational type: all information about a lexeme (= a word taken in one of its senses) is distributed between several domains, each having some definite range of values. As a result, the user is enabled to conduct a search of any depth within the frame of the given set of parameters. The system includes two components: (1) the Database proper and (2) the Knowledge base. The main attention is paid to semantic information about words. So, in fact, the system in question is a semantic dictionary presented in the form of a relational database.


The fastest, easiest, most comprehensive way to learn ActionScript 3.0 for Adobe Flash CS4 Professional ActionScript 3.0 for Adobe Flash CS4 Professional Classroom in a Book contains 14 lessons. The book covers the basics of learning ActionScript and provides countless tips and techniques to help you become more productive. You can follow the book from start to finish or choose only those lessons that interest you. Learn to add interactivity to Flash files using ActionScript 3.0: Control timelines and animation, write event-handling functions, and control loading of and interaction with data, text, video, sound, and images. The Classroom in a Book series is by far the best training material on the market. Everything you need to master the software is included: clear explanations of each lesson, step-by-step instructions, and the project files for the students. Barbara Binder, Adobe Certified Instructor, Rocky Mountain TrainingClassroom in a Book, the best-selling series of hands-on software training workbooks, helps you learn the features of Adobe software quickly and easily. Classroom in a Book offers what no other book or training program doesan official training series from Adobe Systems Incorporated, developed with the support of Adobe product experts.


This paper presents the development of novel three phase composite materials consisting of reinforcing fibers and continuous thermoplastic fibers in a thermoset matrix. In this work, two hybridization strategies have been employed for blending thermoplastic fibers with reinforcing fibers- comingling and micro-wrapping. S-glass and Polypropylene have been blended using a) air-jet comingling process and b) intratow micro-wrapping. Damage resistance and tolerance of the two material systems have been evaluated with drop-weight impact and compression after impact (CAI) tests. Results indicate that thermoplastic fibers improve the total absorbed energy of the composite by toughing mechanism through extensive plastic deformation as well as providing a protection to glass fibers to enhance damage tolerance of the hybrid laminates.


The synthesis of palladium(ii) complexes containing N-heterocyclic carbene chelate ligands is reported. These chelate ligands have methylene or ethylene ring bridges and sulfonate, carbonate or ammonium functionalities to render the complexes soluble in water. Bis- [(bis-NHC)PdX2] (X = Cl, Br or I) and tetra-carbene [(bis-NHC)2Pd] complexes have been prepared and the crystal structures of two of them have been determined. The NHC ligand is coordinated to the metal center in normal (C2-bound) or abnormal (C4-bound) mode. Processes involving the formation of NHC-Pd bonds or the transfer of NHC ligands have been explored in water. The behavior of the bis-carbene complexes as catalysts for the aerobic oxidation of 1-phenylethanol is also discussed.


The "Venus of Cyrene", a Roman copy of a Greek original marble, was found by Italian soldiers in Cyrenaica in 1913. In 1915 the statue was shipped to Italy and put on display in the Museo nazionale romano, where it remained until its return to Libya (2008). This essay investigated the symbolic and cultural reasons of the acquisition first, and of the restitution then, of the sculpture, exploring its discursive and visual use and the long-lasting meanings the statue was loaded with. After having analysing the role of the Venus in the definition of a specific national and imperial (self) representation in Liberal and Fascist Italy, the essay focuses on the question of its restitution, upheld in 2008 by two court-decisions. Protests and debates caused by its return to Libya highlighted the Italian difficulties to face its own past and the persistence of a "colonial archive" over the time.


Philosophical Perspectives on Play builds on the disciplinary and paradigmatic bridges constructed between the study of philosophy and play in The Philosophy of Play (Routledge, 2013) to develop a richer understanding of the concept and nature of play and its relation to human life and value. Made up of contributions from leading international thinkers and inviting readers to explore the presumptions often attached to play and playfulness, the book considers ways that play in 'virtual' and 'real' worlds can inform understandings of each, critiquing established norms and encouraging scepticism about the practice and experience of play.

