Aim: The aim of the study was to investigate the relationships between stressor due to restriction of Palestinian movement, traumatic events due to war on Gaza and psychological symptoms, quality of life, and resilience.
Methods: A sample consisted of 502 randomly selected subjects from five areas of the Gaza Strip. Measures for collecting data include Stressful Situations due to Siege Scale, Gaza Traumatic Events Checklist, Brief Symptom Checklist-BSI-19, World Health Organization Quality of Life, and Resilience scale.
Results: The most common stressful situations due siege were: feelings of being living in a big prison cannot finish some construction and repair work in their house due to shortage of cement and building materials, prices were sharply increased in the last few years. Participants commonly reported traumatic events such as hearing shelling of the area by artillery, hearing the sonic sounds of the jetfighters, hearing the loud voice of drones, and watching mutilated bodies in TV. Males had significantly experienced severe traumatic events than females. People live in cities reported more traumatic events than those live in a village or a camp. As a reaction to stress and trauma Palestinians participants reported anxiety symptoms such as nervousness or shakiness inside, feeling tense or keyed up; while depression symptoms reported were feeling sad, and weak in parts of their body. However, feelings of worthlessness and thoughts of ending life were seldom. Females reported less stress and trauma, but they showed anxiety and somatization symptoms than males. Only 12.5% said that they evaluate their life as good, and 27.1% said they enjoy their life. Better quality of life is an indicator of wellbeing; females had higher level of quality of life. While, physical health activities of daily living were more in males was. Palestinians used religious ways of coping with the stress and trauma, and 98% said God is helping all the time, they were proud of their achievements, and had strong sense of purpose in their life. There were statistically significant positive relationship between stress due to the siege and closure and traumatic events, psychological symptoms, depression, somatization, and anxiety. However, there was statistically significant negative relationship between total score of stress due to the siege and closure and the total resilience factor and subscales, and quality of life. Total traumatic events were positively correlated with psychological symptoms, depression, somatization, and anxiety. Conclusion and implications: In this study, siege and blockade situation was very stressful. Such stressors due to siege had negative influence families especially older age fathers who live in refugee camp and unemployed and living in poor families. Such findings are trigger to start national and international advocacy campaigns to left the siege on Gaza Strip and allow free movements and association, which may decrease stressors and consequences and improve the economic situation of the families and decrease poverty of the families. Traumatic experiences due to eight days war on Gaza impact on mental health and quality of life highlight the need for developing new training program including subjects such trauma, impact of trauma, stress management, symptoms.


We present the first overview of the Herschel observations of the nearby high-mass star-forming region NGC 7538, taken as part of the Herschel imaging study of OB young stellar objects (HOBYS) Key Programme. These PACS and SPIRE maps cover an approximate area of one square degree at five submillimeter and far-infrared wavebands. We have identified 780 dense sources and classified 224 of those. With the intention of investigating the existence of cold massive starless or class 0-like clumps that would have the potential to form intermediate- to high-mass stars, we further isolate 13 clumps as the most likely candidates for follow-up studies. These 13 clumps have masses in excess of 40 M☉ and temperatures below 15 K. They range in size from 0.4 pc to 2.5 pc and have densities between 3 × 103 cm−3 and 4 × 104 cm−3. Spectral energy distributions are then used to characterize their energetics and evolutionary state through a luminosity–mass diagram. NGC 7538 has a highly filamentary structure, previously unseen in the dust continuum of existing submillimeter surveys. We report the most complete imaging to date of a large, evacuated ring of material in NGC 7538 which is bordered by many cool sources.


Patterned bruises often result from abusive injuries. The bruise pattern commonly mimics the injuring object.1 With high-velocity injuries, like whippings or slaps, an unbruised negative image of the cord or hand may be outlined by a fine rim of petechae. At the margin of an injuring object, high-velocity impact stretches capillaries sufficiently to tear them. This may occur even when the force does not crush directly impacted vessels. Greater forces rupture directly impacted vessels creating in addition a positive image bruise of the object. If severe forces are applied more slowly, the elastic limit of the capillaries at the margins will not be exceeded.


The interaction between chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) and its ligand, stromal cell-derived factor (SDF)-1, plays an important role in stem cell mobilization and migration in ischemic tissues. MicroRNAs (miRs) are key regulators of stem cell function and are involved in regulation of stem cell survival and differentiation to adopt different cell lineages. In this study, we show that ischemia inhibits the expression of miR-150 in BM-derived mononuclear cells (MNC) and activates its target Cxcr4 gene. Our results show that miR-150/CXCR4 cascade enhances MNC mobilization and migration. By using mouse acute myocardial infarction (MI) model, we found that MNCs in peripheral blood (PB) were increased significantly at day 5 after AMI as compared to control group and the number of CXCR4 positive MNCs both in bone marrow (BM) and PB was also markedly increased after MI. Analysis by microarray-based miRNA profiling and real-time PCR revealed that the expression of miR-150 which targets Cxcr4 gene as predicted was significantly downregulated in BM-MNCs after MI. Abrogation of miR-150 markedly increased CXCR4 protein expression suggesting its target gene. To show that miR-150 regulates MNC mobilization, knockdown of miR-150 in BM-MNCs by specific antisense inhibitor resulted in their higher migration ability in vitro as compared to scramble-transfected MNCs. Furthermore, in vivo BM transplantation of MNCs lacking miR-150 expression by lentiviral vector into the irradiated wild type mice resulted in the increased number of MNCs in PB after AMI as compared to control. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that ischemia mobilizes BM stem cells via miR-150/CXCR4 dependent mechanism and miR-150 may be a novel therapeutic target for stem cell migration to the ischemic tissue for neovascularization and repair.


Determining both short‐ and long‐term sedimentation rates is becoming increasingly important in geomorphic (exhumation and sediment flux), structural (subsidence/flexure) and natural resource (predictive modelling) studies. Determining sedimentation rates for ancient sedimentary sequences is often hampered by poor understanding of stratigraphic architecture, long‐term variability in large‐scale sediment dispersal patterns and inconsistent availability of absolute age data. Uranium–Lead (U‐Pb) detrital zircon (DZ) geochronology is not only a popular method to determine the provenance of siliciclastic sedimentary rocks but also helps delimit the age of sedimentary sequences, especially in basins associated with protracted volcanism. This study assesses the reliability of U‐Pb DZ ages as proxies for depositional ages of Upper Cretaceous strata in the Magallanes‐Austral retroarc foreland basin of Patagonia. Progressive younging of maximum depositional ages (MDAs) calculated from young zircon populations in the Upper Cretaceous Dorotea Formation suggests that the MDAs are potential proxies for absolute age, and constrain the age of the Dorotea Formation to be ca. 82–69 Ma. Even if the MDAs do not truly represent ages of contemporaneous volcanic eruptions in the arc, they may still indicate progressive‐but‐lagged delivery of increasingly younger volcanogenic zircon to the basin. In this case, MDAs may still be a means to determine long‐term (≥1–2 Myr) average sedimentation rates. Burial history models built using the MDAs reveal high aggradation rates during an initial, deep‐marine phase of the basin. As the basin shoaled to shelfal depths, aggradation rates decreased significantly and were outpaced by progradation of the deposystem. This transition is likely linked to eastward propagation of the Magallanes fold‐thrust belt during Campanian‐Maastrichtian time, and demonstrates the influence of predecessor basin history on foreland basin dynamics.


The subject of this thesis is the simulation study of the development of extensive air show ers produced by very high energy gamma-ray and hadronic cosmic rays with respect to the Cherenkov light they produce, and its imaging in ground based telescopes. Chapters 1-4 are introductory: Chapter 1 covers the mechanisms responsible for the production of very high energy gamma-rays, whereas, chapter 2 focusses on the development of extensive air showers and Cherenkov light production. Chapter 3 covers the instrumentation used to measure the Cherenkov light using the imaging atmospheric Cherenkov technique. Chapter 4 covers known and possible sources of very high energy gamma-rays. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 cover research performed by the author: Chapter 5 discusses some of the differences between three popular extensive air shower simulations codes, namely ALTAI, CORSIKA and MOCCA. Chapter 6 details the simulation of the response of two ground based imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope (the Durham Mark 6 and stand-alone H.E.S.S. telescopes), and in particular details the derivation of the flux of the x-ray selected BL-LAC PKS 2155-304 with the Durham Mark 6 telescope. This represents the refinement of a published measurement given an improved telescope simulation. The significance of the signal seen is 6.8o, and the integral flux derived above 1.5 TeV (assuming a differential spectral slope of-2.6) is {2.5±0.7stat ± (^0.5)(_1.6syst) x 10(^-7) photons m(^-2) s(^-1) Chapter 7 discusses the importance of the atmosphere, and the results of shower simulations under different atmospheric assumptions are presented, which indicate the importance of atmospheric calibration for the new generation of Cherenkov telescopes. The results of this chapter suggest that to first order large changes in the low level aerosol concentration have a much more significant effect on the trigger rate of a stand-alone H.E.S.S. telescope, than on the Hillas parameter distributions seen. Chapter 8 brings together the work done in this thesis, and highlights a final set of fluxes for the active galactic nuclei sources seen with the Durham Mark 6 telescope, many of which will form future sources to be measured with the H.E.S.S. system. The current status of the stand-alone H.E.S.S. system is also covered in chapter 8. The thesis concludes with a further brief discussion of the future prospects for imaging atmospheric Cherenkov astronomy.


