BACKGROUND
Combined latissimus dorsi and teres major musculotendinous transfer has been described for the treatment of massive rotator cuff deficits. The procedure is technically complex because of the proximity of the radial nerve, the axillary nerve and its posterior branches, and the neurovascular bundles to the muscles. The purpose of the present cadaveric study was to examine surgically relevant relationships for latissimus dorsi and teres major tendon transfers.

METHODS
Twelve cadaveric shoulder girdles were dissected, and the latissimus dorsi, the teres major, and the posterior cord of the brachial plexus and its branches were identified. The relationships between the tendons and local neurologic structures were measured during various steps of the latissimus dorsi/teres major transfer procedure. The effect of humeral rotation on the exposure of the latissimus dorsi and teres major tendons through the posterior approach was quantified, and relevant surgical landmarks were described.

RESULTS
The radial nerve passed directly anterior to the tendons at an average of 2.9 cm medial to the superior aspect and 2.3 cm medial to the inferior aspect of the humeral insertions. From the posterior axillary approach, maximal internal rotation facilitated exposure for tenotomy by delivering the tendon insertions on the humerus into the surgical field. During axial mobilization of the musculotendinous units, the neurovascular pedicles to the latissimus dorsi and teres major were identified at an average of 13.1 and 7.4 cm axial to the humeral insertions, respectively. The posterior branch of the axillary nerve was noted to cross superficially over the transferred tendons as they were tunneled under the posterior deltoid.

CONCLUSIONS
Multiple steps of the combined latissimus dorsi and teres major musculotendinous transfer place local neurologic structures at risk. These steps include tendon release, musculotendinous axial mobilization, and tendon tunneling in the plane between the infraspinatus-teres minor and the posterior deltoid. We have quantified and described the relationship of the axillary and radial nerves to the tendons during tenotomy, the distance from the tendons' insertions to their neurovascular bundle that must be identified during axial mobilization, and the course of the posterior branch of the axillary nerve in relation to the tunneled path of the tendons.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE
The present study provides important anatomic findings for the safe mobilization and transfer of the latissimus dorsi and teres major tendons during the surgical treatment of irreparable rotator cuff tears.


A major problem when tackling any audio design problem aimed at conveying important and informative content, is the imposing of the designer's own emotion, taste and value systems on the finished design choices, rather than reflecting those of the end user. In the past the problem has been routed in the tendency to use passive test subjects in rigid environments. Subjects react to sounds without no means of controlling what they hear. This paper suggests a system for participatory sound design that generates results by activating test subjects and giving them significant control of the sounding experience under test. The audio design tool application described here, the AWESOME (Auditory Work Environment Simulation Machine) Sound Design Tool, sets out to enable the end user to have direct influence on the design process through a simple yet innovative technical applications This web based device allows the end users to make emotive decisions about the kinds of audio signals they find most appropriate for given situations. The results can be used to both generate general knowledge about listening experiences and more importantly, as direct user input in actual sound design processes.


Abstract Peacetime espionage is often employed by states as a means of acquiring information about competitor states in the international system. However the practice is not limited to competitor states. In a world where security concerns are an ever-present consideration for state action, acts of espionage normally reserved for use against enemies are also used against ally states. The basic premise is that while alliances are able to foster mutual trust and cooperation, they do not conclude that an ally will always be trust-worthy and faithful, most especially, when it involves issues of national interest. The international system and a need to safeguard one's own interests and population mean that espionage, even against an ally, will remain a necessary state function and all states should therefore remain vigilant against attempts at infiltration of their state secrets. The question of peacetime intra-alliance espionage and the consequences thereof has yet to be answered and it is the purpose of this research to fill that intellectual gap. This research will look at traditionally allied countries, with a long record of cooperation, and not competing states. To achieve this, the case from 2013 of two North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies, Germany and the United States (US), are our main focus. Lessons worth drawing from this, by NATO small states members, shall be discussed.


Individuals infected with Leishmania (L.) chagasi may present different asymptomatic and symptomatic stages of infection, which vary in the clinical–immunological profiles that can be classified as asymptomatic infection (AI), subclinical resistant infection (SRI), indeterminate initial infection (III), subclinical oligosymptomatic infection (SOI), and symptomatic infection (SI) (=American visceral leishmaniasis, AVL). However, little is known about the molecular differences between individuals having each profile. Here, we performed whole-blood transcriptomic analyses of 56 infected individuals from Pará State (Brazilian Amazon), covering all five profiles. We then identified the gene signatures of each profile by comparing their transcriptome with those of 11 healthy individuals from the same area. Symptomatic individuals with SI (=AVL) and SOI profiles showed higher transcriptome perturbation when compared to those asymptomatic III, AI and SRI profiles, suggesting that disease severity may be associated with greater transcriptomic changes. Although the expression of many genes was altered on each profile, very few genes were shared among the profiles. This indicated that each profile has a unique gene signature. The innate immune system pathway was strongly activated only in asymptomatic AI and SRI profiles, suggesting the control of infection. In turn, pathways such as MHC Class II antigen presentation and NF-kB activation in B cells seemed to be specifically induced in symptomatic SI (=AVL) and SOI profiles. Moreover, cellular response to starvation was down-regulated in those symptomatic profiles. Overall, this study revealed five distinct transcriptional patterns associated to the clinical–immunological (symptomatic and asymptomatic) profiles of human L. (L.) chagasi-infection in the Brazilian Amazon.


Few things get Americans more riled up than rising gasoline prices. I was going to write "high gasoline prices," but whether gasoline prices are high is a separate question, and one I'll address at the end of this column. In contrast, it's undeniable that gasoline prices have been rising over the last few months.


This paper develops a new class of wavelets for which the classical Daubechies zero moment property has been relaxed. The advantages of relaxing higher order wavelet moment constraints is that within the framework of compact support and perfect reconstruction (orthogonal and biorthogonal) one can obtain wavelet basis with new and interesting approximation properties. This paper investigates a new class of wavelets that is obtained by setting a few lower order moments to zero and using the remaining degrees of freedom to minimize a larger number of higher order moments. The resulting wavelets are shown to be robust for representing a large classes of inputs. Robustness is achieved at the cost of exact representation of low order polynomials but with the advantage that higher order polynomials can be represented with less error compared to the maximally regular solution of the same support.


The Holocene eruptive history of Popocatepetl volcano is characterized by recurrent voluminous Plinian eruptions every 1000 to 3000 yr, the most recent of which destroyed human settlements. Major eruptions occurred between 3195 and 2830 B.C., 800 and 215 B.C., and A.D. 675 and 1095. The three eruptions followed a similar pattern and started with minor ash fall and ash flows. The eruptions reached their peak with a main Plinian pulse that produced deposition of a pumice fall, the emplacement of hot ash flows, and finally extensive mudflows. Each time the area of devastation had become repopulated, before being devastated once again. During the last eruption several settlements, including Cholula (a major urban center), were inundated by lahars. A scenario of the possible recurrence of an eruption of similar magnitude, which would have disastrous consequences for the now highly populated areas around Popocatepetl, should be considered seriously in any volcano emergency contingency plan. This is especially important because more than one million people are living within a radius of 35 km around the volcano (the outskirts of Mexico City are at a distance of 40 km), and Popocatepetl resumed emitting ash on December 21, 1994, after decades of dormancy.


Abstract Large-scale climate simulation models have been developed and widely used to generate historical data and study future climate scenarios. These simulation models often have to run for a couple of months to understand the changes in the global climate over the course of decades. This long-duration simulation process creates a huge amount of data with both high temporal and spatial resolution information; however, how to effectively monitor and record the climate changes based on these large-scale simulation results that are continuously produced in real time still remains to be resolved. Due to the slow process of writing data to disk, the current practice is to save a snapshot of the simulation results at a constant, slow rate although the data generation process runs at a very high speed. This paper proposes an effective online data monitoring and saving strategy over the temporal and spatial domains with the consideration of practical storage and memory capacity constraints. Our proposed method is able to intelligently select and record the most informative extreme values in the raw data generated from real-time simulations in the context of better monitoring climate changes.


Criminological theory developed without an expectation of a victim–offender overlap. Among most crime theorists and policymakers, to solve crime it is necessary to solve the criminal offender. Modern choice theories took a different view by evolving from victim data, treating target vulnerability as essential to the criminal act and with full awareness of the overlap. Here, we discuss the emphasis on offenders in criminology as being inconsistent with the facts of the overlap. The evidence shows that the victim–offender overlap is consistently found, implying that offending and victimization arise for similar substantive reasons and that offenders act principally in response to targets. This conclusion has important implications. First, any theory of crime that cannot logically predict the overlap as a fact may be subject to falsification. Second, the choice perspective suggests a theory of precautionary behavior, which urges a policy agenda that encourages actions against crime by potential targets. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 5 is January 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


The organization of plant thylakoid membranes under physiological and light stress conditions was analyzed in studies of model membranes formed with galactolipids and LHCII. The results show adaptation of an organization pattern of lipid-protein membranes to better fulfill two opposite physiological functions: harvesting of light quanta versus quenching of excess energy. In this study, we analyzed multibilayer lipid-protein membranes composed of the photosynthetic light-harvesting complex II (LHCII; isolated from spinach [Spinacia oleracea]) and the plant lipids monogalcatosyldiacylglycerol and digalactosyldiacylglycerol. Two types of pigment-protein complexes were analyzed: those isolated from dark-adapted leaves (LHCII) and those from leaves preilluminated with high-intensity light (LHCII-HL). The LHCII-HL complexes were found to be partially phosphorylated and contained zeaxanthin. The results of the x-ray diffraction, infrared imaging microscopy, confocal laser scanning microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy revealed that lipid-LHCII membranes assemble into planar multibilayers, in contrast with the lipid-LHCII-HL membranes, which form less ordered structures. In both systems, the protein formed supramolecular structures. In the case of LHCII-HL, these structures spanned the multibilayer membranes and were perpendicular to the membrane plane, whereas in LHCII, the structures were lamellar and within the plane of the membranes. Lamellar aggregates of LHCII-HL have been shown, by fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy, to be particularly active in excitation energy quenching. Both types of structures were stabilized by intermolecular hydrogen bonds. We conclude that the formation of trans-layer, rivet-like structures of LHCII is an important determinant underlying the spontaneous formation and stabilization of the thylakoid grana structures, since the lamellar aggregates are well suited to dissipate excess energy upon overexcitation.