Organised around four central themes -- play(ing) at the limits, aesthetics, metaphysics/ontology and ethics -- the book extends and challenges notions of play by drawing on issues emerging in sport, gaming, literature, space and art, with specific attention paid to disruption and danger. It is intended to provide scholars and practitioners working in the spheres of play, education, games, sport and related subjects with a deeper understanding of philosophical thought and to open dialogue across these disciplines.


Germany has about the same proportion of foreigners in its population as the United States, it is an immigration country. In a way, Germany has let immigration happen, but it did not really have an explicit immigration policy in the past. Now it has to make up its mind on its immigration policy in the future. The paper looks at the experience with immigration in the past, at the integration of foreigners and at the issues of immigration policy.


ABSTRACT MOOCs are promising opportunities for lifelong learning, but as promising as these learning opportunities seem, many learners do not succeed in pursuing their personal learning goals. Barriers to learning are the main reason for not finishing the intended (parts of the) MOOCs. This study addressed the question whether the factors age, gender, educational level, and online learning experience affect barriers faced while learning in MOOCs. The results show that it is challenging to combine work and family life with lifelong (online) learning activities, especially for learners in their early adulthood and mid-life. However, more experience with online learning positively affects individuals' ability to cope with these challenges. Also, learners with a lower educational level may experience a lack of knowledge or difficulties with the course content. These findings may serve as input to inform potentially vulnerable learners about these issues and support them in successfully achieving their personal learning goals.


Myers first identified the world's 25 biodiversity hotspots and pioneered innovative ideas about the usefulness of biodiversity models for establishing long-term resource conservation strategies at global scales. Since Myers, most of the subsequent studies using hotspot science for biodiversity modeling have used large spatial scales like countries, provinces or states, and other biogeoraphic regions. The California Floristic Province continues to be one of the recognized global biodiversity hotspots. Our study site, San Luis Obispo County is within this hotspot and we created a map of plant biodiversity hotspots at the county scale using GIS technology. We wanted to determine the effectiveness and applicability of biodiversity hotspot mapping at this scale with anticipation that the map will serve as a new tool for establishing long-term resource conservation strategies in the County. Our plant biodiversity hotspot map is based on distribution data collected from herbarium specimens of San Luis Obispo County's rare flora. These data were extracted from the Hoover Herbarium at Cal Poly and manually digitized into GIS. We built a model with GIS to identify, locate, and quantify the resultant hotspots from the data. The overall approach was successful at identifying and quantifying the attributes and geographic extents of plant biodiversity hotspots at the county scale. Our results are highly applicable for establishing local and regional plant conservation priorities at lower resolutions, which is frequently where land acquisition and reserve establishment occurs. We conclude that biodiversity hotspot modeling with GIS is an effective tool that can be applied to many other finer-scale biological inventories for conservation purposes.


Myths prevail among the general public about wood, forest products, and the condition of the environment in the United States. Research shows that most people are unaware about the proliferation of products that they use in their daily lives that are made out of or are derived from wood, about the amount (and shortcomings) of paper recycling in America, and the degree of environmental "friendliness" that wood and non-wood substitutes inherently possess. Students surveyed on Virginia Tech's campus could not state the main purpose of the United States Forest Service, nor could they identify the primary reason rainforests in South America are disappearing. Survey results from undergraduate students enrolled in the Department of Wood Science and Forest Products showed that they have a much better understanding of the environment and use of wood in people's lives. Survey results from students enrolled in the wood curricula closely parallel those from employees in the wood products industry. An exhaustive literature review of current academic and popular journals is summarized, as are results from the Virginia Tech survey. The impact that public misperceptions have on the wood products industry and steps to remedy them are also examined. Research findings show that the forest products industry needs a coordinated and centralized public promotion campaign to inform the general public about wood's attributes and environmental advantages.


