Electronic control systems have become an integral part of the modern vehicle and
their installation rate is still on a sharp rise. Their application areas range from
powertrain, chassis and body control to entertainment. Each system is conventionally
control led by a centralised controller with hard-wired links to sensors and actuators. As
systems have become more complex, a rise in the number of system components and
amount of wiring harness has followed. This leads to serious problems on safety,
reliability and space limitation. Different networking and vehicle electronic architectures
have been developed by others to ease these problems. The thesis proposes an alternative
architecture namely Distributed Wheel Architecture, for its potential benefits in terms of
vehicle dynamics, safety and ease of functional addition. The architecture would have a
networked controller on each wheel to perform its dynamic control including braking,
suspension and steering.
The project involves conducting a preliminary study and comparing the proposed
architecture with four alternative existing or high potential architectures. The areas of
study are functionality, complexity, and reliability.
Existing ABS, active suspension and four wheel steering systems are evaluated in
this work by simulation of their operations using road test data. They are used as
exemplary systems, for modelling of the new electronic architecture together with the
four alternatives. A prediction technique is developed, based on the derivation of software
pseudo code from system specifications, to estimate the microcontroller specifications of
all the system ECUs. The estimate indicates the feasibility of implementing the
architectures using current microcontrollers. Message transfer on the Controller Area
Network (CAN) of each architecture is simulated to find its associated delays, and hence
the feasibility of installing CAN in the architectures. Architecture component costs are
estimated from the costs of wires, ECUs, sensors and actuators. The number of wires is
obtained from the wiring models derived from exemplary system data. ECU peripheral
component counts are estimated from their statistical plot against the number of ECU
pins of collected ECUs. Architecture component reliability is estimated based on two
established reliability handbooks.
The results suggest that all of the five architectures could be implemented using
present microcontrollers. In addition, critical data transfer via CAN is made within time
limits under current levels of message load, indicating the possibility of installing CAN in
these architectures. The proposed architecture is expected to· be costlier in terms of
components than the rest of the architectures, while it is among the leaders for wiring
weight saving. However, it is expected to suffer from a relatively higher probability of
system component failure.
The proposed architecture is found not economically viable at present, but shows
potential in reducing vehicle wire and weight problems.


THE EFFECT OF REPEATED TEXTUAL ENCOUNTERS AND PICTORIAL GLOSSES UPON ACQUIRING ADDITIONAL WORD SENSES Michael S. Hilmo Center for Language Studies Master of Arts This study investigated the effects of multiple textual encounters of words and textual encounters of words supplemented with pictorial glosses upon the ability of a learner of French to infer additional word senses—senses of target words that were not previously encountered. Twenty-nine participants were randomly divided into two groups, Groups A and B, and were subjected to two treatments, one in which the subjects encountered target words textually twice (Repeated Textual Encounters, RTE) and one in which the subjects encountered target words once textually and once pictorially (Pictorial Encounter, PE). Before the administration of the two vocabulary-learning treatments the participants completed a vocabulary pretest on the target words to establish a baseline of knowledge. At the conclusion of the vocabulary pretest, Group A read a French fairy tale encountering half of the target words using the RTE treatment while encountering the other half of the target words using the PE treatment. Although Group B read the same French fairy tale, they did not receive the same treatment for the same words. Specifically, the target words that those in Group A encountered using the RTE treatment were encountered by those in Group B using the PE treatment, and vise versa for the other treatment. Immediately following the treatments the participants completed a vocabulary recall test wherein the participants demonstrated their ability to infer additional senses of the target words in addition to recall original senses of target words as encountered in the text. Vocabulary gains were used as data to determine the participants' ability to infer additional word senses and recall original word senses. Results from t tests indicate that both treatments have a significant impact upon the learner's ability to infer additional word senses as well as recall original senses. Furthermore, results from analysis on the data gathered for individual words show that the treatments had a significant effect on learners inferring and recalling the senses of certain words over others. Results did not determine, however, which treatment was more effective than the other for learners to infer additional senses of words or to recall original word senses.