Abstract Ten montmorillonites of different origins with variable Fe contents were analysed using transmission IR spectroscopy. Special attention was devoted to the OH-bending region to obtain information about the distribution of octahedral cations. For low to medium Fe contents (≤ 0.56 per Si8 formula unit), a linear relationship between the position of the δAlFeOH band and Fe content was observed. Such correlation might be explained by changes in the cis-trans occupancy of Fe in the octahedral sheet. Deconvolution of the OH-bending domain allows us to discriminate three components (δAlAlOH, δAlMgOH and δAlFeOH) which are correlated with cation abundances derived from chemical analysis. The relative area of each band can then be compared with theoretical areas calculated assuming a fully random distribution of cations in the octahedral sheet. Using such treatment, eight of the 10 montmorillonites studied presented a nearly randomized octahedral distribution. The two samples from Wyoming were clearly different as they exhibited a strong ordering tendency.


Bad Attitude(s) on Trial is a critical analysis of pornography in the context of contemporary Canada. The notion that pornography both reflects sexual domination and 'victimizes' women has recently found expression in law in the landmark Canadian Supreme Court decision of R. v. Butler (1992). Many feminists embrace this new law as progressive, but in the post-Butler years, straight, mainstream pornography is still flourishing, while sexual representations that challenge conventional notions of sexuality, such as those centering on gay and lesbian sex and s/m sex, are the focus of censorship. It is the censorship of sexual others that the authors critique from a legal, cultural, gay, and philosophical standpoint. Lise Gotell examines the intervention of the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) in the Butler decision and provides an overview of socio-legal debates on pornography and censorship. Brenda Cossman examines the Butler decision itself and challenges the dominant reading of this case as a feminist victory. Becki Ross critically examines the expert testimony she delivered in defense of Bad Attitude, an American lesbian sex magazine seized by police from Glad Day Bookshop in Toronto in 1992. She details the difficulties she encountered in explicating and contextualizing the specificities, nuances, and complexities of lesbian s/m fantasy in a court of law. In the final chapter, Shannon Bell advances a conception of pornography that is not distinguishable from philosophy, using philosophy to make pornography. Bad Attitude(s) on Trial provides a new debate on pornography and feminism. It will be of particular interest to students of both women's, and gay and lesbian issues, but will also be relevant for scholars of law, political science, and philosophy, as well as for anyone interested in a different, provocative view of the Butler decision.


PURPOSE
To confirm the promising phase II results of docetaxel monotherapy, this phase III trial was conducted of chemotherapy for patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had previously failed platinum-containing chemotherapy.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
A total of 373 patients were randomized to receive either docetaxel 100 mg/m(2) (D100) or 75 mg/m(2) (D75) versus a control regimen of vinorelbine or ifosfamide (V/I). The three treatment groups were well-balanced for key patient characteristics.

RESULTS
Overall response rates were 10.8% with D100 and 6.7% with D75, each significantly higher than the 0.8% response with V/I (P =.001 and P =.036, respectively). Patients who received docetaxel had a longer time to progression (P =.046, by log-rank test) and a greater progression-free survival at 26 weeks (P =.005, by chi(2) test). Although overall survival was not significantly different between the three groups, the 1-year survival was significantly greater with D75 than with the control treatment (32% v 19%; P =.025, by chi(2) test). Prior exposure to paclitaxel did not decrease the likelihood of response to docetaxel, nor did it impact survival. There was a trend toward greater efficacy in patients whose disease was platinum-resistant rather than platinum-refractory and in patients with performance status of 0 or 1 versus 2. Toxicity was greatest with D100, but the D75 arm was well-tolerated.

CONCLUSION
This first randomized trial in this setting demonstrates that D75 every 3 weeks can offer clinically meaningful benefit to patients with advanced NSCLC whose disease has relapsed or progressed after platinum-based chemotherapy.


In most Western countries illness-related absenteeism is higher among female workers than among male workers. Using the personnel dataset of a large Italian bank, we show that the probability of an absence due to illness increases for females, relative to males, approximately 28 days after a previous illness. This difference disappears for workers age 45 or older. We interpret this as evidence that the menstrual cycle raises female absenteeism. Absences with a 28-day cycle explain a significant fraction of the male-female absenteeism gap. To investigate the effect of absenteeism on earnings, we use a simple signaling model in which employers cannot directly observe workers' productivity, and therefore use observable characteristics - including absenteeism - to set wages. Since men are absent from work because of health and shirking reasons, while women face an additional exogenous source of health shocks due to menstruation, the signal extraction based on absenteeism is more informative about shirking for males than for females. Consistent with the predictions of the model, we find that the relationship between earnings and absenteeism is more negative for males than for females. Furthermore, this difference declines with seniority, as employers learn more about their workers' true productivity. Finally, we calculate the earnings cost for women associated with menstruation. We find that higher absenteeism induced by the 28-day cycle explains 11.8 percent of the earnings gender differential.


Germany has always been one of the major direct investment destinations for Korean multinational enterprises (MNEs) within Europe. However, along with the internationalization of Korean firms, the motives and patterns for direct investments have changed. This paper discusses the development of Korean MNEs' investment motives and patterns, specifically regarding the role Germany has played over the years. For this purpose, geographical configuration patterns of the largest Korean MNEs within Europe are analyzed. The main findings indicate that Germany is considered more important to automobile companies than electronics companies, and that the investment activities of small and mediumsized enterprises are increasing, whereas the investment activities of large MNEs are decreasing.


A History of South Australia investigates South Australia's history from before the arrival of the first European maritime explorers to the present day, and examines its distinctive origins as a 'free' settlement. In this compelling and nuanced history, Paul Sendziuk and Robert Foster consider the imprint of people on the land - and vice versa - and offer fresh insights into relations between Indigenous people and the European colonisers. They chart South Australia's economic, political and social development, including the advance and retreat of an interventionist government, the establishment of the state's distinctive socio-political formations, and its relationship to the rest of Australia and the world. The first comprehensive, single-volume history of the state to be published in over fifty years, A History of South Australia is an essential and engaging contribution to our understanding of South Australia's past.


The possibility that influenza activity can be generally detected through search log analysis has been explored in recent years. However, previous studies have mainly focused on influenza, and little attention has been paid to other epidemics. With an analysis of web user behavior data, we consider the problem of predicting the tendency of hand-foot -and-mouth disease (HFMD), whose outbreak in 2010 resulted in a great panic in China. In addition to search queries, we consider users' interactions with search engines. Given the collected search logs, we cluster HFMD-related search queries, medical pages and news reports into the following sets: epidemic-related queries (ERQs), epidemic-related pages (ERPs) and epidemic-related news (ERNs). Furthermore, we count their own frequencies as different features, and we conduct a regression analysis with current HFMD occurrences. The experimental results show that these features exhibit good performances on both accuracy and time-lines.


In response to the pressing global challenges of climate change, initiatives under the auspices of 'reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation' (REDD) have been implemented in over 30 developing and least-developed countries since 2005. The initiatives cover nearly every significant and vulnerable forest ecosystem worldwide. In this study we review six representative initiatives, two each from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Strength, weakness, opportunity and threat analysis is done to evaluate each initiative's policy framework, design, implementation and results thus far. The main policy and project implementation factors that appear to lead to effective and successful REDD project outcomes include having clearly formulated project design; governance, land tenure rights and capacity; equity and transparency; indigenous peoples' rights and knowledge; local–international coordination; and enhancing local and institutional capacities. Based on these findings, we provide recommendations for future REDD policy action and project implementation to make it work for the poor and achieve its intended goals.


Lipreading has a lot of potential applications such as in the domain of surveillance and video conferencing. Despite this, most of the work in building lipreading systems has been limited to classifying silent videos into classes representing text phrases. However, there are multiple problems associated with making lipreading a text-based classification task like its dependence on a particular language and vocabulary mapping. Thus, in this paper we propose a multi-view lipreading to audio system, namely Lipper, which models it as a regression task. The model takes silent videos as input and produces speech as the output. With multi-view silent videos, we observe an improvement over single-view speech reconstruction results. We show this by presenting an exhaustive set of experiments for speaker-dependent, out-of-vocabulary and speaker-independent settings. Further, we compare the delay values of Lipper with other speechreading systems in order to show the real-time nature of audio produced. We also perform a user study for the audios produced in order to understand the level of comprehensibility of audios produced using Lipper.