Despite a multitude of empirical studies, little consensus exists on whether neural networks are able to generalise compositionally, a controversy that, in part, stems from a lack of agreement about what it means for a neural model to be compositional. As a response to this controversy, we present a set of tests that provide a bridge between, on the one hand, the vast amount of linguistic and philosophical theory about compositionality of language and, on the other, the successful neural models of language. We collect different interpretations of compositionality and translate them into five theoretically grounded tests for models that are formulated on a task-independent level. In particular, we provide tests to investigate (i) if models systematically recombine known parts and rules (ii) if models can extend their predictions beyond the length they have seen in the training data (iii) if models' composition operations are local or global (iv) if models' predictions are robust to synonym substitutions and (v) if models favour rules or exceptions during training. To demonstrate the usefulness of this evaluation paradigm, we instantiate these five tests on a highly compositional data set which we dub PCFG SET and apply the resulting tests to three popular sequence-to-sequence models: a recurrent, a convolution-based and a transformer model. We provide an in-depth analysis of the results, which uncover the strengths and weaknesses of these three architectures and point to potential areas of improvement.


Management of the organic fraction of urban solid waste using anaerobic procedures will contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and using biogas, which is a carbon neutral energy, to generate electrical energy will eventually help in reducing the combustion of fossil fuel. Energy recovery in the form of biogas from Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) generated in three different locations is studied. The present status of the biomethanation plants at these locations is reviewed and analysed, in order to understand the prospects of biomethanation as a technological option for managing the increasing urban solid waste sustainability. In spite of the fact that biomethanation is an established technology worldwide, including India, the scale-up of the same has become an uphill task, both for the Central Government and the Urban Local Bodies. Biomethanation for processing the organic fraction of urban solid wastes needs a lot of planning, not only with respect to the design, construction and operation, but also with institutionalising the concept of integrated solid waste management, without which biomethanation would not be a viable option.


This thesis analyses the effectiveness of the current process structure across the main Rolls-Royce measurement capability groups, namely: Manufacturing, Material and Chemical Evaluation, Testing, and Sensing for Control and Monitoring, in terms of measurement activities, compliance with key attributes and requirements of International Standards related to measurement and compliance with the internal and external regulations for civil aerospace products. An analysis of the impact of introducing the generic measurement process was also performed, qualitatively to consider the overall risks of introducing a generic measurement process and changing the current methods, and quantitatively to assess the risks of failure of the proposed key attributes gathered from the research and interviews, of the generic measurement process through the Process Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (PFMEA).
The research methodology consists of four phases, including data collection through interviews of key contacts within the measurement community across Rolls-Royce, analysis of the current measurement processes or Group Procedures, definition of key attributes for the generic measurement process structure, analysis of the risks and finally validation. The research strategy followed was based on qualitative data. Semi-structured interviews, review of technical documentation, quality audits, international standards and regulations were used to obtain the information required.
The major benefit of the developed analysis is to set the requirements both internally and externally to include in a proposed Generic Measurement Process, have an indication of the readiness level of the four measurement capabilities to adopt this process and analyse the risks, both globally of introducing the process, and the risk of failure and effect of the proposed attributes.
Keywords: Generic Measurement Process, Measurement Uncertainty, Product Lifecycle, Measurement Capability, Measurement System


Simultaneous trawling at surface and at depth at one location off the Columbia River, Oregon, in June 2000 identified the depth distribution of juvenile salmonids and associated fishes. Juvenile salmon off the Columbia River were distributed primarily near the surface, within the upper 12 m. Highest densities of subyearling chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) off the Columbia River were associated with high surface currents and decreasing tidal levels, with time of day possibly a co-factor. Densities of yearling chinook salmon increased with higher turbidity. Pacific herring (Clupea pallasi) was the most abundant and commonly caught forage fish, with density increasing at night, probably related to diel vertical migration. Catches of juvenile salmonids were not associated with catches of forage fishes. Daytime surface trawling appears to be an appropriate method for assessing the distribution and abundance of juvenile salmonids in marine habitats.


