The broad objective of the work reported here is to provide a fundamental basis for the use of Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) patches in damage detection of concrete structures. Damage initiation in concrete structures starts with distributed microcracks, which eventually localize to form cracks. By the time surface manifestation in the form of visible cracking appears there may be significant degradation of the capacity of the structure. Early detection of damage, before visible signs appear on the surface of the structure is essential to initiate early intervention, which can effectively increase the service life of structures. Development of monitoring methodologies involves understanding the underlying phenomena and providing a physical basis for interpreting the observed changes in the parameters which are sensed. PZT is a piezoelectric material, which has a coupled constitutive relationship. In the case of the PZT patches bonded to a concrete structure, any sensing strategy requires developing an understanding of the coupled electromechanical (EM) response of the PZT-concrete system.
The challenges associated with the use of PZT patches for damage monitoring in a concrete substrate include providing the following: a clear understanding of the fundamental response of the PZT patch when bonded to a concrete substrate; interpretation of the coupled response of the PZT patch under load induced damage; and development of an efficient, continuous monitoring methodology to sense a large area of the concrete substrate. Due to a lack of a fundamental basis, the use of PZT patches in concrete structures often involves inferring the measured response using model-based procedures. The work outlined in this thesis addresses the key issue of developing the theoretical basis and providing an experimental validation for PZT-based damage monitoring methodology for concrete structures. A fundamental

understanding of response of the PZT patch when bonded to concrete substrate is developed. The outcome of the work is an integrated local and distributed sensing methodology for concrete structures by combining the electromechanical impedance and stress wave propagation methods using an array of bonded PZT patches.
The work presented in this thesis is focused on using PZT patches bonded to a concrete substrate. A fundamental understanding of the coupled electromechanical behaviour of a PZT patch under an applied electrical excitation in an electrical impedance (EI) measurement, is developed. The influence of the substrate size and its material properties on the frequency dependent EI response of a PZT patch is investigated using concrete substrates of different sizes. The dynamic response of a PZT patch is shown to consist of resonance modes of the PZT patch with superimposed structural response. The resonance behaviour of the PZT patch is shown to be influenced by the material properties of the substrate. The size dependence in the EI response of a PZT patch bonded to a concrete substrate is produced by the dynamic behaviour of the structure. The size of the local zone of the concrete material substrate in the vicinity of the bonded PZT patch, which influences the frequency dependent EI response of the PZT patch is identified. For each resonant mode, a local zone of influence, which is free from the influence of boundary is identified. The dynamic response of the PZT resonant mode is influenced by the elastic material properties and damping within the zone of influence. The structural effects of the concrete substrate produced by the finite size of the specimen are separated from the material effects produced by the material properties and the material damping in the coupled EM response of the bonded PZT patch. The influence of size of the concrete substrate on the coupled impedance response of the PZT is identified with peaks of

structural resonance, which are superimposed on the resonant peaks of the bonded PZT patch
The EI response of the PZT patch when bonded to concrete for detecting load-induced damage from distributed microcrack to localized cracks within the zone of influence of the PZT patch is investigated. Using an approach which combines an understanding of the coupled EM constitutive behaviour of PZT with experimental validation, a methodology is developed to decouple the effects of stress and damage in the substrate on the coupled EM response of a PZT patch. The features in the EI signature of a bonded PZT patch associated with stress and damage are identified. An increasing level of distributed damage in the concrete substrate produces a decrease in the magnitude and the frequency of the resonant peak of the bonded PZT patch. The substrate stress produces a counter acting effect in the EI spectrum of the bonded PZT patch. A measurement procedure for the use of bonded PZT patches for continuous monitoring of stress-induced damage in the form of distributed microcracks in a structure under loading is developed.
An integrated methodology for damage monitoring in concrete structures is developed by combining the EI method for local sensing and the stress wave propagation-based method in a distributed sensing mode. An array of surface mounted PZT sensors are deployed on a concrete beam. The EI measurements from individual PZT sensors are used for detecting damage within the local zone of influence. PZT sensor pairs are used as actuators and sensors for distributed monitoring using stress wave propagation. A stress-induced crack is introduced in a controlled manner. It is detected very accurately from the full-field displacement measurement obtained using digital image correlation. The crack opening profile in concrete produced by the fracture is established from the surface displacement measurements. From the measurements of bonded PZTs, the localized crack is detected in the zone of influence by EI.

The change in compliance of the material medium due to a localized crack is small and it is reflected in the smaller change in the measured EI when compared to distributed damage. Stress wave based measurements sensitively detect crack openings on the order of 10m. The material discontinuity produced by a closed crack, after removal of the stress is also detected. A damage matrix is developed for stress wave based method which is independent of transmission path to assess the severity of damage produced by the crack in a concrete structure.


Hey! Where Is Everyone? That's what Bernie Bridges wants to know when he can't find any of his friends. Everyone has disappeared! And when he finally does find them, they're acting really weird. For instance, his shy friend Chipmunk thinks he is a fearless warrior, and football star Jennifer Ecch thinks she is a princess. What is going on? Soon Bernie realizes that everyone at Rotten School is acting! They are all playing parts in a big battle. A battle between the Dum Diddys and the Knighty Knight Knights. But it's not a real fight. It's a video game called Wungo Warriors--and everyone has to pay that spoiled rich kid Sherman Oaks to play. Bernie can't let Sherman get away with this. He has a plan to outsmart Sherman--by bringing the Wungo Warriors to life! What Bernie doesn't know, though, is that a real-life battle between the Dum Diddys and the Knighty Knight Knights could shut down Rotten School forever.


Criminal investigation is a complex cognitive process in which an investigator follows a multiple logical chain from the unknown to the known. Nowadays every cognitive activity is based on technical and academic background. Successful crime prevention, quick and exhaustive crime detection is impossible without technical, natural and other scientific achievements, i.e. without use of special knowledge. Since May 1, 2003 a new Criminal Procedure Code has come into force and it defines a new regulation for the special knowledge use in crime investigation, though the same special knowledge providers have been suggested: experts and specialists. Exact and clear definition of special knowledge application in Criminal Procedure Code shows a complicated situation in practice of crime investigation and protects human and citizen rights during a criminal process. Criminal Procedure Code of May 1, 2003, has extended a specialist's role that is one of the special knowledge providers in a criminal process Scientific and technical achievements are applied in all human activities and in crime investigation as well, thus, it is not surprising to find a specialist in Criminal Procedure Code. The article describes specialist development in Lithuanian Criminal Procedure. Division into periods of specialist development has been suggested.


Experimental evidence of trophic cascades initiated by large vertebrate predators is rare in terrestrial ecosystems. A serendipitous natural experiment provided an opportunity to test the trophic cascade hypothesis for wolves (Canis lupus) in Banff National Park, Canada. The first wolf pack recolonized the Bow Valley of Banff National Park in 1986. High human activity partially excluded wolves from one area of the Bow Valley (low-wolf area), whereas wolves made full use of an adjacent area (high-wolf area). We investigated the effects of differential wolf predation between these two areas on elk (Cervus elaphus) population density, adult female survival, and calf recruitment; aspen (Populus tremuloides) recruitment and browse intensity; willow (Salix spp.) production, browsing intensity, and net growth; beaver (Castor canadensis) density; and riparian songbird diversity, evenness, and abundance. We compared effects of recolonizing wolves on these response variables using the log response ratio between the low-wolf and high-wolf treatments. Elk population density diverged over time in the two treatments, such that elk were an order of magnitude more numerous in the low-wolf area compared to the high-wolf area at the end of the study. Annual survival of adult female elk was 62% in the high-wolf area vs. 89% in the low-wolf area. Annual recruitment of calves was 15% in the high-wolf area vs. 27% without wolves. Wolf exclusion decreased aspen recruitment, willow production, and increased willow and aspen browsing intensity. Beaver lodge density was negatively correlated to elk density, and elk herbivory had an indirect negative effect on riparian songbird diversity and abundance. These alternating patterns across trophic levels support the wolf-caused trophic cascade hypothesis. Human activity strongly mediated these cascade effects, through a depressing effect on habitat use by wolves. Thus, conservation strategies based on the trophic importance of large carnivores have increased support in terrestrial ecosystems.


Outline of a Theory of Practice is recognized as a major theoretical text on the foundations of anthropology and sociology. Pierre Bourdieu, a distinguished French anthropologist, develops a theory of practice which is simultaneously a critique of the methods and postures of social science and a general account of how human action should be understood. With his central concept of the habitus, the principle which negotiates between objective structures and practices, Bourdieu is able to transcend the dichotomies which have shaped theoretical thinking about the social world. The author draws on his fieldwork in Kabylia (Algeria) to illustrate his theoretical propositions. With detailed study of matrimonial strategies and the role of rite and myth, he analyses the dialectical process of the 'incorporation of structures' and the objectification of habitus, whereby social formations tend to reproduce themselves. A rigorous consistent materialist approach lays the foundations for a theory of symbolic capital and, through analysis of the different modes of domination, a theory of symbolic power.