The RASSF1A tumor suppressor binds and activates proapoptotic MST kinases. The Salvador adaptor protein couples MST kinases to the LATS kinases to form the hippo pathway. Upon activation by RASSF1A, LATS1 phosphorylates the transcriptional regulator YAP, which binds to p73 and activates its proapoptotic effects. However, although serving as an adaptor for MST and LATS, Salvador can also bind RASSF1A. The functional role of the RASSF1A/Salvador interaction is unclear. Although Salvador is a novel tumor suppressor in Drosophila and mice, its role in human systems remains largely unknown. Here we show that Salvador promotes apoptosis in human cells and that Salvador inactivation deregulates the cell cycle and enhances the transformed phenotype. Moreover, we show that although the salvador gene is seldom mutated or epigenetically inactivated in human cancers, it is frequently down-regulated posttranscriptionally. Surprisingly, we also find that although RASSF1A requires the presence of Salvador for full apoptotic activity and to activate p73, this effect does not require a direct interaction of RASSF1A with MST kinases or the activation of the hippo pathway. Thus, we confirm a role for Salvador as a human tumor suppressor and RASSF1A effector and show that Salvador allows RASSF1A to modulate p73 independently of the hippo pathway.


PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
Cancer survivors, particularly those diagnosed in adolescence, are faced with physical, mental, and emotional stressors associated with the disease and its treatment. These stressors add to the demand placed on survivors' already taxed coping skills. This article reviews the literature on psychological distress experienced by survivors diagnosed with cancer during adolescence and the coping strategies they employed.

LITERATURE SEARCH
Three electronic databases (CINAHL®, PsycINFO®, PubMed®) were searched, and 19 studies were selected. Garrard's matrix method guided this integrative review.

DATA EVALUATION
Gough's weight of evidence framework was used to evaluate each study.

SYNTHESIS
Analysis revealed important findings about the types of coping strategies used by adolescents during and after cancer treatment and the impact of each on levels of psychological distress.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE
Healthcare providers, who regularly assess for negative thoughts and unmet needs among survivors, may identify symptoms of psychological distress, intervene early, and facilitate better outcomes for their patients. Patient-centered interventions aimed at coping with psychological distress are most helpful.


This project seeks to determine whether proximity to major water sources (e.g. rivers or lakes) is associated with the public's perception of water scarcity. From a theoretical perspective, this project will aid our collective understanding of problem identification. From a practical perspective, this relationship could help inform decision makers about where support or resistance to a water policy may be concentrated and allow more targeted efforts to help inform citizens about short and long-term water policy needs. Knowing the influence of local conditions on public support for policy action is particularly important as water policies are primarily the domain of local and state governments. We utilize Geographical Information Systems to quantify the distances between survey respondents and various water sources to attempt to determine the effect individuals' proximity to water sources has on their opinions about water scarcity. The analyses reveal that proximity is a predictor of water scarcity perceptions, and the implications of these findings are discussed.


Objective: To identify the medications that medical students, interns and casualty medical officers are likely to prescribe when treating an adult patient with anaphylaxis, and to ascertain the dose and route of administration of adrenaline they would use. Design: A questionnaire study survey. Setting: Kasturba medical college hospital, Manipal (Udupi District) and public health centers of Udupi district, Karnataka. Subjects: Data collected from 39 second year medical students, 35 interns and 35 casualty medical officers. Main outcome measure: To determine the percentage of use of adrenaline for the treatment of anaphylaxis in the correct dose, strength and route. Results: Majority (73 .3%) of participants correctly opted to use adrenaline. Only 9 participants have written the correct dose, route and concentration of adrenaline. 41.28% and 66.05% participants preferred to use antihistamines and corticosteroids respectively. Conclusion: This study has shown that confusion exists regarding the correct route of administration and dose of adrenaline to be used when treating anaphylaxis. This confusion applied to medical students, interns and medical officers. Therefore doctors must be made aware of the guidelines to treat anaphylaxis effectively.


The total estimated cost for worldwide liability associated with current and future ARD (acid rock drainage) remediation is approximately US $100 billion (Tremblay and Hogan, 2001 in Hudson-Edwards et al., 2011). Such liabilities are partly due to the limitations of existing predictive protocols, highlighting the importance of using appropriate and accurate methodologies. Current protocols for ARD risk assessment follow the wheel approach (Morin and Hutt, 1998) or the AMIRA P387A Handbook (Smart et al., 2002). However, the accuracy of these protocols solely relies on geochemical tests and, there is a clear absence of detailed mineralogical and textural characterisation in the applied methodologies. Consequently, inappropriate decisions can be made, either by not allocating the necessary resources when the ARD risk is underestimated, or by wrongly not pursuing development when ARD risk overestimated. Therefore, an improved predictive methodology based on ARD characteristics must be developed and implemented at early-stages of the mine life cycle. Additionally, such a methodology should have applications at historic mine sites to identify acid forming samples and guide site rehabilitation strategies.
The potential for improvement in ARD prediction methodology needs to consider mineralogical and textural characteristics as well as geochemical analyses. Therefore, this thesis has developed an improved and integrated protocol for classifying solid mine waste in terms of acid forming potential. The geochemistry-mineralogy-texture, or GMT approach, consists of three stages which involve a parallel use of geochemical, mineralogical and textural analyses:
• Stage-one: Low-cost pre-screening geochemical, mineralogical and textural tests and evaluations are performed on the largest number of samples.
• Stage-two: Routine geochemical tests are performed on fewer samples, using more expensive tests.
• Stage-three: Advanced geochemical tests and microanalytical techniques are performed on well selected samples.
Results are cross-checked at the end of each stage to provide an accurate sample classification in terms of acid forming potential. The advantage of the proposed GMT methodology relative to those currently used (e.g., the wheel approach, AMIRA P387A Handbook) is its structured approach, as evaluations of problematic samples are focused upon, thereby increasing technical accuracy of predictions, and reducing total number of samples analysed by routine tests, and overall costs. The acid rock drainage index (ARDI) forms part of the GMT approach as a stage-one test, and was developed to evaluate intact rock texture in terms of five key parameters (A: sulphide contents; B: sulphide alteration; C : sulphide morphology; D: content of neutralising minerals; and E: sulphide mineral associations), which influence acid formation. The GMT approach was tested on waste material from the historic Croydon gold-lode mines, and drill core samples from the operational Ernest Henry iron-oxide copper gold (IOCG) deposit, both located in Queensland, Australia. The geology (including style of mineralisation and texture) differed between the two sites, allowing for critical assessment of both the GMT approach and the ARDI.
A mesotextural classification method (using geological logging, field portable X-Ray fluorescence and short-wave Infrared techniques) for grouping waste materials was developed and tested at the historic Croydon-gold mining operations. Through undertaking mesotextural classification, ten groups (A to J) were identified, and systematically characterised by the GMT approach. At the end of stage-one, five groups (C: porphyritic rhyolite containing disseminated pyrite in quartz veins; E: porphyritic rhyolite containing disseminated pyrite in the groundmass; G: semi-massive quartz-sphalerite-galena-pyrite; H: massive arsenopyrite-quartz; and J: semi-massive quartz- pyrite) were identified as potentially acid forming and required stage-two testing. However, all samples were tested at stage-two to check the accuracy of stage-one results, and were in agreement thus validating stage-one classifications. Samples from mesotextural groups C, E, G, H and J were subjected to stage-three analyses which utilised advanced geochemical tests, and microtextural analyses (i.e., mineral liberation analysis, laser ablation-ICP-MS and scanning electron microscopy). Stage-three geochemical analyses demonstrated that NAG testing results on samples containing <0.3 wt. % sulphide were inaccurate (i.e., underestimated acid forming potential), with the multi-addition NAG test instead recommended for use. Microtextural studies indicated that trace element distribution; contents of micro-inclusions and mineral association were significant controls on sulphide oxidation. Final GMT approach classifications identified groups H and J as extremely acid forming; and groups E and G as potentially acid forming.
Croydon waste materials representative of mesotextural groups E, G, H and J were selected for thirty-week column leach kinetic testing following the recommendations of the GMT approach. Twelve columns were established, with two size fractions (-10 mm and -4 mm) prepared from each sample, to investigate the effects of grain size on pH, metal elution and secondary mineral precipitation. The mineralogy and microtexture of the column feed material were examined routinely (i.e., every five weeks) through quantitative X-Ray diffractometry, scanning electron microscopy and laser ablation ICP-MS studies. These data were directly compared with leachate chemistry (pH, EC, SO\(_4\) and cation contents) to identify the controls on sulphide oxidation and trace element liberation. Material representative of mesotextural group H was the most acid forming, with lower pH values and higher cumulative mass release of elements calculated for the -4 mm fraction. Mineralogical data showed progressive replacement of arsenopyrite to trace element rich (i.e., Cu, Pb and Zn) scorodite. Pyrite in material representative of mesotextural groups E and J was As-rich, with greater quantities of pyrite weathering products (i.e., rhomboclase, jarosite, alunite) and textures identified over time. Generally, lower pH and higher dissolved metals and arsenic were measured in leachate from the -4 mm fraction. Values of pH were particularly sensitive to the development of fi ne hydrous ferric oxide coatings on pyrite in groups E and J. Galena was also identified in material representative of groups E and J and was observed to weather rapidly to anglesite over the duration of these tests. Whilst sphalerite present in material representative of mesotextural group G was Cd- and Fe-rich and contained Cu micro-inclusions (factors which increase oxidation rate), overall it was the least weathered of the sulphides. However, the leachate pH values measured from group G indicated that this material is acid forming as a consequence of the oxidation of pyrite which was also identified in this group. The highest cumulative mass release of Zn relative to the other groups was measured from the -4 mm fraction. However, very low cumulative mass release rates of Cd were calculated from both grain size fractions. Kinetic test results confirmed that mesotextural groups G, H and J pose the greatest environmental risk in terms of ARD and potential metal/metalloid leaching. Consequently, a rehabilitation strategy focusing on individual segregation and treatment of material representative of groups G, H and J from non-acid forming mesotextural groups is recommended.
The application of geometallurgical techniques for predicting acid formation was demonstrated using samples from the Ernest Henry IOCG deposit. Samples from two drill holes were initially subjected to GMT analyses with results compared against geometallurgical data sets collected by mineral liberation analysis (MLA), HyLogger and EQUOtip. Modal mineralogy data collected by MLA allowed for the carbonate:sulphide ratio to be examined down hole as is required by stage-one of the GMT approach. Relative carbonate contents determined from the HyLogger allowed for acid neutralising capacity (ANC) values to be critically evaluated in terms of effective ANC. Finally, relationships between mineral hardness measured using EQUOtip and lag-time to acid formation were identified. This study identifies the potential for integrating geometallurgical techniques and data into the GMT approach, as a means of allowing for ARD characterisation to be routinely undertaken at the early stages of mine operations.
Results from the two case study sites (Croydon, Ernest Henry) demonstrate that the geochemistry-mineralogy-texture (GMT) approach represents a significant improvement to existing ARD predictive protocols (e.g., the wheel approach, AMIRA P387A Handbook), by providing a structured methodology to more efficiently identify problematic samples. Stage-one of the GMT approach allows best practice sample numbers to be realistically achieved through cost-effective pre-screening tests, thus improving ARD risk assessment. Furthermore, selection of samples for testing based on mesotextural grouping, rather than lithology, allows for deposit wide ARD domaining to be effectively undertaken, particularly when integrated with geometallurgical data. The presented methodology effectively integrates existing geochemical tests with novel mineralogical and textural characterisation techniques. This in turn leads to maximisation of knowledge, cost savings, and a more detailed characterisation of the most acid forming samples. Therefore, the GMT approach represents a fundamental step-change in how ARD should be predicted.


