The antique Christian "appropriation" of Hebrew by the Early Church Fathers was succeeded historically by a kind of scholarly appropriation that resulted in the emergence of a "ready-made India" founded on a new discourse about Sanskrit. In a world governed by romanticist visions undergirded with colonial aspirations, in a historical period between a Christianity weakened by Enlightenment philosophers and the advancement of scientistic secularism, certain scholarly fables about a primordial India came to resemble the fables about Hebrew. In this race toward the discovery of human origins, the new "Aryan Bible" required a new language of paradise: Sanskrit. Can one then say that India was appropriated within a scholarly environment that was being pulled between Christianity, secularism and scientism? Since our investigations have allowed us to demonstrate that this hypothesis is plausible, it is necessary to test this hypothesis through the clarification of the historical contexts, intellectual dynamics, and theological and political fields of action in which myth and reason mutually reinforce one another. While underlining the political stakes of the comparative method of anthropology, this article also recalls that not so long ago, knowledge of ancient and modern humanities often bore the mark of racial sciences that influenced all university disciplines from the early 19th century to the late 1940s.


In her groundbreaking book, Siblings: Sex and Violence, Juliet Mitchell emphatically states, '[i]ncest is the crossing of boundaries, or perhaps, if we think about its sibling base, the absence of them' (62). When Te Rua, the narratorprotagonist of Patricia Grace's 2001 Kiriyama Prize winning novel, Dogside Story, copulates with his sister and fathers her child, he is clearly crossing these boundaries, and violating in the process what is considered by many to be the ultimate taboo. In nearly all modern cultures 'breaking the incest ban strikes at the core of the family and society, if not the viability of the species' (Turner & Maryanski 1), and for this reason, anthropologist Robin Fox believes that 'at the very least, the idea [of incest] seems to make us easily uneasy, and at worst, downright hysterical' (5). Grace's use of the incest motif in Dogside Story utilises this 'near–universality' (Richardson 553) of the incest taboo to reinforce an innate, universalising fear — the fear of (and revulsion towards) the violation of the incest prohibition and the progeny it produces. This journal article is available in Kunapipi: http://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol31/iss1/3


Indigenous people experience higher levels of intellectual disability (ID) than the general population. Individuals with intellectual disability also experience higher levels of psychopathology than members of the general population. There is limited data on intellectual disability and the prevalence and nature of psychopathology among Indigenous adults with intellectual disability. This research aimed to provide a profile of Indigenous adults with intellectual disability and investigate the prevalence and nature of psychopathology in Indigenous adults with intellectual disability living in urban, regional and remote communities of South Australia. It also explored the support needs of Indigenous people with intellectual disability and their carers. This research project used the Developmental Behaviour Checklist for Adults (DBC-A), a carer-completed checklist, to investigate the prevalence and nature of psychopathology in Indigenous adults with intellectual disability living in South Australia and the Northern Territory. A further aim was to compare the rates, patterns and differences in the psychopathology of the population of Indigenous adults with intellectual disability to a large community cohort of non-Indigenous Australian adults with an intellectual disability and to better understand the social, cultural, environmental and developmental contexts of disturbed behaviours in Indigenous adults with intellectual disability. The final aim of the research project was to describe the usefulness and limitations of this carer completed checklist (the DBC-A) in the assessment of psychopathology in Indigenous adults with intellectual disability. Carer-completed screening checklists have been shown to be effective instruments with which to assess the mental health of people with intellectual disability and the DBC-A has been proven to be a valid and reliable tool, extensively used within mainstream Australian populations of adults with intellectual disability. In addition qualitative information was collected to further explore various aspects of intellectual disability and psychopathology in the Indigenous Australian population in order to increase understanding of how intellectual disability and psychopathology are perceived by the Indigenous community now, and how that might differ from a traditional perspective. Data was collected from carers who knew the adult with an intellectual disability well using the Lifespan Questionnaire Booklet, which contained the DBC-A and other questions about a range of demographic information about the individual. Potential participants for this study were identified from the South Australian Department of Family and Community Disability Services register. All clients aged 16 years or older who were identified as an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander on the register were eligible to participate. This information was compared to results from a representative cohort of non-Indigenous Australian adults with intellectual disability. Of a possible 198 adults, 161 participated (an 81% participation rate), thus ensuring confidence in the representativeness of the findings. The results show that 29% of Indigenous adults with intellectual disability experience mental illness which is 40% higher than the non-Indigenous population of adults in South Australia with intellectual disability. These levels of mental health problems decreased over the lifespan for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants and were more prevalent in young adult Indigenous males. The research found levels of mental health problems increased the further people lived from major cities and were the highest in remote communities. Considering the findings about the higher levels of psychopathology in the Indigenous cohort, it is surprising that when variables such as age and level of intellectual disability were controlled for, this research showed little difference in the rates of psychopathology between Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups. This is possibly further evidence that it is the presence of intellectual disability that is the main determining factor for the higher rates of mental health needs. While the literature suggests that there are no unique words in Indigenous languages to describe intellectual disability and mental illness, this research found that there were. Further findings suggested that it is traditional understandings and perceptions of intellectual disability and mental health which influences acceptance, care and seeking of services for those with intellectual disability. Indigenous people with intellectual disability and/or mental health problems can experience similar stigma and marginalisation from their community as occurs in the broader Australian population but often Indigenous carers expressed concern and distress about their family member with a disability being taken away from them and placed in accommodation services a long way from home, which disrupts and fragments family based care, personal identity and creates further mental health problems. The DBC-A has a potentially useful role in the assessment and management of mental health problems in Indigenous adults with intellectual disability. It is also likely to be a useful research tool, for example, in service planning and epidemiological studies of psychopathology as long as due attention is paid to the context and environment in which it is administered. A personalised interactive process, undertaken by an assessor who has cultural sensitivity and understanding, or is supported by someone with these qualities, is required for valid results to be obtained.


Many low-cost localization techniques have been proposed for wireless sensor networks. However, few consider the mobility of networked sensors. In this paper, we propose an effective and practical localization technique especially designed for mobile sensor networks called Speed and direction Prediction-based Localization. It uses a single mobile anchor travelling with a predefined trajectory while periodically broadcasts its current location coordinates to the nearby sensors. We concentrate on improving the localization accuracy and efficiency by making better use of the information a sensor node gathers. Using previous location information, the node predicts its speed and direction to move the estimated position closer to its real position. The evaluation of our solution shows that our technique copes with prediction and anchor trajectory in a more effective manner than previous solutions. The simulation results show that our algorithm outperforms conventional Monte Carlo localization schemes by decreasing estimation errors by up to 56%.


An examination of how information technology (IT) can be used in public administration, Information and Communication Technologies in Public Administration: Innovations from Developed Countries examines global perspectives on public administration and IT innovations. This book illustrates the theoretical context of current policies, issues, and implementation. It highlights e-government success stories from developed regions such as the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Australia then presents future trends and innovation. It explores innovative solutions with added value and impact to your organization. The book covers important issues such as open government, best practices, social media, democracy, and management challenges as well as topical issues such as systems failures, innovations in inter-organizational e-government projects, virtual currencies, and a cross-domain open data ecosystem. The authors outline four strategies to achieve success in e-governance: upgrading ICT infrastructure, improving human resource management, creating a corresponding political environment, and promoting administrative performance that you can put to immediate use. Governments have used information and communications technologies (ICT) to drastically change how the public sector interacts with citizens and businesses. It can improve government performance in delivering effective or highly sophisticated public services, reengineering or improving internal organization and processes, engaging social participation and dialogue, enabling transparency in procedures and outcomes to the public, and improving public sectors efficiency in general. This book provides a roadmap that leads you from problem definitions to problem-solving methods and innovations for future progress.


Guide to TCP/IP, Fourth Edition introduces readers to the concepts, terminology, protocols, and services that the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite uses to make the Internet work. This text stimulates hands-on skills development by not only describing TCP/IP capabilities, but also by encouraging users to interact with protocols. It provides the troubleshooting knowledge and tools that network administrators and analysts need to keep their systems running smoothly. Guide to TCP/IP, Fourth Edition covers topics ranging from traffic analysis and characterization, to error detection, security analysis and more. Both IPv4 and IPv6 are covered in detail.


Conceptual integration—"blending"—is a general cognitive operation on a par with analogy, recursion, mental modeling, conceptual categorization, and framing. It serves a variety of cognitive purposes. It is dynamic, supple, and active in the moment of thinking. It yields products that frequently become entrenched in conceptual structure and grammar, and it often performs new work on its previously entrenched products as inputs. Blending is easy to detect in spectacular cases but it is for the most part a routine, workaday process that escapes detection except on technical analysis. It is not reserved for special purposes, and is not costly.

In blending, structure from input mental spaces is projected to a separate, "blended" mental space. The projection is selective. Through completion and elaboration, the blend develops structure not provided by the inputs. Inferences, arguments, and ideas developed in the blend can have effect in cognition, leading us to modify the initial inputs and to change our view of the corresponding situations.

Blending operates according to a set of uniform structural and dynamic principles. It additionally observes a set of optimality principles.