The University of California's Berkeley campus (UCB) has been viewed as a bellwether for diversity in U.S. higher education. As such, recent changes in its admissions policies regarding underrepresented minorities have fueled much public debate. This article examines how the UC system has addressed the problem of differential access for minorities and longstanding inconsistencies between its admissions practices and mission. It argues that the system's recent retreat from affirmative action signals a departure from its earlier emphasis on providing Californians with greater access to higher education generally and increasing the representation of minorities at UCB specifically. Institutions of higher education, like any other social institutions, often sit at the intersection of high-minded ideals and practical realities. Though intended to perform a substantive function in the society of which they are a part, they are, without question, the shadows of their founders and the embodiment of a particular social vision held by those who brought them into being. This vision is ultimately shaped by practical constraints such as the context of group struggle over access to resources and the existing relations of power in a society. As a university education increasingly has come to be viewed as a prerequisite for economic security and success, the focus has largely shifted away from how best to fulfill the social and educational visions of the missions of colleges and universities to questions of how best to apportion a valuable yet scarce resource to a growing and diverse population. The University of California-Berkeley (UCB) exemplifies this dilemma. As the flagship public institution in its state, recognized both nationally and abroad as a model for higher education, admission to its undergraduate and graduate programs is a much sought-after prize. Its high status ranking as the premier UC campus has made it as much a symbol of privilege as one of social mobility, and therefore a location of as well as a weapon used in the struggles between different groups over access to resources. Correspondingly, UCB's admissions process has been the object of intense scrutiny in debates over affirmative action in university admissions. Historical examination of the University of California system's mission, though historically one of inclusivity and diversity with respect to the people of California, often finds the system falling short of living up to its goals with regard to the issue of equal access for women, minorities, and the poor. Over the past 40 years, both the UC governing body of Regents and state policymakers have taken steps to expand the access of various populations to UCB and other campuses while simultaneously beginning to limit enrollment in a nationally recognized but overpopulated publicly funded system of higher education. However, the recent popularity of anti-affirmative action movements in the nation and the state has signaled an ideological and practical retreat from the University of California system's longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion. This has prompted the implementation of admissions criteria that, while reducing the pool of eligible students, have also unfairly handicapped minority and low-income students. Having once been on the forefront of managing racial and ethnic diversity in higher education, the UC Board of Regents voted in 1995 to formally do away with affirmative action policies in its admissions process, implementing a ban on the consideration of race and gender in admissions decisions (UC Board of Regents, 1995). The present study focuses on the recent historical trend in institutional goals with respect to admissions for the University of California system. It specifically addresses the system's shift away from the spirit and intent of the "Principles of University Access" set forth in its charter (the California State Legislature's Organic Act of 1868), and the move toward more exclusionary and narrow definitions of merit that protect group privilege. …


Turkey is a highly seismic country where numerous major earthquakes have devastated or damaged the existing historic structures owing to there is a large number of historical structures, mostly religious ones like mosques, and churches. The minarets are essential parts of mosques and there are many of these historic structures across the country which were built since Seljuq Empire started to rule the Anatolia and followed by Ottomans. As Turkey located in a highly active seismic zone, the possible damage of the minarets, the tallest part of the mosques, should be examined and the safety measures, in terms of seismic retrofit, should be considered. It is engineering communities' responsibility to satisfy the longevity of these existing heritages by the help of science and knowledge.      To realize this objective, a case study is planned which addresses the problem of seismic capacity of a stone masonry minaret as a part of the architectural heritage in Istanbul, and a typical historical mosque is chosen. Mathematical model of the minaret is prepared in order to obtain possible deformation profile, lateral displacements, free vibration modes and most likely failure modes under seismic excitation by using response spectrum analysis. Most recent developments in the in-situ testing of structures and computational procedures for structural analysis have made reaching to the important results about the behaviour of the old masonry structures. The numerical results have shown that the greatest damage accumulated near the shoe region and the lower part of the shaft. The evaluation of these results is promising in terms of seismic safety of these heritages with minimized intervention on the structure without compromising the authentic view and function.


In any software development process, Requirements Engineering (RE) has been recognized as a critical factor in determining the quality of the software projects. On the other hand, the efficiency of user involvement in Software Development Process is an undeniable fact. Therefore, End-User Computing(EUC) deserves more research attention in the area of requirements engineering. But due to particular characteristics of the End-User Computing (EUC)context, existing methodologies and techniques require to adapt to these characteristics of EUC. Therefore,providing end-users with an easy-to-understand REprocess and tools with seldom failure can greatly increase the efficiency of the software development and also decrease the risk of the project failure. In this paper, requirements engineering in EUC will be discussed and a framework for matching Requirements Engineering techniques to End-User Computing will be proposed.


In many industries, disintegration processes have drastically changed the overall industry structure as well as the organization of value creation processes and actors. Highly integrated production and distribution systems have been replaced by devolved organization architectures. This article introduces the concept of value creation architectures, a term that describes the structure and relationships of all the valueadding activities that are carried out by various actors and companies to bring a particular product or service to market. Analyses of business firms tend to overlook the relationship between competitive advantage and the architecture of value creation. This article investigates how different architectures of value creation affect the competitiveness of individual firms. The new concept is illustrated by an in-depth case study of the European automobile industry.


As an alternative to dark matter models, MOdified Gravity (MOG) theory can compensate for dark matter by a covariant modification of Einstein gravity. The theory introduces two additional scalar fields and one vector field. The aim is to explain the dynamics of astronomical systems based only on their baryonic matter. The effect of the vector field in the theory resembles a Lorentz force where each mass has a charge proportional to the inertial mass. In this work, we obtain the weak field approximation of MOG by perturbing the metric and the fields around Minkowski space-time. We derive an effective gravitational potential which yields the Newtonian attractive force plus a repulsive Yukawa force. This potential, in addition to the Newtonian gravitational constant, $G_N$, has two additional constant parameters $\alpha$ and $\mu$. We use the THINGS catalog of galaxies and fix the two parameters $\alpha$ and $\mu$ of the theory to be $\alpha =8.89 \pm 0.34$ and $\mu =0.04 \pm 0.004 {\rm kpc}^{-1}$. We then apply the effective potential with the fixed universal parameters to the Ursa-Major catalog of galaxies and obtain good fits to galaxy rotation curve data with an average value of $\bar{\chi^2} = 1.07 $. In the fitting process, only the stellar mass-to-light ratio $(M/L)$ of the galaxies is a free parameter. As predictions of MOG, our derived $M/L$ is shown to be correlated with the color of galaxies, and we fit the Tully-Fisher relation for galaxies. As an alternative to dark matter, introducing an effective weak field potential for MOG opens a new window to the astrophysical applications of the theory.


Abstract. A new method for parameterizing the subgrid variations of vertical velocity and cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC) is presented for general circulation models (GCMs). These parameterizations build on top of existing parameterizations that create stochastic subgrid cloud columns inside the GCM grid cells, which can be employed by the Monte Carlo independent column approximation approach for radiative transfer. The new model version adds a description for vertical velocity in individual subgrid columns, which can be used to compute cloud activation and the subgrid distribution of the number of cloud droplets explicitly. Autoconversion is also treated explicitly in the subcolumn space. This provides a consistent way of simulating the cloud radiative effects with two-moment cloud microphysical properties defined at subgrid scale. The primary impact of the new parameterizations is to decrease the CDNC over polluted continents, while over the oceans the impact is smaller. Moreover, the lower CDNC induces a stronger autoconversion of cloud water to rain. The strongest reduction in CDNC and cloud water content over the continental areas promotes weaker shortwave cloud radiative effects (SW CREs) even after retuning the model. However, compared to the reference simulation, a slightly stronger SW CRE is seen e.g. over mid-latitude oceans, where CDNC remains similar to the reference simulation, and the in-cloud liquid water content is slightly increased after retuning the model.


This paper presents a method of measuring the phase difference of the vibrations of the electric vectors of the orthogonal linearly polarized components of optical radiation transmitted through a birefringent medium. The method is based on a measurement of the phase difference of the electric signals from two photodetectors and uses the fast Fourier transformation.


Three of the most heavily invested players in the pharmaceutical industry are at odds. Pharma manufacturers need to recoup R&D costs and demonstrate accountability to leadership and shareholders, keeping drug prices as high as possible before their patents expire. PBMs are responsible for driving down costs for their plan sponsors, frequently engaging in hard negotiations with manufacturers. Pharmacists are often afterthoughts to the conversation, even though they are arguably the healthcare providers with more ability to influence patient outcomes and maximize the value of high-cost medication therapies than any other member of the care continuum.


This paper uses the Sjaastad model to estimate the optimal currency area for the Nepalese rupee and concludes that, currently, Nepal may be reasonably well off with its peg to the Indian rupee. As its economy opens and its trade base and trading partners expand, it may want to reevaluate whether moving toward an exchange rate basket including the U.S. dollar may be a better policy choice. The regression results indicate that, currently, the prices of imported goods in Nepal are solely influenced by India, suggesting that with the peg to the Indian rupee, Nepal can isolate the import side of its economy completely from external shocks. On the export side, the regression results indicate that Nepalese export prices seem, to a large extent, to be influenced by U.S. prices. However, the export price index had to be constructed, and the construction methodology is likely to entail an overestimation of the impact of the U.S. dollar.