We have previously shown that phosphatidylglycerol (PG) regulates the function of keratinocytes, the predominant cells that compose the epidermis, inhibiting the proliferation of rapidly dividing keratinocytes. In particular, soy PG, a PG mixture with a high proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids, is efficacious at inhibiting these proliferating keratinocytes. Psoriasis is a skin disorder characterized by hyperproliferation of keratinocytes and inflammation. Data in the lung suggest that PG in pulmonary surfactant inhibits inflammation. To investigate the possibility of using PG containing polyunsaturated fatty acids for the treatment of psoriasis, we examined the effect of soy PG on inflammation induced by the application of 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate (TPA), a contact irritant, to mouse ears in vivo. We monitored ear thickness and weight as a measure of ear edema, as well as CD45-positive immune cell infiltration. Our results indicate that soy PG when applied together with 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (vitamin D), an agent known to acutely disrupt the skin barrier, suppressed ear edema and inhibited the infiltration of CD45-positive immune cells. On the other hand, neither PG nor vitamin D alone was effective. The combination also decreased tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) levels. This result suggested the possibility that PG was not permeating the skin barrier efficiently. Therefore, in a further study we applied PG in a penetration-enhancing vehicle and found that it inhibited inflammation induced by the phorbol ester and decreased CD45-positive immune cell infiltration. Our results suggest the possibility of using soy PG as a topical treatment option for psoriasis.


HLA-DR4, Dw4-associated haplotypes associated with IDDM and JRA were compared using genomic DNA restriction fragment analysis to distinguish among DQ beta and alpha alleles linked to DR4. DQ beta polymorphisms that subdivide the HLA-DQw3 specificity into DQ3.1 and 3.2 alleles were identified. More than 90% of DR4+ IDDM patients express one of these alleles, DQ3.2; restriction enzyme mapping indicates that the presence of this allele also accounts for the genomic fragment patterns previously reported in IDDM. Furthermore, haplo-identical siblings of DQ3.2 IDDM patients also carry the DQ3.2 allele, regardless of clinical presentation. In contrast, DR4+ JRA patients show no allelic preference at DQ beta, implicating different HLA genetic contributions in these two DR4-associated diseases.


China is the only one of the five original nuclear weapon states that is quantitatively increasing the size of its nuclear arsenal and it now is estimated to have approximately 260 warheads. The arsenal's capabilities are also increasing as older missiles are replaced with newer ones. As China assigns a growing portion of its warheads to long-range missiles, the US intelligence community predicts that by the mid-2020s the number of warheads on missiles capable of threatening the United States could increase to well over 100. The nuclear warheads in the Chinese stockpile are intended for delivery mainly by land-based ballistic missile but also by aircraft and submarines. The current force has nearly 150 nuclear-capable land-based missiles, half of which are short-range and medium-range. China has also built two types of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, one developed for a submarine no longer considered operational and the other in the final stages of development.


The first mathematically consistent exact equations of quantum gravity in the Heisenberg representation and Hamilton gauge are obtained. It is shown that the path integral over the canonical variables in the Hamilton gauge is mathematically equivalent to the operator equations of quantum theory of gravity with canonical rules of quantization of the gravitational and ghost fields. In its operator formulation, the theory can be used to calculate the graviton S-matrix as well as to describe the quantum evolution of macroscopic system of gravitons in the non-stationary Universe or in the vicinity of relativistic objects. In the S-matrix case, the standard results are obtained. For problems of the second type, the original Heisenberg equations of quantum gravity are converted to a self-consistent system of equations for the metric of the macroscopic spacetime and Heisenberg operators of quantum fields. It is shown that conditions of the compatibility and internal consistency of this system of equations are performed without restrictions on the amplitude and wavelength of gravitons and ghosts. The status of ghost fields in the various formulations of quantum theory of gravity is discussed.


Abstract Increasing oil prices, strict environmental regulations and lack of sufficient growth in renewable energy sector have led to renewed interest in Fischer- Tropsch technology. Improved understanding of reaction mechanisms and development of detailed kinetic models for Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) would facilitate better design and optimization of all FTS reactor configurations. In this work, detailed kinetic models have been developed utilizing mechanistic approach. Experiments were conducted over 25% Co/0.27%Ru/Al2O3 (in parts by weight) catalyst in a 1L stirred tank slurry reactor over a wide range of conditions. Langmuir-Hinshelwood-Hougen-Watson type rate expressions were derived for the entire product spectrum. Models are based on the assumption that 1-olefins re-adsorb on active sites. Effective pressure of olefin (PCnH2n*) at the catalyst surface was assumed to vary exponentially with carbon number (according to Henry's law). The genetic algorithm followed by Levenberg-Marquardt method was used to estimate kinetic parameters for 13 models using a single set of process conditions (i.e. T = 220°C, P = 2.4 MPa, H2/CO feed ratio of 2.1, and gas space velocity of 6 NL/g-cat/h). Two models FT-6 and FT-8 showed carbon number dependent chain growth probability and olefin to paraffin ratios. The model predictions were in good agreement with experimental data. Model FT-6 is based on dissociative adsorption of CO, followed by Eley-Rideal reaction with molecular H2, while FT-8 follows dissociative adsorption of CO and H2, to form building block monomer CH2. For both of the models, chain growth takes place by alkyl mechanism and oE-olefins are formed by aB-hydride elimination reaction. Formation of paraffin occurs via single-site reaction with molecular hydrogen (FT-6) or via dual site reaction with adsorbed hydrogen (FT-8). Parameter estimation resulted in at least one negative parameter in both models. However, to assess the physical meaningfulness of results and the true values of kinetic parameters, one has to use data at multiple sets of process conditions. This work is in progress. Nevertheless, from a qualitative point of view initial results provide valuable insight into selection of reaction mechanisms and rate determining steps for future developments and refinements.


Ligand binding to TCR induces its internalization and cell surface down-modulation. These phenomena contribute to the extinction of activation signals. Due to the multicomponent nature of the TCR-CD3 complex, its internalization may be mediated by one or several of its subunits. Although it has been reported that CD3 gamma and CD3 delta contain endocytosis motifs involved in the internalization of the TCR-CD3 complex, other subunits could also be involved in this process. For instance, CD3 epsilon and CD zeta display amino acid sequences reminiscent of internalization motifs. To investigate whether CD3 epsilon bears endocytosis signals, we have analyzed the internalization capacity of a panel of deletion and point mutants of CD3 epsilon that were expressed on the cell surface independently of other TCR-CD3 subunits. Here we report that CD3 epsilon displays endocytosis determinants. These data indicate that CD3 epsilon could contribute to the internalization and cell surface down-regulation of TCR-CD3 complexes. Moreover, the existence of endocytosis signals in this polypeptide could serve to retrieve unassembled CD3 epsilon subunits or partial CD3 complexes from the plasma membrane, thus restricting the expression on the cell surface to fully functional TCR-CD3 complexes.


Human emotion decoding in affective brain-computer interfaces suffers a major setback due to the inter-subject variability of electroencephalography (EEG) signals. Existing approaches usually require amassing extensive EEG data of each new subject, which is prohibitively time-consuming along with poor user experience. To tackle this issue, we divide EEG representations into private components specific to each subject and shared emotional components that are universal to all subjects. According to this representation partition, we propose a plug-and-play domain adaptation method for dealing with the inter-subject variability. In the training phase, subject-invariant emotional representations and private components of source subjects are separately captured by a shared encoder and private encoders. Furthermore, we build one emotion classifier on the shared partition and subjects' individual classifiers on the combination of these two partitions. In the calibration phase, the model only requires few unlabeled EEG data from incoming target subjects to model their private components. Therefore, besides the shared emotion classifier, we have another pipeline to use the knowledge of source subjects through the similarity of private components. In the test phase, we integrate predictions of the shared emotion classifier with those of individual classifiers ensemble after modulation by similarity weights. Experimental results on the SEED dataset show that our model greatly shortens the calibration time within a minute while maintaining the recognition accuracy, all of which make emotion decoding more generalizable and practicable.