Objective. The power spectrum of the human electroencephalogram (EEG) as a function of frequency is a mix of brain oscillations (Osc) (e.g. alpha activity around 10 Hz) and non-Osc or noise of uncertain origin. 'White noise' is uniformly distributed over frequency, while 'pink noise' has an inverse power-frequency relation (power ∝ 1/f). Interest in EEG pink noise has been growing, but previous human estimates appear methodologically flawed. We propose a new approach to extract separate valid estimates of pink and white noise from an EEG power spectrum. Approach. We use simulated data to demonstrate its effectiveness compared with established procedures, and provide an illustrative example from a new resting eyes-open (EO) and eyes-closed (EC) dataset. The topographic characteristics of the obtained pink and white noise estimates are examined, as is the alpha power in this sample. Main results. Valid pink and white noise estimates were successfully obtained for each of our 5400 individual spectra (60 participants × 30 electrodes × 3 conditions/blocks [EO1, EC, EO2]). The 1/f noise had a distinct central scalp topography, and white noise was occipital in distribution, both differing from the parietal topography of the alpha Osc. These differences point to their separate neural origins. EC pink and white noise powers were globally greater than in EO. Significance. This valid estimation of pink and white noise in the human EEG holds promise for more accurate assessment of oscillatory neural activity in both typical and clinical groups, such as those with attention deficits. Further, outside the human EEG, the new methodology can be generalized to remove noise from spectra in many fields of science and technology.


Binary and multiple systems constitute more than half of the total stellar population in the Solar neighborhood (Kiseleva-Eggleton & Eggleton 2001). Their frequent occurrence as well as the fact that more than 70 (Schneider et al. 2011) planets have already been discovered in such configurations - most noteably the telluric companion of α Cen B (Dumusque et al. 2012) - make them interesting targets in the search for habitable worlds. Recent studies (Eggl et al. 2012b; Forgan 2012) have shown, that despite the variations in gravitational and radiative environment, there are indeed circumstellar regions where planets can stay within habitable insolation limits on secular dynamical timescales. In this article we provide habitable zones for 19 near S-Type binary systems from the Hipparchos and WDS catalogues with semimajor axes between 1 and 100 AU. Hereby, we accounted for the combined dynamical and radiative influence of the second star on the Earth-like planet. Out of the 19 systems presented, 17 offer dynamically stable habitable zones around at least one component. The 17 potentially habitable systems contain 5 F, 3 G, 7 K and 16 M class stars. As their proximity to the Solar System (d < 31 pc) makes the selected binary stars exquisite targets for observational campaigns, we offer estimates on radial velocity, astrometric and transit signatures produced by habitable Earth-like planets in eccentric circumstellar orbits.


The DNA sequences which interact with the estrogen receptor and which mediate the estrogenic regulation of prolactin gene transcription have been investigated by the use of receptor-DNA-binding experiments and gene transfer studies. Nitrocellulose filter binding assays using highly purified estrogen receptor and cloned fragments of the 5'-flanking region of the rat prolactin gene demonstrate that the receptor selectively binds to DNA sequences located between nucleotides -1713 and -1532 with respect to the transcription initiation site. The binding of the estrogen receptor to this region of the prolactin gene was strongly dependent on receptor concentration, suggesting that receptor dimers may be important in DNA binding. These data demonstrate that the selective binding of purified estrogen receptor to specific sequences of the rat prolactin gene is an intrinsic property of the receptor and is not due to the interaction of receptor with other proteins. The role of specific prolactin gene sequences in mediating the estrogenic regulation of prolactin gene transcription was confirmed by the use of prolactin-chloramphenicol acetyltransferase fusion genes. These studies demonstrated that sequences upstream of position -1532 are required for estrogen responsiveness. Furthermore, the region of the prolactin gene at -1713 to -1495 was able to confer estrogen responsiveness on the thymidine kinase promoter. Exonuclease III protection experiments further localized the receptor-binding sequences to positions -1587 to -1563. Comparison of the nucleotide sequence of the region of the prolactin gene which binds the estrogen receptor with the sequence of other estrogen-responsive genes suggested the presence of the conserved sequence [sequence in text], which shows similarity to sequences thought to mediate glucocorticoid receptor effects on transcription.