Purpose: During the United States Civil War, the United States Sanitary Commission (USSC) was established to ensure hospitals and field camps met health standards, and to deliver needed supplies to Union soldiers. The supply arm of the USSC was managed by women. Employing the efforts of 7,000 ladies' aid societies, the women distributed supplies through regional hubs. The USSC became a national organization which delivered more than twenty-million dollars worth of supplies. The importance of history cannot be over stated; however, for the past to be usable, it must be accurate. By examining the history of the United States Sanitary Commission, using original Civil War era documents, this paper explores whether the Commission meets the criteria of an organization that can be considered part of the administrative state. Method: To explore the methods of operation of the United States Sanitary Commission, this research uses seven working hypotheses based on Richard Stillman's seven characteristics of the administrative state. The hypotheses were tested using original documents of the Sanitary Commission. Findings: The results support the theory that the United States Sanitary Commission meets all the criteria and is therefore an organization that qualifies as an example of the United States administrative state.


Whether spirochetes persist in affected host tissues and cause the late/chronic manifestations of neurosyphilis was the subject of long-lasting debate. Detection of Treponema pallidum in the brains of patients with general paresis established a direct link between persisting infection and tertiary manifestations of neurosyphilis. Today, the same question is in the center of debate with respect to Lyme disease. The goal of this review was to compare the established pathological features of neurosyphilis with those available for Lyme neuroborreliosis. If the main tertiary forms of neurosyphilis also occur in Lyme neuroborreliosis and Borrelia burgdorferi can be detected in brain lesions would indicate that the spirochete is responsible for the neuropsychiatric manifestations of late/chronic Lyme neurobor-reliosis. The substantial amounts of data available in the literature show that the major forms of late/chronic Lyme neuroborreliosis (meningovascular and meningoencephalitis) are clinically and pathologically confirmed. Borrelia burgdorferi was detected in association with tertiary brain lesions and cultivated from the affected brain or cerebrospinal fluid. The accumulated data also indicate that Borrelia burgdorferi is able to evade from destruction by the host immune reactions, persist in host tissues and sustain chronic infection and inflammation. These observations represent evidences that Borrelia burgdorferi in an analogous way to Treponema pallidum is responsible for the chronic/late manifestations of Lyme neuroborreliosis. Late Lyme neuroborreliosis is accepted by all existing guidelines in Europe, US and Canada. The terms chronic and late are synonymous and both define tertiary neurosyphilis or tertiary Lyme neuroborreliosis. The use of chronic and late Lyme neuroborreliosis as different entities is inaccurate and can be confusing. Further pathological investigations and the detection of spirochetes in infected tissues and body fluids are strongly needed.


This document provides a review of the Argentine tax authority's structure for dealing with transfer pricing in Argentina; a chronological review of the legislative transfer pricing framework; and a very extensive listing of the transfer pricing cases that have reached different court levels. The document also summarises some of the difficulties encountered in relation to the application of the arm's length principle in Argentina; coordination with foreign tax authorities; and the regulatory changes expected following the reports resulting from the G20/OECD BEPS Action Plan. Argentine transfer pricing legislation has taken several turns over time, moving from a more restrictive pricing of exports and imports for income tax purposes to what is today internationally known as the Sixth Method for commodity valuation; and from an application of what is locally known as the 'economic reality' principle, a principle attempting to consider the economic substance over the contractual forms, to a transplantation into local legislation of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Transfer Pricing Guidelines based on the arm's length principle. The consequences of these regulatory changes have been that lately more and more cases are being disputed at different court levels, and tax authorities seem to find it increasingly difficult to challenge multinational entities' transfer pricing manipulation schemes and support their arguments in courts of law.


The internet of things is developed based on the internet, and the Web GIS is a kind of geographic information system running on the internet. Both have their own characteristics but are inextricably linked. This paper depicts the internet of thins and the Web GIS, and discuss the correlation between the two concepts.


To the End of the Land is the first novel Grossman wrote in which the dominant consciousness is that of adults. As adults, especially as parents, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves is no longer an open-ended, multifarious story which can shield our fragile ego against a hostile and conformist world, it has turned into a story which has assimilated this outside world.Grossman's protagonists have always struggled in an attempt to block the outside world's invasion into their unique individual inner self. In To the End of the Land, the struggle is revealed as a hopeless one: this novel's protagonists are what others perceive them as. When Grossman's protagonists turn into parents, they are forced to send their child, this embodiment of their most fragile inner self, to the world outside. As a result of sending the apple of one's eye out into the world, one is exposed to being defined or redefined by this world—one loses himself (or herself) in this outside world. Ora is "a soldier's mother" because she sent Offer to the army. Avram is "a soldier's father" although he did his very best to avoid being a father and acknowledging his son. Not only are we defined by the outside world, we are the outside. The subject is not only the inner uniqueness of the individual, but its endless shaping by the outside world as well. If you strip the consciousness of its constant struggle with itself, with others, and with the "situation", you strip it of what it is. Not only is the private political, but the political is the most private.


The Arabidopsis PIF4 and BES1/BZR1 transcription factors antagonize light signaling by facilitating co‐activated expression of a large number of cell wall‐loosening and auxin‐related genes. While PIF4 directly activates expression of these targets, BES1 and BZR1 activity switch from a repressive to an activator function, depending on interaction with TOPLESS and other families of regulators including PIFs. However, the complexity of this regulation and its role in diurnal control of plant growth and brassinosteroid (BR) levels is little understood. We show by using a protein array that BES1, PIF4, and the BES1‐PIF4 complex recognize different DNA elements, thus revealing a distinctive cis‐regulatory code beneath BES1‐repressive and PIF4 co‐activation function. BES1 homodimers bind to conserved BRRE‐ and G‐box elements in the BR biosynthetic promoters and inhibit their expression during the day, while elevated PIF4 competes for BES1 homodimer formation, resulting in de‐repressed BR biosynthesis at dawn and in response to warmth. Our findings demonstrate a central role of PIF4 in BR synthesis activation, increased BR levels being essential to thermomorphogenic hypocotyl growth.


Soybeans [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] are often damaged by the seedborne fungi Phomopsis sp., Diaporthe phaseolorum (Cke. and Ell.) Sacc. var. sojae (Lehman) Wehm. and D. phaseolorum var. caulivora Athow and Caldwell which inhibit germination and sometimes cause moldy seed. These fungi can be controlled with benomyl (methyl 1-[(butylamino)carbonyl]-1H-benzimidazol-2-ylcarbamate) fungicide when applied at the R₄-R₅ stage in relatively large, illegal, quantities, >1.1 kg/ha (a.i.), and in large volumes of spray solution, >230 liters/ha. The purpose of this research was to determine if Phomopsis and Diaporthe seed contamination and seed rot can be effectively controlled with legal rates of benomyl applied by aircraft or ground equipment at reduced volumes. Aircraft application of benomyl at 0.56 kg/ha resulted in no overall improvement in seed germination, and on only 4 of 14 farms were there significant reductions in Phomopsis and Diaporthe seed contamination following benomyl application, but these were not large enough to be economical. Ground application was with a backpack mistblower, a tractor-mounted Myers Downdraft sprayer, a high-clearance powered unit using hydraulic broadcast application with flat-fan nozzles, and the high-clearance unit with a special boom using a directed hydraulic spray. Phomopsis + Diaporthe seed contamination in the controls ranged from 34 to 94% and germination, 10 to 71%. Benomyl decreased Phomopsis + Diaporthe seed contamination 20 to 67% and increased germination 16 to 61%. Incidence of these fungi in seed decreased and germination percentage increased with increasing spray volume where hydraulic flat-fan nozzles were used, but not with the other methods. With equal volumes (230 liters/ha) the mistblower and downdraft sprayer were superior to the hydraulic flat-fan broadcast method, and equal to a directed hydraulic spray for controlling Phomopsis and Diaporthe. Improvement in germination was sufficient to warrant application of benomyl with ground equipment.


The current imaging methods for the prostate cancer diagnosis are complicated and partially invasive. Therefore, a key challenge for prostate cancer detection is to use a simple and non-invasive method. Imaging plays a crucial role in the non-invasive identification, localization and grading of prostate carcinoma. In this paper, we demonstrate the possibility using of polarized a near infrared (NIR) light for the in vitro prostate cancer detection and imaging. Because the intensity of NIR light passing through the cancerous outgrowth is lower than the intensity of NIR light passing through the noncancerous one, the cancerous formations are differentiated as the dark areas in the relatively white background. Specially developed software analyses and processes a distribution of intensities of the grayscale images, measures the ratios of their strength, and determines the rate of prostate malignancy. Obtained results may hold promise to make an important contribution to the diagnosis of prostate cancer in the early stage of its development.


Novel supercapacitor electrodes comprising hierarchical architectures with high specific surface areas, unique porosities, excellent conductivities, and admirable mechanical stabilities are necessary for developing high-performance solid-state supercapacitors. Herein, a novel ultra-thin copper nickel sulfide (Cu1−xNixS) nanosheet array supercapacitor electrode was constructed on a 3D Ni backbone through a powerful anion exchange technique and it demonstrated a unique architecture with a substantial degree of porosity. Accordingly, Cu1−xNixS plays an imperative role in the electrochemical energy storage characteristics of the electrode by accomplishing an ultra-high areal capacitance of 5.88 F cm−2 and a specific capacitance of 2672 F g−1 at a current density of 2 mA cm−2 with an excellent rate capability (71.26% capacitance retention at 20 mA cm−2) and a superior cycling performance (97.33% capacitance retention after 10 000 cycles). To design asymmetric supercapacitors (ASCs), Cu1−xNixS and N, S co-doped graphene nanosheets (NSGNSs) are employed as positive and negative electrodes, respectively. Remarkably, the fabricated ASC exhibits a potential window of ∼1.8 V, which demonstrates an ultra-high energy density of ∼94.05 W h kg−1 at 1.09 kW kg−1 as well as an excellent life cycle (95.86% capacitance retention after 10 000 cycles). Owing to this fact, this investigation offers a simple, scalable, and cost-effective approach for the fabrication of other ternary transition metal sulfides (TMSs), emphasizing great prospects in next-generation energy storage applications.