The present study aimed at examining the Giardia dudenale infection in diarrheal infants who visited the Al-Shamia General Hospital from January 2017 until the end of June 2018. (200) samples of feces were examined for infants aged (1 month-2 years), the samples at the beginning examine by the direct moist smear method and the results showed that 45 samples were positive for infection (22.5%). The study also focused on the impact of some important factors related to children which represent the specific risk factors for the disease, such as age, gender, and nutrition type, the results showed that the lowest percentage was (20.22%) in the age group (1-6 months), while the highest rate of infection was (38.07%) in the age group (1-2 years), and the rate of parasite infection in males and females is somewhat similar, where was (31.69%) and (29.93%), respectively, with the highest rate of infection (39.21%) for infants who rely on artificial feeding and the lowest rate of breastfeeding infants (19.99%). Positive samples were subjected to molecular diagnosis using the most accurate Real-Time PCR technique, the results showed that the parasitic infection rate was (89.42%) positive for microscopic examination. The current study focused exclusively on infants under two years of age in terms of the spread of parasites between this age group using traditional methods and molecular methods together to give an accurate idea of parasite prevalence among the age group under study, It also addressed the risk factors that affect the spread of the parasite G. dudenale, because taking precautions to reduce the impact of a particular factor will be reflected positively to reduce the prevalence of the disease because of this parasite of a significant impact on the deterioration of the health and development of children.


Nonlinear absorption and amplification of a probe laser beam can be controlled by adjustment of the intensity-modulation frequency and the wavelength of a pump laser beam. A demonstration of this effect in Er3+-doped fluoroindate glass is presented. The results show maximum amplification of the probe beam (∼12%) when a pump laser emitting 16 mW of power is modulated at ∼30 Hz. In the limit of low modulation frequencies, or cw pumping, induced absorption of the probe beam is the dominant nonlinear process.


Business processes evolve dynamically with changing business demands. Because of these fast changes, traditional process improvement techniques have to be adapted and extended since they often require a high degree of manual work. To reduce this degree of manual work, the automated planning of process models is proposed. In this context, we present a novel approach for an automated construction of the control flow structure simple merge (XOR join). This ac-counts for a necessary step towards an automated planning of entire process models. Here we build upon a planning domain, which gives us a general and formal basis to apply our ap-proach independently from a specific process modeling language. To analyze the feasibility of our method, we mathematically evaluate the approach in terms of key properties like termina-tion and completeness. Moreover, we implement the approach in a process planning software and apply it to several real-world processes.


The AIX & RS/6000 Certifications offered through the Professional Certification Program from IBM are designed to validate the skills required of technical professionals who work in the powerful and often complex environments of AIX and RS/6000. A complete set of professional certifications are available. They include: IBM Certified AIX User IBM Certified Specialist - RS/6000 Solution Sales IBM Certified Specialist - AIX V4.3 System Administration IBM Certified Specialist - AIX V4.3 System Support IBM Certified Specialist - RS/6000 SP IBM Certified Specialist - AIX HACMP IBM Certified Specialist - Domino for RS/6000 IBM Certified Specialist - Web Server for RS/6000 IBM Certified Specialist - Business Intelligence for RS/6000 IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert - RS/6000 AIX Each certification is developed by following a thorough and rigorous process to ensure the exam is applicable to the job role and is a meaningful and appropriate assessment of skill. Subject Matter experts who successfully perform the job participate throughout the entire development process. These job incumbents bring a wealth of experience into the development process, thus, making the exams much more meaningful than the typical test that only captures classroom knowledge. These experienced Subject Matter experts ensure the exams are relevant to the real world and that the test content is both useful and valid. The result of this certification is the value of appropriate measurements of the skills required to perform the job role. This redbook is designed as a study guide for professionals wishing to prepare for the certification exam to achieve: IBM Certified Specialist - AIX V4.3 System Administration. The system administration certification validates a broad scope of AIX administration skills and the ability to perform general AIX software system maintenance. The certification is applicable to AIX administration professionals who conduct the AIX problem determination and resolution activities needed to successfully support customers, or clients, in an AIX environment in order to maintain system reliability. This redbook helps AIX administrators seeking a comprehensive and task-oriented guide for developing the knowledge and skills required for the certification. It is designed to provide a combination of theory and practical experience needed for a general understanding of the subject matter. It also provides sample questions that will help in the evaluation of personal progress and provide familiarity with the types of questions that will be encountered in the exam. This book does not replace practical experience. Instead, it is an effective tool that, when combined with education activities and experience, can be a very useful preparation guide for the exam. Due to the practical nature of the certification content, this publication can also be used as a desk-side reference. So, whether you are planning to take the administration exam, or if you just want to validate your AIX system administration skills, this book is for you.