The application of vibrational labels such as thiocyanate (-S-C≡N) for studying protein structure and dynamics is thriving. Absorption spectroscopy is usually employed to obtain wavenumber and line shape of the label. An observable of great significance might be the vibrational lifetime, which can be obtained by IR-pump-IR-probe or 2D-IR spectroscopy. Due to the insulating effect of the heavy sul-phur atom in case of the SCN label, the lifetime of the C≡N oscillator is expected to be particularly sensitive to its surrounding as it is not dominated by through-bond relaxation. We therefore investigate the vibrational lifetime of the SCN label at various positions in the blue light sensor protein Photoactive Yellow Protein (PYP) in the ground state and signaling state of the photoreceptor. We find that the vibrational lifetime of the C≡N stretching mode is strongly affected both by its protein environment and by the degree of exposure to the solvent. Even for label positions where the line shape and wavenumber observed by FTIR are barely changing upon activation of the photoreceptor, we find that the lifetime can change considerably. To obtain an unambiguous measure for the solvent exposure of the labeled site, we show that it is imperative to compare the lifetimes in H2O and D2O. Importantly, the lifetimes shorten in H2O as com-pared to D2O for water exposed labels, while they stay largely the same for buried labels. We quantify this effect by defining a solvent exclusion coefficient (SEC). The response of the label's vibrational lifetime to its solvent exposure renders it therefore a suitable universal probe for protein investigations even in systems that are otherwise hard to address, such as transient or short lived states which could be created during a protein's working cycle (as here in PYP) or during protein folding. It is also applicable to flexible systems (intrinsically disordered proteins), protein-protein and protein-membrane interactions.


The proliferation of communication technology has led to potential stratification of contacts across different media, which has important implications for interpersonal dynamics, such as deception. The present study examines how two text-based communication media, BBM and SMS, involve different kinds of social contact networks, and how these differences lead to changes in the frequency and nature of lies. The results reveal that BBM social contacts are relationally closer and include more friends but fewer family and acquaintances than SMS. More deception was also observed in BBM, which included more lies about managing social interactions. The results have important implications for the impact of design features, such as PIN exchange, in text messaging.


The title of Julian Barnes's 1989 novel, A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters is at once playful and provocative. Its first half only differs from Sir Walter Raleigh's The History of the World in its substitution of an indefinite for a definite article. Like Raleigh's History it begins with Genesis. But unlike Raleigh, Barnes does not subscribe to a providential interpretation of history. Where Raleigh's was a monumental attempt to record the history of the world starting with the Creation, Barnes's modest book runs to some 300 pages and eschews any pretence of continuity or comprehensiveness. His is merely a history among many possible histories of the world. The second half of the title of Barnes's book describes a work that is absurdly brief for such a subject, while its provocative inclusion of a "1/2" chapter draws attention to itself. This half chapter, "Parenthesis," is the only section of the book to use a didactic, mildly professorial voice, with no apparent hint of irony or humor. It forms the same function that "The Preface" does in Raleigh's History in offering a rationale and apology. Interestingly both writers see history as necessarily fragmented. Barnes's entire book can be seen as a series of digressions from those events normally considered central to any historical account of the world. At the same time Barnes has insisted that this half-chapter is the one occasion in the book where he dispenses with the masks of the fiction writer and offers his personal truth, in much the way that El Greco is the only character in the "Burial of Count Orgaz" who looks out at the spectator, saying in effect, according to Barnes, "I did this. You've got any complaints, look at me. [. . .] I'm responsible" (Stuart). Yet this rare moment of truthfulness is offered in the form of a digression--a digression in a work that is nothing but a series of digressions from the supposed mainstream of history. Clearly in this book, as in Flaubert's Parrot (1984), Barnes is adopting an ironic approach to history as a genre. Barnes has said of A History of the World that it "deals with one of the questions that obsessed Braithwaite in that book [Flaubert's Parrot]. And that is: How do we seize the past?" (Cook). He would appear to agree with Barthes's objection to what he calls "the fallacy of representation" attaching to traditional historical discourse. In "The Discourse of History" Barthes sees historical discourse as "in its essence a form of ideological elaboration, or to put it more precisely, an imaginary elaboration" (16). Barthes believes that "[t]he historian is not so much a collector of facts as a collector and relater of signifiers; that is to say, he organizes them with the purpose of establishing positive meaning and filling the vacuum of pure, meaningless series" (16). Barnes adopts a similar view of history in his book: "We make up a story to cover the facts we don't know or can't accept; we keep a few facts and spin a new story round them" (240). The strategy that probably most distinguishes this book from the rest of Barnes's fictional work is its use of fragmented episodes from the history of the world, its use of what Levi-Strauss has called bricolage. Asked in what sense his book, A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, was not just a book of short stories, Barnes replied, "Well, it was conceived as a whole and executed as a whole. Things in it thicken and deepen" (Cook). The questions that need asking, then, are whether and how this book generates discursive meaning(s) over the totality of its very different chapters. Are some of its meanings produced by the sum of its multiple texts? Is there a shape, a beginning and end to this book? Does it qualify as what Frank Kermode has called one of those fictions "whose ends are consonant with origins, and in concord, however unexpected, with their precedents," fictions that "satisfy our needs" by giving significance to our lives, seeing that we live our whole lifetime in the midst of things (Sense 5, 7)? …


The 20th century information explosion provided widespread technological innovation and ease of access to information, and due to the 21st century emphasis on digital collections and electronic resources, libraries around the world are facing an uncertain future. This naturally causes librarians to re-evaluate their professional role, but perhaps academic librarians are best prepared for the future due to their co-existing role as professors. Essentially they have always been teaching, but now they must conquer the disparaging image and status treatment to which they have been subjected and evolve their profession by joining their teaching faculty colleagues in classrooms on college and university campuses worldwide.


The Tactical Language and Culture Training System (TLCTS) is designed to teach foreign language and culture skills using a task based approach. The system is unique from other language and culture training systems in that it uses an interactive environment containing conversational agents that behave appropriately for the targeted language and culture. In this presentation we explain our current attempt at modeling culturally capable agents within TLCTS, and also briefly explain our previous approaches.


[1] Diatom-bound 15N/14N was used to reconstruct the glacial nutrient status of the Subantarctic Zone in the Southern Ocean. Down-core records from both the Pacific and Indian sectors show δ15N of 5 to 6‰ during the Last Glacial Maximum and a decrease, coincident with the glacial termination, to values as low as 2‰. The effect of either diatom assemblage or physiological change on the diatom-bound 15N/14N is unknown and cannot yet be ruled out as a possible explanation for the observed change. However, the consistency between Indian and Pacific sector records and with other paleoceanographic data suggests that the glacial-interglacial difference in diatom-bound 15N/14N was driven by higher consumption of nitrate in the subantarctic surface during the last ice age. Such a change in nutrient consumption may have resulted from atmospheric iron fertilization and/or decreased glacial mixed layer depths associated with sea ice melting. Enhanced nutrient consumption in the glacial subantarctic would have worked to lower the concentration of CO2 in the ice age atmosphere. It also would have reduced the preformed nutrient content of the low-latitude thermocline, leading to decreases in low-latitude productivity, suboxia, and denitrification.


Object tracking in image sequences is a key challenge in computer vision. Its goal is to follow objects that move or evolve over time while preserving the identity of each object. However, most existing approaches focus on one class of objects and model only very simple interactions, such as the fact that different objects do not occupy the same spatial location at a given time instance. They ignore that objects may interact in more complex ways. For example, in a parking lot, a person may get in a car and become invisible in the scene. In this thesis, we focus on tracking interacting objects in image sequences. We show that by exploiting the relationship between different objects, we can achieve more reliable tracking results. We explore a wide range of applications, such as tracking players and the ball in team sports, tracking cars and people in a parking lot and tracking dividing cells in biomedical imagery. We start by tracking the ball in team sports, which is a very challenging task because the ball is often occluded by the players. We propose a sequential approach that tracks the players first, and then tracks the ball by deciding which player, if any, is in possession of the ball at any given time. This is very different from standard approaches that first attempt to track the ball and only then to assign possession. We show that our method substantially increases performance when applied to long basketball and soccer sequences. We then focus on simultaneously tracking interacting objects. We achieve this by formulating the tracking problem as a network-flow Mixed Integer Program, and expressing the fact that one object can appear or disappear at locations of another in terms of linear flow constraints. We demonstrate our method on scenes involving cars and passengers, bags being carried and dropped by people, and balls being passed from one player to the next in team sports. In particular, we show that by estimating jointly and globally the trajectories of different types of objects, the presence of the ones which were not initially detected based solely on image evidence can be inferred from the detections of the others. We finally extend our approach to dividing cells in biomedical imagery. In this case, cells interact by overlapping with each other and giving birth to daughter cells. We propose a novel approach to automatically detecting and tracking cell populations in time-lapse images. Unlike earlier approaches that rely on linking a predetermined and potentially incomplete set of detections, we generate an overcomplete set of competing detection hypotheses. We then perform detection and tracking simultaneously by solving an integer program to find the optimal and consistent subset. This eliminates the need for heuristics to handle missed detections due to occlusions and complex morphology. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on a range of challenging image sequences consisting of clumped cells and show that it outperforms the state-of-the-art techniques.