Placed in the context of twentieth-century moral disaster--war, genocide, the Holocaust, the atomic bomb--Forche's ambitions and compelling third collection of poems is a meditation of memory, specifically how memory survives the unimaginable. The poems reflect the effects of such experience: the lines, and often the images within them, are fragmented discordant. But read together, these lines, become a haunting mosaic of grief, evoking the necessary accommodations human beings make to survive what is unsurvivable. As poets have always done, Forche attempts to gibe voice to the unutterable, using language to keep memory alive, relive history, and link the past with the future.


In the Upper Romerike District the lakes possess widely different chemical characteristics depending on their hydrological conditions. The most dilute lakes are fed only by precipitation, and the more concentrated ones by ground water. In the precipitation fed lakes the total ionic concentration was similar to that of the average precipitation, but the ionic ratio was different. Ionic sorption and exchange affected mostly calcium which decreased in concentration while the monovalent ions increased. The ground water fed lakes were dominated by bicarbonate, and their ionic proportions were constant regardless of total concentrations. The percentage composition was: Ca: 82%, Mg: 10.1%, Na: 6.5%, K: 1.4%, HCO 3 : 78.3%, S0 4 : 17.1%, Cl: 4.6%.


This paper proposes a linear parameter varying (LPV) interval unknown input observer for the robust fault diagnosis of actuator faults and ice accretion in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) described by an uncertain model. The proposed interval observer evaluates the set of values for the state, which are compatible with the nominal fault‐free and icing‐free operation and can be designed in such a way that some information about the nature of the unknown inputs affecting the system can be obtained, thus allowing the diagnosis to be performed. The proposed strategy has several advantages. First, the LPV paradigm allows taking into account operating point variations. Second, the noise rejection properties are enhanced by the presence of the integral term. Third, the interval estimation property guarantees the absence of false alarms. Linear matrix inequality–based conditions for the analysis/design of these observers are provided in order to guarantee the interval estimation of the state and the boundedness of the estimation. The developed theory is supported by simulation results, obtained with the uncertain model of a Zagi Flying Wing UAV, which illustrate the strong appeal of the methodology for identifying correctly unexpected changes in the system dynamics due to actuator faults or icing.


As part of a long-term project aimed at designing classroom interventions to motivate language learners, we have searched for a motivation model that could serve as a theoretical basis for the methodological applications. We have found that none of the existing models we considered were entirely adequate for our purpose for three reasons: (1) they did not provide a sufficiently comprehensive and detailed summary of all the relevant motivational influences on classroom behaviour; (2) they tended to focus on how and why people choose certain courses of action, while ignoring or playing down the importance of motivational sources of executing goal-directed behaviour; and (3) they did not do justice to the fact that motivation is not static but dynamically evolving and changing in time, making it necessary for motivation constructs to contain a featured temporal axis. Consequently, partly inspired by Heckhausen and Kuhl's 'Action Control Theory', we have developed a new 'Process Model of L2 Motivation', which is intended both to account for the dynamics of motivational change in time and to synthesise many of the most important motivational conceptualisations to date. In this paper we describe the main components of this model, also listing a number of its limitations which need to be resolved in future research.


We address the problem of learning accurate 3D shape and camera pose from a collection of unlabeled category-specific images. We train a convolutional network to predict both the shape and the pose from a single image by minimizing the reprojection error: given several views of an object, the projections of the predicted shapes to the predicted camera poses should match the provided views. To deal with pose ambiguity, we introduce an ensemble of pose predictors which we then distill to a single "student" model. To allow for efficient learning of high-fidelity shapes, we represent the shapes by point clouds and devise a formulation allowing for differentiable projection of these. Our experiments show that the distilled ensemble of pose predictors learns to estimate the pose accurately, while the point cloud representation allows to predict detailed shape models. The supplementary video can be found at this https URL


We present a novel method to model and synthesize variation in motion data. Given a few examples of a particular type of motion as input, we learn a generative model that is able to synthesize a family of spatial and temporal variants that are statistically similar to the input examples. The new variants retain the features of the original examples, but are not exact copies of them. We learn a Dynamic Bayesian Network model from the input examples that enables us to capture properties of conditional independence in the data, and model it using a multivariate probability distribution. We present results for a variety of human motion, and 2D handwritten characters. We perform a user study to show that our new variants are less repetitive than typical game and crowd simulation approaches of re-playing a small number of existing motion clips. Our technique can synthesize new variants efficiently and has a small memory requirement.


Abstract. Coastal erosion and flooding transform terrestrial landscapes into marine environments. In the Arctic, these processes inundate terrestrial permafrost with seawater and create submarine permafrost. Permafrost begins to warm under marine conditions, which can destabilize the sea floor and may release greenhouse gases. We report on the transition of terrestrial to submarine permafrost at a site where the timing of inundation can be inferred from the rate of coastline retreat. On Muostakh Island in the central Laptev Sea, East Siberia, changes in annual coastline position have been measured for decades and vary highly spatially. We hypothesize that these rates are inversely related to the inclination of the upper surface of submarine ice-bonded permafrost (IBP) based on the consequent duration of inundation with increasing distance from the shoreline. We compared rapidly eroding and stable coastal sections of Muostakh Island and find permafrost-table inclinations, determined using direct current resistivity, of 1 and 5 %, respectively. Determinations of submarine IBP depth from a drilling transect in the early 1980s were compared to resistivity profiles from 2011. Based on borehole observations, the thickness of unfrozen sediment overlying the IBP increased from 0 to 14 m below sea level with increasing distance from the shoreline. The geoelectrical profiles showed thickening of the unfrozen sediment overlying ice-bonded permafrost over the 28 years since drilling took place. We use geoelectrical estimates of IBP depth to estimate permafrost degradation rates since inundation. Degradation rates decreased from over 0.4 m a−1 following inundation to around 0.1 m a−1 at the latest after 60 to 110 years and remained constant at this level as the duration of inundation increased to 250 years. We suggest that long-term rates are lower than these values, as the depth to the IBP increases and thermal and porewater solute concentration gradients over depth decrease. For the study region, recent increases in coastal erosion rate and changes in benthic temperature and salinity regimes are expected to affect the depth to submarine permafrost, leading to coastal regions with shallower IBP.


We describe the geological, geomorphological, and paleoclimatic setting of the Sahara of North Africa in particular, focused on the main meteorite dense collection areas (DCA; Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya). We report on the outcome of several meteorite recovery field expeditions in Morocco and Tunisia since 2008, by car and by foot, that applied systematic search methods. The number of meteorites collected is 41 ordinary chondrites and one brachinite. The statistics of unpaired ordinary chondrites indicates that H chondrites are more abundant (21) than L chondrites (12), while LL chondrites are rare (2). Our meteorite density estimates for Tunisia and Morocco are in the order of magnitude of 1 met km−2. An estimate of the total maximum number of meteorites that could be recovered from the Sahara is 780,000 meteorites. We selected 23 meteorites from Aridal, Bou Kra, Bir Zar, and Tieret DCAs for 14C dating. The results show a wide range of terrestrial ages from 0.4 to more than 40 kyr with a majority of meteorites showing ages between 0.4 and 20 kyr. The weathering degree of these meteorites is ranges from minor (W1) to strong (W4). The highest weathering grades result from repeated oscillations between high and low humidity in the Sahara. However, there appears to be no correlation between weathering grade and terrestrial age of meteorites.


The History of the Book course is a traditional mainstay of library and information science (LIS) education and a perennial favorite among students valuing contact with physical artifacts. In the digital age, knowledge representation has become independent of individual objects and such classes need to reflect these changes. Working collaboratively with experts from the University of Pennsylvania Libraries' Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts, Drexel University and UPenn faculty have developed a new online version of this discussion based course offered as part of the MS(LIS) degree in the College of Computing and Informatics. This new version, augmented with video created specifically for the course and other digital materials available on the Internet, draws on traditional content but situates it in the context of knowledge representation through the ages, with a special emphasis on the role of information in the 21st century and beyond. The new online version of the course was beta tested in the winter 2014 term with 26 students; a companion section of the traditional face-to-face version of the course was also offered in the winter 2014 term. Only eleven students registered for the face-to-face version of the course, suggesting that the online format appeals to many students on the basis of convenience. The challenge for the two instructors was to keep the two sections of the course aligned in terms of the intellectual content and provide similar educational experienced for both groups of students. For example, students in the online version of the course "visited" virtual collections of rare books while students in the face-to-face section visited the physical collections held at the University of Pennsylvania. Both groups of students wrote and presented research projects on some aspect of the history of the book; presentations delivered by the online group were done through video using a variety of presentation media including Jing, iMovie, and YouTube. The wealth of digital content related to the history of the book now available from many of the major libraries and museum worldwide offers students in the online environment new opportunities for exploring the development of knowledge representation. While the digital content does not provide the same experience as the physical artifacts (e.g., the smell and feel of old manuscripts), it can often facilitate a higher level of detailed examination than would be allowed to students working with the physical artifacts. The following paper will discuss the process involved with developing, delivering, and evaluating the beta test of the online version of the course compared with the traditional version. Data from student feedback throughout the term was analyzed to identify what aspects of the new version were most/least successful, including the use of technology both for the delivery of educational content and student presentations. Recommendations for future changes/enhancement will be presented. The experiences described will be relevant not only for educators in the LIS field but also for those interested in delivering online content in the areas of museum studies, art history, archeology and any other discipline in which face-to-face classes have traditionally involved field trips and visits to view physical artifacts.