This research presents the first application of tomographic techniques for investigating gravity wave structures in polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) imaged by the Cloud Imaging and Particle Size instrument on the NASA AIM satellite. Albedo data comprising consecutive PMC scenes were used to tomographically reconstruct a 3‐D layer using the Partially Constrained Algebraic Reconstruction Technique algorithm and a previously developed "fanning" technique. For this pilot study, a large region (760 × 148 km) of the PMC layer (altitude ~83 km) was sampled with a ~2 km horizontal resolution, and an intensity weighted centroid technique was developed to create novel 2‐D surface maps, characterizing the individual gravity waves as well as their altitude variability. Spectral analysis of seven selected wave events observed during the Northern Hemisphere 2007 PMC season exhibited dominant horizontal wavelengths of ~60–90 km, consistent with previous studies. These tomographic analyses have enabled a broad range of new investigations. For example, a clear spatial anticorrelation was observed between the PMC albedo and wave‐induced altitude changes, with higher‐albedo structures aligning well with wave troughs, while low‐intensity regions aligned with wave crests. This result appears to be consistent with current theories of PMC development in the mesopause region. This new tomographic imaging technique also provides valuable wave amplitude information enabling further mesospheric gravity wave investigations, including quantitative analysis of their hemispheric and interannual characteristics and variations.


Too difficult, too expensive, too far fetched - there have been many objections to satellite as a means to link up small offices, schools, Internet cafes or even individual households to the Internet.

In response to some of these objections, during the mid-1990s dozens of plans were put forward (mainly by satellite builders) to design, build and launch satellites for the specific purpose of bringing cheap and easy connectivity to Internet users in areas without cables. This applies to most of Africa. Lack of money meant that most of these plans for Internet-by-satellite had to be shelved, and they were replaced by new technologies for end user equipment. Companies such as Armstrong Electronics in Ireland and Hughes Network Systems in the US soon developed systems such as WebSat and DirecWay, which use run-of-the-mill satellites, some of which have been in orbit for many years. All the innovation resides in the software and hardware on the ground - partly in the large terrestial stations of the satellite service providers, partly in the equipment on the premises of the end users.

What you get at home is basically a kit consisting of a dish antenna and some hardware, to be linked to a PC. Normally, the dish is only 60 cm in diameter, unless you are near the periphery of the ´footprint´ of the satellite that´s being used, or in tropical areas with a lot of rainfall. Dishes of up to 1.2 metres in diameter may be needed in such cases. The rest of the hardware consists of either two cards to be plugged into your PC, or two boxes, each the size of an external modem, between the PC and the dish.

So what´s so attractive about these new satellite systems? First, their price is falling rapidly. Small satellite links have been available for decades, but they could easily cost between $10,000 and $25,000. The current prices of hardware range from $1,000 to $2,000.

Second, the systems are ´demand assigned´ and you ´pay as you go´. For instance, WebSat - which is available in West Africa on the PanAmSat 1Rsatellite - has a 64 kilobit/second uplink speed and 400 kilobit/second downlink. In old-fashioned arrangements you would rent that capacity round the clock, even when asleep or on holiday. That made satellite technology hugely expensive. Now providers charge at the end of the month for the megabytes you uploaded and downloaded, although there is usually a minimum charge of, say, $200 per month.

Third, what you get is an Internet link and, as with ADSL, you are always online because the satellite provides a wireless link to the Internet backbone. Usually, two separate technologies are used for the downlink (Digital Video Broadcasting, DVB) and the uplink (Return Channel via Satellite, RCS), which makes these systems unsuitable for Internet telephony.

Systems like DirecWay, WebSat, Tachyon and others are becoming more popular in Europe and the US, and they are now being expanded towards Africa and other under-served parts of the world. To offer such services in Africa, however, providers will first have to overcome a number of hurdles. For example, a billing system must be in place. Staff will be required on the spot to help install the dish, which must be trained at the satellite very accurately (much more so than a TV dish). If the dish is just one degree out of alignment, the data transfer speeds will drop drastically. Finally, and most importantly, the service providers must hire capacity on a satellite targeting Africa - where the would-be users are - as well as the North, in order to link up those users to the Internet backbone.

Michiel Hegener is a journalist who frequently writes about Internet developments Africa and satellite communications (email: email@example.com).


Sexually transmitted diseases represent a public health problem with extremely diverse clinical, social and economic implications, which is often underestimated by both doctors and patients. The increasing incidence of persistent or recurrent urethritis might be explained by the emergence of microorganisms resistant to the latest treatments available. In this review we aim to provide a general overview of the therapeutic management of persistent and recurrent urethritis, according to the most recent international recommendations.


We present a family of positive definite kernels on measures, characterized by the fact that the value of the kernel between two measures is a function of their sum. These kernels can be used to derive kernels on structured objects, such as images and texts, by representing these objects as sets of components, such as pixels or words, or more generally as measures on the space of components. Several kernels studied in this work make use of common quantities defined on measures such as entropy or generalized variance to detect similarities. Given an a priori kernel on the space of components itself, the approach is further extended by restating the previous results in a more efficient and flexible framework using the " kernel trick ". Finally, a constructive approach to such positive definite kernels through an integral representation theorem is proved, before presenting experimental results on a benchmark experiment of handwritten digits classification to illustrate the validity of the approach.


The emergence and widespread use of collaborative technologies for distributed project management has created opportunities for offshore outsourcing and collaborative product development. Most tools and techniques for project management focus on categorizations, milestones and short term deadlines, resource allocation, size and risk calculations at a time when long term inter-organizational relationships and sourcing strategies are becoming more dynamic, geographically dispersed. As a result, the nature of project management is changing. This paper investigates collaborative interactions among globally distributed participants through a grounded theory analysis of interactions between participants in globally distributed teams. Following an analysis of interactions on the distributed virtual teams this paper delineates the collaborative processes that affect the success of distributed projects. This has implications for the successful management of distributed projects.


The paper presents an approach for implementing inscrutable (i.e., nonexplainable) artificial intelligence (AI) such as neural networks in an accountable and safe manner in organizational settings. Drawing on an exploratory case study and the recently proposed concept of envelopment, it describes a case of an organization successfully "enveloping" its AI solutions to balance the performance benefits of flexible AI models with the risks that inscrutable models can entail. The authors present several envelopment methods—establishing clear boundaries within which the AI is to interact with its surroundings, choosing and curating the training data well, and appropriately managing input and output sources—alongside their influence on the choice of AI models within the organization. This work makes two key contributions: It introduces the concept of sociotechnical envelopment by demonstrating the ways in which an organization's successful AI envelopment depends on the interaction of social and technical factors, thus extending the literature's focus beyond mere technical issues. Secondly, the empirical examples illustrate how operationalizing a sociotechnical envelopment enables an organization to manage the trade-off between low explainability and high performance presented by inscrutable models. These contributions pave the way for more responsible, accountable AI implementations in organizations, whereby humans can gain better control of even inscrutable machine-learning models.


Acute infectious disease presentations among many at-risk patient groups (eg, uninsured, homeless, and recent immigrants) are frequently seen in emergency departments. Therefore EDs may be useful sentinel sites for infectious disease surveillance. This article describes the background, development, and implementation of EMERGE ncy ID NET, an interdisciplinary, multicenter, ED-based network for research of emerging infectious diseases. EMERGE ncy ID NET was established in cooperation with the National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as part of the CDC's strategy to expand and complement existing disease detection and control activities. The network is based at 11 university-affiliated, urban hospital EDs with a combined annual patient visit census of more than 900,000. Data are collected during ED evaluation of patients with specific clinical syndromes, and are electronically stored, transferred, and analyzed at a central receiving site. Current projects include investigation of bloody diarrhea and the prevalence of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, animal exposures and rabies postexposure prophylaxis practices, seizures and prevalence of neurocysticercosis, nosocomial ED Mycobacterium tuberculosis transmission, and hospital isolation bed use for adults admitted for pneumonia or suspected tuberculosis. EMERGE ncy ID NET also was developed to be a mechanism for rapidly responding to new diseases or epidemics. Future plans include study of antimicrobial use, meningitis, and encephalitis, and consideration of other public health concerns such as injury and national and international network expansion.


The Ly phenotype of cells mediating skin graft rejection was determined using monoclonal anti-Lyt-1.1 and Lyt-2.1 antibodies in CBA mice that received CBA lymphoid cells from mice sensitized to C57BL/6; i.e., alloantigenic differences arising from the H-2 and non-H-2 loci. It was clear that graft rejection was due wholly to the presence of Lyt-1 cells in the inoculum and that Lyt-123 or Lyt-23 cells had no effect. Furthermore, no synergism was noted between Lyt-1 and Lyt-2 cells. In this model, both the cytotoxic T cell and cytotoxic lymphocyte precursors were shown to be Lyt-123 and these could be depleted from sensitized Lyt-1 populations that mediated graft rejection. Thus cytotoxic T cells are not responsible for skin graft rejection, but rather, this is mediated by an Lyt-1 cell. Whether this T cell is distinct from other Lyt-1 cells (T helper, T cells mediating delayed hypersensitivity) is not clear at present, but other evidence, and traditional concepts, link graft rejection and delayed type hypersensitivity as being different manifestations of the same mechanism.


The prevalence of digital documentation presents some pressing concerns for efficient information retrieval in the modern age. Readers want to be able to access the information they desire without having to search through a mountain of unrelated data, so algorithms and methods for effectively seeking out pertinent information are of critical importance.Innovative Document Summarization Techniques: Revolutionizing Knowledge Understanding evaluates some of the existing approaches to information retrieval and summarization of digital documents, as well as current research and future developments. This book serves as a sounding board for students, educators, researchers, and practitioners of information technology, advancing the ongoing discussion of communication in the digital age.