A new method for texture coding which combines 2-D linear prediction and stochastic vector quantization is presented in this paper. To encode a texture, a linear predictor is computed first. Next, a codebook following the prediction error model is generated and the prediction error is encoded with VQ, using an algorithm which takes into account the pixels surrounding the block being encoded. In the decoder, the error image is decoded first and then filtered as a whole, using the prediction filter. Hence, correlation between pixels is not lost from one block to another and a good reproduction quality can be achieved.<<ETX>>


Increased global competition between destinations has given rise to sophisticated marketing to potential visitors. At the same time, consumers are increasingly sceptical of organisation generated marketing messages, instead turning to their own personal networks for timely, accurate and credible information through word-of-mouth (WOM). WOM is a communication phenomenon which occurs in a social context. On one level the basic premise of WOM is widely understood by academics, practitioners and consumers alike. Word of mouth exchanges provide a balance of information and opinion, in a setting that provides the flexibility to 'tailor make' the message in terms of detail in a highly efficient and congruent way. However, how and why these exchanges unfold within the context of travellers and those with whom they interact during travel remains an under researched area.

Following a review of literature from sociology, social psychology, marketing, communications, tourism and other relevant areas, the theoretical, empirical and methodological gaps were identified. The lack of research into WOM between visitors at a destination directed the focus of the thesis which explored how the interaction between travellers at a destination impacts the WOM dynamic. Specifically, the thesis examines the relationship constructs of homophily (similarity) and tie-strength (closeness) with communication and settings to address these gaps.

A case study methodology was used to better understand the richness of the WOM phenomenon as it applies to travellers during their visit in the context of their network of relationships. Two groups of traveller were selected, caravanners and backpackers, due to the similarities (flexible itineraries, motivation to socialise, communal accommodation and homogeneity of each group), but also due to the differences between the groups (mode of travel, travel party, demographics) – necessary for the purpose of comparison. Cairns in Far North Queensland was selected as the research site because it is a major destination for both groups.

The research comprised four phases; observation of travellers in-situ, semi-structured interviews with destination based industry representatives, focus groups with participants from each of the two traveller groups and then surveys of each traveller group. An iterative process of data collection and analysis was used whereby each phase shaped the subsequent phase. Key ideas emerged from the iterative process of collection and analysis with reference made to the existing literature.

The emergence of relationships, settings and communication bounded in time were the key themes. Based on these themes an explanatory model of at-destination WOM is proposed and detailed. The nested model shows the interrelated nature of these themes and examines both the elements of the model and explains the model as a whole. The findings also indicate a shift from the traditional thinking of independent travellers influenced by external forces, such as the destination marketing organisation, to a new 'networked independent traveller' who is constantly connected both in a corporeal and virtual sense to others. Finally, the research dismisses the widely held view in the academic literature that WOM is solely an output of social interaction between visitors at a destination. Instead, the study finds that WOM is both a contributor to and a consequence of travellers' social interactions at a destination.

The study broadens the current view of WOM, the travellers who use it and how it fits in the social interaction of travellers at a destination. It builds on what is already known and offers researchers and marketers valuable insights into the human side of WOM but one that also incorporates technology as a key communication media. The study progresses research by tying the intricate and complex micro WOM episodes to the macro WOM phenomenon. It offers an approach which captures the nuance, reveals the episodic meaning, addresses research gaps and builds on existing tourism communication network theory.


In this paper, we study simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) in orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems with the coexistence of information receivers (IRs) and energy receivers (ERs). The IRs are served with best-effort secrecy data and the ERs harvest energy with minimum required harvested power. To enhance the physical layer security for IRs and yet satisfy energy harvesting requirements for ERs, we propose a new frequency-domain artificial noise (AN) aided transmission strategy. With the new strategy, we study the optimal resource allocation for the weighted sum secrecy rate maximization for IRs by power and subcarrier allocation at the transmitter. The studied problem is shown to be a mixed integer programming problem and thus nonconvex, while we propose an efficient algorithm for solving it based on the Lagrange duality method. To further reduce the computational complexity, we also propose a suboptimal algorithm of lower complexity. The simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of proposed algorithms as compared against other heuristic schemes.


Book synopsis: Informal Architectures: Space and Contemporary Culture is a compilation of new and classic writing and visual art on spacial culture in modernity post 9/11. Contributors include established figures in the fields of cultural studies, art theory, urbanism and design. Informal Architectures creates an alternative perspective on the built environment through contemporary culture by focusing on the works and writing of international artists such as Dan Graham, Marjetica Potrc, and Gordon Matta-Clark. Particular attention is paid to spaces that are in some way temporary, contingent, marginal, or fictional in order to critically analyse the meaning of art, and to provide a tenable counter-narrative to architecture's dominant ideologies concerning the monumental and technological imperatives. Diverse perspectives are mobilised in order to question paradigms of modernity and postmodernity, such as progress, irony and rationalism. Informal Architectures: Space and Contemporary Culture examines theories or and relations to space from descriptive, analytic and creative perspectives in a number of disciplines. It puts forward alternative strategies and criteria for the creation, representation and interpretation of space and its cultural implications. Informal Architectures features essays, artworks and images, with a particular interest in decay, monument, ruin, weakness, permanence, waste and consumption.


This paper aims to investigate the relationship between commuting and spatial labour market developments in the framework of sustainability issues. To do so, we propose, first, an exploratory investigation of the effects of inbound commuter flows on employment in regional labour markets in Germany. Next, we address sustainability issues as a common umbrella for the relationship 'economy-transportation'. In this context, we show that the German production system is faced with negative environmental externalities, which are clearly associated with a specific transport mode, viz. the private car. Negative environmental externalities as a result of modal choices in Germany are confirmed by data from EU-15 countries. Public transport, in particular the train, appears to be more environmentally-benign. Our results bring to light that, on average, commuter flows have a positive and robust effect on employment in the receiving German labour market districts, while, for commuting flows, public transport, especially the train, is a more environmentally-benign mode of transport, compared with the car, in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption. In the light of possible policy strategies, the paper argues that sustainability may lead to positive economic effects; in particular, the improvement of the public transport system, which can provide more opportunities for sustainable commuting patterns, may lead to favourable employment perspectives for the local or regional labour force.


Altın t.B., Altın B.n. & Öztürk M.Z., Climatic and tectonic effects on terrace formation during the late quaternary in the Upper Yeşilirmak Valley, northern Turkey. (IT ISSN 0391-9838, 2017). This study was carried out in the upper course of the Yeşilırmak River, which is one of the biggest rivers reaching the Black Sea, northern Turkey. We distinguished two fluvial terraces and dated them using OSL technique. T2 is the young terrace and situated at ~11 m above the actual river (at 620 m asl). T1 is the youngest and situated at ~5-6 m above the actual river (at 605 m asl). From the lower dated terrace (T1) was dated 6735 ka, 5277 ka and 4226 ka, respectively. From the higher dated terrace (T2) was dated 24,139 ka, 22,008 ka, 12,694 ka and 11,307 ka, respectively. While the higher terrace aggraded during three important cold periods (Heinrich 2 event (H2), the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the Younger Dries (YD), the lower terrace (the present floodplain) aggraded during the Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO). The river incised during transition from the LGM to Holocene transition and after the HCO. the Yeşilırmak has incised its valley ~11 m during the last 24 ka. These results indicate an average incision rate of 1.25 mm/yr (1.25 m/ka). key Words: Climate Change; Terrace; Incision; Late Quaternary;


Several recent applications of optimal transport (OT) theory to machine learning have relied on regularization, notably entropy and the Sinkhorn algorithm. Because matrix-vector products are pervasive in the Sinkhorn algorithm, several works have proposed to \textit{approximate} kernel matrices appearing in its iterations using low-rank factors. Another route lies instead in imposing low-rank constraints on the feasible set of couplings considered in OT problems, with no approximations on cost nor kernel matrices. This route was first explored by Forrow et al., 2018, who proposed an algorithm tailored for the squared Euclidean ground cost, using a proxy objective that can be solved through the machinery of regularized 2-Wasserstein barycenters. Building on this, we introduce in this work a generic approach that aims at solving, in full generality, the OT problem under low-rank constraints with arbitrary costs. Our algorithm relies on an explicit factorization of low rank couplings as a product of \textit{sub-coupling} factors linked by a common marginal; similar to an NMF approach, we alternatively updates these factors. We prove the non-asymptotic stationary convergence of this algorithm and illustrate its efficiency on benchmark experiments.


In order to study the effect of turmeric rhizome powder (TU) and enzyme in some blood parameters of laying hens, an in vivo study was conducted. In a 5 * 2 completely randomized block design with factorial arrangement, 5 levels of TU (0.0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, and 0.20 %) and 2 levels of enzyme (0.0, and 0.05%) with 4 blocks (replicate) , 480, 100-week old laying hens for 4 weeks fed wheat-soybean meal based diets. Some serum blood parameters of laying hens including hematocrit value, triglyceride, total cholesterol, HDL and LDL-cholesterol were recorded at 104 weeks of age. Increasing dietary levels of TU with or without a dietary enzyme significantly decreased serum triglyceride, total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol (P<0.05). TU without enzyme significantly increased HDL-cholesterol. It was concluded that dietary supplementation of TU improves some of good indices of serum blood components in laying hens and might be used as an ingredient in laying hen diets for manipulating egg composition.