We experimentally examined the in situ, long‐term effects of flow on the coral Pocillopora verrucosa over a 2‐yr period. Eighteen coral nubbins were positioned on stages protected from the ambient flow with transparent walls. Six of the corals were exposed to "enhanced flow" with underwater pumps (15‐20 cm s‐1), while another other six were grown under "reduced‐flow" conditions (~ 1 cm s‐1), and a further six nubbins were set up as a control treatment exposed to ambient natural flow conditions on stages without walls. Mortality was 50% in the reduced‐flow experiment. Compared with the reduced‐flow and the control treatments, colonies growing in enhanced‐flow conditions developed a more compact morphology and had significantly higher chlorophyll and protein concentrations, a higher density of zooxanthellae, and, most importantly, higher reproductive output. However, corals grown in reduced‐flow conditions had lower skeleton density compared with those grown under ambient flow or enhanced flow. Flow rate had no measurable influence on average pH at the site of calcification as monitored by skeletal boron isotopic composition (δ11B). Hence, the skeletal δ11B‐pH proxy in this coral appears to be independent of flow and the biological attributes that are modulated by flow, such as zooxanthellae density, chlorophyll concentrations, and rates of photosynthesis, respiration, and calcification. Calcification site pH in all colonies was raised by +0.3 relative to ambient seawater pH. Together with light, flow should be considered a key abiotic factor determining core biological characteristics of P. verrucosa.


The head of Salmonella virus SPN3US is composed of ~50 different proteins and is unusual because within its packaged genome there is a mass (>40 MDa) of ejection or E proteins that enter the Salmonella cell. The assembly mechanisms of this complex structure are poorly understood. Previous studies showed that eight proteins in the mature SPN3US head had been cleaved by the prohead protease. In this study, we present the characterization of SPN3US prohead protease mutants using transmission electron microscopy and mass spectrometry. In the absence of the prohead protease, SPN3US head formation was severely impeded and proheads accumulated on the Salmonella inner membrane. This impediment is indicative of proteolysis being necessary for the release and subsequent DNA packaging of proheads in the wild-type phage. Proteomic analyses of gp245- proheads that the normal proteolytic processing of head proteins had not occurred. Assays of a recombinant, truncated form of the protease found it was active, leading us to hypothesize that the C-terminal propeptide has a role in targeting the protease into the prohead core. Our findings provide new evidence regarding the essential role of proteolysis for correct head assembly in this remarkable parasite.


Variable importance measures for random forests have been receiving increased attention as a means of variable selection in many classification tasks in bioinformatics and related scientific fields, for instance to select a subset of genetic markers relevant for the prediction of a certain disease. We show that random forest variable importance measures are a sensible means for variable selection in many applications, but are not reliable in situations where potential predictor variables vary in their scale level or their number of categories. This is particularly important in genomics and computational biology, where predictors often include variables of different types, for example when predictors include both sequence data and continuous variables such as folding energy, or when amino acid sequence data show different numbers of categories. Simulation studies are presented illustrating that, when random forest variable importance measures are used with data of varying types, the results are misleading because suboptimal predictor variables may be artificially preferred in variable selection. The two mechanisms underlying this deficiency are biased variable selection in the individual classification trees used to build the random forest on one hand, and effects induced by bootstrap sampling with replacement on the other hand. We propose to employ an alternative implementation of random forests, that provides unbiased variable selection in the individual classification trees. When this method is applied using subsampling without replacement, the resulting variable importance measures can be used reliably for variable selection even in situations where the potential predictor variables vary in their scale level or their number of categories. The usage of both random forest algorithms and their variable importance measures in the R system for statistical computing is illustrated and documented thoroughly in an application re-analysing data from a study on RNA editing. Therefore the suggested method can be applied straightforwardly by scientists in bioinformatics research.


Yesterdays common fertilizing strategy was to apply phosphor (P) and potassium (K) in the
fall a few times in the crop rotation. In the spring only nitrogen (N) was applied. Recent trials
and studies has shown that this strategy, N+P/PK, is ineffective compared with the system
where NPK is spread every year in the spring. The strategy with annual NPK-fertilizer in the
spring has proven to be better for the crop, the environment and the farmers economy.

In the NPK-system the crop responds with higher yields and better quality, especially in the
spring cereals. This is mainly because of an interaction between the different nutrients in the
fertilizer. Phosphorus increase the crops nitrogen efficiency and potassium increase the
phosfor efficiency.

Leakage of phosphor must be reduced in order to prevent the ongoing eutrofication of lakes,
seas and streams. When applying phosphor in the fall the risk for leakage is greater than if it is
applied in the spring. The NPK-strategy therefore means less impact on the environment and
better economy because the phosphor stays in the soil available for the crop.

NPK-products are more expensive than single fertilizers. Because of this it is often said that
the system with annual NPK-fertilizing is more expensive. But when calculating over the
entire crop rotation the result is in favour of the NPK-system. This is due to the even more
expensive PK-products which are used in the N+PK-system. The N+PK-system also means
more applications of fertilizer when spreading P/PK in the fall and the result is additional
costs for fuel and labour. The higher yields and improved quality that is often observed in the
NPK-system is also beneficial.


Abstract. Questions such as what is the contribution of road traffic emissions to climate change? or what is the impact of shipping emissions on local air quality? require a quantification of the contribution of specific emissions sectors to the concentration of radiatively active species and air-quality-related species, respectively. Here, we present a diagnostics package, implemented in the Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy), which keeps track of the contribution of source categories (mainly emission sectors) to various concentrations. The diagnostics package is implemented as a submodel (TAGGING) of EMAC (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts – Hamburg (ECHAM)/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry). It determines the contributions of 10 different source categories to the concentration of ozone, nitrogen oxides, peroxyacytyl nitrate, carbon monoxide, non-methane hydrocarbons, hydroxyl, and hydroperoxyl radicals ( =  tagged tracers). The source categories are mainly emission sectors and some other sources for completeness. As emission sectors, road traffic, shipping, air traffic, anthropogenic non-traffic, biogenic, biomass burning, and lightning are considered. The submodel obtains information on the chemical reaction rates, online emissions, such as lightning, and wash-out rates. It then solves differential equations for the contribution of a source category to each of the seven tracers. This diagnostics package does not feed back to any other part of the model. For the first time, it takes into account chemically competing effects: for example, the competition between NOx, CO, and non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) in the production and destruction of ozone. We show that the results are in-line with results from other tagging schemes and provide plausibility checks for concentrations of trace gases, such as OH and HO2, which have not previously been tagged. The budgets of the tagged tracers, i.e. the contribution from individual source categories (mainly emission sectors) to, e.g., ozone, are only marginally sensitive to changes in model resolution, though the level of detail increases. A reduction in road traffic emissions by 5 % shows that road traffic global tropospheric ozone is reduced by 4 % only, because the net ozone productivity increases. This 4 % reduction in road traffic tropospheric ozone corresponds to a reduction in total tropospheric ozone by  ≈  0.3 %, which is compensated by an increase in tropospheric ozone from other sources by 0.1 %, resulting in a reduction in total tropospheric ozone of  ≈  0.2 %. This compensating effect compares well with previous findings. The computational costs of the TAGGING submodel are low with respect to computing time, but a large number of additional tracers are required. The advantage of the tagging scheme is that in one simulation and at every time step and grid point, information is available on the contribution of different emission sectors to the ozone budget, which then can be further used in upcoming studies to calculate the respective radiative forcing simultaneously.


In a seminal paper, Goyal and Moraga-Gonzalez (2001) use an undirected network to characterize knowledge flows between firms engaging in research in an oligopolistic market. In their paper, firms are regarded as inhabiting a research joint venture (RJV), if they share the same edge of the network. These firms are allowed an RD the outside firms (firms not sharing an edge in the network) are permitted a constant knowledge spillover that is less than one. We begin our paper by showing that this last assumption has important consequences when dealing with R&D networks of size greater than or equal to six firms. We present examples of topologically non-equivalent networks that have the same degree of connectivity and generate identical outcomes in terms of R&D effort, firm profits and total welfare. We then modify their model so that R&D spillovers decrease as the number of shortest paths increases between any two firms. We show that under product differentiated Cournot and Bertrand competition, we have different outcomes for all economic variables. We also show that R&D effort increases with respect to the number of collaborative links if firms are in a weakly competitive market, whereas it declines if firms are in a more competitive market where products are closer substitutes. We also find that in more competitive markets there is a conflict between the stability and the efficiency of RJVs.