Performing autoethnographic explorations as
curriculum development strategies, and using autoethnographic modes (e.g.,
storytelling) as curriculum, may provide queer multicultural social justice education
curriculum workers, and explorers, with opportunities to explore their own
multicultural identities (e.g., race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status,
exceptionality, religion, sexual orientation, and gender), how their identities
may intersect with curriculum development, and their stories alongside those of
others. In Part One, I tell three (hi)stories highlighting how multicultural
education, queer theory, and autoethnography support the practice of identity
awareness (of self and others). In Part Two, I share nine explorations
developed for this project, along with my performances and reflections of each exploration,
which include how performing the explorations impacted their
development. Finally, in Part Three, I apply these ideas to my practice of becoming
a queer educator. I reflect on some of the tensions I wrestled with, on being
aware of myself as a teacher and a student simultaneously, and on my use
of language and curriculum development practices. In sum, I advocate for
queering autoethnography and using it for curriculum development—thus,
simultaneously queering the act of curriculum development—for the purposes of
developing identity awareness (of self and others) and of honing queer
multicultural social justice education curriculum development practices. During
your engagement with this text, I invite the reader to reflect on these
practices, perform the explorations, and ponder how these explorations may
impact your curriculum development practices. I also encourage you to share
your stories.


K.Wu Materials Science and Engineering New electrochemical deposition methods have been developed for the fabrication of advanced composite coatings for organic solar cells and hybrid organic solar cells. The methods are based on electrodeposition of conjugated polymers and composites. In this work, poly[3-(3-N,N-diethylaminopropoxy)thiophene] (PDAOT) and poly(9,9-bis(diethylaminopropyl)fluorine-co-phenylene) (PDAFP) were used as electron donors. Single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), ZnO and Ti02 were used as electron acceptors. Also co-deposition of PDAOT and PDAFP has been developed in order to broaden the absorption range. An electrophoretic deposition (EPD) method has been developed for the deposition of nanostructured ZnO and Ti02 films. The stabilization and charging of the nanoparticles in suspensions was achieved using organic molecules, such as dopamine and alizarin yellow (AY) dye, which were adsorbed on the oxide nanoparticles. The adsorption mechanism is based on the complexation of metal ions at the surfaces of oxide nanoparticles. Cationic dopamine additive was used for the formation of deposits by cathodic EPD. The adsorption of anionic AY on the oxide nanoparticles resulted in charge reversal and enabled the formation of anodic deposits. The method enabled the co-deposition of ZnO and Ti02 and the formation of composite films. Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) method has been developed for the fabrication Master Thesis McMaster University K. Wu Materials Science and Engineering of Ti02 films. Benzoic acid and phenolic molecules, such as 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, 3,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid, gallic acid, salicylic acid and salicylic acid sodium salt were investigated as charging additives for the EPD of Ti02 particles. The deposition yield has been studied as a function of the additive concentration and deposition time for cathodic deposits obtained from the suspensions, containing benzoic acid, 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, 3,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid and anodic deposits prepared from the suspensions, containing gallic acid and salicylic acid sodium salt. The results obtained for the phenolic molecules with different number of OR groups were analyzed and compared with corresponding experimental data for benzoic acid without OR groups. The adjacent OR groups, as well as adjacent OR and COOR groups bonded to the aromatic ring of the phenolic molecules were beneficial for adsorption of the molecules on oxide particles. The adsorption mechanisms involved the interaction of COOR groups and OR groups of the organic molecules with metal ions on the particle surfaces and complexation. The functional dispersants investigated in this work can be utilized for dispersion and functionalization of the nanoparticles and fabrication of hybrid large area organic solar cells. The new deposition method can be applied for the fabrication of dye-sensitized solar cells.


We report the basics and rational of the technique for major pulmonary resections (MPR) that has been used in 1,050 patients. (I) Full thoracoscopic technique without access incision but with the number of ports that is necessary for optimal exposure. To minimize chest wall trauma and torquing, we use a deflectable scope and the diameter of instruments is reduced to 5 mm or even 3 mm. Their ergonomics and features are adapted to the specific requirements of thoracoscopic surgery. (II) Fissure based approach in order to achieve optimal vascular and lymph node dissection.


The marine snail Aplysia californica obtains its purple defensive ink exclusively from the accessory photosynthetic pigment r-phycoerythrin, which is found in the red seaweeds of its diet. The rhodoplast digestive cell, one of three types of cell lining the tubules of the digestive gland, appears to be the site of catabolism of red algal chloroplasts (rhodoplasts) since thylakoid membranes, including phycobilisome-sized membrane-associated particles, were found within the large digestive vacuoles of this cell. Immunogold localization showed that there was a statistically significant occurrence of the red algal phycobilisome pigment r-phycoerythrin within these rhodoplast digestive vacuoles, but not in other compartments of this cell type (endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, nucleus) or in other tissues (abdominal ganglion). Immunogold analysis also suggested that the rhodoplast vacuole is the site for additional modification of r-phycoerythrin, which makes it non-antigenic: the chromophore is either cleaved from its biliprotein or the biliprotein is otherwise modified. The hemolymph had spectrographic absorption maxima typical of the protein-free chromophore (phycoerythrobilin) and/or r-phycoerythrin, but only when the animal had been feeding on red algae. Rhodoplast digestive cells and their vacuoles were not induced by the type of food in the diet: snails fed green seaweed and animals fed lettuce had characteristic rhodoplast cells but without the large membranous inclusions (rhodoplasts) or phycobilisome-like granules found in animals fed red seaweed. Two additional cell types lining the tubules of the digestive gland were characterized ultrastructurally: (1) a club-shaped digestive cell filled with electron-dense material, and (2) a triangular 'secretory' cell devoid of storage material and calcium carbonate. The following model is consistent with our observations: red algal rhodoplasts are freed from algal cells in the foregut and then engulfed by rhodoplast digestive cells in the tubules of the digestive diverticula, where they are digested in membrane-bound vacuoles; r-phycoerythrin is released from phycobilisomes on the rhodoplast thylakoids and chemically modified before leaving the digestive vacuole and accumulating in the hemolymph; the pigment then circulates throughout the body and is concentrated in specialized cells and vesicles of the ink gland, where it is stored until secreted in response to certain predators.


The problem of matching two sets of features appears in various tasks of computer vision and can be often formalized as a problem of permutation estimation. We address this problem from a statistical point of view and provide a theoretical analysis of the accuracy of several natural estimators. To this end, the notion of the minimax matching threshold is introduced and its expression is obtained as a function of the sample size, noise level and dimensionality. We consider the cases of homoscedastic and heteroscedastic noise and carry out, in each case, upper bounds on the matching threshold of several estimators. This upper bounds are shown to be unimprovable in the homoscedastic setting. We also discuss the computational aspects of the estimators and provide empirical evidence of their consistency on synthetic data.


Epimutation is defined as abnormal transcriptional repression of active genes and/or abnormal activation of usually repressed genes caused by errors in epigenetic gene repression. Epimutation arises in somatic cells and the germline, and constitutional epimutation may also occur. Epimutation is the first step of tumorigenesis and can be a direct cause of carcinogenesis. Cancers associated with epimutation include Lynch syndrome (hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer, HNPCC), chronic lymphocytic leukemia, breast cancer and ovarian cancer. Epimutation has been shown for many tumor suppressor genes, including RB, VHL, hMLH1, APC and BRCA1, in sporadic cancers. Methylation has recently been shown in DNA from normal tissues and peripheral blood in cases of sporadic colorectal cancer and many studies show constitutive epimutation in cancers. Epimutation of DNA mismatch repair (MMR) genes (BRCA1, hMLH1 and hMSH2) involved in development familial cancers has also been found. These results have led to a focus on epimutation as a novel oncogenic mechanism.


We develop a model of a multi-national firm producing commodities for a global market in multiple locations with location-specific risks and different regulatory standards. Salmon aquaculture and disease outbreaks provide an empirically relevant example. We specifically examine details of the infectious salmon anemia outbreak in Chile in the late 2000s, the multi-national nature of some firms operating in Chile, and the overall market structure of the salmon farming industry as motivation for our theoretical model. In the model, market structure and the regulatory environments in multiple countries interact to influence how intensively firms use aquatic ecosystems. Downward-sloping market demand can lead to a perverse outcome in which high environmental standards in one country both lower the provision of disease management in the other country and reduce industry-wide output. We extend this model to consider additional locations, types of firms, and within-location risk spillovers. We find that the risk of outbreak in a given location is decreasing with greater firm concentration within the location, increasing with the outside production of operators within the location, and increasing with lower risk (or more regulation) in other locations where the operators produce. We suggest other applications of multi-national risk management.