Since its 2006 detection in New Zealand, the tomato potato psyllid (TPP), Bactericera cockerelli, has been responsible for yield and quality-reducing damage to potatoes as well as to other solanaceous crops. TPP is best known as the insect vector for the zebra chip disease-associated bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum (CLso), but feeding by CLso-negative TPP on potatoes is also linked to damaging effects. An improved understanding of which potato plant physiological stages are most affected by feeding of CLso-negative TPP will allow for more directed integrated pest management (IPM) plans. As part of a two-year repeated eld study to assess the effect of TPP feeding timing on potatoes, CLso-negative TPP were released into mesh cages over outdoor potato ('Moonlight') plantings at ve different growth stages: post-emergence, owering, post- owering, late-season, and pre-harvest. Tubers were grouped by plant at harvest. (Un)marketable numbers and weights, marketable dry matter and zebra chip severity were determined. Results from this trial and other shadehouse trials conducted previously are still being analysed but have the potential to better target IPM plans and reduce costly, labour-intensive, and environmentally impactful pesticide spray use, which is currently relied on heavily throughout growing seasons.


The investigators reviewed the retention literature and developed a 53-item questionnaire and tested its validity. Component analysis of the responses of 2,022 students at four schools yielded six reliable factors: Institutional Commitment, Degree Commitment, Academic Integration, Social Integration, Support Services Satisfaction, and Academic Conscientiousness. A second study on 283 first-semester freshmen examined whether factor scores predicted which students returned for their sophomore year. Logistic regression found that three factors were statistically significant predictors of enrollment status, after controlling for high school class rank and standardized test scores: Institutional Commitment, Academic Integration, and Academic Conscientiousness. Strategies are provided for making use of scores based on differences between institutions and between individual students.


Conway's Game of Life has inspired enthusiasts to search for a wide range of patterns for this classic cellular automaton. One important challenge in this context is finding the smallest Garden of Eden (GoE), a state without a predecessor. We take up this challenge by applying two techniques. First, we focus on GoEs that contain a symmetry. This significantly reduces the size of the search space for interesting sizes of the grid. Second, we implement the search using incremental satisfiability solving to check thousands of states per second. By combining these techniques, we broke several records regarding GoEs: the fewest defined cells, the smallest bounding box, and the lowest living density. Furthermore, we established a new lower bound for the smallest GoE.


Although the 'rule of law' is now widely recognised as indispensable to effective peace operations, its delineation remains elusive. Researchers contest its substance while those most responsible for its implementation (e. g. the United Nations) promulgate only abstract notions needed to inform detailed decisions. At its worst, this means that competing reform activities undermine each other, making long term success less likely. The questions we address are about the deficiencies in how rule of law is conceived. Particular attention is paid to the little recognised assumption that the Weberian state ideal corresponds to the societies on the receiving end of international interventions. After a review of extant academic and practitioner viewpoints, we set out a postWeberian framework which expands the dominant imagination to include non-state rule of law 'providers'. We argue that the optimum sources for immediate yet sustainable rule of law solutions may often be those which bear little resemblance to the conventional state-based providers that populate mainstream conceptions.


The need to measure the dynamic void fraction (the proportion of flowing bubbly liquid that is gas) is common across many power, processing and manufacturing industries. Many such pipelines and liquids are optically opaque, and work on margins that require a low cost solution that is not commensurate with the size of the challenge. Such a solution will therefore be a compromise, and in this paper costs are reduced by using a narrowband acoustic solution that cannot, on its own, contain enough information to characterize the void fraction in real time unambiguously. The ambiguity is reduced using likely estimates of the general shape of the bubble size distribution so that, with a single source-receiver pair attached to the outside of the pipe, the absolute gas content can be estimated. While the data that are required a priori (the general shape of the bubble size distribution) are not identical to the output of the inversion (the absolute void fraction of gas entrained as bubbles in the flow), the requirement for such a priori information could limit the usefulness of the technique in industry.


It is commonly assumed that a prime purpose of developing research‐based marketing knowledge is that it should be useful to marketing managers and other practitioners. However, evidence suggests that academic marketing knowledge is only to a limited degree utilised in practical life. It is thus important to understand why this is the case, as well as how use of academic knowledge can be enhanced. This paper focuses on scientific knowledge about market orientation and explores a range of factors, which might impair its practical application. More specifically, it examines what types of knowledge marketing practitioners might perceive as useful and discusses a range of potential barriers to successful transfer of market orientation knowledge from academia to practitioners. Substantial barriers are identified which relate to attributes of market orientation knowledge itself and characteristics of both academics and practitioners. Findings are discussed and implications highlighted.


This paper presents an argument-based logic for reasoning about allocations of the burden of persuasion. The logic extends the system of Prakken (2001), which in turn modified the system of Prakken & Sartor (1996) with the possibility to distribute the burden of proof over both sides in an argument game. First the (2001) system is put in the context of a distinction of three types of proof burdens and it is argued that the proof burdens of that system are in fact burdens of persuasion. Then the (2001) system is modified to allow for defeasible reasoning about allocations of such burdens within the logic. The usefulness of the resulting system is illustrated with applications to real legal cases.


Recent studies showed substantial evidence of dynamic clustering and phase separation in active particle systems, but the role of anisotropic interaction between the particles has not been addressed yet. Here we investigate the phase separation of active particles that experience an anisotropic Janus interaction with tunable strength in two dimensional space by using Langevin dynamics simulations. Interestingly, we find that phase separation shows a re-entrance behavior with variation of the Janus interaction strength: while small Janus interaction can enhance the formation of living clusters and phase separation, large Janus interaction would destroy the large cluster. We explain this nontrivial phenomenon via the competition between the self-propulsion and the short-ranged Janus interaction: while self-propulsion can lead to clustering of the active particles, the Janus interaction favors the formation of states with attractive sides close to each other and repulsive sides staying apart.


Take real estate listed companies,for example, we studied the internal connection between the companies marked by STand their financial indexesin the three years before the occurrence of financial distress, wemodel the financial crisis of early warning by statistical (Logistic Model) and artificial intelligence (BP neural networks, support vector machine model). Finally we made a comparison to the predict theaccuracy of the classification and the applicability of the three models. Empirical analysis shows that theaccuracy of support vector machine model is the highest, logisticmodel reflected the lowest accuracy, and the BP neural network stood in the middle. Based on the characteristics of the three types of models, wemade some researches ontheir application


Early evidence suggests that women, including female researchers, are disproportionately affected by the \mbox{COVID-19} pandemic, with negative consequences to their productivity. Here, we test this hypothesis by analyzing the proportion of male and female researchers that publish scientific papers during the pandemic. We use data from biomedical preprint servers and Springer-Nature journals to show that the fraction of women publishing during the pandemic drops significantly across disciplines and research topics, after controlling for temporal trends. The impact is particularly pronounced for biomedical papers related to COVID-19 research. Further, by geocoding author's affiliations, we show that gender disparities are exacerbated in poorer countries, even though these countries had less of a gender gap in research prior to the pandemic. Our results illustrate how exceptional events like a global pandemic can further amplify gender inequalities in research. Our work could inform fairer scientific evaluation practices, especially for early-career female researchers who may be disproportionately affected by the pandemic.


Popular approaches to default probability estimation are often based on the approach initially described in Merton [1974]. By explicitly modeling a firm's market value, market value volatility and liability structure over time using contingent claims analysis the Merton model defines a firm as defaulted when the firm's value falls below its debt. This article demonstrates how a simplified "spread sheet" version of the Merton model produces distance to default measures similar to the original Merton model. Moreover, when applied to a sample of US firms, the simplified model gives a relative ranking of firms that is essentially unchanged compared to the Merton model.


The agrifood sector is faced with major challenges that arise from changes in the sector's economic and noneconomic environments, to changes in consumers' lifestyles, from global increases in food consumption, to diminishing production base and now days from the not stable political and economic situation and the continuous global economic deceleration of growth. The challenges cannot be met by any individual enterprise but it requires concerted actions and coordination of initiatives within an effective food chain management. By utilizing basic concepts of innovation management techniques (IMTs), and developing an innovative management (M.I.) process we have applied innovation in two enterprises of the same traditional food chain for a three year period and evaluated the results based on the 12 different parameters developed by the innovation radar. The results show that the applied methodology had a major impact to the growth of both companies and the upgrade of their innovation capacity. In terms of the impact of the methodology within the food chain itself the success is evaluated based on the new, innovative, "BACK TO THE FUTURE" foods which were developed and promoted in the market by these companies and their close collaboration. Thus, we have developed a useful and valuable innovation practical tool available to managers of companies and to policy makers which can be used effectively for local development and regional growth of the agri food sector. Further research applying the methodology in agri food chains of other sectors such as dairy, meat etc., in bigger companies in the traditional and non-traditional sector is required in order to better evaluate its validity and effectiveness.