A unique suite of Mn-silicate-carbonate rocks from the Eastern Ghats Belt, India, were metamorphosed under ultrahigh temperatures and exhibit contrasting mineral assemblages in closely spaced domains. Development of contrasting assemblages under isothermal-isobaric conditions is attributed to initial variations in fluid composition particularly a CO2 , and bulk-rock Mn:Mg:A1:Si:Ca ratios. The fO 2 was buffered near the QFM buffer during peak metamorphism. Garnet shows a sharp increase in Fe +3 content towards the rim, which is interpreted to be the result of increased a CO2 during later stages of evolutions of the rocks due to channelled fluid flux. At the terminal stage of evolution, the rocks suffered hydration at lower temperatures.


Uncertainty in the geological interpretation of a seismic image is affected by image quality. Using quantitative image analysis techniques, we have mapped differences in image contrast and reflection continuity for two different representations of the same grayscale seismic image, one in two-way-time (TWT) and one in depth. The contrast and reflection continuity of the depth image is lower than that of the TWT image. We compare the results of 196 interpretations of a single fault with the quality of the seismic image. Low contrast and continuity areas correspond to a greater range of interpreted fault geometries, resulting in a broader spread of fault interpretations in the depth image. Subtle differences in interpreted fault geometries introduce changes in fault characteristics (e.g., throw, heave) that are critical for understanding crustal and lithospheric processes. Seismic image quality impacts interpretation certainty, as evidenced by the increased range in fault interpretations. Quantitative assessments of image quality could inform: (1) whether model-based interpretation (e.g., fault geometry prediction at depth) is more robust than a subjective interpretation; and (2) uncertainty assessments of fault interpretations used to predict tectonic processes such as crustal extension.


The interaction between biological systems and synthetic chiral molecules has a huge impact on contemporary everyday life and applications range from flavors, fragrances, and food additives to agrochemicals and life-saving drugs. The development of efficient methodologies for the synthesis of the individual enantiomers of a chiral target compound is therefore of continuous interest to scientists in both industry and academia.
Among various methods for the preparation of enantiopure molecules, the application of asymmetric catalysis is an attractive option. In the last decades considerable progress has been made in the development of metal-catalyzed asymmetric transformations based on enantiopure ligands complexed to a (transition) metal centre. However, the identification of suitable asymmetric catalysts still poses one of the most challenging endeavours of contemporary chemistry.
The research described in this thesis aimed to develop a new class of privileged chiral ligands for asymmetric catalysis, by functionalization of natural molecules such as carbohydrates.
Sugars were chosen as building blocks since an appropriate derivatization of the hydroxyls present in their skeleton is suited for the achievement of finely tailored ligands.
In particular, the first part of the work was addressed towards the synthesis of new ligands derived from glucose, mannose or galactose.
Ligands, which are structurally analogous to the privileged Trost ligands, were examined in the Pd-catalysed asymmetric desymmetrization of meso-2-cyclopenten-1,4-diol biscarbamate in traditional conditions.
This intramolecular allylic substitution affords the key precursors of mannostatines, and is also a standard test for the assessment of the stereo-orienting properties of new ligands.
In order to demonstrate the applicability of the ligands in other catalytic processes, their use was investigated also in the asymmetric Cu-catalyzed 1,4-conjugate addition of organozinc reagents to acyclic enones.
High reactivities and good enantioselectivities (ee values up to 98%) were achieved in both processes.
The second part of the actitity aimed at combining the high chemical performance of these catalysts with the increasing need of sustainability demanded by the modern industrial chemistry.
For this reason "tagged" versions of the ligands were prepared in order to extend their use in the innovative multiphasic homogeneous conditions.
It should be remember that the methodology requires heterogenization of the catalyst, through either its anchorage to a solid support or its selective immobilization in a liquid phase immiscible with the products phase. In these conditions, the catalyst is easily recycled at the end of the reaction by simple phase separation.
Thus, the desymmetrization of meso-cyclopenten-2-ene-1,4-diol biscarbamate was performed in the ionic liquid and in homogeneous supported catalysis.
The promising results achieved in both cases (up to 4 recycles) give more emphasis to the quality of the new sugar-based ligands, and further stimulates investigation on their use in asymmetric catalysis.


Laser mass spectra have been obtained for liquids under ambient conditions; the spectra are identical with those for the same compounds with the use of cold probe (∼100 K). Liquids studied include benzene, toluene, benzyl alcohol, benzaldehyde, and acetic acid. Under the conditions employed, water, ethanol, methanol, and glycerol do not yield mass spectra. Laser mass spectra are compared with the electron-impact and chemical ionization spectra of the same compounds. Relative ion yields for benzene were studied as a function of laser irradiance. Two ion-formation regimes can be identified: low-power density and high-power density. Cluster ions were observed for many compounds, and the effect of postacceleration voltage on relative cluster-ion intensity is indicated.


The kiss1 gene product kisspeptin is now considered to be an essential regulator of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis in most vertebrate species. Recent findings in fishes are beginning to set a new stage for the kisspeptin study; the existence of paralogous kisspeptin genes as well as kisspeptin receptor (formerly called GPR54) genes has quite recently been reported in several fish and amphibian species. The fishes may provide excellent animal models for the study of general principles underlying the kisspeptin and kisspeptin receptor systems of vertebrates from the evolutionary viewpoint. Unlike placental and marsupial mammalian species mainly studied so far, many teleost species have two paralogous genes of kisspeptin, kiss1 and kiss2. Medaka, Oryzias latipes, in which kiss1 and kiss2 are expressed in distinctive hypothalamic neuron populations, is a good model system for the study of central regulation of reproduction. Here, the kiss1 system but not the kiss2 system shows expression dynamics strongly indicative of its direct involvement in the HPG axis regulation via its actions on GnRH1 neurons. On the other hand, the kiss1 gene is missing, and only kiss2 is expressed in some fish species. Also, there are some recent reports that Kiss2 peptide may be a potent regulator of reproduction in some fish species. The ancestral vertebrate probably already had two paralogous kiss genes, and their main function was the HPG axis regulation. In the species that retained both paralogues during evolution, either Kiss1 or Kiss2 predominantly retains its ability for the HPG axis regulation, while the other may assume new non-reproductive functions (neofunctionalization). Alternatively, both the paralogues may assume complementary functions in the HPG axis regulation (subfunctionalization). After the divergence of teleost and tetrapod lineages, either one of the two paralogues, or even both in birds, have been lost (degradation) or became a pseudogene (non-functionalization), but the remaining paralogue retained its original function of HPG axis regulation. The identification of multiple forms of kisspeptin receptors and the rather promiscuous ligand-receptor relationships has led to the further proposal that such promiscuousness may be the basis for the functional robustness of kisspeptin and kisspeptin receptor systems in the HPG axis regulation, when one or both paralogous genes are lost or functionally partitioned during evolution.


Volume 1: 524pp Lives of Philosophers of the time of George III. Volume 2: 446pp Lives of Men of Letters of the time of George III. Volume 3: 448pp Sketches of Statesmen of the time of George III, first series. Volume 4: 502pp Sketches of Statesmen of the time of George III, second series. Volume 5: 452pp Sketches of Statesmen of the time of George III, third series. Volume 6: 462pp Natural Theology. Volume 7: 428pp Rhetorical and Literary Dissertations and Addresses (incl. articles for the Edinburgh Review). Volume 8: 478pp Historical and Political Dissertations. Volume 9: 474pp Speeches on Social and Political Subjects, with historical introductions - first series. Volume 10: 452pp Speeches - second series (slavery, Reform Bill 1831, Poor Laws, etc.). Volume 11: 546pp The British Constitution - its history, structure and working.


The resources in this guide have been selected to support the course work in Dr. DeMers' World Regional Geography online course.


We address the model-to-image registration problem with line features in the following two ways. (a) We present a robust solution to simultaneously recover the camera pose and the three-dimensional-to-two-dimensional line correspondences. With weak pose priors, our approach progressively verifies the pose guesses with a Kalman filter by using a subset of recursively found match hypotheses. Experiments show our method is robust to occlusions and clutter. (b) We propose a new line feature based pose estimation algorithm, which iteratively optimizes the objective function in the object space. Experiments show that the algorithm has strong robustness to noise and outliers and that it can attain very accurate results efficiently.


Abstract. Ultraviolet–visible (UV–Vis) satellite retrievals of trace gas columns of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and formaldehyde (HCHO) are useful to test and improve models of atmospheric composition, for data assimilation, air quality hindcasting and forecasting, and to provide top-down constraints on emissions. However, because models and satellite measurements do not represent the exact same geophysical quantities, the process of confronting model fields with satellite measurements is complicated by representativeness errors, which degrade the quality of the comparison beyond contributions from modelling and measurement errors alone. Here we discuss three types of representativeness errors that arise from the act of carrying out a model–satellite comparison: (1) horizontal representativeness errors due to imperfect collocation of the model grid cell and an ensemble of satellite pixels called superobservation, (2) temporal representativeness errors originating mostly from differences in cloud cover between the modelled and observed state, and (3) vertical representativeness errors because of reduced satellite sensitivity towards the surface accompanied with necessary retrieval assumptions on the state of the atmosphere. To minimize the impact of these representativeness errors, we recommend that models and satellite measurements be sampled as consistently as possible, and our paper provides a number of recipes to do so. A practical confrontation of tropospheric NO2 columns simulated by the TM5 chemistry transport model (CTM) with Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) tropospheric NO2 retrievals suggests that horizontal representativeness errors, while unavoidable, are limited to within 5–10 % in most cases and of random nature. These errors should be included along with the individual retrieval errors in the overall superobservation error. Temporal sampling errors from mismatches in cloud cover, and, consequently, in photolysis rates, are of the order of 10 % for NO2 and HCHO, and systematic, but partly avoidable. In the case of air pollution applications where sensitivity down to the ground is required, we recommend that models should be sampled on the same mostly cloud-free days as the satellite retrievals. The most relevant representativeness error is associated with the vertical sensitivity of UV–Vis satellite retrievals. Simple vertical integration of modelled profiles leads to systematically different model columns compared to application of the appropriate averaging kernel. In comparing OMI NO2 to GEOS-Chem NO2 simulations, these systematic differences are as large as 15–20 % in summer, but, again, avoidable.