In this paper we first present a survey on traffic management and control frameworks that are based on intelligent vehicles (IV). This survey includes a short overview of IV-based traffic control measures such as cooperative adaptive cruise control, intelligent speed adaptation, and dynamic route planning. We also discuss various IV-based traffic management architectures such as PATH, Dolphin, Auto21 CDS, etc. Next, we propose a new integrated hierarchical IV-based traffic management control framework that combines the strong points of these architectures and extends them in various directions.


St. Louis encephalitis virus (SLEV) is a flavivirus that circulates in an enzootic cycle between birds and mosquitoes and can also infect humans to cause febrile disease and sometimes encephalitis. Although SLEV is endemic to the United States, no activity was detected in California during the years 2004 through 2014, despite continuous surveillance in mosquitoes and sentinel chickens. In 2015, SLEV-positive mosquito pools were detected in Maricopa County, Arizona, concurrent with an outbreak of human SLEV disease. SLEV-positive mosquito pools were also detected in southeastern California and Nevada in summer 2015. From 2016 to 2018, SLEV was detected in mosquito pools throughout southern and central California, Oregon, Idaho, and Texas. To understand genetic relatedness and geographic dispersal of SLEV in the western United States since 2015, we sequenced four historical genomes (3 from California and 1 from Louisiana) and 26 contemporary SLEV genomes from mosquito pools from locations across the western US. Bayesian phylogeographic approaches were then applied to map the recent spread of SLEV. Three routes of SLEV dispersal in the western United States were identified: Arizona to southern California, Arizona to Central California, and Arizona to all locations east of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Given the topography of the Western United States, these routes may have been limited by mountain ranges that influence the movement of avian reservoirs and mosquito vectors, which probably represents the primary mechanism of SLEV dispersal. Our analysis detected repeated SLEV introductions from Arizona into southern California and limited evidence of year-to-year persistence of genomes of the same ancestry. By contrast, genetic tracing suggests that all SLEV activity since 2015 in central California is the result of a single persistent SLEV introduction. The identification of natural barriers that influence SLEV dispersal enhances our understanding of arbovirus ecology in the western United States and may also support regional public health agencies in implementing more targeted vector mitigation efforts to protect their communities more effectively.


Abstract:The material dimensions of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which encompass multibillion-dollar investments in transport infrastructure and industrial estates, are expected to make China a key player in the development and increasing integration of mainland Southeast Asia. This article, however, looks beyond trade and hard infrastructure to examine China's emerging efforts to build influence at the ideational level through the use of Buddhism as a cultural resource. It documents government-sponsored outreach to Southeast Asia's Buddhist leaders and communities in Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. It finds that there has been a surge in outreach from a range of Chinese provinces since the advent of the BRI in 2013. These outreach efforts warrant categorization as influence operations because they are orchestrated through the offices of the United Front Work Department, are being used to promote China's political goals, and are sanctioned by a party that remains staunchly atheist and forbids its members to practise religion. In broader terms, China's use of Buddhism as an adjunct to the BRI in mainland Southeast Asia suggests it is seeking to dampen disquiet about the BRI, including by fostering a sense of shared values with mainland Southeast Asian states.


A BSTRACT : The CMS Collaboration conducted a month-long data taking exercise, the Cosmic Run At Four Tesla, during October-November 2008, with the goal of commissioning the experiment for extended operation. With all installed detector systems participating, CMS recorded 270 million cosmic ray events with the solenoid at a magnetic field strength of 3.8 T. This paper describes the data flow from the detector through the various online and offline computing systems, as well as the workflows used for recording the data, for aligning and calibrating the detector, and for analysis of the data.