Coercion and integration are widely used to reduce transaction costs. The threat of fines is often the most efficient way to make people pay their taxes. M&A consulting firms and the European Union exist because companies and countries perceive value in concentrating some of their functions under one legal entity. Frequently, coercion and integration are virtually indistinguishable. Coercion may depend on whether the parties are integrated: a buyer switches of supplier where an employer fires his employee. Even integration can become a coercive instrument, e.g. the threat of a hostile takeover. This dissertation uses three historical episodes to establish causal relations between coercion and integration. Time helps to pin down facts, whereas new data opens ground to empirical work. The Italian unification in 1861 gives evidence that integration increased coercion. The distribution of tasks between slavery and labor was explained by the willingness of principals to pay for integration in order to access particular types of coercion. Low outside options for the employees, a mild form of coercion, explained the integration of labor in the farming sector in the US South between 1880 and 1940. The conclusions of this dissertation hopefully motivate future research. A better understanding of the waltz between coercion and integration sheds light on the current political tension within the EU, the design of anti-human traffic policies, or the negative relation between GDP per capita and entrepreneurship.


Quality aspects are more important every day, since they have a major impact on the final product. The automobile industry is not unaware of this fact, being an important issue of the car's sheet quality analysis. Nowadays, most of the systems for quality analysis are implemented outside the production line and are performed manually. In this work, an autonomous system is proposed in order to enable the automatic quantification and classification of the imperfections produced in the sheets composing the auto bodywork due to the squeezing process. The system consists of a motorized system to capture the image, an algorithm to extract the geometrical information of the image obtained, and a system based on fuzzy logic to classify the imperfections measured from the geometrical parameters.


CHARLES VICTOR ROMAN was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and educated at Hamilton Collegiate Institute in Ontario, Canada. Because of racial discrimination in the United States, African Americans in search of higher education often went abroad to study. On his return, Roman became office assistant to Robert F. Boyd, a practicing physician, professor at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, and founder of Mercy Hospital, Nashville, then the largest hospital in the South to be owned and managed by African Americans.

In 1899, Roman graduated with a medical degree from Meharry and subsequently attended first the Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital of Chicago and then the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital and Central London Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital in England. He opened his first medical practice in Dallas, Texas, and then opened a practice specializing in otolaryngology in Nashville, Tennessee.

Roman was founder and first head of the Department of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology at Meharry Medical College, where he also served as professor of medical history and ethics. He also was Director of Health at Fisk University, Nashville,1 wrote a history of Meharry Medical College,2 and was President of the National Medical Association and the first editor of the Journal of the National Medical Association. He wrote prolifically for the Journal, while also undertaking an active professional life as speaker, organizer, and educator.

The excerpt published here,3 one of Roman's many contributions to the Journal of the National Medical Association, demonstrates his energy, passion, and eloquence. He first delivered this as an address at the Semi-Centennial Celebrations of Howard University in Washington, DC, on March 2, 1917.


It is not so easy to take the long view of socioeconomic history when you are participating in a revolution. For that reason, Russian economist Yegor Gaidar put aside an early version of this work to take up a series of government positions--as Minister of Finance and as Boris Yeltsin's acting Prime Minister--in the early 1990s. In government, Gaidar shepherded Russia through its transition to a market economy after years of socialism. Once out of government, Gaidar turned again to his consideration of Russia's economic history and long-term economic and political challenges. This book, revised and updated shortly before his death in 2009, is the result. Its transition complete, Russia is once again becoming part of the modern world. Gaidar's account of long-term socioeconomic trends puts his country in historical context and outlines problems faced by Russia (and other developing economies) that more developed countries have already encountered: aging populations, migration, evolution of the system of social protection, changes in the armed forces, and balancing stability and flexibility in democratic institutions. Topics of discussion in this astonishingly erudite work range from the phenomenon of modern economic growth to agrarian societies to Russia's development trajectory. The book features an epilogue written by Gaidar for this English-language edition. This is not a memoir, but, Gaidar points out, neither is it "written from the position of a man who spent his entire life in a research institute." Gaidar's "long view" is inevitably informed and enriched by his experience in government at a watershed moment in history.


Objective:The aim of the trial was to evaluate in patients under antiretroviral therapy (ART) the effect of rosuvastatin on cellular and soluble markers of immune activation/inflammation, as well as to identify patients who better benefit from statin administration. Methods:IMEA-043-CESAR was a phase II open-label pilot trial that enrolled patients under suppressive ART and CD4 <500/mm3. Patients received rosuvastatin (20 mg/d) for 12 weeks. The primary outcome was the variation at week 12 (W12) in the proportion of CD38+HLA-DR+CD8+ T lymphocytes. Secondary outcomes included evolution of other markers of T-cell activation and of inflammatory biomarkers between baseline, W12, and W24. Results:Fifty patients were enrolled; end points were available for 43 patients. When considering all patients, the proportion of CD38+HLA-DR+CD8+ T cells did not significantly decline throughout the follow-up. However, the proportion of CD38+CD8+T cells significantly decreased at W12 [median percentage change of −22.2% (−32.3; +1.4)]. Principal component analysis allowed identification of 3 groups of patients based on their baseline activation/inflammation profiles, 1 group with elevated levels of CD8 T-cell activation, and a small group with high levels of systemic inflammation and low levels of T-cell activation. Half of the patients exhibited relatively low levels of inflammation and activation. The proportion of activated CD8 T cells significantly decreased only in the particular group of patients with high baseline CD8 T-cell activation. Conclusions:This study shows that combining rosuvastatin with effective ART can result in a sustained decrease in CD8 T-cell activation and highlights the importance of identifying patients who can benefit from specific immunotherapeutic strategies.


Visual search and recognition underpins numerous applications including management of multimedia content, mobile commerce, surveillance, navigation, robotics and many others. However the task is still challenging predominantly due to the variability of object appearance and ever increasing size of the databases, often exceeding billions of images. The objective of this thesis is to develop a robust, compact and discriminative image representation suitable for tasks of visual search.
This thesis contributes to four research areas. First we propose a novel method, named Robust Visual Descriptor (RVD), for deriving a compact and robust representation of image content which significantly advances state of the art and delivers world-class performance. In our approach, the local descriptors are assigned to multiple cluster centres with rank weights leading to a stable and reliable global image representation. Residual vectors are then computed in each cluster, normalized using a direction preserving normalization and aggregated based on the neighbourhood rank information.
We then propose two extensions to the core RVD descriptor. The first one consists of de-correlating weighted residual vectors by applying cluster level PCA before aggregation. In the second extension, the weighted residual vectors are whitened in each cluster before aggregation, leading to a balanced energy distribution in each dimension and improved performance.
Compressing floating point global signatures to binary codes improves storage requirements and matching speed for large scale image retrieval tasks. Our third contribution is to derive a compact and robust binary image signature from the core RVD representation. In addition, we propose a novel binary descriptors matching algorithm, PCAE with Weighted Hamming distance (PCAE+WH), to minimize the quantization loss associated with converting floating point vector to discrete binary codes.
In the context of industry work on Compact descriptors for Visual Search (CDVS) and its standardization in MPEG (ISO), we propose a scalable RVD representation. The bitrate scalability is achieved by employing novel Cluster Selection and Bit Selection mechanisms which support interoperable binary RVD representations. Moreover, we propose a very efficient and effective score function based on weighted Hamming distance, to compute similarity between two binary representations.
Our fourth contribution is to develop an image classification system based on RVD representation. We introduce an effective method to incorporate second order statistics in the original RVD framework.


Joint processing of sensor array outputs improves the performance of parameter estimation and hypothesis testing problems beyond the sum of the individual sensor processing results. When the sensors have high data sampling rates, arrays are tethered, creating a disadvantage for their deployment and also limiting their aperture size. In this paper, we develop the signal processing algorithms for randomly deployable wireless sensor arrays that are severely constrained in communication bandwidth. We focus on the acoustic bearing estimation problem and show that when the target bearings are modeled as a sparse vector in the angle space, low dimensional random projections of the microphone signals can be used to determine multiple source bearings by solving an l 1-norm minimization problem. Field data results are shown where only 10 bits of information is passed from each microphone to estimate multiple target bearings.


After two-year's shutdown, the GSI accelerators plus the latest addition of storage ring CRYRING, will be back into operation in 2018 as the FAIR phase 0 with the goal to fulfill the needs of scientific community and the FAIR accelerators and detector development. Even though GSI has been well known for its operation of a variety of ion beams ranging from proton up to uranium for multi research areas such as nuclear physics, astrophysics, biophysics, material science, the upcoming beam time faces a number of challenges in re-commissioning its existing circular accelerators with brand new control system and upgrade of beam instrumentations, as well as in rising failures of dated components and systems. The cycling synchrotron SIS18 has been undergoing a set of upgrade measures for fulfilling future FAIR operation, among which many measures will also be commissioned during the upcoming beam time. This paper presents the highlights of the challenges such as re-establishing the high intensity heavy ion operation as well as parallel operation mode for serving multi users. The status of preparation including commissioning results will also be reported.