Software systems are often developed as a set of variants to meet diverse requirements. Two common approaches to this are "clone-and-owning" and software product lines. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages. In previous work we and collaborators proposed an idea which combines both approaches to manage variants, similarities, and cloning by using a virtual platform and cloning-related operators.
In this thesis, we present an approach for aggregating essential metadata to enable a propagate operator, which implements a form of change propagation. For this we have developed a system to annotate code similarities which were extracted throughout the history of a software repository. The annotations express similarity maintenance tasks, which can then either be executed automatically by propagate or have to be performed manually by the user. In this work we outline the automated metadata extraction process and the system for annotating similarities; we explain how the implemented system can be integrated into the workflow of an existing version control system (Git); and, finally, we present a case study using the 101haskell corpus of variants.


This letter develops a method for estimating trends of extreme events statistics across multiple time periods. Some of the periods might have no extreme events and some might have much data. The extreme event distribution is modeled with a Pareto or exponential tail. The method requires selecting an extreme event threshold and then solving two convex problems for the tail parameters. Solving one provides a smoothed tail rate trend, solving another, the smoothed trend of the tail quantile level. The approach is illustrated by trending the 10-year extreme event risks for S&P 500 index daily losses and for peak power load in electrical utility data.


Co-electrolysis of carbon dioxide and steam has been shown to be an efficient way to produce syngas, however further optimisation requires detailed understanding of the complex reactions, transport processes and degradation mechanisms occurring in the solid oxide cell (SOC) during operation. Whilst electrochemical measurements are currently conducted in situ, many analytical techniques can only be used ex situ and may even be destructive to the cell (e.g. SEM imaging of the microstructure). In order to fully understand and characterise co-electrolysis, in situ monitoring of the reactants, products and SOC is necessary. Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Fourier Transform Spectroscopy (DRIFTS) is ideal for in situ monitoring of co-electrolysis as both gaseous and adsorbed CO and CO2 species can be detected, however it has previously not been used for this purpose. The challenges of designing an experimental rig which allows optical access alongside electrochemical measurements at high temperature and operates in a dual atmosphere are discussed. The rig developed has thus far been used for symmetric cell testing at temperatures from 450 °C to 600 °C. Under a CO atmosphere, significant changes in spectra were observed even over a simple Au|10Sc1CeSZ|Au SOC. The changes relate to a combination of CO oxidation, the water gas shift reaction, carbonate formation and decomposition processes, with the dominant process being both potential and temperature dependent.


In this article, we extend the movable type (MT) sampling method to molecular conformational searches (MT-CS) on the free energy surface of the molecule in question. Differing from traditional systematic and stochastic searching algorithms, this method uses Boltzmann energy information to facilitate the selection of the best conformations. The generated ensembles provided good coverage of the available conformational space including available crystal structures. Furthermore, our approach directly provides the solvation free energies and the relative gas and aqueous phase free energies for all generated conformers. The method is validated by a thorough analysis of thrombin ligands as well as against structures extracted from both the Protein Data Bank (PDB) and the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD). An in-depth comparison between OMEGA and MT-CS is presented to illustrate the differences between the two conformational searching strategies, i.e., energy-based versus free energy-based searching. These studies demonstrate that our MT-based ligand conformational search algorithm is a powerful approach to delineate the conformational ensembles of molecular species on free energy surfaces.


Intraorally, a common instrumental approach for measuring tooth color is reflectance spectrophotometry.

 To evaluate the precision of a reflectance spectrophotometer in accurately measuring anterior tooth color.

 The twelve labial surfaces of the anterior teeth of sixteen patients were measured spectrophotometrically (SpectroShadeTM Micro) on three non-consecutive days (1st, 2nd, 8th). Tooth color was converted to L*, a* and b* colorimetric values; intra-examiner repeatability was assessed in ΔΕ-units between two same day repeated measurements. Intra-examiner reproducibility was measured for the effect of tooth type, time and their interaction.The linear effect of the acquisition angle on the colorimetric values of each tooth was also estimated.

 The highest values of systematic or random error occurred for teeth #33, #43 and #32. There were no statistically significant differences in systematic or random errors for any tooth between the three measurement days. Statistically significant differences were found for tooth type (p=0.039), whereas time and tooth and time interaction were not statistically significant. A statistically significant linear correlation was found between the L* and a* values and the acquisition angle for teeth #12 and #31, (p<0.008).

 The reflectance spectrophotometer provided a precise measurement of tooth color in-vivo since the systematic and random errors generated were below the threshold for perceivable color mismatches (ΔΕ<1). In rejection of the null hypotheses, the tooth type (maxillary central incisors) and variation of the acquisition angle of image capture (L* and a* parameters in teeth #12 and #31) affected the reproducibility of intraoral spectrophotometric measurements.


Along with the changing environment and technology, it is observed that many new approaches are now being structured in management. Administrative problems arising in the context of quality, speed and competition in the summer, largely based on the needs and problems of production and service enterprises, often address mass production and consumption. However, the new living and working understanding gaining momentum with the technological developments that have started with the industrial revolution is leading the way in the management of multi-storey buildings which have not been discussed much in management science before. These structures, increasing in number and volume, are antagonistic as living and working place of today's modern city. Within this scope, the concept of multi-storey building, which is supposed to be new in terms of management and deemed necessary to be developed, will be studied in this study. Although the concept of multi-storey building, which is increasing rapidly in our country and in the world, is a subject that is mainly studied in the field of technical sciences, the concept should also be examined in the context of social sciences. In this context, this study discuss the concept of multi-storey building in our country and the development process and the proposed administrative processes and elements.


PASTORAL LEADERSHIP PRACTICES IN EVANGELICAL MULTIETHNIC CONGREGATIONS: A MULTI-CASE STUDY Raúl Martin Latoni Ramírez, Ed.D. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2012 Chair: Dr. Hal K. Pettegrew The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the best leadership practices of pastors of selected evangelical multiethnic congregations in the United States. The study was qualitative in nature and can best be described as a multiple or collective case study with purposeful sampling. The sample consisted of 30 pastors, including 6 women and 24 men, from 6 multiethnic congregations. The churches were located in 6 different regions of the country: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Pacific Northwest, West, and Southwest. The denominations represented in these churches included Independent Charismatic, Vineyard, Assemblies of God, Baptist, and Independent. The researcher used a revised version of the Personal Best Questionnaire as the primary means for collecting data (Kouzes and Posner 1987). This was completed by all participants who, in addition, completed a demographic data form created by the researcher. In order to triangulate the data, the researcher also incorporated data from personal observations during visits to each of these churches and from interviews with the senior pastor at the 6 churches. The gatekeeper or designated person at each church was also asked to fill out a questionnaire to provide demographic data pertaining to the church. The responses provided by the participants in this study confirmed and correlated well with the five practices of exemplary leadership proposed by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. The impetus for the participants' best practices came from personal conviction, perceived need, personal passion, leadership directive, and challenging the status quo. Over a third of the pastors responded to a perceived need, demonstrating that leaders do not always seek challenges; challenges seek leaders. Others initiated change in response to a perceived dissonance between personal or corporate values and current ministerial practices. Senior pastors were more likely than associate/assistant pastors to initiate change based on personal convictions. Other responses closely related to implementing change focused on pastors' behavior of developing and implementing a specific vision for their ministries. Senior pastors relied primarily on preaching and teaching to communicate their vision. Overall, respondents reported that the primary means to communicate vision and the need for change was by developing slogans and through the use of testimonies in various settings of the church. In order to build cohesiveness and promote trust in leadership, a majority of the participants reported the importance of building personal relationships with their church members. While senior pastors relied mostly on vision casting to foster collaboration in their respective ministries, associate pastors were more likely to foster collaboration through personal relationship development. Also, female pastors were twice as likely as their male counterparts to use personal words of affirmation to enhance the confidence of individuals in their abilities, thereby furthering their relationships with congregational members. One of the ways in which the participants fostered accountability was by modeling transparency, vulnerability, and honesty in communication. The researcher identified three primary spheres for modeling behavior among the participants: personal, organizational, and public. While associate pastors reported modeling behavior in one or two of these spheres, senior pastors demonstrated modeling behavior in all three spheres.


ASPECT BASED OPINION MINING ON TURKISH TWEETS Esra Akbaş M.S. in Computer Engineering Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hakan Ferhatosmanoğlu July, 2012 Understanding opinions about entities or brands is instrumental in reputation management and decision making. With the advent of social media, more people are willing to publicly share their recommendations and opinions. As the type and amount of such venues increase, automated analysis of sentiment on textual resources has become an essential data mining task. Sentiment classification aims to identify the polarity of sentiment in text. The polarity is predicted on either a binary (positive, negative) or a multi-variant scale as the strength of sentiment expressed. Text often contains a mix of positive and negative sentiments, hence it is often necessary to detect both simultaneously. While classifying text based on sentiment polarity is a major task, analyzing sentiments separately for each aspect can be more useful in many applications. In this thesis, we investigate the problem of mining opinions by extracting aspects of entities/topics on collection of short texts. We focus on Turkish tweets that contain informal short messages. Most of the available resources such as lexicons and labeled corpus in the literature of opinion mining are for the English language. Our approach would help enhance the sentiment analyses to other languages where such rich sources do not exist. After a set of preprocessing steps, we extract the aspects of the product(s) from the data and group the tweets based on the extracted aspects. In addition to our manually constructed Turkish opinion word list, an automated generation of the words with their sentiment strengths is proposed using a word selection algorithm. Then, we propose a new representation of the text according to sentiment strength of the words, which we refer to as sentiment based text representation. The feature vectors of the text are constructed according to this new representation. We adapt machine learning methods to generate classifiers based on the multi-variant scale feature vectors to


Although the first-generation and first-in-family status (FIF) of university students has been of intense interest in the USA, it has received very little consideration in Australia. The present research redressed this imbalance by investigating the academic outcomes of FIF undergraduate students at a large, public, Australian university. Undergraduate students (N = 227) who were enrolled in education, nursing and liberal arts degrees completed an online survey. Data are representative of typical gender enrolment patterns for these degrees. In contrast to US research, there was no clear relationship between socioeconomic status and FIF status in this sample. Consistent with US research, FIF students had poorer academic outcomes than non-FIF students. However, this difference was only significant after the first-year of study when students were less likely to receive scaffolded learning support within courses. FIF students were more likely than non-FIF students to seek support from university services. The implications of these results for Australian universities are considered.