The dynamics of demersal fish species assemblages and stocks on the continental
shelf of Ghana, West Africa were investigated using data from trawl surveys
conducted between 1963 and 1990, and in relation to marine environmental and nearshore
forcing factors.
Time series analysis was used to examine the dynamics of the marine environment.
Classification and ordination methods were used to identify fish assemblages and to
identify factors that determine assemblage formation and dynamics. The response of
the identified assemblages to changes in the Ghanaian shelf ecosystem were assessed.
Between 1964 and 1992, three distinct environmental time blocks (ETBs) in the
continental shelf ecosystem off Ghana were recognised. In the first ETB (i. e. before
1972) sea surface and bottom temperatures were relatively high and salinity was low.
The second ETB (1972 - 1982) was characterised by low temperatures, high but
stable salinity, reduced rainfall and freshwater input into the sea. In the third ETB
(1982 - 1992), the system bore a resemblance to the first block with rising
temperatures and decreasing salinity.
Six fish species assemblages were identified, namely the supra-thermocline sciaenid
and lutjanid assemblages, two sparid assemblages (shallow and deep elements), the
deep shelf assemblage and the upper slope assemblage. During ETB I and ETB3, the
assemblages were easier to identify using ordination techniques, than during ETB2.
Species diversity also decreased during ETB2 especially in waters between 10 and 50
m deep. This behaviour of the assemblagesis attributed to the increase in abundance
of Balistes capriscus, a species that dominated the ecosystem for nearly 20 years
from about 1971, and the observed environmental changes.
The estimated density of demersal fish was higher in the upwelling season than in the
thermocline season and decreased from 50 kg ha-1 in 1963-64 to 32.4 kg ha-1 in 1990.
The density reached its lowest value of 22.5 kg ha-1 in the period between 1973 and
1977.
The potential yield of the total demersal biomass (excluding triggerfish) is estimated
to be 36,000 - 55,000 mt per annum. With landed catches exceeding 60,000 mt in
some years, it is apparent that the resource is over-exploited. A number of policy
options are discussed and recommendations for the management of the fishery are
made.


The capitalist market, progressives bemoan, is a cold monster: it disrupts social bonds, erodes emotional attachments, and imposes an abstract utilitarian rationality. But what if such hallowed critiques are completely misleading? This book argues that the production of new sources of faith and enchantment is crucial to the dynamics of the capitalist economy. Distinctively secular patterns of attraction and attachment give modern institutions a binding force that was not available to more traditional forms of rule. Elaborating his alternative approach through an engagement with the semiotics of money and the genealogy of economy, Martijn Konings uncovers capitalism's emotional and theological content in order to understand the paradoxical sources of cohesion and legitimacy that it commands. In developing this perspective, he draws on pragmatist thought to rework and revitalize the Marxist critique of capitalism.


The realization of increased service flexibility and scalability through the combination of Virtual Network Functions (VNF) and Software Defined Networks (SDN) requires careful management of both VNF and forwarding state. Without coordination, service scalability comes at a high cost due to unacceptable levels of packet loss, reordering and increased latencies. Previously developed techniques has shown that these issues can be managed, at least in scenarios with low traffic rates and optimistic control plane latencies. In this paper we extend previous work on coordinated state management in order to remove performance bottlenecks, this is done through distributed state management and minimizing control plane interactions. Evaluation of our changes show substantial performance gains using a distributed approach while maintaining centralized control.


Policy focused on fire suppression only delays the inevitable. With projected climate change, we expect to face much more forest fire in the coming decades. Policy-makers are challenged not to categorize all fires as destructive to ecosystems simply because they have long flame lengths and kill most of the trees within the fire boundary. Ecological context matters: In some ecosystems, high-severity regimes are appropriate, but climate change may modify these fire regimes and ecosystems as well. Some undesirable impacts may be avoided or reduced through global strategies, as well as distinct strategies based on a forest's historical fire regime.


25 nm carbon-coated microporous Co/CoO nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized by integrating chemical de-alloying and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) methods. The NPs possess micropores of 0.8-1.5 nm and display a homogeneous carbon shell of about 4 nm in thickness with a low graphitization degree. The saturation magnetization (MS) and coercivity (HC) of the NPs were 70.3 emu g-1 and 398.4 Oe, respectively. The microporous Co/CoO/C NPs exhibited enhanced microwave absorption performance with a minimum reflection coefficient (RC) of -78.4 dB and a wide absorption bandwidth of 8.1 GHz (RC ≤ -10 dB), larger than those of the nonporous counterparts of -68.3 dB and 5.8 GHz. The minimum RC values of the microporous Co/CoO/C NPs at different thicknesses were much smaller than the nonporous counterparts. The high microwave absorption mechanism of the microporous Co/CoO/C nanocomposite can be interpreted in terms of the interfacial polarization relaxation of the core/shell and micropore structures, the effective permittivity modification of the air in the micropores and the polarization relaxation of the defects in the low-graphitization carbon shell and the porous Co NPs. Our study demonstrates that the microporous Co/CoO/C nanocomposite is an efficient microwave absorber with high absorption intensity and wide absorption bandwidth.