Association between autism and eating problem has been discussed in US and European countries recently, but there are only a few studies about that matter in Asian countries. Objective: This study provides information about eating behavior in autistic children in comparison with Typically Developing (TD) children in two different countries, which are Japan and Indonesia. Method: Participants of this study were 39 Japanese and 13 Indonesian parents with autistic children and 197 Japanese and 144 Indonesian parents of TD. Ages of subjects were between 3 to 6 years old. Eating behavior was evaluated by using Brief Autism Mealtime Inventory (BAMBI) completed by parents. Result showed that commonly children in both countries had eating behavior problems and children with autistic showed more problems than TD children. It is estimated that autistic children have a delay in eating development that may influence their eating behaviors. It is also reported that cultural background can be considered as another influencing factor in the difference of eating behavior in each country. Conclusion: Our study provided information that Autism children have problem in eating behavior. It needs to be noticed continually by clinicians and parents, although problem in eating behavior is not a core feature of autism; it can be an associate feature in autism. Key words: Autism, Eating behavior, Children


We evaluated the applicability of C-reactive protein (CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), white blood cell count (WBC), and absolute neutrophil count (ANC), in the screening of pneumococcal (PNC) pneumonia in children. In 1981-1982, 161 children were treated for radiologically verified community-acquired pneumonia in the hospital during a period of 12 months. The Streptococcus pneumoniae aetiology of infection was studied by antigen, antibody and immune complex assays in acute and convalescent sera. In acute blood samples, CRP was measured by the immunonephelometric method, ESR by the Westergren method, WBC using an automatic cell counter, and thereafter the ANC was calculated after microscopic examination of peripheral smears. CRP and ESR were significantly higher in patients with alveolar (n=53) than in those with interstitial (n=108) pneumonia. CRP, ESR and ANC were significantly higher in PNC (n=29) than in viral (n=23) pneumonia. The values in mixed PNC and viral infections (n=17) were approximately midway between PNC and viral cases. All cases with serologic evidence of S. pneumoniae aetiology were combined (n=46) for calculation of diagnostic parameters. When a cut-off limit of 60 mg x L(-1) was used, CRP had a sensitivity of 26% and a specificity of 83% in the screening of PNC pneumonia. We conclude that C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate have a limited capacity to differentiate between pneumococcal and nonpneumococcal pneumonia. C-reactive protein is recommended as the first-line method of screening, and the value of 60 mg x L(-1) as the cut-off limit.


The European School of Oncology came into existence to respond to a need for information, education and training in the field of the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. There are two main reasons why such an initiative was considered necessary. Firstly, the teaching of oncology requires a rigorously multidiscipli nary approach which is difficult for the Universities to put into practice since their system is mainly disciplinary orientated. Secondly, the rate of technological development that impinges on the diagnosis and treatment of cancer has been so rapid that it is not an easy task for medical faculties to adapt their curricula flexibly. With its residential courses for organ pathologies and the seminars on new techniques (laser, monoclonal antibodies, imaging techniques etc.) or on the principal therapeutic controversies (conservative or mutilating surgery, primary or adjuvant chemotherapy, radiotherapy alone or integrated), it is the ambition of the European School of Oncology to fill a cultural and scientific gap and, thereby, create a bridge between the University and Industry and between these two and daily medical practice. One of the more recent initiatives of ESO has been the institution of permanent study groups, also called task forces, where a limited number of leading experts are invited to meet once a year with the aim of defining the state of the art and possibly reaching a consensus on future developments in specific fields of on cology."


The underlying purpose of the Copyright Act, as stated in the Constitution, is to promote the progress of knowledge and learning. Today, the complexities surrounding copyright law confront millions of users of creative works who find it difficult to determine whether a work is subject to copyright protection, difficult to understand what they can and cannot do with these works, and difficult to locate the copyright owner. These high transaction costs facing users create an impediment to the achievement of copyright's constitutional goal. The Creative Commons offers tools embraced by millions of copyright owners to provide clear public use rights broader than those provided by the Copyright Act. This article posits that by selecting to employ the Creative Commons tools, copyright owners are placing their works into a semicommons status. Property that has a semicommons status embodies both important private rights and important public rights that dynamically interact. Creative works with a semicommons status can facilitate the very progress that copyright law is designed to serve. Thus, this article argues that courts should facilitate the growth of this semicommons of creative works by enhancing the reliability of both the private rights that the copyright owners have retained in these works, as well as the reliability of the public rights that the copyright owners have signaled exist through the use of the Creative Commons tools. Enforcing the private use rights requires appropriately recognizing both copyright infringement claims and breach of contract claims. Enhancing the reliability of the public use rights requires prohibiting a retraction of those rights by the copyright owner, including any attempt at terminating the grant pursuant to provisions contained in the Copyright Act. This article proposes that courts embrace a doctrine of limited abandonment of copyright to clarify the nature of the public rights in works released under Creative Commons licenses and to enhance the overall reliability, and hence value, of the semicommons of creative works.


Abstract : Advances in wireless communication together with the growing number of mobile end devices hold the potential of ubiquitous access to sophisticated internet services; however, such access must cope with an inherent mismatch between the low-bandwidth, limited-resource characteristics of mobile devices and the high-bandwidth expectations of many content-rich services. One promising way of bridging this gap is by deploying application-specific components on the path between the device and service, which perform operations such as protocol conversion and content transcoding. Although several researchers have proposed infrastructures allowing such deployment, most rely on static, hand-tuned deployment strategies restricting their applicability in dynamic situations. In this paper, we present an automatic approach for the dynamic deployment of such transcoding components, which can additionally be dynamically reconfigured as required. Our approach relies on three components: (a) a high-level integrated type-based specification of components and network resources, essential for "late binding" components to paths; (b) an automatic path creation strategy that selects and maps components so as to optimize a global metric; and (c) system support for low-overhead path reconfiguration, consisting of both restrictions on component interfaces and protocols satisfying application semantic continuity requirements. We comprehensively evaluate the effectiveness of our approach over a range of network and end-device characteristics using both a web-access scenario where client performance is for reduced access time, and a streaming scenario where client preference is for increased throughput. Our results verify that (1) automatic path creation and reconfiguration is achievable and does in fact yield substantial performance benefits; and (2) that despite their flexibility, both path creation and reconfiguration can be supported with low run-time overhead.


This introduction to the focus section on "Writing the Anthropocene" examines the challenges that the entry of our species into a new geological epoch poses for the humanities in general and for literary and media theory in particular. It proposes the hypothesis that the Anthropocene can best be understood as a form of writing, a process by which humankind inscribes permanent messages into the geological, climatological, and biochemical records of our planet and is forced, in turn, to study those records for messages pertaining to its future. It discusses the relationship of the Anthropocene to the wider discourse of posthumanism and also touches upon the importance of speculative realism as well as genres like the science-fiction novel to help us conceptualize our new condition. A brief summary of each of the ten essays in the focus section follows.


German post-unification in the 1990s is a period that was marked by substantial economic change, part of which was East German wages building towards the much higher West German levels. This paper studies the public-private pay gap in the fast changing economic and political environment of the 1990s using panel estimation techniques which control for unobserved individual heterogeneity. It shows that, while the overall pay gap between public and private sector stayed remarkably constant in the West, earnings differences in the East increased threefold in the late 1990s resulting in a substantial wage premium in the public sector. It is suggested that this premium is a result of the politically induced gap between pay and actual productivity. Furthermore, results vary greatly by gender indicating significantly larger female earnings differentials. Several institutional and political arguments are presented to explain this phenomenon.


Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center In Southeast Asia, the Gulf of Thailand has one of the highest potentials in terms of pelagic fishery resources, due to its shallow topographic bottom features forming the Gulf into a large basin, the seasonal change in wind and current, and the several rivers that discharge water and nutrients into it. With a surface area of 320,000 km2 (123,553 mi2), the Gulf of Thailand (GoT) is bordered by four countries, namely: Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Viet Nam. GoT is well recognized for its important habitats and abundance of marine aquatic resources, with fisheries sector that provides significant livelihoods, food security and nutrition to the people of the GoT countries. At present however, the fishery resources in GoT is declining due to fishing pressure, and the rampant practice of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. In order to address such concerns, the bordering countries of GoT exerted efforts to manage the resources of the Gulf that include the promotion of collaborative fisheries management for commercially-important transboundary species such as anchovy, Indo-Pacific mackerel and blue swimming crab. This article focuses on the management of the Indo-Pacific mackerel (Rastrelliger brachysoma) resources in the Gulf of Thailand. Enhancing the Management of the Indo-Pacific Mackerel Resources in the Gulf of Thailand: a synthesis


This thesis aims to investigate which factors are the major determinants of capital structure decisions for globally listed shipbuilding companies, and how quickly they adjust their capital structures when deviating from their target leverage ratios. Earlier academic articles have highlighted a number of firm specific factors that determine capital structures in other industries. This thesis gives special attention to the similarities between the merchant shipping industry researched by Drobetz et al. (2013) and the shipbuilding industry. We will use and apply determinants tested on the shipping industry to our sample of shipbuilders, but also add a set of new industry specific variables. To a large extent, unobserved company specific effects drive shipbuilders' capital structure decisions. Using a range of multiple regression models we find size, asset risk, and the market to book ratio to be the most influential observable determinants of capital structure. Our results imply that shipbuilding companies do not follow one explicit capital structure theory, but a combination of the trade-off theory and the pecking order theory. The former theory dominates the firm level determinants, whereas the latter dominates with regards to the influence from the macroeconomic environment. Shipbuilders can be said to have relatively lower adjustment than deviation costs compared to other industries, as shipbuilders tend to adjust their capital structures significantly faster. The rate of adjustment is heavily dependent on macroeconomic cycles because the shipbuilders actively change their leverage ratios much slower in times of recession. This indicates that the adjustment costs increase during worsened economic conditions.


This paper argues that during the housing bubble, housing finance markets failed to price risk correctly because of information failure caused by the complexity and heterogeneity of private-label mortgage-backed securities and structured finance products. Addressing the informational problems with mortgage securitization is critical not just for avoiding future housing bubbles but for rebuilding American housing finance. The continued availability of the long-term fixed-rate mortgage, which has been the bedrock of American homeownership since the Depression, depends on the continued viability of securitization. The paper proposes that mortgage securitization and origination be standardized as a way of reducing complexity and heterogeneity in order to rebuild a sustainable, stable housing finance market based around the long-term fixed-rate mortgage.


Theoretical and experimental research sponsored by the U.S. Bureau of Mines shows that medium frequency (MF) electromagnetic (EM) signals propagate great distances in an underground environment such as a tunnel or mine. This propagation is enhanced by different mechanisms associated with the geology, and with the existence of metallic conductors in the entryways. In stratified geologies, a transverse electromagnetic (TEM) mode of signal propagation is possible if a low conducting layer is bounded above and below by higher conducting layers. In general, the difference in conductivities must be at least several orders of magnitude. Such geological waveguide conditions often exist in underground mines. Propagation via the waveguide effect is known as the "seam mode" of propagation. Another mode of propagation, the "tunnel mode," exists in underground entries with electrical conductors such as power cables, metal pipes, and phone lines. A monofilar mode of propagation exists when signals are impressed upon conductors and return via the surrounding rock. A bifilar mode of propagation exists when all signals exist only on local conductors. In a given location there is a combination of monofilar and bifilar modes that make possible an interaction between the conductors and a transmitting device in a tunnel or entryway. Signals can be impressed on or received from local conductors via magnetic dipole antennas (loops) or line couplers.


Background: Plectin crosslinks intermediate filaments to their targets in different tissues. Defects in plectin cause epidermolysis bullosa simplex (EBS), muscular dystrophy (MD), and sometimes pyloric atresia. Association of EBS with a myasthenic syndrome (MyS) was documented in a single patient in 1999. Objectives: To analyze the clinical, structural, and genetic aspects of a second and fatal case of EBS associated with a MyS and search for the genetic basis of the disease in a previously reported patient with EBS-MD-MyS. Methods: Clinical observations; histochemical, immunocytochemical, and electron microscopy studies of skeletal muscle and neuromuscular junction; and mutation analysis. Results: An African American man had EBS since early infancy, and progressive muscle weakness, hyperCKemia, and myasthenic symptoms refractory to therapy since age 3 years. Eventually he became motionless and died at age 42 years. At age 15 years, he had a marked EMG decrement, and a reduced miniature endplate potential amplitude. The myopathy was associated with dislocated muscle fiber organelles, structurally abnormal nuclei, focal plasmalemmal defects, and focal calcium ingress into muscle fibers. The neuromuscular junctions showed destruction of the junctional folds, and remodeling. Mutation analysis demonstrated a known p.Arg2319X and a novel c.12043dupG mutation in PLEC1. The EBS-MD-MyS patient reported in 1999 also carried c.12043dupG and a novel p.Gln2057X mutation. The novel mutations were absent in 200 Caucasian and 100 African American subjects. Conclusions: The MyS in plectinopathy is attributed to destruction of the junctional folds and the myopathy to defective anchoring of muscle fiber organelles and defects in sarcolemmal integrity.


This chapter analyzes an exchange where hecklers interrupt Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) at a 2008 U. S. Presidential campaign town hall meeting. Analysis of video records describes HRC's impromptu, embodied rhetorical response that repositions the disruptors onto the discursive margin and upholds women's discursive rights as she sidesteps the trap of the "double-bind," and consolidates audience alignment with her values. Studying public speakers negotiate unplanned, complex, multi-party events can reveal more about a leader's discursive skills and social intelligence than planned, text-centric political discourse. This chapter analyzes emergent, multimodal interaction (linguistic and gestural), and visible contributions from social others addressed by the speaker, a methodological shift important for recognizing the depth of women's public speaking skill and stylistic variety.


Previous research has found that men and women have quite different experiences of working in opposite gender dominated occupations. The effect of societal status on the processes that occur in gender dominated occupations often results in negative outcomes for women and positive outcomes for men. The study aimed to explore the attitudes and beliefs of individuals working in gender dominated occupations. It focussed specifically on how people who work in gender dominated occupations react to their group's position as a numerical majority or minority and the groups' attitudes towards their situation. Social Identity Theory (SIT, Tajfel & Turner, 1979) was adopted as a guiding framework for the research. The sample for the study consisted of male and female volunteers working in gender dominated occupations. 110 male and female nurses and 97 men and women working in two male dominated occupations (engineers and prison officers) participated. To achieve the aims of the study specific areas of SIT were measured. The areas included identification with the gender group, how prominent gender and occupation were in the self�oncept, and whether gender was used as a basis for categorisations of others. Also measured were perceptions of the status of the groups and beliefs about how fair and open to change the intergroup situation was. In addition, perceived acceptance of the ingroup and acceptance towards the outgroup, beliefs about changing the groups' position and the support or rejection of outgroups' beliefs were measured. The following specific measures were used: the Spontaneous Self�oncept, the Gender Salience Scale, and llinkle, Taylor, Fox-Cardamone and Crook's (1989) measure of group identification. SIT makes specific predictions about how beliefs about the intergroup situation and identification with the group are related to social change beliefs. Results showed that gender affected choice of social change beliefs for achieving positive distinctiveness, with men being higher on social mobility beliefs, and women higher in social creativity and social competition beliefs. Engineers were higher in social mobility beliefs and social creativity beliefs than nurses. Status also affected social change beliefs with low status groups being more likely to choose social competition strategies than high status groups. Women showed less support for social competition and social creativity beliefs in the outgroup than men. Women showed more support for social mobility beliefs in the outgroup than men. Nurses showed less support for social mobility beliefs in the out group than engineers. Nurses had lower social competition (maintaining status) beliefs than did engineers. Status also affected support of the outgroup's social change beliefs. The low status group showed higher support of social mobility beliefs in the outgroup than the high status group, and higher social competition beliefs than the equal and high status groups. The equal group showed less support for outgroup social competition than did the high status group. The results of regression analysis showed that gender was the best predictor of ingroup social mobility beliefs and ingroup social competition beliefs. Gender also was the best predictor of attitudes towards outgroup social mobility beliefs and ingroup social competition (to maintain status) beliefs. Gender identification was the best predictor of ingroup social creativity beliefs, and support for social creativity beliefs in the outgroup. Legitimacy beliefs were the best predictor of support or rejection of the outgroup's social competition beliefs. The results of this study highlight the importance of using an approach that explores the different variables that predict each social change belief rather than focussing on the relationship between identification and differentiation as previous studies have done.


"Eric and Russell were early adopters of Cassandra at SimpleReach. In Practical Cassandra, you benefit from their experience in the trenches administering Cassandra, developing against it, and building one of the first CQL drivers. If you are deploying Cassandra soon, or you inherited a Cassandra cluster to tend, spend some time with the deployment, performance tuning, and maintenance chapters... If you are new to Cassandra, I highly recommend the chapters on data modeling and CQL." -From the Foreword by Jonathan Ellis, Apache Cassandra Chair Build and Deploy Massively Scalable, Super-fast Data Management Applications with Apache Cassandra Practical Cassandra is the first hands-on developer's guide to building Cassandra systems and applications that deliver breakthrough speed, scalability, reliability, and performance. Fully up to date, it reflects the latest versions of Cassandra-including Cassandra Query Language (CQL), which dramatically lowers the learning curve for Cassandra developers. Pioneering Cassandra developers and Datastax MVPs Russell Bradberry and Eric Lubow walk you through every step of building a real production application that can store enormous amounts of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. Drawing on their exceptional expertise, Bradberry and Lubow share practical insights into issues ranging from querying to deployment, management, maintenance, monitoring, and troubleshooting. The authors cover key issues, from architecture to migration, and guide you through crucial decisions about configuration and data modeling. They provide tested sample code, detailed explanations of how Cassandra works "under the covers," and new case studies from three cutting-edge users: Ooyala, Hailo, and eBay. Coverage includes Understanding Cassandra's approach, architecture, key concepts, and primary use cases- and why it's so blazingly fast Getting Cassandra up and running on single nodes and large clusters Applying the new design patterns, philosophies, and features that make Cassandra such a powerful data store Leveraging CQL to simplify your transition from SQL-based RDBMSes Deploying and provisioning through the cloud or on bare-metal hardware Choosing the right configuration options for each type of workload Tweaking Cassandra to get maximum performance from your hardware, OS, and JVM Mastering Cassandra's essential tools for maintenance and monitoring Efficiently solving the most common problems with Cassandra deployment, operation, and application development


This report describes the impacts of weather on roadway maintenance activities, with a focus on cities and counties, as obtained from interviews with road maintenance supervisors. The report further describes weather information technologies currently being used or investigated for use to reduce the impact of weather on maintenance activities and to reduce the costs of those activities. Recommendations presented include: implementing road weather information systems through interjurisdictional and interagency cooperation through the development of a regional staff weather advisory function; instituting a multi-agency weather "interest group"; documenting the societal benefits and costs of snow and ice control maintenance; developing guidelines for contracting for road weather information systems; and testing the utility to road maintenance organizations of a weather radar at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.