The cement-less wastepaper-based lightweight block (CWLB) is a newly developed eco-friendly non-load bearing block manufactured from majorly cellulosic wastes without the use of cement. The main constituents of CWLB includes; wastepaper aggregate (WPA) produced from post-consumer wastepaper, waste additive and sand. This study was conducted to determine its optimum mix composition and the corresponding strength and stiffness properties. The experimentations carried out covered; the optimization of the mix composition of CWLB using the Taguchi statistical optimization technique (TSOT) and the determination of the compressive strength, density, elastic modulus and the ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) of the optimal CWLB specimen. The findings from the TSOT ascertains that the optimum mix composition of CWLB comprises of processing parameters including; 2.5 WPA/sand ratio, 0.75 water/binder ratio, and 3.5 Metric ton (i.e. 13.7 MPa) compacting force. Also, it was found that the optimal CWLB exhibited; an average compressive strength of 2.71 MPa, an average density of 901.5 kg/m3, an average UPV of 989.9 m/s and an estimated elastic modulus of 883.4 MPa. The comparison of these properties with the applicable standard requirements indicates the suitability of CWLB for non-load bearing application. In addition, the presence of 75% waste content in the mix composition of CWLB indicates its eco-friendliness and its potential to contribute to the sustainability in the construction industry through reduction in natural resources consumption. The innovation presented in this study includes; the development of a suitable optimum mix composition of constituent materials for the novel CWLB, the identification of factors that affects it strength properties and the determination of its engineering properties. Future work will investigate other relevant properties of CWLB which include; capillary water absorption, thermal conductivity, and the reaction to fire


US Environment Protection Agency (USEPA) regulations require mining operations to remediate their waste streams prior to environmental discharge. Wastewater streams from gold mine operations can be particularly toxic due to the potential for cyanide contamination and the concentration of metals contained in the wastewater effluent. This paper reviews the challenges and success of installing and operating an ozone oxidation system for wastewater remediation at a gold mine located in a remote region of Alaska. Cyanide leaching, carbon in pulp (CIP) and electrowinning processes utilized to extract gold from the mine's ore are reviewed. The remediation of metals and arsenic from the mine's wastewater dewatering process, utilizing ozone oxidation chemistry and ultrafiltration prior to reinjection into a local aquifer, are discussed in detail. The unique equipment designs to ensure reliability of a remote and isolated ozone system are included in this review.


Existing works have approached the problem of reliable transport in ad hoc networks by proposing mechanisms to improve TCP's performance over such networks, In this paper, we show through detailed arguments and simulations that several of the design elements in TCP are fundamentally inappropriate for the unique characteristics of ad hoc networks. Given that ad hoc networks are typically stand-alone, we approach the problem of reliable transport from the perspective that it is justifiable to develop an entirely new transport protocol that is not a variant of TCP. Toward this end, we present a new reliable transport layer protocol for ad hoc networks called ATP (ad hoc transport protocol). We show through ns2-based simulations that ATP outperforms default TCP as well as TCP-ELFN and ATCP.


The dynamic still originally designed by Raal (Raal and Muhlbauer [1998]) has been transformed into a valuable still that can now be used for measuring both low pressure vapour-liquid equilibria (VLE) for systems that are completely miscible and vapour-liquid-liquid equilibria (VLLE) for systems that are partially miscible. The resultant equilibrium data are important in the design and analysis of distillation and allied separation process equipment, with VLLE data, in particular, being useful in the design of heterogeneous azeotropic distillation columns. The original Raal still was based on the designs of Heertjies [1960] and Yerazunis [1964], who successfully used a packed equilibrium chamber where the liquid and vapour phases are forced downward co-currently to achieve rapid and dynamic equilibrium (Joseph et al [2001]). Direct analysis of the vapour composition prior to condensation through a new heated valving system with superheated sample conveyance to a gas chromatograph, a modification incorporated into the Raal still, ensured that accurate and reproducible equilibrium data were obtained. This new arrangement dispenses with the impossible task of getting the actual vapour composition that would result were the vapours allowed to condense and form two liquid phases. The initial testing of the still which established the operating procedures was conducted on two previously measured systems the first which was homogeneous and the second heterogeneous. For the homogeneous system the new vapour sampling system was tested by comparing the measured composition to that of a condensed sample sent manually to the GC using a gas-tight syringe. In order to completely describe the VLLE for the systems studied, the liquid-liquid equilibrium (LLE) data for these systems were also measured. The LLE measurements were conducted in a newly-developed small jacketed glass cell with temperatures maintained constant by circulating water from a bath maintained at the desired temperatures. The main focus of this project was thus the development of an apparatus and procedures for measuring low pressure vapour-liquid-liquid equilibria. The project also went on to measuring and modeling VLE, VLLE and LLE data for selected binary and ternary systems. Both the Gamma-Phi and the Phi-Phi methods of VLE analysis were carried out on the measured data. The NRTL, Wilson, TK-Wi1son and UNIQUAC activity coefficient models were used in the GammaPhi method together with the Virial equation of state for vapour phase non-idealities. In the Phi-Phi method, The Peng and Robinson Equation of State (EOS), the Soave Redlich-Kwong EOS and the Stryjek and Vera modified Peng and Robinson EOS were all used, first with the classical mixing rules and then with the theoretically correct Wong and Sandler [1992] mixing rules. Ternary LLE binodal curves were correlated to the Hlavaty correlation, the beta function and the log gamma function while the corresponding tie-lines were fitted to the NRTL model.


Schizophrenic patients show positive symptoms, negative symptoms and cognitive dysfunction. In humans, phencyclidine (PCP), a noncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, reproduces the schizophrenia-like psychosis including positive symptoms, negative symptoms and cognitive dysfunction. Ketamine, another non-competitive NMDA receptor antagonist, also reproduces a schizophrenia-like psychosis in healthy volunteers, and exaggerates the psychosis in schizophrenic patients. It has been hypothesized that insufficient glutamate neurotransmission is involved in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Therefore, attempts have been made to develop animal models of schizophrenia by using NMDA receptor antagonists such as PCP, ketamine and dizocilpine. In addition to pharmacological approaches, genetic approaches have been adopted to develop animal models of schizophrenia. The disrupted in schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) gene has been identified as a schizophrenia susceptibility gene based on linkage and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) association studies and clinical data, demonstrating that risk SNPs impact on the hippocampal structure and function in clinical and functional roles of DISC1 are analyzed in many kinds of transgenic mice developed. In this review, we focused on PCP and DISC1 transgenic animal models of schizophrenia and summarized recent evidence from several investigators. The basic researchers would need to collaborate with clinical psychiatrists to develop appropriate animal models for schizophrenia based on clinical evidence.


We investigate the feasibility of activating coherent mechanical oscillations in lasing microspheres by modulating the laser emission at a mechanical eigenfrequency. To this aim, 1.5% Nd3+:Barium-Titanium-Silicate microspheres with diameters around 50 {\mu}m were used as high quality factor (Q>10^6) whispering gallery mode lasing cavities. We have implemented a pump-and-probe technique in which the pump laser used to excite the Nd3+ ions is focused on a single microsphere with a microscope objective and a probe laser excites a specific optical mode with the evanescent field of a tapered fibre. The studied microspheres show monomode and multi-mode lasing action, which can be modulated in the best case up to 10 MHz. We have optically transduced thermally-activated mechanical eigenmodes appearing in the 50-70 MHz range, the frequency of which decreases with increasing the size of the microspheres. In a pump-and-probe configuration we observed modulation of the probe signal up to the maximum pump modulation frequency of our experimental setup, i.e., 20 MHz. This modulation decreases with frequency and is unrelated to lasing emission, pump scattering or thermal effects. We associate this effect to free-carrier-dispersion induced by multiphoton pump light absorption. On the other hand, we conclude that, in our current experimental conditions, it was not possible to resonantly excite the mechanical modes. Finally, we discuss on how to overcome these limitations by increasing the modulation frequency of the lasing emission and decreasing the frequency of the mechanical eigenmodes displaying a strong degree of optomechanical coupling.


What is a Jewish book? I invariably begin my undergraduate class on Jewish American Literature by broaching this conundrum. Does any book written by a Jew qualify? No way. Even my most glassy-eyed sophomores reject this hopelessly baggy definition. Herman Wouk, after all, is a Jew (an Orthodox Jew to boot) but, other than a few exceptions, his sweeping historical novels hardly engage Jewish characters or concerns. The flip-side of the question, however, has proven far more vexing, both for my students and for me. That is, what to do about a novel written by a non-Jew that does forcefully engage Jewish characters and concerns? Invariably, half of my students will claim that it shouldn't make a difference whether the writer is Jewish or not, only whether the work is Jewish. The other half wriggle uncomfortably in their seats while their peers articulate this argument. These are usually Jewish students--those who feel their identities somehow encroached upon by such literary ecumenicism. One's Jewishness, to their mind, should count for something, shouldn't it? Isn't there such a thing as the Jewish imagination? If a non-Jew can access this voice and vision, then, well, what's the point? This is usually when I, in effect, punt and move on to less problematic issues (paper due dates, my attendance policy, etc.). "Well," I'll say, "we're obviously not going to answer this question today. The important thing is that we recognize the controversy and revisit it." We never do. I have managed, thus, to project an air of professorial evenhandedness, to remain, at least ostensibly, above the fray. My syllabus tells a different story. While it has undergone extensive revisions over the past ten years--the inclusion of additional works of poetry, a decreasing emphasis on the celebrated immigrant and post-immigrant generation of fiction writers, and more class hours devoted to contemporary writers such as Thane Rosenbaum, Dara Horn, Aryeh Lev Stollman, Allegra Goodman, Rebecca Goldstein et. al.--nary a writer on my many syllabi would have much of a problem meeting the criteria of Israel's Law of Return. I've never taught, say, John Updike or William Styron or Gish Jen, gentile writers who have written some of these arguably "Jewish" books. Which is simply to say that through my syllabi--those most politicized and polemical documents of any literature course--I have clearly sided with the defenders of the faith, that second cohort of students uncomfortable with the idea of considering non-Jews as legitimate creators of Jewish books. If I have been guilty of an intellectually untenable anxiety of encroachment, I am in good company. In one of her early essays, "Bech, Passing," Cynthia Ozick delivers a blistering attack on Bech, A Book (1970), John Updike's first novelistic foray onto Jewish territory. "[I]t is already well-known that John Updike is a crypto-Christian, a reverse Marrano celebrating the Body of Jesus while hidden inside a bathing suit," Ozick notes early in her essay, outing Updike in a sense, fairly stripping him of his credentials (115). In the essay, Ozick painstakingly exposes Updike's Jewish protagonist as the "failure of invention" that she takes him to be (115). In creating Bech, Ozick argues, Updike had derivatively duplicated the commercially viable yet, to her mind, already shopworn formula for the ethnic Jewish novel. Perhaps most compellingly, she constructs a reductive outline of Bech: A Book, replete with the predictable categories of Vocabulary, Family, Historical References, Nose, Hair, and Sex to emulate the reductiveness of the novel itself. "Being a Jew," Ozick declares toward the end of the essay, "is something more than being an alienated marginal sensibility with kinky hair" (123). What, exactly, we might ask, is it to be a Jew? What is a Jewish text, and why is it important to establish a working definition in the first place? What accounts for Ozick's apparent anxiety? …