In recent years, an overly narrow focus on rebound effects has limited the extent of researcher and policy attention afforded to the wider multiple benefits of increased energy efficiency. Our objective is to focus policy attention on the sustained added value to the economy that is created by improving energy efficiency in the residential sector. Governments around the world are committed to increasing energy efficiency more generally, but often focus public support in low income households where energy poverty is a particular concern. However, governments operate in a context of multiple objectives where energy efficiency is expected to deliver significant reductions in carbon emissions alongside sustainable economic development. We use a UK CGE model to consider the general effects of supporting increases in energy efficiency in residential energy use. Our results demonstrate that the increase in GDP, and economic activity more generally, triggered by increased energy efficiency delivers more in terms of increased household incomes than the efficiency improvement itself. We find that the more wide ranging the boost to energy efficiency, the greater the economic expansion and associated returns are likely to be, and the less the means of financing through public budgets will erode the benefits over time.


Through ecological awareness, different methods have been investigated to explore the relationship between nature and design. Additionally, digital techniques and methods have begun to dominate all fields of professions, including design disciplines. Landscape is an integral part of a city's public domain. The concept of Landscape Urbanism prioritizes landscape over building design in urban planing through the use of advanced digital techniques. Although there are studies and projects in this field, they lack a method that can be implemented for the organizational principles of a masterplan and the distribution of green-areas by creating iterations. A parametric landscape urbanism method has been developed and applied as the concept of a self-sufficient micro-nation located in Europe. The methodology uses principles that consist of three stages: defining the site's constraints, generating computational geometry, and the optimization process, which uses evolutionary algorithms. As a result, a solution space is generated by creating iterations for green area distribution and determining their green area ratios. The method can potentially be applied to other site domains and optimization problems.


Materials emitting light in the deep ultraviolet region around 200 nanometers are essential in a wide-range of applications, such as information storage technology, environmental protection, and medical treatment. Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), which was recently found to be a promising deep ultraviolet light emitter, has traditionally been synthesized under high pressure and at high temperature. We successfully synthesized high-purity hBN crystals at atmospheric pressure by using a nickel-molybdenum solvent. The obtained hBN crystals emitted intense 215-nanometer luminescence at room temperature. This study demonstrates an easier way to grow high-quality hBN crystals, through their liquid-phase deposition on a substrate at atmospheric pressure.


Pseudotachylyte veins of the Tonale nappe (NE Italy) occur along faults and shear zones which accommodated the deformation that shortened the Adriatic crust to the north of the Periadriatic Lineament during the late Alpine orogeny. These veins are characterized by thin glass layers showing variable clast content and colours, coupled with chemical variations. They are derived from surrounding gneiss, but mass-balance studies show some quartz missing in the veins (i.e., 1 rock = a vein + b quartz, with b ranging from 0.1 to 0.3). Thermodynamic modelling of the melting process indicates that the energy necessary to melt 1 cm3 of rock is 4-5 kJ. Temperature reached inhomogeneous values between ~1100°C (total melting of micas) and ~1700°C (partial melting of the quartz clasts). The modelling of the cooling process accounts well for the microlite blastesis in the glassy groundmass of the veins, provided that the pressure at which pseudotachylytes formed along faults/shear zones ranges between 4 and 8 kbar. 40Ar-39Ar laser-probe in-situ data show that vein zoning corresponds to a range of apparent ages. Step-heating analyses indicate the presence of components younger and older than the age proposed for the vein, due to alteration and clasts, respectively. Interplay between these two factors affects the in-situ data. The new 40Ar-39Ar ages of the Tonale nappe pseudotachylytes (~50-21 Ma), as compared to previously published data, testify a long-lived deformation lasting from Eocene to Early Miocene. The peak of this deformation is Late Eocene-Early Oligocene in age (~35-30 Ma), coeval with the emplacement of the Northern Adamello plutons and of several apophyses and dykes in the Adriatic crust.