Pathogenic human coronavirus infections, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome CoV (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome CoV (MERS-CoV), cause high morbidity and mortality 1,2. Recently, a severe pneumonia-associated respiratory syndrome caused by a new coronavirus was reported at December 2019 (2019-nCoV) in the city Wuhan, Hubei province, China3–5, which was also named as pneumonia-associated respiratory syndrome (PARS)6. Up to 9th of February 2020, at least 37, 251 cases have been reported with 812 fatal cases according to the report from China CDC. However, the immune mechanism that potential orchestrated acute mortality from patients of 2019-nCoV is still unknown. Here we show that after the 2019-nCoV infection, CD4+T lymphocytes are rapidly activated to become pathogenic T helper (Th) 1 cells and generate GM-CSF etc. The cytokines environment induces inflammatory CD14+CD16+ monocytes with high expression of IL-6 and accelerates the inflammation. These aberrant and excessive immune cells may enter the pulmonary circulation in huge numbers and play an immune damaging role to causing lung functional disability and quick mortality. Our results demonstrate that excessive non-effective host immune responses by pathogenic T cells and inflammatory monocytes may associate with severe lung pathology. Therefore, we suggest that monoclonal antibody that targets the GM-CSF or interleukin 6 receptor may potentially curb immunopathology caused by 2019-nCoV and consequently win more time for virus clearance.


It has been reported recently that private doctors often refuse to treat rape survivors because they do not want to give evidence in court. Private doctors and hospitals must treat patients in emergency situations, but may otherwise refuse to treat patients provided such refusal is not unconstitutional. Rape survivors require emergency medical treatment and should not be refused treatment by private doctors and hospitals because practitioners do not wish to give evidence in court. Such refusal is unconstitutional. Sexual assault evidence kits may be used by both private doctors and hospitals. Given the high rate of sexual violence in South Africa it is recommended that both private and state doctors should have stocks of sexual assault kits, and the National Police Commissioner's national instruction for providing assistance to survivors of sexual offences. District surgeons 'on call' must treat rape survivors as requiring emergency medical treatment. They may not defer seeing them until the next day as this violates their constitutional right to dignity and exposes them to secondary victimisation.


We present an ultrahigh-resolution full-field optical coherence tomography (FF-OCT) implemented with a white-light interference microscope and a detector array as an alternative OCT technique. The use of detector array allows the capture of two-dimensional en-face images in parallel without taking any lateral scanning process. The phase shifting interferometric technique with the sinusoidal phase modulation (SPM) is utilized to get the demodulated OCT images. The configuration of the system and the resolution of the obtained image are presented. The topographic images, taken with the implemented system, of a coin, an integrated circuit chip, and the tomographic images of an onion epithelium are demonstrated also. Axial and lateral spatial resolution of ${\sim}1.0{\mu}m$ and ${\sim}2.0{\mu}m$ are achieved with the system respectively.


Muscle development and growth were investigated in diploid populations of normal-sex-ratio and all-female Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) and their triploid counterparts produced by high-pressure treatment. Somites were formed at the rate of 6 h-1 in both diploids and triploids at 6 degrees C. The rostral-to-caudal development of myotubes, myofibrils and acetylcholinesterase staining at the myosepta was slightly more advanced in triploid than in diploid fish, although the differences were smaller than among individual families. The c-met receptor tyrosine kinase was used as a molecular marker for the satellite cells involved in postembryonic muscle growth. Satellite cell nuclei comprised 17.5 % of total myonuclei in smolts and they were 24 % more abundant in diploid than in triploid fish. Cells expressing the myogenic regulatory factor myf-6, a marker of satellite cells committed to differentiation, represented 14.8 % of total myonuclei in diploids and 12.5 % in triploids. At ambient temperatures, the number of white muscle fibres in normal-sex-ratio fish increased more than 30-fold between the alevin and smolt stages, and approximately 3.5-fold further during the first year of seawater growth. The rate of muscle fibre recruitment in seawater stages was significantly greater in diploid than in triploid fish, reaching 1162 fibres day-1 and 608 fibres day-1, respectively, in all-female groups 800 days post-hatching. For 42 cm fork-length fish, there were approximately one-third more muscle fibres per myotome in diploid than in triploid groups, 649 878 and 413 619, respectively, for all-female fish. The probability density function of muscle fibre diameters in each fish was estimated using non-parametric smoothing techniques, and the mean densities for diploids (fD) and triploids (fT) were calculated. The peak fibre diameter was approximately 20 (micro)m in all age classes, irrespective of ploidy. Distinct bimodal distributions of muscle fibre diameter were evident in all groups 775 days and 839 days post-hatching, reflecting seasonal cycles of fibre recruitment. fD and fT were compared using a non-parametric bootstrap technique and the reference band representing the null-hypothesis indicated that there was no difference with ploidy. Reference bands for normal-sex-ratio fish at 315 days and 470 days indicated that diploids had a higher percentage of smaller-diameter fibres and that triploid distributions had a thicker right-hand tail. Similar differences in fD and fT of muscle fibre diameters were found for all-female fish, although the statistical evidence was less strong. Reference bands indicated differences in the middle range of the distributions of muscle fibre diameter in fish 620-775 days post-hatch, with triploids having a thicker right-hand tail. Thus, a lower density of satellite cells was associated with reduced rates of fibre recruitment but a compensatory increase in muscle fibre hypertrophy in triploid compared with diploid fish.


Children around the world learn to read across radically different educational systems and communities. In the west African nation of Côte d'Ivoire, children enter the fifth grade (CM-1) with widely varying literacy skills in French, the official language for primary education. Previous studies have often linked performance in statistical learning tasks with differences in children's and adults' literacy outcomes, mainly in Western and high-income educational contexts. We asked whether Ivorian children's individual differences in emergent second language literacy skills and analogous first language skills could also be explained by their performance in non-linguistic visual statistical learning (VSL). Across three iteratively-developed tasks, 157 children in rural communities surrounding the Adzópe region in Côte d'Ivoire completed a VSL task on touchscreen tablets. We found strong group-level evidence that children exploited the statistical regularities in the image sequence to decrease their response times, but in a post-test, their discrimination between valid and invalid sequences did not exceed chance. Overall, their responses were slower than U.S. children completing a similar task (Qi et al., 2019), and these individual differences in processing speed both confounded statistical learning and predicted second language emergent literacy skills. Moreover, the weak correlation to analogous skills in their first language further suggests that this task did not measure the same skills for the Ivorian children as in previous samples. We recommend adaptations to the statistical learning paradigm that may improve its generalizability across the wider global population.


Activists work in response to the killings of women in Ciudad Juarez illustrates both the usefulness of applying a human rights framework to violence against women and the difficulty of actually reducing the occurrence of such violence. The "Stop Impunity" campaign has helped to raise public awareness and demonstrate the failure of the authorities to exercise due diligence by not making a serious effort to protect women from these violations as well as by not effectively pursuing the violators and thus failing to provide justice with respect to the victims and their families. A human rights approach helps to frame this as a question of impunity and accountability and not just ineptitude. Bringing this case before the IACHR would help women throughout the Americas who are seeking to implement the regional Convention on Violence against Women as well as to apply other human rights instruments to such crimes against women. The impact of high-level human rights attention to this issue could be similar to the breakthroughs in human rights thinking that came with the demand for government accountability for the desaparecidos (disappeared) during the "dirty wars" in Latin America. (excerpt)


The CroCo Dependeny Treebank comprises a collection of parallel texts of both English and German originals from eight different registers with their German and English translations respectively. In addition to the original multi-layer annotation and alignment of the CroCo Corpus (part-of-speech and phrase structure) we added treebank information (dependencies) to a sample of the parallel texts and aligned the nodes of the tree. This deep annotation and alignment allows us to query the corpus for both crossing edges (e.g. an aligned word pair, which realizes different syntactic functions in the source and target text) and dropped leaves and cut branches (e.g. words or phrases that have no aligned counterparts or incomplete alignments). On this basis, translation shifts on various linguistic levels and combinations thereof can be extracted and classified automatically. Patterns like these will be examined and possible factors triggering shifts named so far, register, grammatical contrast and typical translation strategies, as well as commonalities and differences in valence across English and German are discussed in the light of a possible dimension for categorisation of shifts.


In these three works of erotic prose Georges Bataille fuses sex and spirituality in a highly personal and philosophical vision of the self. "My Mother" is a frank and intense depiction of a young man's sexual initiation and corruption by his mother, where the profane becomes sacred, and intense experience is shown as the only way to transcend the boundaries of society and morality. "Madame Edwarda" is the story of a prostitute who calls herself God, and "The Dead Man", published in 1964 after Bataille's death, is a startling short tale of cruelty and desire. This volume also contains Bataille's own introductions to his texts as well as essays by Yukio Mishima and Ken Hollings.


The work presented in this paper investigates the causes of size effects in structural-concrete members. It is based on the use of a finite-element model found to yield realistic predictions of structural-concrete behavior in all cases investigated to date. In fact, the previous use of this model in investigations of size effects in reinforced-concrete beams indicated that such effects reflect the dependence of load-carrying capacity on small unintended eccentricities of the applied load and/or load-induced anisotropy, rather than, as widely considered, on fracture-mechanics characteristics. The present work extends the scope of the above investigation so as to include the case of reinforced concrete flanged shear walls, the behavior of which is already established experimentally. It is found that, unlike the flanged shear walls with a height-to-length ratio larger than 2, the shear walls investigated in the present work, in contrast with the interpretation given to recently published experimental findings, are size-effect independent.