As quiet as it is kept, the realisation is gaining wide currency in literary circles around the world that the volume of writing now coming from the non-Western, Third World countries far outstrips that emanating from the 'First World'. Moreover, it is also increasingly being recognized that this vast harvest, this cornucopia from the Third World contains some of the most interesting and innovative writing in contemporary literature. Think about it: if, with 'Anglophone', 'Francophone' or 'Lusophone' writing from the non-Western world you include writing in the most prominent literary languages of the Third World say, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Urdu, Gujerati, Swahili and Amharic, you can begin to get a grasp of the shifts in the densities and concentrations of the literary map of the world. But parallel to this phenomenal reconfiguration of the global balance of forces in the production of literature is the view also prevalent throughout the world, that the most penetrating, the most seminal criticism, metacriticism or 'theory' is coming from the metropolitan centres in Europe and America. Just how prevalent this view of a new international division of labour in the world of literature and criticism has become is afforded by a recent short but thought provoking article in no less a publication than The Chronicle of Higher Education, written by W.J.T. Mitchell (April 19, 1989). Mr. Mitchell is a professor of English at the University of Chicago and moreover, is editor of Critical Inquiry, one of the most influential academic journals of contemporary criticism and literary theory in the English-speaking world. Let me quote some salient observations from the article: This journal article is available in Kunapipi: https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol11/iss1/13


In Shigella flexneri, expression of the plasmid-encoded virulence genes is regulated via a complex cascade involving DNA topology, specific transactivators, and the nucleoid-associated protein H-NS, which represses transcription under inappropriate environmental conditions. We have investigated the involvement of a second nucleoid-associated protein, integration host factor (IHF), in virulence gene expression. We found that transcription of the invasion-specific genes is repressed in a strain harboring an ihfA mutation, particularly on entry into the stationary phase. Expression of the virB gene, whose product is required for the activation of these structural genes, is also enhanced by IHF in the stationary phase. In contrast, the virF gene, which encodes an activator of virB, is stimulated by IHF in both the logarithmic and early stationary phases of growth, as is another virF-regulated gene, icsA. We have identified regions of the virF, virB, and icsA promoters which form IHF-dependent protein-DNA complexes in vitro and have located sequences within these regions with similarity to the consensus IHF binding site. Moreover, results from experiments in which the virF or virB gene was expressed constitutively confirm that IHF has a direct input at the level of both virF and virB transcription. Finally, we provide evidence that at the latter promoter, the primary role of IHF may be to overcome repression by the H-NS protein. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a role for IHF in controlling gene expression in S. flexneri.


This paper investigates whether or not a simple -Cagan like- econometric model of demand for currency can be developed for Argentina based on more than sixty years of data (1935-2000). For such a long period the presence of structural breaks cannot be ignored given the variety of economic regimes this country has experienced. The purpose is to understand from an "ex-post" perspective how money holdings have reacted to the two main determinants of their demand: a transaction variable and an opportunity cost after suitable approximations for both concepts could be obtained. Transaction elasticity estimates matter for the distribution effects of inflation tax and for measuring the size of the shadow economy. Besides, a comparative analysis of the effect of inflation, interest rates and exchange rates could clarify about the relevant opportunity cost of holding money. Once two values of the transaction elasticity were taken for the long run relationship (1 and 0.5) and inflation and interest rates alternatively measured the opportunity cost of holding money, a stable money demand -a satisfactory approximation to the data generating process- was obtained for the Argentina case.


Abstract During the Early Jurassic, cyst-forming dinoflagellates began a long-term radiation that would portend ecological importance of these taxa in the pelagic plankton community throughout the rest of the Mesozoic era. The factors that contributed to the evolutionary success of dinoflagellates are poorly understood. Here we examine the relationship between oceanographic and climatic conditions during the Hettangian–Toarcian interval in relation to the radiation of dinoflagellates and other organic-walled phytoplankton taxa in the Tethys Ocean. Our analysis is based on two data sets. The first includes δ13Ccarb, δ13Corg, total organic carbon (TOC), and quantitative palynological observations derived from the Mochras Core (Wales, U.K.), which spans the complete Early Jurassic. The second is a coupled Mg/Ca and δ18O record derived from analyses of belemnite calcite obtained from three sections in northern Spain, covering the upper Sinemurian to Toarcian. From these two data sets we reconstructed the influence of sea level, trophism, temperature, and salinity on dinoflagellate cyst abundance and diversity in northwest Europe. Our results suggest that organic-walled phytoplankton (acritarchs, prasinophytes, and dinoflagellates) diversity increased through the Early Jurassic. The radiation coincides with a long-term eustatic rise and overall increase in the areal extent of continental shelves, a factor critical to cyst germination. On shorter timescales, we observed short bursts of dinoflagellate diversification during the late Sinemurian and late Pliensbachian. The former diversification is consistent with the opening of the Hispanic Corridor during the late Sinemurian, which apparently allowed the pioneer dinoflagellate, Liasidium variabile, to invade the Tethys from the Paleo-Pacific. A true radiation pulse during the late Pliensbachian, with predominantly cold-water taxa, occurred during sea level fall, suggesting that climate change was critical to setting the evolutionary tempo. Our belemnite δ18O and Mg/Ca data indicate that late Pliensbachian water masses cooled (ΔT ≈ −6°C) and became more saline (ΔS ≈ +2 psu). Cooling episodes during generally warm and humid Early Jurassic climate conditions would have produced stronger winter monsoon northeast trade winds, resulting in hydrographic instability, increased vertical mixing, and ventilation of bottom waters. During the late Pliensbachian, dinoflagellates replaced green algae, including prasinophytes and acritarchs, as primary producers. By producing benthic resting cysts, dinoflagellates may have been better adapted to oxidized ocean regimes. This hypothesis is supported by palynological data from the early Toarcian ocean anoxic event, which was marked by highly stratified anoxic bottom water overlain by low-salinity, warm surface waters. These conditions were advantageous to green algae, while cyst-producing dinoflagellates temporarily disappeared. Our results suggest that the rise in dinoflagellate diversity later in the Jurassic appears to correspond to deep water ventilation as a result of the opening of the Atlantic seaway, conditions that appear to have simultaneously led to a loss of prasinophyte dominance in the global oceans.


Abstract Stainless steel exposed to gaseous tritium characteristically shows a firmly trapped fraction of tritium in the surface layer, which is not fully removable by water at ambient temperature. Prolonged thermal treatment of tritium-loaded specimens at <443 K causes substantial depletion of the bulk but almost no depletion of the surface layer. For complete removal of hydrogen isotopes from the bulk and the surface, temperatures exceeding 573 K are necessary. Upon chemical etching virtually all tritium trapped in the surface layer appears in the etching solution as tritiated water. Following removal of the layer by chemical etching, the tritium-rich layer reappears after months of aging at ambient temperature with nearly the original tritium activity. Comparison of chronic tritium release rates into liquid water before and after etching reveals that the surface layer only marginally influences the rate. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy provides evidence that during prolonged aging the surface layer continues to grow while at the same time trapping a fraction of bulk tritium released at ambient temperature. Experimental results suggest different mechanisms of hydrogen uptake and release by the bulk and surface layers. Inference of tritium activity in the bulk of aged or heat-exposed stainless steel material from surface activity measurements may depart significantly from reality.


Title of Document: THE PURPOSEFUL EDGE: DESIGNING FOR WILDLIFE ALONG THE ANACOSTIA RIVER Laura Marsh Kendrick, Master of Landscape Architecture, 2013 Directed By: Jack Sullivan, PLA, FASLA, Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture As urbanization increases, many cities will reassess their land use policies and practices to establish a balance between densification and ecological sustainability. Creating and improving urban wildlife habitat can increase biodiversity and provide places for people to experience native vegetation and animals. Among the inspiring collection of culturally significant places, Washington, DC has many small reserve parks. For wildlife habitat to be sufficient, larger tracts are often needed. This thesis project capitalizes on one such expanse along the Anacostia River by proposing the area surrounding Robert F. Kennedy stadium and its parking lots become places where habitat is integrated into the urban fabric. Integration means creating spaces where humans and wildlife coexist, each enhancing the lives of the other by their interactions. Healthy ecosystems are a piece of the sustainability puzzle, and the future of the world's cities must include the application of ecological knowledge in designing urban spaces.