ABSTRACT The role of tuberculosis as a public health care priority and the availability of diagnostic tools to evaluate functional status (spirometry, plethysmography, and DLCO determination), arterial blood gases, capacity to perform exercise, lesions (chest X-ray and CT), and quality of life justify the effort to consider what needs to be done when patients have completed their treatment. To our knowledge, no review has ever evaluated this topic in a comprehensive manner. Our objective was to review the available evidence on this topic and draw conclusions regarding the future role of the "post-tuberculosis treatment" phase, which will potentially affect several million cases every year. We carried out a non-systematic literature review based on a PubMed search using specific keywords (various combinations of the terms "tuberculosis", "rehabilitation", "multidrug-resistant tuberculosis", "pulmonary disease", "obstructive lung disease", and "lung volume measurements"). The reference lists of the most important studies were retrieved in order to improve the sensitivity of the search. Manuscripts written in English, Spanish, and Russian were selected. The main areas of interest were tuberculosis sequelae following tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment; "destroyed lung"; functional evaluation of sequelae; pulmonary rehabilitation interventions (physiotherapy, long-term oxygen therapy, and ventilation); and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.The evidence found suggests that tuberculosis is definitively responsible for functional sequelae, primarily causing an obstructive pattern on spirometry (but also restrictive and mixed patterns), and that there is a rationale for pulmonary rehabilitation. We also provide a list of variables that should be discussed in future studies on pulmonary rehabilitation in patients with post-tuberculosis sequelae.


Within the field of Personal Informatics much research pursues the design of applications for self-tracking to motivate behaviour change. Such tools usually follow an "egocentric" approach where the user is expected to reflect on and change her behaviour by visualizing her own collected data. I suggest that a system where the data of a user is mapped into the wellbeing of an external entity or a community, with which the user establishes an affective bond, could lead to an alternative approach towards self-awareness, based on empathy and vicarious emotions such as altruism and compassion.


Since 2011, protests in post-communist Romania have changed their goals. Protesters claim to guard fundamental values of democracy such as the rule of law and fair representation and to rise against institutions crippled by corruption. In similar fashion to the 1989 revolution and the early 1990s protests, students have assumed an active role in these events. They took to the streets in Bucharest, Cluj, Ia?i and Timi?oara, the country's four largest cities, and elsewhere. Over the same period, social media has proven essential for the gathering of information, for coordinating collective action and expressing the young protesters' identity. Yet recent research (Badescu and Sum 2018) canvasses a gloomy picture of Romanian youth, said to have an eroded democratic profile. This situation is not unique. In Hungary, age and the display of authoritarian attitudes are inversely related, unlike in Poland (Fesnic 2015). Eastern Europeans might have finally rejected the remnants of the previous regime, yet the new generation is eager to embrace values that are not necessarily democratic. Value change trends bring out new interpretations to the way the transition to democracy unfolds in Eastern Europe. This paper addresses this contrast by discovering the combination of attitudes that drives youth to protest. With the help of a student survey conducted in 2017, it is shown that protest engagement is positively linked to the pro-democratic and diversity-embracing attitudes of students.


We look at the decision of the government or "central planner" in the allocation of scarce governmental resources for tertiary education, as well as that for the individual. We provide estimates of the net present values, or cost and benefits. These include costs of tertiary education; the benefits of improved skills of those who remain in the country; and also takes into account the flows of the skilled out of the country (the brain drain) as well as the remittances they bring into the country. Our results are positive for the net benefits relative to costs. Our results suggest that (i) there may be room for creative thinking about the possibility that the brain drain could provide mechanisms for dramatic increases in education levels within African nations; and (ii) by at least one metric, spending by African nations on higher education in this period yielded positive returns on the investment. Our results on the individual decision problem resolve a paradox in the returns to education literature which finds low returns to tertiary education.