A small but growing body of research suggests that retirement and cognitive decline are related. In fact, some have argued that retirement causes cognitive decline. The aim of this paper is to add to this literature using data of older women from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA). Ordinary least square (OLS) regressions show a significant negative association between retirement and cognitive functioning. These estimates are based on the assumption that retirement is exogenous. As retirement is potentially endogenous with respect to cognition, instrumental variable (IV) methods are also used. The instrument employed is the abolition of the so-called "Marriage Bar". In simple terms, the Marriage Bar was the requirement that women leave paid employment on getting married. It was established in the 1930s and removed in the 1970s. When IV estimations are used, the effect of retirement on cognition is negative but statistically insignificant. Differences between OLS and IV estimates are compared with a standard test. OLS estimates are preferred as the null hypothesis of exogeneity of retirement cannot be rejected at conventional statistical levels.


Objective In 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) published updated guidelines emphasizing and expanding recommendations for a parasitological confirmation of malaria before treating with antimalarials. This study aimed to assess differences in historic (2007–2008) (cohort 1) and recent (2011–2012) (cohort 2) hospital cohorts in the diagnosis and treatment of febrile illness in a low malaria prevalence area of northern Tanzania. Materials and Methods We analyzed data from two prospective cohort studies that enrolled febrile adolescents and adults aged ≥13 years. All patients received quality-controlled aerobic blood cultures and malaria smears. We compared patients' discharge diagnoses, treatments, and outcomes to assess changes in the treatment of malaria and bacterial infections. Results In total, 595 febrile inpatients were enrolled from two referral hospitals in Moshi, Tanzania. Laboratory-confirmed malaria was detected in 13 (3.2%) of 402 patients in cohort 1 and 1 (0.5%) of 193 patients in cohort 2 (p = 0.041). Antimalarials were prescribed to 201 (51.7%) of 389 smear-negative patients in cohort 1 and 97 (50.5%) of 192 smear-negative patients in cohort 2 (p = 0.794). Bacteremia was diagnosed from standard blood culture in 58 (14.5%) of 401 patients in cohort 1 compared to 18 (9.5%) of 190 patients in cohort 2 (p = 0.091). In cohort 1, 40 (69.0%) of 58 patients with a positive blood culture received antibacterials compared to 16 (88.9%) of 18 patients in cohort 2 (p = 0.094). In cohort 1, 43 (10.8%) of the 399 patients with known outcomes died during hospitalization compared with 12 (6.2%) deaths among 193 patients in cohort 2 (p = 0.073). Discussion In a setting of low malaria transmission, a high proportion of smear-negative patients were diagnosed with malaria and treated with antimalarials despite updated WHO guidelines on malaria treatment. Improved laboratory diagnostics for non-malaria febrile illness might help to curb this practice.


Increasing environmental pressure against waste disposal, particularly fine waste surface storage and concern about mining damages have resulted in an increase in the popularity of a fly ash, tailing and binding agent mixture used as compaction grout of roof fall rocks in a gob area of longwalls. Backfilling of voids forming as a result of exploitation with the fall of roof with mixtures containing fine-grained industrial wastes is a common practice in coal mines. It is aimed at achieving numerous technological and ecological advantages as well as at controlling mining hazards. Research on hydraulic transport of fine-grained slurry conducted to date focused mainly on issues related to the analysis of the conditions related to pipeline transportation. The processes concerning the propagation of mixtures within the gob, on the other hand, remain largely unknown. The process of flow of fine-grained slurry through the caving is subject to a series of factors related, among other things, with the properties of the applied wastes and mixtures, the characteristics of the gob as well as the variability of these properties during the flow through the gob and in time. Due to the lack of sufficient knowledge pertaining to the changes taking place in the gob and in the slurry while it penetrates the gobs, no methods allowing for the design and optimization of the gob grouting process have been established so far. The paper presents the selected results of laboratory tests regarding the flow of ash and water mixtures in a model of a gob, pertaining to two selected types of fly ash produced in hard coal combustion, particularly concerning the impact of the type of the ash and the density of the slurry on the effectiveness of the gob grouting process.


Abstract—Internal insulation of external walls is often problematic due to increased moisture content in the wall and interstitial or surface condensation risk. In this paper, the hygrothermal performance of prefabricated, concrete, large panel, external wall typical for WK70 system, commonly used in Poland in the 70's, with inside, additional insulation was investigated. Thermal insulation board made out of hygroscopic, natural materials with moisture buffer capacity and extruded polystyrene (EPS) board was used as interior insulation. Experience with this natural insulation is rare in Poland. The analysis was performed using WUFI software. First of all, the impact of various standard boundary conditions on the behavior of the different wall assemblies was tested. The comparison of results showed that the moisture class according to the EN ISO 13788 leads to too high values of total moisture content in the wall since the boundary condition according to the EN 15026 should be usually applied. Then, hygrothermal 1D-simulations were conducted by WUFI Pro for analysis of internally added insulation, and the weak point like the joint of the wall with the concrete ceiling was verified using 2D simulations. Results showed that, in the Warsaw climate and the indoor conditions adopted in accordance with EN 15026, in the tested wall assemblies, regardless of the type of interior insulation, there would not be any problems with moisture inside the structure and on the interior surface.


This report is a co-operation project between the Joint Russian - Norwegian Commission on Environmental Cooperation and the Joint Russian-Norwegian Fisheries Commission. The initiative to the report was taken by the environmental commission and was later acknowledged by the fisheries commission. Formally, it is the realisation of Project no. 1 of the Work Program for 2009-2010 for the Russian-Norwegian Environmental Cooperation, as approved by 14th meeting of the environmental commission. The work has been carried out under the umbrella of the Marine Working Group of the environmental commission and has build on the experiences from the series of previous joint PINRO/IMR reports on the status of the Barents Sea ecosystem (Stiansen et al 2006, 2007, 2008).


Very recently, Spitler et al. and Scholz et al. reported their detections of 16 additional bright bursts in the direction of the fast radio burst (FRB) 121102. This repeating FRB is inconsistent with all of the catastrophic event models put forward previously for hypothetically non-repeating FRBs. Here, we propose a different model, in which highly magnetized pulsars travel through the asteroid belts of other stars. We show that a repeating FRB could originate from such a pulsar encountering a large number of asteroids in the belt. During each pulsar-asteroid impact, an electric field induced outside of the asteroid has such a large component parallel to the stellar magnetic field that electrons are torn off the asteroidal surface and accelerated to ultra-relativistic energies instantaneously. The subsequent movement of these electrons along magnetic field lines will cause coherent curvature radiation, which can account for all of the properties of an FRB. In addition, this model can self-consistently explain the typical duration, luminosity, and repetitive rate of the 17 bursts of FRB 121102. The predicted occurrence rate of repeating FRB sources may imply that our model would be testable in the next few years.


The trend toward the implementation of international portfolio strategies, which is already standard practice for capital market investments, has also become increasingly common for property investments over the last years. Due to the cyclical nature of real estate markets, the success of property investments depends highly on the investorsi ability to get the timing of investment and disinvestment in the individual property markets right. Therefore it is of vital importance for the investors to know about the correlation of cyclical movements of the individual real estate markets. As the cycles do not necessarily have to occur simultaneously in all markets, it is essential to account for lead-lag relationships between the markets. Due to the importance of the issues mentioned above for the development of a successful international real estate portfolio strategy, there seems to be the need for a comparative study that provides a better understanding of the interdependencies between the cycles of the different European office markets. The aim of this empirical study is not only to analyse the strength and direction of the relationships between the individual European property markets, but also to check for lags or leads in their cycles. The analysis is based on annual prime rental data (PMA) for the major European office markets for the years 1980 to 2005. At first, the prime rental series have to be decomposed into their trend and cyclical components. The decomposition is based on the time series models that NELSON AND PLOSSER (1982) developed originally for macroeconomic time series and that WANG (2001) adapted for the analysis of real estate market variables. Given the length of the time series, the Hodrick Prescott filter (HP-filter) that was developed by HODRICK AND PRESCOTT (1997) provides an appropriate technique to calculate the trend components of the logarithmized prime rental series. Afterwards the cyclical components can be derived as a residual. The cyclical components are analyzed for two overlapping periods from 1980 to 1995 and from 1990 to 2005 in order to answer the question whether the interdependence between the cyclical components of the individual markets has strengthened or weakened over time. The relationship between the different cyclical components is measured with the help of cross correlation analysis. As one major aim of the study is to detect lead-lag relationships between the European markets, the cross correlations are also calculated for lags and leads. The empirical study allows to answer a broad range of questions for the theoretical as well as for the applied analysis of European office market cycles: * As the analysis is undertaken for two periods of time, conclusions can be drawn concerning the question whether the cyclical movements of European office markets have converged over time, i. e. whether the integration of European real estate markets has grown stronger or not; * The consideration of lags and leads in calculating the correlations allows to identify markets which lead or lag the cycle or other markets which undergo the cyclical movements simultaneously. Again, the analysis for the two different periods shows whether the lead-lag structures are stable over time; * Furthermore, the correlation coefficients inform about the strength and direction of the relationship between the cyclical movements of the different markets. This is of interest with regard to risk diversification in the context of international portfolio investment. // As six German markets are part of the study, cross country and within country correlation results can be compared.