Floral and faunal communities associated with shallow reefs in the Jurien Bay Marine Park were investigated using underwater visual census methods on six occasions from October 1999 to November 2007. Densities of fishes, mobile macro-invertebrates, sessile invertebrates and macro-algae were quantified at a total of 42 sites.
The magnitude of changes in density at zone locations between years was generally considerably less than spatial variability between zone locations, although some species and community metrics examined showed consistent increases or decreases in numbers over the survey period.
The biotic community at different sites showed a major biotic subdivision between reefs located within a kilometre of the coastline and outer lagoonal reefs. Inshore reefs were characterised by sheltered conditions, water with moderate turbidity, and by macro-algae such as Dictymenia sonderi and Neurymenia fraxinifolia. Outer reefs were characterised by clear water, wave-exposed conditions, the kelp Ecklonia radiata, and the red seaweeds Pterocladia lucida and Hennedya crispa.
Outer reefs were largely homogeneous with respect to associated plants and animals, whereas inshore reefs showed considerable variation between sites and between management zone locations. Scientific reference zones, in which rock lobster fishing is permitted, largely include outer reef systems. As a consequence, scientific reference zones possess a biota that differs little between zone locations. By contrast, sanctuary zones, where all forms of fishing are prohibited, include only shallow reefs, hence possess a biota that varies greatly between locations, and also differs from the biota encountered in scientific reference zones.
The lack of overlap in reef communities between sanctuary zones and scientific reference zones complicated analysis of effects of restrictions on fishing that were enacted in these two zone types in December 2005. Regardless, very few observable ecological changes associated with new fishing restrictions were identified. The strongest relationships associated with fishing restrictions were found in correlation analysis when comparing the level of change from the periods before and after fishing restrictions with areal extent of protected zone. In this analysis, the mean size of breaksea cod (Epinephelides armatus) and silver trevally (Caranx georgianus) was found to increase significantly in the larger protected zones, as did the abundance of large (>250 mm) exploited fishes as a group and also dhufish (Glaucosoma hebraicum).
We consider that the trends in breaksea cod size and numbers of exploited fishes are probably real, given that adequate data were available for statistical tests and trends were consistent between years. However, the trends in silver trevally size and dhufish abundance relate to highly patchy data, with the significant correlations best regarded as flags for confirmation or otherwise through the longer term.
Several management recommendations arose from the study:
Sanctuary zones should be extended to the outer reef area. Extra sites should then be added to the JBMP reef monitoring program to allow improved evaluation of effects of fishing restrictions, particularly with respect to assessment of the ecosystem role of rock lobsters.
Other than for an extension of sanctuary zones to the offshore region, the system of protected zones in the JBMP should be maintained with as few changes to regulations and zone boundaries as possible through the long term. This is particularly important for zones that include sites surveyed as part of the long-term JBMP reef monitoring program.
Surveys of fishes and mobile invertebrates should be repeated on an annual basis, and surveys of plant assemblages be conducted on a biennial basis, for at least five years from the time of enforcement of fishing restrictions in 2005. The frequency of surveys should be reviewed in 2010 to assess whether a longer period between surveys is warranted on grounds of cost-effectiveness. Monitoring should nevertheless continue through the longer term at least until biotic changes associated with MPA protection stabilise, probably longer given the unique value of the data set in tracking ecological effects of climate change.


Several aspects of patent litigation call into question patent holders' motivation for enforcing their exclusionary rights. Indeed, the expense alone can be enough to deter a firm from engaging in litigation, especially if it is likely that the parties will be unable to reach a settlement agreement and will go to trial. Notwithstanding, the number of patent infringement filings in district courts grows each year, thus providing a forum for asking what patent holders really desire to gain from litigating. Although injunctive relief and damages awards confer benefits to patent holders that can make litigating worthwhile, this Article posits that plaintiffs have no intention of ever obtaining these statutory remedies. Rather, handsome settlement arrangements provide the incentive for patentees to litigate. This Article contends that such settlement agreements are becoming a way of life for patent holders, and that rather than viewing litigation as an end result of parties' failure to resolve a dispute, it is instead becoming the ordinary course of business and a routine consequence of owning a patent.


This study is principally aimed at the exploration of the bacterial contaminants that are prevalent in the drinking water of different reservoirs in Mahabubnagar, TS, India, along with cost-effective water treatment using palatable leaves of Mentha piperita. Water samples from three different reservoirs of Palamuru, namely, Ramanpadu reservoir (RPR), Koilsagar reservoir (KSR) and Jurala reservoir (JUR), were collected and bacteriological and chemical parameters were assessed. Colony forming units (CFU) were determined by plate culture method using different media. The bacterial diversity concomitant with the three different reservoirs was examined and compared using a molecular approach coalescing fingerprinting by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). Overall, 37 16S rDNA sequences were obtained. The sequencing dominant bands validated that the major phylogenetic groups identified by DGGE belonged to Bacillus, Brevibacillus, Exiguobacterium, Gammaproteobacteria, Acinetobacter sp. and some uncultured or unidentified bacteria. At household level, incubation of potable water with pudina leaves decreased the bacterial contamination showing its anti-bacterial effect and proving it to be an easy method to impede bacterial contamination in potable water.


The field of modern project management is not new, and what seems to have changed over the past decade is the evolution of techniques applying theory into practice. This had as a consequence for the need to standardise and structure different processes of project management, in a detailed, documented and formal manner.

On the other hand, change management seen as an integrated process within project management is a rational process for exploring decision and behaviour alternatives in an attempt to realign the course of 'derailed' deliverables due to change and ensure project success.

However, models contained in such frameworks often lack formal semantics and clarity; generally fail to address and assess organisational change management risk reasoning, in a rather detailed way as they do for the majority of the project management processes.

Since, uncontrolled changes might have an effect on the projects' success, it is vital to assess the probability of materialisation (risk) of success before the decision is made and whether to proceed with the change or not. For example, if the change dramatically increases the risk of failure then it is logical to assume that avoiding that implementation is the right decision. Ideally, a change or consequence based upon a decision should have a low impact and a fairly high level of predictability.

This research, takes the challenge to propose a novel modelling approach, which will contribute significantly to the missing formality of business models especially in the change risks assessment area.

The introduction of Change Risk Assessment Model (CRAM) allows the identification and definition of speculative relationships, between change risks in the form of hierarchical risk tree analysis. Overall, the method is dynamic and flexible enough that can be tailored to various project requirements, taking into account significant environmental risk factors which influence project deliverables.

Project success is a key objective for today's organisations; professionals can make use of a new methodology for risk assessment, compatible with project management frameworks which currently seems to be missing from literature.

Project management methodologies are not a panacea against project failure; nevertheless, CRAM can be regarded as a comprehensive modelling approach which combines both quantitative and qualitative risk criteria analysis in decision making processes.


Brilliant, intimidating, charming, or profane, Coach Bob Knight is an enduring contradiction who has long fascinated and repelled basketball fans, for whom he has provided as much to dislike as to respect. "Bob Knight: The Unauthorized Biography" is the first comprehensive biography of Knight, one of the most successful and controversial coaches in the history of American sports. Detailing the entire scope of Knight's playing and coaching career through extensive interviews -- including many with people who have never gone on record about him before -- authors Steve Delsohn and Mark Heisler give a candid yet balanced account of the man who will likely end up as the all-time winningest coach in college basketball. In 1965, at age twenty-four, Bobby Knight became the head basketball coach at Army and began a career that would soon take him to Indiana University, where for the next twenty-nine years he would become the game's most famous and notorious coach. While there, he won three national championships (1976, '81, '87) and once compiled a perfect 32-0 record with an amazing 63-1 record over two seasons. Knight was NCAA Coach of the Year three times (1975, '76, '89) and coached U.S. teams to gold medals in both the Olympics and the Pan-Am Games. Yet he is equally, if not more, famous for some of his misbehaviors -- pulling his team off the court against the Soviets, making insensitive comments about rape to Connie Chung, putting a tampon in a player's locker to let him know that Knight thought he was a wimp -- and other alleged misbehaviors: kicking his own son Patrick during a game, stuffing an LSU fan into a trash can, assaulting a policeman in Puerto Rico -- and the list goeson. One of Knight's closest friends once said of him, "Bob Knight is an asshole. But he knows it and he tries like hell to make up for it." Unfortunately, over the years there has been more and more to make up for. The story of Bob Knight has moved on to Texas Tech, where he continues his quest to become the winningest college basketball coach of all time. He already is the most fascinating. Love him or loathe him, Knight keeps winning and forces you to watch him and have an opinion. "Bob Knight: The Unauthorized Biography" is an extraordinary look at a legendary coach with a monumental temper and an appetite for confrontation.