This paper presents a sketch of the vowels and tones in the Poula language as spoken in the Naamai (Koide) village of Manipur. Acoustic studies on the vowels and tones are conducted in this work, and it is concluded that Poula has a six vowel inventory like many of the languages in the vicinity; however the distribution of vowels in Poula is quite peculiar, with the absence of high back vowels and presence of two high front vowels. In case of tones, this study reports four tones in Poula, namely, High-falling, Rising-falling, Mid and Low. The paper concludes with a short discussion on tones in Poula underived words.


With the arrival of the Trump administration, the continental economy has come under the spotlight. Starting with an overview of commerce between Quebec and the U.S., and the premise that the two have a common interest in an uninterrupted trade relationship, this article seeks to investigate Quebec's policies and paradiplomacy in wake of this atypical policy change. In the policy dimension, we trace the historical trajectory of bilateral relations, the policymaking process, including the role of Canadian federalism, and analyze key components of the province's most recent international policy as well as Canada's new foreign policy vision. In the paradiplomacy dimension, we take stock of the province's diplomatic toolkit by assessing its deployment on the ground, the political channels at its disposal and the rising importance of digital diplomacy.


This paper describes our work on developing corpora of three varieties of Viennese for unit selection speech synthesis. The synthetic voices for Viennese varieties, implemented with the open domain unit selection speech synthesis engine Multisyn of Festival will also be released within Festival. The paper especially focuses on two questions: how we selected the appropriate speakers and how we obtained the text sources needed for the recording of these non-standard varieties. Regarding the first one, it turned out that working with a 'prototypical' professional speaker was much more preferable than striving for authenticity. In addition, we give a brief outline about the differences between the Austrian standard and its dialectal varieties and how we solved certain technical problems that are related to these differences. In particular, the specific set of phones applicable to each variety had to be determined by applying various constraints. Since such a set does not serve any descriptive purposes but rather is influencing the quality of speech synthesis, a careful design of such a set was an important task.


The integrity of a soil material is defined not only by its compositional components but also by the constituent natural bonds and the resultant interactions between the various constituents and components. Variations in the four primary factors, in combination with the uncertainties arising in proper characterization of soil integrity, result in the production of physical soil property values which cannot be easily accepted as 'true' soil properties. The influence of the factors in relation to compositional and structural aspects of soil material can be seen in the differences in reported soil property values. Quality of samples and the degree to which they are representative of the soil mass investigated are identified as primary controls on soil property variability.


Abstract Developing a model based digital human meridian system is one of the interesting ways of understanding and improving acupuncture treatment, safety analysis for acupuncture operation, doctor training, or treatment scheme evaluation. In accomplishing this task, how to construct a proper model to describe the behavior of human meridian systems is one of the very important issues. From experiments, it has been found that the hysteresis phenomenon occurs in the relations between stimulation input and the corresponding response of meridian systems. Therefore, the modeling of hysteresis in a human meridian system is an unavoidable task for the construction of model based digital human meridian systems. As hysteresis is a nonsmooth, nonlinear and dynamic system with a multi-valued mapping, the conventional identification method is difficult to be employed to model its behavior directly. In this paper, a neural network based identification method of hysteresis occurring in human meridian systems is presented. In this modeling scheme, an expanded input space is constructed to transform the multi-valued mapping of hysteresis into a one-to-one mapping. For this purpose, a modified hysteretic operator is proposed to handle the extremum-missing problem. Then, based on the constructed expanded input space with the modified hysteretic operator, the so-called Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) neural network is utilized to model hysteresis inherent in human meridian systems. As hysteresis in meridian system is a dynamic system, a dynamic ELMneural network is developed. In the proposed dynamic ELMneural network, the output state of each hidden neuron is fed back to its own input to describe the dynamic behavior of hysteresis. The training of the recurrent ELM neural network is based on the least-squares algorithm with QR decomposition.


Maternity, Medicine and Power: Reproductive Decisions in Urban Benin. Carolyn Fishel Sargent. Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care, Vol. 22 (John M. Janzen, series ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. 256 pp. $36.00 (cloth). This book constitutes a major step forward in the understanding of a process that is affecting every Third World nation: the wholesale adoption of an imported Western model of birth. The deplorable lack in the ethnographic literature of good cross-cultural studies of women and reproduction will soon be eliminated if more studies like this one are forthcoming. Sargent's study primarily concerns the factors that influence birth decisions made by the women of one particular ethnic group in northern Benin, the Bariba. Much of the value of this research lies in her skillful comparison of urban Bariba women in the city of Parakou with their rural counterparts and predecessors in the town of Pehunko, where Sargent conducted an earlier project in 1976-77. The understanding of "pure" Bariba culture she gained in this earlier research gave Sargent a baseline for comparison of the changes that have accompanied the urbanization and modernization of Benin, and most especially of the significance of these changes for women's reproductive choices. Two cultural idiosyncracies characterized the birthing styles of rural Bariba women, both reflections of core values and beliefs of the wider Bariba culture. Stalwart stoicism in the face of pain is one of these. Bariba men found many opportunities for gaining honor and prestige by not showing pain; birth provided the only such avenue for most Bariba women. The ideal pattern for birth had the woman going about normal activities around the house without any indication to her husband that she was in labor (other women present seemed usually to have known), then, when she could no longer stand, retiring alone to a room and giving birth without making a sound. Ideally, the husband would know of his offspring's birth only when the baby's own cry was heard; at that point, maternal relatives and friends would enter to offer assistance and support. According to the author's painstaking survey work, most rural Pehunko women did succeed in living up to or approximating this ideal, thereby gaining considerable and lasting prestige and community respect. Moreover, the indigenous midwives whose skills were often called upon in complicated deliveries also often gained high community status. Unfortunately, no statistics are available on the outcomes of these births, nor is Sargent explicit in detailing traditional procedures. But many modern studies have established the efficacy of walking during labor as opposed to lying down, and the kneeling position Bariba women apparently used for delivery is certainly physiologically more effective for pushing than the flat-on-the-back position of the American hospital. I was frustrated by the lack of specific detail about birth position, manner of delivery, and indigenous midwifery techniques, as this sort of information might prove useful in working out practical alternatives to standard hospital routines. I also wished for inclusion of personal narratives describing women's thoughts, emotions, and actions during these private deliveries. But since pain is a taboo topic among the Bariba, privacy highly valued, and shame an ever-present danger, perhaps such stories are simply never narrated. The other basic tenet of Bariba culture reflected in rural birth patterns is a strong belief in the reality of witch babies. Being born in certain positions or with certain physical characteristics categorizes a child as a witch who, if allowed to live, will grow up to do harm to his or her family. Delivering alone or with only other women present often enabled the mother to determine the fate of her child, as she (in consultation with any female attendants) could choose whether or not to disclose significant information that could lead to the baby's execution by a ritual specialist. …


This paper addresses the challenging problem of recognition and classification of textured surfaces under illumination variation, geometric transformations and noisy sensor measurements. We propose a new texture operator, Adaptive Median Binary Patterns (AMBP) that extends our previous Median Binary Patterns (MBP) texture feature. The principal idea of AMBP is to hash small local image patches into a binary pattern text on by fusing MBP and Local Binary Patterns (LBP) operators combined with using self-adaptive analysis window sizes to better capture invariant microstructure information while providing robustness to noise. The AMBP scheme is shown to be an effective mechanism for non-parametric learning of spatially varying image texture statistics. The local distribution of rotation invariant and uniform binary pattern subsets extended with more global joint information are used as the descriptors for robust texture classification. The AMBP is shown to outperform recent binary pattern and filtering-based texture analysis methods on two large texture corpora (CUReT and KTH_TIPS2-b) with and without additive noise. The AMBP method is slightly superior to the best techniques in the noiseless case but significantly outperforms other methods in the presence of impulse noise.


A plane-wave boundary method is proposed for the analysis of bent optical waveguides. The realization of the method is based on the equivalent straight waveguide approach and consists of two steps. At first, the plane-wave boundary condition is introduced at the computational boundary where the outgoing wave is expected. Then, the optimum location of the computational boundary is determined, corresponding to the maximum of radiation power loss. The optimized computational window helps to significantly reduce the influence of the nonphysical reflections of the outgoing wave caused by the particular index profile of bent waveguide structures in the straight waveguide approach. Using this method, the propagation constants and radiation losses are determined for waveguides with different bend radii. In contrast to methods based on the absorption concept, the proposed method does not require the introduction of additional parameters.