Increasingly, cities, towns, and even rural communities are being slowly reshaped by a dynamic yet initially imperceptible phenomenon: the elaboration of augmented reality. Through applications that place virtual features over specific, real-world locations, layers of augmented reality are proliferating, adding new elements to an increasingly wide range of places. However, while many welcome the sudden appearance of arenas for battling digital creatures in their neighborhood or the chance to write virtual messages on their neighbor's wall, the areas being augmented oftentimes are privately owned, thereby implicating property rights. Many intrusions, of course, are de minimis: an isolated, invisible Pikachu unexpectedly appearing over the GPS coordinates corresponding with one's home can hardly be labeled a tragedy. Nevertheless, other infringements—such as the inundation of a church's facade with offensive digital messages or the establishment of a virtual center of commerce in one's backyard—seem to demand a solution. To date, however, commentators, courts, and litigants have almost universally assumed that property law does not and cannot provide recourse for such intangible invasions.

Resisting such expectations, this Essay will argue that not only can property law play a role in augmented reality, but that its application in this context leads naturally to a regime that protects real property owners' interest in the digital space linked to their property. In the process of so doing, this Essay will illuminate how recognizing real property owners' right to control relevant parcels of site-specific augmented reality does not mark a novel expansion of property law but accords—and in many ways is dictated by—existing theory and precedent. The project is divided into four parts. Part I provides an overview of augmented reality and its myriad applications, highlighting in the process the concerns many of these applications raise for real property owners. Part II then dissects a number of different property law theories and illustrates how rights to augmented reality—specifically rights inhering in the owner of the corresponding parcel of land—fit comfortably into each one. Finally, Part III analyzes case law supporting the recognition of this new property interest, focusing in particular on the ancient ad coelum and much more recent cyberproperty lines of cases. Part IV offers a brief conclusion.


A 10-year-old girl presents complaining of headache and muscle aches. She is diagnosed with a viral illness and sent home. Two days later she presents with a right sided facial paralysis and worsening headache. A CT scan is normal but her cerebrospinal fluid has a high lymphocyte count and a provisional diagnosis of Lyme neuroborreliosis is made, which is later confirmed on serology. The patient is commenced on a 3-week course of intravenous ceftriaxone. You wonder if there is any evidence to support managing this patient with oral antibiotics.

### Clinical question

In children with Lyme neuroborreliosis (Lyme disease affecting the nervous system) [patient] are oral antibiotics [intervention] a comparable alternative to intravenous antibiotics [comparison] in inducing remission of symptoms [outcome]?

### Search strategy

#### Primary sources

PubMed: "Lyme disease AND intravenous" yielded 180 hits, four of which were relevant and in the English …


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate optical coherence tomography, a new technique for high-resolution cross-sectional imaging of the retina, for quantitative assessment of retinal thickness in patients with macular edema.

DESIGN
Survey examination with optical coherence tomography of patients with macular edema.

SETTING
Referral eye center.

PATIENTS
Forty-nine patients with the clinical diagnosis of diabetes or diabetic retinopathy and 25 patients with macular edema secondary to retinal vein occlusion, uveitis, epiretinal membrane formation, or cataract extraction.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Correlation of optical coherence tomograms with slit-lamp biomicroscopy, fluorescein angiography, and visual acuity.

RESULTS
Optical coherence tomograms of cystoid macular edema closely corresponded to known histopathologic characteristics. Quantitative measurement of retinal thickness is possible because of the well-defined boundaries in optical reflectivity at the inner and outer margins of the neurosensory retina. Serial optical coherence tomographic examinations allowed tracking of both the longitudinal progression of macular thickening and the resolution of macular edema after laser photocoagulation. In patients with diabetic retinopathy, measurements of central macular thickness with optical coherence tomography correlated with visual acuity, and optical coherence tomography was more sensitive than slit-lamp biomicroscopy to small changes in retinal thickness.

CONCLUSIONS
Optical coherence tomography appears useful for objectively monitoring retinal thickness with high resolution in patients with macular edema. It may eventually prove to be a sensitive diagnostic test for the early detection of macular thickening in patients with diabetic retinopathy.


Background & aim: The anti-inflammatory effects of cabergoline have been documented in various studies. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of cabergoline administration (as a potent D2 agonist) on clinical aspects and immune responses in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) induced in Wistar rats. Methods: In the present experimental study, the population consisted of 40 male Wistar rats with a weight range of 160 to 180 g. Animals were randomly allocated into four groups of 10, including the control group (healthy), RA group treated with PBS (100 mg/kg orally), RA group treated with cabergoline (50 μg/kg-orally) and ultimately RA group treated with Prednisolone (10 mg/kg orally). Changes in severity of disease and changes in temperature were recorded every three days. All treatments were initiated at day 7, after induction and observation of the first symptoms of foot inflammation in all rats. Finally, the serum of rats was isolated to evaluate the levels of nitric oxide (Griess assay) and myeloperoxidase (evaluation of the ability to the reduction of hydrogen peroxide). Spleen cells were isolated in sterile conditions in order to evaluate the lymphocyte proliferation rate (MTT reduction assay), the intensity of the respiratory burst (NBT reduction assay), and the potential of neutral red phagocytosis. Data were analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis statistical tests and one-way ANOVA and Tukey tests. Results: The cabergoline drug was similar to prednisolone, which led to a reduction in the severity of the disease and the swelling of soles of the feet (p=0.15). The serum levels of nitric oxide (p=0.0001) and myeloperoxidase (p=0.0001), the intensity of the respiratory burst of splenic phagocytic cells (p=0.002) and the proliferation rate of splenic lymphocytes (p=0.02) were significantly decreased in both treatment groups. Prednisolone indicated a more profound effect than cabergoline in reducing the lymphocyte proliferative index (p=0.001), while cabergoline effectively reduced respiratory burst activity (p=0.002). Moreover, cabergoline significantly revealed a more profound effect than prednisolone in reducing the increased levels of neutral red uptake by splenic phagocytic cells (p=0.01). Conclusion: Considering the appropriate results in the animal model, the use of cabergoline may be considered as a useful approach to control RA.


The author of the present paper, a cartographer, has studied all sorts of questions in relation to geographical names for the correct representation of seas. Determining and handling the Hungarian names for maritime features raise questions that are identical with those relating to land objects: spelling, standardization, determining "official" names, managing name changes, compiling gazetteers, etc. The author's ongoing research in maritime geographical names is based on his experience with compiling the Gazetteer of Hungary II between 1976 and 1981 as well as his subsequent studies on managing geographical names (1979–1985). The present paper gives an overview of the author's research results of the past thirty years. The results of the standardization of undersea feature names can easily be checked by analyzing the names appearing in cartographic products (in published maps, atlases, and on globes), in professional books on geography and in higher-level popular geographical publications. It is certain that various cartographic publications, mainly geographical world atlases displaying also the sea-covered areas, use the linguistic cartographic results produced at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) and formerly at the office of the national Cartographia Enterprise. However, the picture is less positive when we observe the use of standardized names by geographers. As for textual publications, the results of the research concerned can be demonstrated only in those entries of the Magyar Nagylexikon (1993–2004) in which physical geographical descriptions and related maps are both given. In these cases, the positive influence of the work of researchers, educators and former students at the Department of Cartography and Geoinformatics of ELTE University is evident.


A glacier is treated as an essentially one-dimensional flow system, which is, continuously along its length, either gaining new material by snowfall or losing it by melting and evaporation. The flow at each point, i. e. the volume passing a given point per unit time, is assumed to be a function of the thickness and surface slope. It is then shown that a region of uniform longitudinal compressive strain-rate is temporarily unstable. Lighthill & Whitham's theory of kinematic waves is applied to study the response of a simple model to a sudden change in rate of accumulation (snowfall). All parts of the glacier thicken, but the lower parts thicken unstably until a kinematic wave arrives to restore stability. The thickening of the lower parts, and the advance of the glacier, can be very great for only a small change in accumulation; the analysis thus explains why glaciers are such sensitive indicators of climate. The velocity and diffusion of kinematic waves is discussed; they travel at 2 to 5 times the surface speed of the ice. Any part of a glacier or ice-sheet has a characteristic response time to changes in accumulation—about 5000 yr for the Antarctic ice-sheet as a whole, and 3 to 30 yr for a typical glacier. The amplitude and phase of the response of a simple glacier to high frequency (seasonal) and low-frequency (climatic) periodic changes in accumulation is calculated. (The periodic changes in accumulation are the Fourier components of the complicated variation that actually occurs.) The upper part behaves in a simple way; the lower part, on the other hand, shows not only a direct response, but also a delayed response due to the arrival of kinematic waves from the upper part. The two components interfere and give wide scope for variation in behaviour from one glacier to another. A further instability, discussed by Bodvarsson, which arises from an increase of accumulation with altitude, is included in the theory. It is also shown how the theory is to be applied in a valley of changing width to calculate the development of any disturbance produced by climatic change. Thus the theory enables one to calculate, in principle, the response of any glacier to any climatic change.