Background : Shared decision making (SDM) is frequently advocated but not yet widely implemented in European countries. Experience suggests that various incentives must be in alignment to encourage wider uptake. Objectives : To assess readiness for mainstream implementation of SDM in five European countries. Methods : Qualitative assessment of clinical policies and the availability of various SDM support services in Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands and the UK. Results : All five countries have research groups working on SDM, patient groups calling for its wider use, and ethical and professional standards indicating its desirability, but apart from a small number of demonstration projects, there is no evidence of a systematic approach to implementation in any of the countries as yet. Conclusions : Greater attention will need to be given to the provision of effective leadership, training and practical support if SDM is to become a regular feature of clinical practice in these countries.


Purpose: to compare several countries against many Mediterranean adherence indices, calculated by looking at 19 European Member States. The value of a population-level Mediterranean Diet Index, the Mediterranean Adequacy Index (P-MAI) is at the core of the analysis. Design/methodology/approach: the EFSA's Concise European Food Consumption Database (mean g/day/per capita) and the FAO-FBS dataset (grams and calories/day/per capita values) were used as the unique sources currently available, in order to derive a simple yet harmonised secondary-data framework, which could serve for policy analysis and policy making therein of. Findings: The adherence to a Mediterranean-like dietary pattern outlines a general rank correlation among countries, and a broader north-south divide within Europe. Scores remain relatively stable across time. Although there has been a decrease in Mediterranean adherence in southern Europe, some central and northern European regions have seen gains. Research limitations/implications: Several data gaps do not allow a full comparison across all the indices used (i.e., lack of foodstuff detail of key-foods of the Med diet). A further problem of Med-adherence indices is that it does not consider the overall caloric intake. Practical implications: The relatively low discriminatory power of the emerging clusters of countries, reflecting the national dietslimits their usefulness in terms of policy-making recommendations. Furthermore the indices used were originally built on first-hand data (i.e., cohort studies relying on real persons), and not on aggregated mean-median values at population level (secondary data). Social implications In a period in which the interest for the health outcomes of the Mediterranean diet is on the rise in terms of preventive medicine, the P-MAI is an interesting indicator due to its user-friendliness, which allows the classification of European countries' diets using food intake data. Originality/value: Mediterranean adherence indices may be useful as synthetic indicators for monitoring the evolution of diets and for identifying sub-regions with similar dietary patterns or changes. The P-MAI index in particular, due to its simplicity, may help to monitor the overall healthiness of national diets, and could help to inform subsequent nutrition policies, including emerging labelling provisions both at National and European level, in order to achieve public health targets (i.e., reduction of NCDs).


Background: Although many clinical laboratories are adopting higher color flow cytometric assays, the approach to optimizing panel design and data analysis is often traditional and subjective. In order to address the question "What is the best flow cytometric strategy to reliably distinguish germinal center B-cell lymphoma (GC-L) from lymphoid hyperplasia (GC-H)?" we applied a computational tool that identifies target populations correlated with a desired outcome, in this case diagnosis. Design: Cases of GC-H and GC-L with a germinal center phenotype, evaluated by flow cytometric immunophenotyping using CD45, CD20, kappa, lambda, CD19, CD5, CD10, CD38, were analyzed with flowType and RchyOptimyx to construct cellular hierarchies that best distinguished the two diagnostic groups. Results: The population CD5-CD19+CD10+CD38- had the highest predictive power. Manual reanalysis confirmed significantly higher CD10+/CD38-B-cells in GC-L (median 12.44%, range 0.74 - 63.29, n=52) than GC-H (median 0.24%, 0.03 - 4.49, n=48, p=0.0001), but was not entirely specific. Difficulties encountered using this computational approach included the presence of CD10+ granulocytes, continuously variable B-cell expression of CD38, more variable intensity antigen staining in GC-L and inability to assess the contribution of light chain restriction. Conclusion: Computational analysis with construction of cellular hierarchies related to diagnosis helped guide manual analysis of high dimensional flow cytometric data. This approach highlighted the diagnostic utility of CD38 expression in the evaluation of B-cells with a CD10+ GC phenotype. In contrast to computational analysis of non-neoplastic cell populations, evaluation of neoplastic cells must be able to take into consideration increased variability in antigen expression. © 2013 Clinical Cytometry Society.


This article brings together the methodological processes, from the technical and the visual, for the design an application in augmented reality (AR), focused on the awareness of the importance of the architectural heritage of the city of Medellin, in the context of the Colciencias call N. 570 for Art and Culture. General objective: To design and implement an application with augmented reality content for the reactivation of the Cisneros Marketplace. Specific objectives: (I) To characterize the architectural elements susceptible to be applied under augmented reality; (II) to propose a scenario of experience between technology, heritage and citizenship; (III) to design the graphic proposal and the generation of digital contents. Methodology: Quantitative and qualitative. The following research moments were created in order to collect the data: (I) Raising of a state of the art on the subject; (II) identifying planimetry and recreation resources of the city in order to visually reconstruct the building; (III) development of 2D and 3D prototypes for the digital space realization; (IV) refinement of content and data that will accompany the experience; and (V) testing with the different technological structures that will allow to generate the final model in augmented reality for mobile applications. Results: Experimental tests were performed with different audiences, ranging from 21 to 46 years of age. Because the application was developed and evaluated only for devices with Android operating system, in situ tests were organized in the physical area where the Marketplace was located. Conclusions: The possibilities offered by augmented reality in heritage sites have grown exponentially in recent years due to its great appeal to the public, constituting an important resource within the most avant-garde cultural programs. For this project, it is an opportunity for expansion and to make known this technology in the city and country.


The Shinarump and Buckhorn conglomerates and the Dakota sandstone are widespread deposits of Mesozoic age in the western interior. The physical characters indicate a fluvial origin, but the wide areal extent, scarcity of fossils, and exceptional thinness are difficult to explain by current concepts. It is suggested that these and similar continental formations are extensive pediment deposits which originated by processes observable in present-day arid and semiarid regions. These ancient deposits are compared with known pediment deposits, and the implications with regard to stratigraphic terminology and age assignments are briefly discussed.


Abstract. The discontinuous permafrost region of northwestern Canada is experiencing rapid warming resulting in dramatic land cover change from forested permafrost terrain to treeless wetlands. Extensive research has been conducted throughout this region to gain insight into how climate-induced land cover change will impact water resources and ecosystem function. This paper presents a hydrological and micrometeorological dataset collected in the Scotty Creek basin, Northwest Territories, Canada over the course of the Changing Cold Regions Network (CCRN) Special Observation and Analysis Period (SOAP) year of 1 October 2014 to 30 September 2015. Micrometeorological data collected from four stations located in land cover types representative of those comprising the Scotty Creek basin, including bog, channel fen, stable peat plateau and peat plateau undergoing rapid permafrost degradation and loss are presented. Monitored micrometeorological variables include incoming and outgoing shortwave and longwave radiation, air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, precipitation (rain and snow) and snow depth. Deep ground temperatures (~ 1 to 10 m below the ground surface) from a channel fen as well as disturbed sites common to the basin including a seismic line and winter road are presented. Water levels were also monitored in the representative land cover types over this period. This dataset is available from the Wilfrid Laurier University Library Research Data Repository (https://doi.org/10.5683/SP/OQDRJG) and can be used in coordination with other hydrological and micrometeorological datasets, including those from the CCRN, to examine spatio-temporal effects of meteorological conditions on local hydrological responses across cold regions.


The first commercially available MRI‐guided IMRT (MRIGRT) system (ViewRay, Cleveland, OH) has been installed at Washington University in St. Louis. This novel medical instrument combines magnetic resonance imaging and intensity modulated radiation therapy at a single isocenter for simultaneous use during therapy along with automated tissue tracking and beam control based on images of soft tissue acquired in real time rates of 2–4 FPS simultaneous to the delivery. The purpose of this presentation is to describe and evaluate the technical aspects of the instrument as well as its adaptive and image guided radiotherapy workflows. The ViewRay system consists of a 0.35‐T double‐doughnut MRI coupled with a gantry that houses three radiotherapy heads containing 15,000‐Ci Co‐60 sources (120° apart). IMRTdelivery is enabled by 3 doubly‐focused MLCs that serve as the only collimators for each head, allowing a maximum field size of 27 cm2 at the 105‐cm isocenter. MRIimaging is used prior to and during delivery for patient setup evaluation, adaptive radiotherapy, and tissue tracking and beam control based on real time 2–4 FPS imaging (2 FPS in 3 parallel planes or 4 FPS in a single plane). The fast MRimaging coupled with fast autocontouring, image fusion that can transfer tissue densities (via contours through bulk density or from fused CT imaging), and dose calculation facilitate real time dosedelivery evaluation, on couch reoptimization, and replanning when necessary. The instrument's multiframe per second MRimaging enables motion correlated delivery based on the actual target volumes rather than on surrogates. Following treatment, the image, contours, and control system data produce a record of the delivery that is automatically recorded and registered to the orginal plan for evaluation. All imaging and adaptive features are controlled by clinician directives at the planning stage and can be set as required, optional, or prohibited. The design and capabilities of the system create several novel concepts and promising capabilities in RT delivery from imaging and treatment to workflow and QA/QC. This presentation discusses the initial assessment of these features and their implementation and the early clinical experience with the system including validation of its capabilities. Learning Objectives: 1. To describe technical design and capabilites of ViewRay system 2. To describe adaptive and image guided RT workflow with this system 3. To present initial validation assessment of the system


The study explores the influence of domestic competition on international trade performance, using data from a broad sample of Japanese industries. Domestic rivalry is measured directly using market-share instability rather than employing structural variables such as seller concentration. We find robust evidence that domestic rivalry has a positive and significant relationship with trade performance measured by world export share, particularly when R&D intensity reveals opportunities for dynamic improvement and innovation. Conversely, trade protection reduces export performance. These findings support the view that local competitionnot monopoly, collusion, or a sheltered home market pressures dynamic improvement that leads to international competitiveness.