It appears that volatility in equity markets is asymmetric: returns and conditional volatility are negatively correlated. We provide a unified framework to simultaneously investigate asymmetric volatility at the firm and the market level and to examine two potential explanations of the asymmetry: leverage effects and time-varying risk premiums. Our empirical application uses the market portfolio and portfolios with different leverage constructed from Nikkei 225 stocks, extending the empirical evidence on asymmetry to Japanese stocks. Although volatility asymmetry is present and significant at the market and the portfolio levels, its source differs across portfolios. We find that it is important to include leverage ratios in the volatility dynamics but that their economic effects are mostly dwarfed by the volatility feedback mechanism. Volatility feedback is enhanced by a phenomenon that we term covariance asymmetry: conditional covariances with the market increase only significantly following negative market news. We do not find significant asymmetries in conditional betas.


Cells under oxidative stress induced by peroxides undergo functional and morphological changes, which often resemble those observed during apoptosis. Peroxides, however, also cause the oxidation of intracellular reduced glutathione (GSH). We investigated the relation between these peroxide-induced effects by using human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and two HUVEC-derived cell lines, ECRF24 and ECV304. With HUVEC, tert-butyl hydroperoxide ( tBH) or hydrogen peroxide application in the presence of serum induced, in a dose-dependent way, reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton, membrane blebbing, and nuclear condensation. These processes were accompanied by transient oxidation of GSH. With ECRF24 cells, this treatment resulted in less blebbing and a shorter period of GSH oxidation. However, repeated tBH addition increased the number of blebbing cells and prolonged the period of GSH oxidation. ECV304 cells were even more resistant to peroxide-induced bleb formation and GSH oxidation. Inhibition of glutathione reductase activity potentiated the peroxide-induced blebbing response in HUVEC and ECRF24 cells, but not in ECV304 cells. Neither membrane blebbing nor nuclear condensation in any of these cell types was due to apoptosis, as evidenced by the absence of surface expression of phosphatidylserine or fragmentation of DNA, even after prolonged incubations with tBH, although high tBH concentrations lead to nonapoptotic death. We conclude that, in endothelial cells, peroxide-induced cytoskeletal reorganization and bleb formation correlate with the degree of GSH oxidation but do not represent an early stage of the apoptotic process.


Durunna, O. N., Girardin, L. C., Scott, S. L., Robins, C., Block, H. C., Iwaasa, A. D., Khakbazan, M. and Lardner, H. A. 2014. The effects of spring versus summer calving on beef cattle reproductive and growth performance in western Canada. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 94: 259-271. The majority of beef producers in western Canada have adopted a spring calving system. Evaluating alternative calving systems such as summer calving may lead to better use of forage resources to optimize cow-calf productivity. In order to evaluate the impact of calving system on cow-calf productivity, 346 Hereford or Angus crossbred cows were used in a 3-yr research study (2007 to 2009) at Brandon, Manitoba; Swift Current, Saskatchewan and Lanigan, Saskatchewan. Cows were bred to calve from February to May (early-calving system, EC) or from May to August (late-calving system, LC). Each system was evaluated for effect on performance and reproductive efficiency. Forage yield, utilization and nutritive value were assessed. Cow body weights (BW), ultrasound measures of backfat and calf BW were evaluated at precalving, breeding and weaning. There was no difference between calving systems for pregnancy rate (P=0.13) EC (93.0%) vs. LC (95.8%); calving rate (P=0.89) EC (92.0%) vs. LC (91.7%) or proportion of calves born alive (P=0.85) EC (99.5%) vs. LC (99.6%). The average length of calving season was not different (P=0.26) between the two systems. The EC cows had greater (P=0.002) BW losses from calving to breeding but greater (P=0.001) BW gain from breeding to weaning than LC cows. Although calves born in LC had greater birth BW (P=0.003) than EC calves, calf weaning rate (P=0.01) and calf weaning BW (P<0.0001) were greater in EC. The higher weaning rate and higher weaning BW with EC has the potential to increase cow-calf productivity and may be more attractive to beef producers in western Canada.


Expert search has made rapid progress in modeling, algorithms and evaluations in the recent years. However, there is very few work on analyzing how users interact with expert search systems. In this paper, we conduct analysis of an expert search query log. The aim is to understand the special characteristics of expert search usage. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the earliest work on expert search query log analysis. We find that expert search users generally issue shorter queries, more common queries, and use more advanced search features, with fewer queries in a session, than general Web search users do. This study explores a new research direction in expert search by analyzing and exploiting query logs.


Atopic Dermatitis (AD) is a frequent occurring inflammatory skin disease causing physical discomfort, social embarrassment and stress. This skin disease is characterized by decreased skin barrier function and various other epidermal changes, as well as immunological changes. A decreased skin barrier function allows environmental factors such as allergens and pathogens to penetrate through the skin and evoke an immunological response, which in turn may negatively affect the skin barrier function. The skin barrier is composed of cornified keratinocytes, extracellular lipids and multiple proteins, including filaggrin. The discovery of mutations in the filaggrin gene as a major risk factor for development of AD has intensified research on this protein and its role in AD development, but its exact role in AD is still not clarified.
This thesis describes the development of several reconstructed human skin equivalents (HSEs) which recapitulate various characteristics of AD. They display for example reduced filaggrin expression or alterations in epidermal characteristics due to the presence of AD-related inflammatory cytokines. These HSEs are a powerful tool that in the future might be used for screening purposes and/or development of new therapies for this life disabling skin disease.


The response of the Mediterranean seagrass Posidonia oceanica (L.) Delile to in situ light reduction was examined over a 4 mo period (May to August) in 1993 and 1995. Shoot density, leaf growth rate, shoot size, photosynthetic activity, carbohydrate reserves, epiphyte load and tissue nutrient concentrations were measured in replicated plots under the following light conditions: ambi- ent (36% of surface irradiance (SI) control plots), moderately shaded plots (16.7% SI, MS plots) and severely shaded plots (10.4% SI, SS plots). By the end of the experimental period, all shoots under SS treatments had died, while 70 to 80% had survived under MS treatment; in control plots, shoot den- sities had remained almost constant. Leaf growth rate and biomass decrease with shading were evi- dent 30 d after the beginning of the experiment; shoot density and number of leaves per shoot also fell with shading, but this was apparent only 60 to 90 d after the onset of the shading treatments. Epiphyte load was also considerably reduced by shading. Photosynthetic activity (Pmax) and dark res- piration rates (R) of control plants showed a characteristic increase from spring (May) to the end of summer (August), resulting in higher saturation (Isat) and compensation (Ic) points and lower photo- synthetic efficiencies (α ) at the end of the experimental period; however, photosynthetic parameters in shaded plants (MS treatment) first increased (as in control plots) from May to June, but decreased afterwards (from June to August), indicating photoacclimation of P. oceanica to low light conditions. Shading depressed carbohydrate storage in the rhizomes of shaded plants, in which starch concen- trations were quickly reduced to 60% of those of control plants. The leaves of shaded shoots showed a significant increase in nutrient (specially nitrogen) concentrations. This was probably due to translocation from shed leaves and also to low utilisation rates for growth. We infer that minimum light requirements of P. oceanica are between 16 and 10%, of surface irradiance, values which are consistent with light availability at the deep limits of nearby meadows. One year after shades had been removed, shoot densities remained unchanged (relative to the moment of screen removal), indi- cating both the absence of cascading effects and a very low recovery capacity of this seagrass.


This paper attempts to integrate discourse theories, mainly the theory of hegemony by Essex School, and Tartu–Moscow School's cultural semiotics, and sets for itself the modest task to point to the applicability of semiotic approach in political analysis. The so-called post-foundationalist view, that is common for discourse theories, is primarily characterized by the rejection of essentialist notions of ground for the social, and the inauguration of cultural and discursive characteristics (such as asymmetry and entropy; explosion; antagonism; insurmountable tension between organization and disorganization, regularity and irregularity, etc.) into the wider social scientific paradigm. Customarily, those characteristics have been attributed to contingent or peripheral events and phenomena that by nature do not belong to the social structure proper. Grounds for such 'groundless' contingencies are found in philosophy (Marchart), or for instance from the psychoanalytic notion of affect (Laclau). Many discourse theorists proceed here from Derrida's position that in the process of signification there is an overabundance of meaning which renders final closure impossible (Howarth; Glynos). However, it seems that despite placing communication at the heart of their conceptions of discourse, the communicative character of constructing power relations remains undertheorized in those conceptions. This article attempts to approach the above mentioned problem by way of the concepts of communication and autocommunication (Lotman). The outcomes stemming from the latter are unavoidable, since the result of any possible research (text) itself belongs to culture or a larger discourse and opera tes as the organizing function of the latter. Hence, research practice and its results always need to be looked at as mutually affecting each other.


A dual SAW sensor attached in cantilever fashion to a free‐floating membrane flush mounted on a structure exposed to turbulent fluid flow are described. Shear stress on the membrane due to the flow conditions, deforms and bends the cantilever beam. The SAW devices are mounted such that one device is in compression and the other in tension. The cantilever arrangement magnifies the deformation of the SAW sensors by many orders of magnitude relative to the membrane. The SAW devices are attached to oscillator circuits and the change in frequency of the SAW oscillators due to the deformation can be accurately measured. The dual arrangement compensates changes in temperatures, electrical, and mechanical noise and other changes and the difference in frequency measured by a mixer is directly related to the shear stress on the structure. Experiments conducted in a wind tunnel are described. [Work supported by ONR.]