Host rock mechanical heterogeneities influence the spatial distribution of deformation structures and hence predictions of fault architecture and fluid flow. A critical factor, commonly overlooked, is how rock mechanical properties can vary over time, and how this will alter deformation processes and resultant structures. We present field data from an area in the Borborema Province, NE Brazil, that demonstrate how temporal changes in deformation conditions, and consequently processes, exert a primary control on the spatial distribution and geometric attributes of evolving deformation structures. Furthermore, each temporal deformation phase imparted different hydraulic architecture. The earliest flowing structures are localized upon subtle ductile heterogeneities. Following fault formation, both fault core and damage zone were flow conduits. In later stages of faulting pseudotachylyte welding created a low-permeability fault core and annealed high-permeability fractures within the fault damage zone. Modern flow occurs along a zone of later open shear fractures, defined by the mechanical strength contrast between the host rock and annealed fault. This second hydraulically conductive zone extends hundreds of metres from the edge of the annealed fault damage zone, creating a flow zone far wider than would be predicted using traditional fault scaling relationships. Our results demonstrate the importance of understanding successive deformation events for predicting the temporal and spatial evolution of hydraulically active fractures.


This paper deals with the design and performance evaluation of a new analog CMOS cochlea channel of increased biorealism. The design implements a recently proposed transfer function, namely the One-Zero Gammatone filter (or OZGF), which provides a robust foundation for modeling a variety of auditory data such as realistic passband asymmetry, linear low-frequency tail and level-dependent gain. Moreover, the OZGF is attractive because it can be implemented efficiently in any technological medium-analog or digital-using standard building blocks. The channel was synthesized using novel, low-power, class-AB, log-domain, biquadratic filters employing MOS transistors operating in their weak inversion regime. Furthermore, the paper details the design of a new low-power automatic gain control circuit that adapts the gain of the channel according to the input signal strength, thereby extending significantly its input dynamic range. We evaluate the performance of a fourth-order OZGF channel (equivalent to an 8th-order cascaded filter structure) through both detailed simulations and measurements from a fabricated chip using the commercially available 0.35 mum AMS CMOS process. The whole system is tuned at 3 kHz, dissipates a mere 4.46 muW of static power, accommodates 124 dB (at < 5% THD) of input dynamic range at the center frequency and is set to provide up to 70 dB of amplification for small signals.


The landscape, environmental and land use changes before, during and after Antonine occupation are examined for the region of central Scotland between the Southern Uplands and the Grampian Highlands, principally from the published literature. The purpose is to synthesize and make available a range of new palaeoenvironmental data, to evaluate critically these new data-sets, to search for significant shifts in landscape or land use and to characterize their timings and effects, thus placing the Antonine occupation in a coherent landscape context. It is established that economic expansion in the region occurred in the later Iron Age, demonstrably before Roman military occupation. This expansion developed from Bronze Age and earlier Iron Age small-scale farms and gathered pace in the last cal 200–300 years BC, for crop growing as well as pasture, and was continued rather than intensified in the first two centuries cal AD. It is difficult to see differences in this economic expansion north and south of the Antonine Wall itself, or east and west of the Forth–Clyde isthmus, but it is tentatively suggested that in the foothills of the Southern Uplands the Romans entered a landscape already decaying. Roman influence is perhaps recognizable at some localities in a reduction of cereal production and the expansion of grazed pasture, assumed to represent a restructuring of the native economy to support a new market. It is presumed that imports of foodstuffs continued to be important to Roman forces during Antonine occupation, although possible reconstructions of the sediments in the Forth and Clyde estuaries suggest these may not have provided ideal harbours. There is little evidence that this increased pastoral economy imposed stresses on soils or plant communities, and the market seems to have been readily supplied within the agricultural capacity of the landscape. Nevertheless, the native economy was probably artificially buoyed by the Roman presence, and withdrawal eventually led to what is best described as an agricutural recession, not population collapse.


This article examines the exclusion of economic and social rights from peacebuilding. The peacebuilding process has become dominated by a liberal agenda resulting in a 'one size fits all' model of peacebuilding. As a consequence, the inclusion of human rights within the mandate of peacebuilding has also been limited to a liberal conception of human rights constituting only civil and political rights. It is argued that an alternative approach is required which refocuses the peacebuilding agenda on human security: a hybrid 'human security plus' approach to peacebuilding (or a 'inclusive' human rights approach) will ensure the protection and promotion of economic, social and cultural rights, while maintaining protection of civil and political rights, throughout the whole peacebuilding process: from peace agreements to post-conflict reconstruction. The result will be a reclaiming of the peacebuilding agenda to improve its effectiveness and provide a legal framework for building positive peace.


In the aftermath of the visit of the Iranian President to the Island of Abu Musa on 11 April 2012 and the uproar that followed, a fresh look at the issue is warranted. The concern of this paper is not to discuss the three Islands of Abu Musa and the Tunbs, but to briefly review the context which gave rise to the issue of the three islands in the first place and influenced its development to date. The paper tries to place the current controversy surrounding the three islands in its historic perspective, explaining how it grew out of antagonism that marked the relationship between the prevailing global power, Great Britain, and the major regional power, Iran, for 170 years. It aims to address the general policy of Britain during its presence in the Persian Gulf, which aimed in part to control all islands of this waterway. It explains how for 170 years, Britain tried to erode Iranian influence in the Persian Gulf, both directly by asserting its colonial rule over Iranian islands and port districts, and indirectly by claiming Iranian islands for its proteges on the Arab littoral. It shows that this tactic applied to almost all other Iranian islands in one way or another and was not limited to the three islands of Abu Musa and the Tunbs.


This invaluable resource can help transform online courses into exciting, meaningful, and active e-learning experiences. 75 e-Learning Activities is filled with scores of e-learning activities and games that offer trainers and instructors a handbook for creating interactive and engaging online courses. Much like the activities and games used in traditional classroom training, these e-learning activities can be used to increase interactivity, engage learners, accomplish learning objectives, develop online relationships, promote active learning, and create learning communities. With many examples available on the CD-ROM for easy online transfer, the activities can help elaborate on course content through the use of online technologies such as chat rooms, email, or discussion boards.


We isolated and sequenced the gene for the chlamydial heat shock protein 60 (HSP-60) from a Chlamydia trachomatis genomic library by molecular genetic methods. The DNA sequence derived revealed an operon-like gene structure with two open reading frames encoding an 11,122- and a 57,956-Da protein. The translated amino acid sequence of the larger open reading frame showed a high degree of homology with known sequences for HSP-60 from several bacterial species as well as with plant and human sequences. By using the determined nucleotide sequence, fragments of the gene were cloned into the plasmid vector pGEX for expression as fusion proteins consisting of glutathione S-transferase and peptide portions of the chlamydial HSP-60. HSP-60 antigenic identity was confirmed by an immunoblot with anti-HSP-60 rabbit serum. Sera from patients that exhibited both high antichlamydial titers and reactivity to chlamydial HSP-60 showed reactivity on immunoblots to two fusion proteins that represented portions of the carboxyl-terminal half of the molecule, whereas fusion proteins defining the amino-terminal half were nonreactive. No reactivity with the fusion proteins was seen with sera from patients that had been previously screened as nonreactive to native chlamydial HSP-60 but which had high antichlamydial titers. Sera from noninfected control subjects also exhibited no reactivity. Definition of recognized HSP-60 epitopes may provide a predictive screen for those patients with C. trachomatis infections who may develop damaging sequelae, as well as providing tools for the study of immunopathogenic mechanisms of Chlamydia-induced disease.


We study the link between the voters' support for publicly financed education and the retirement system. We show that, when the pension system includes a redistributive component, the support for publicly financed education increases the greater the degree of redistribution provided by the system. Furthermore, support also increases the greater the proportion of income that finances pensions (i.e., the pension system's generosity). This occurs because adults adjust their behaviour in accordance with the returns of the education of the young on their future pensions. JEL Codes: D7, H31, H42, H44 H52, H55, I22


The pine weevil Hylobius abietis L. is an economically important pest insect that kills high proportions of conifer seedlings in reforestation areas. It is present in conifer forests all over Europe but weevil abundance and risk for damage varies considerably between areas. This study aimed to obtain a useful model for predicting damage risks by analyzing survey data from 292 regular forest plantations in northern Sweden. A model of pine weevil attack was constructed using various site characteristics, including both climatic factors and factors related to forest management activities. The optimal model was rather imprecise but showed that the risk of pine weevil attack can be predicted approximatively with three principal variables: 1) the proportion of seedlings expected to be planted in mineral soil rather than soil covered with duff and debris, 2) age of clear-cut at the time of planting, and 3) calculated temperature sum at the location. The model was constructed using long-run average temperature sums for epoch 2010, and so effects of climate change can be inferred from the model by adjustment to future epochs. Increased damage risks with a warmer climate are strongly indicated by the model. Effects of a warmer climate on the geographical distribution and abundance of the pine weevil are also discussed. The new tool to better estimate the risk of damage should provide a basis for foresters in their choice of countermeasures against pine weevil damage in northern Europe.