Simultaneous multithreading (SMT) increases processor throughput by multiplexing resources among several threads. Despite the commercial availability of SMT processors, several aspects of this resource sharing are not well understood. For example, academic SMT studies typically assume that resources are shared dynamically, while industrial designs tend to divide resources statically among threads. This study seeks to quantify the performance impact of resource partitioning policies in SMT machines, focusing on the execution portion of the pipeline. We find that for storage resources, such as the instruction queue and reorder buffer, statically allocating an equal portion to each thread provides good performance, in part by avoiding starvation. The enforced fairness provided by this partitioning obviates sophisticated fetch policies to a large extent. SMT's potential ability to allocate storage resources dynamically across threads does not appear to be of significant benefit. In contrast, static division of issue bandwidth has a negative impact on throughput. SMT's ability to multiplex bursty execution streams dynamically onto shared function units contributes to its overall throughput. Finally, we apply these insights to SMT support in clustered architectures. Assigning threads to separate clusters eliminates intercluster communication; however, in some circumstances, the resulting partitioning of issue bandwidth cancels out the performance benefit of eliminating communication.


Situations of economic crisis do not justify an exemption to the prohibition of anticompetitive agreements. There is neither a special rule for the agricultural sector that would provide a broad antitrust exemption aside from the common agricultural policy (CAP). The primacy of CAP goals does not mean that the agricultural sector is exempted from the application of competition rules. Only the European Commission and common market organizations' regulations may, in justified cases, establish limitations to free competition rules. The Supreme Court Judgment of 20 January 2010 makes a mistaken reading of EU case law and introduces a dangerous precedent regarding anticompetitive actions by agricultural producers. The judicial creation of a specific antitrust exemption for the storage of olive oil by producers (to raise its sale prices) violates competition law.


In many developed countries, the usage of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) has become important in paving the future path in how data is managed and secured in the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) sector. SMEs in these developed countries have created their own cyber regimes around AI and ML. This knowledge is tested daily in how these countries' SMEs run their businesses and identify threats and attacks, based on the support structure of the individual country. Based on recent changes to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Brexit, and ISO standards requirements, machine learning cybersecurity (MLCS) adoption in the UK SME market has become prevalent and a good example to lean on, amongst other developed nations. Whilst MLCS has been successfully applied in many applications, including network intrusion detection systems (NIDs) worldwide, there is still a gap in the rate of adoption of MLCS techniques for UK SMEs. Other developed countries such as Spain and Australia also fall into this category, and similarities and differences to MLCS adoptions are discussed. Applications of how MLCS is applied within these SME industries are also explored. The paper investigates, using quantitative and qualitative methods, the challenges to adopting MLCS in the SME ecosystem, and how operations are managed to promote business growth. Much like security guards and policing in the real world, the virtual world is now calling on MLCS techniques to be embedded like secret service covert operations to protect data being distributed by the millions into cyberspace. This paper will use existing global research from multiple disciplines to identify gaps and opportunities for UK SME small business cyber security. This paper will also highlight barriers and reasons for low adoption rates of MLCS in SMEs and compare success stories of larger companies implementing MLCS. The methodology uses structured quantitative and qualitative survey questionnaires, distributed across an extensive participation pool directed to the SMEs' management and technical and non-technical professionals using stratify methods. Based on the analysis and findings, this study reveals that from the primary data obtained, SMEs have the appropriate cybersecurity packages in place but are not fully aware of their potential. Secondary data collection was run in parallel to better understand how these barriers and challenges emerged, and why the rate of adoption of MLCS was very low. The paper draws the conclusion that help through government policies and processes coupled together with collaboration could minimize cyber threats in combatting hackers and malicious actors in trying to stay ahead of the game. These aspirations can be reached by ensuring that those involved have been well trained and understand the importance of communication when applying appropriate safety processes and procedures. This paper also highlights important funding gaps that could help raise cyber security awareness in the form of grants, subsidies, and financial assistance through various public sector policies and training. Lastly, SMEs' lack of understanding of risks and impacts of cybercrime could lead to conflicting messages between cross-company IT and cybersecurity rules. Trying to find the right balance between this risk and impact, versus productivity impact and costs, could lead to UK SMES getting over these hurdles in this cyberspace in the quest for promoting the usage of MLCS. UK and Wales governments can use the research conducted in this paper to inform and adapt their policies to help UK SMEs become more secure from cyber-attacks and compare them to other developed countries also on the same future path.


Working with any gradient-based machine learning algorithm involves the tedious task of tuning the optimizer's hyperparameters, such as its step size. Recent work has shown how the step size can itself be optimized alongside the model parameters by manually deriving expressions for"hypergradients"ahead of time. We show how to automatically compute hypergradients with a simple and elegant modification to backpropagation. This allows us to easily apply the method to other optimizers and hyperparameters (e.g. momentum coefficients). We can even recursively apply the method to its own hyper-hyperparameters, and so on ad infinitum. As these towers of optimizers grow taller, they become less sensitive to the initial choice of hyperparameters. We present experiments validating this for MLPs, CNNs, and RNNs. Finally, we provide a simple PyTorch implementation of this algorithm (see people.csail.mit.edu/kach/gradient-descent-the-ultimate-optimizer).


FADIS (Fine Art Digital Imaging System) is a content management system designed for the teaching, studying and researching of art, architecture and visual culture. FADIS combines the digital management of electronic resources with a courseware system.


OBJECTIVE
To develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of a scale measuring prenatal breast-feeding self-efficacy.

METHODS
A 20-item scale was administered to a sample of 279 low-income pregnant women.

RESULTS
Results from this study provide evidence for internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = .89) and validity of this measure of prenatal breast-feeding self-efficacy in this population. A factor analysis of the scale indicated 4 themes. The instrument distinguished between women who intended to breast-feed and those who intended to formula feed.

CONCLUSION
A valid and reliable scale measuring self-efficacy for breast-feeding during pregnancy may help health care providers design interventions to increase breast-feeding rates.


Current question answering (QA) systems primarily consider the single-answer scenario, where each question is assumed to be paired with one correct answer. However, in many real-world QA applications, multiple answer scenarios arise where consolidating answers into a comprehensive and non-redundant set of answers is a more efficient user interface. In this paper, we formulate the problem of answer consolidation, where answers are partitioned into multiple groups, each representing different aspects of the answer set. Then, given this partitioning, a comprehensive and non-redundant set of answers can be constructed by picking one answer from each group. To initiate research on answer consolidation, we construct a dataset consisting of 4,699 questions and 24,006 sentences and evaluate multiple models. Despite a promising performance achieved by the best-performing supervised models, we still believe this task has room for further improvements.


Books, as a representative of lengthy documents, convey rich semantics. Traditional document modeling methods, such as bag-of-words models, have difficulty capturing such rich semantics when only considering term-frequency features. In order to explore term spatial distributions over a book, a tree-structured book representation is investigated in this paper. Moreover, an efficient learning framework, Tree2Vector, is introduced for mapping tree-structured book data into vectorial space. In particular, we present two types of locality reconstruction (LR) models: Euclidean-type and cosine-type, during the transformation process of tree structures into vectorial representations. The LR is used for modeling the reconstruction process, in which each parent node in a tree is supposed to be reconstructed by its child nodes. The prominent advantage of this Tree2Vector framework is that it solely utilizes the local information within a single book tree. In addition, extensive experimental results demonstrate that Tree2Vector is able to deliver comparable or better performance in comparison to methods that consider the information of all trees in a database globally. Experimental results also suggest that cosine-type LR consistently performs better than Euclidean-type LR in applications of book and author recommendations.


This paper aims to develop an autonomous humanoid finger gaming robot that can interact with humans. The finger gaming robot will have 9-inch panel display to show the robot face, two robotic arms of which each contains a hand with five fingers, a mechanical chest, and a wheel-type mobile platform. The mechanical arm and hand can smoothly carry out all actions required in a finger guessing game. The robot can recognize human hand gestures and tell the number of fingers shown. Aided with speech recognition capability, the robot can identify the content of human players' finger guessing. The finger gaming robot can, in the absence of human help, independently detect intelligence, and autonomously carry out a variety of finger guessing game contests with humans, providing a brand new entertainment robot in the catering sector.


Multi-channel high speed ADCs with a serial output interface operating at several hundred Mbps have been introduced several years ago. Interfacing to these high speed devices poses new challenges to the designer. Existing techniques usually rely on delay locked loops, require several milliseconds to reach stable operation, and do not guarantee a fixed latency making the accurate synchronization of several multi-channel ADCs difficult to achieve. A new interface technique is introduced to overcome these limitations. We detail the proposed method and show an implementation where a single field programmable gate array is used to collect data from twenty four 12-bit ADC channels clocked at 20 MHz.