This paper draws on the author's experience with teaching mythology in undergraduate surveys of literature (the so-called "Great Books" courses) dominated by non-majors.  It addresses, more specifically, the three criteria cited by the author's students when they were asked whether myths should be taught in introductory courses: verifiability, relevance, and student demand.  Although the author focuses on teaching Homer to aspiring accountants, the strategies for engaging students outlined herein are meant to have broader appeal and should prove useful to teachers of any national mythology or literature. The paper has a prominent empirical component but also references relevant scholarship.


The protection of intellectual property rights has been a contentious issue over the last 20 years. Industrialized nations have moved to knowledge-based economies and simultaneously trade barriers have fallen, making intellectual property vulnerable. Adding to this vulnerability are conflicting international institutional environments, belief systems, and economic realities. The debate over IPR protection has become a significant global trade issue pitting the net- technology producing North against the net-technology consuming South. The North maintains a comprehensive IPR institutional environment and actively employs enforcement mechanisms. The South on the other hand, is more conflicted. While in the last ten years many Southern countries have agreed to multilateral agreements on IPR protection, enforcement and real commitment has been lagging. With this in mind there has been much debate about the impact of alternative IPR regimes (tight or loose) on the welfare of Southern economies. Policy makers in both the South and the North search for arguments to convince recalcitrant Southern countries to follow the Northern model of strict IPR regimes. The South faced with a dilemma, searches for arguments to justify loose IPR regimes or alternatively to convince its populace that tighter IPR regimes are better for the nation. While there has been much analytical work, mostly theoretical, conducted on the subject, the final results are inconclusive whether a strong IPR regime is better or worse for Southern countries. The lack of clarity as to the impact of IPR regime has in part been due to the level of analysis. The theoretical models, while being extremely valuable highlighting the drivers of firm and social welfare, are by their nature abstractions and have produced contradictory conclusions. The empirical models have been limited focusing on either secondary aggregated data and proxy variables to uncover the relationship between IPR and economic outcome or qualitative surveys asking managers to describe the impact of weak IPR. One of the predicaments of empirical analysis in this area is trying to measure or assess the investment not made. For example in some research, investigators are forced to asked business leaders hypothetical questions as to what might they do if the institutional environment were different, i.e. IPR were protected. Our research takes a different empirical approach using the case study method and the unique setting of the corn and soybean seed business to actually measure how the lack of IPR protection distorts the strategy and investment behavior of a firm. Due to the agronomic differences between corn and soybeans, corn is naturally protected from IPR pirating while soybeans are not. In a Northern setting, the business are run in parallel with similar investment, human resource needs, and marketing strategies. In a Southern setting we hypothesize that there will be significant and measurable differences due to the firms' inability to protect its intellectual soybean technology. This research will document and quantify the impact on the firm. The firms' behavior indirectly effects the country as it shifts it physical and human capital investment. This too will be quantified. Finally the welfare gain to farmers from lower prices and wider access to new biotechnologies will also be empirically measured. Our research empirically analyzes hypotheses derived from the current theory on IPR with the purpose of providing evidence on the welfare impacts of weak IPR. The empirical setting is Pioneer Hi-Bred a global leader in agricultural seed production and sale. We focused on the Argentinean division which is uniquely appropriate for the study of the IPR question. The two leading products of Pioneer are corn and soybeans. These crops are complements and are used in rotation. Corn's intellectual property is naturally protected from piracy by the hybridization process. Because it is self-pollinating, soybeans (and the valuable Roundup Ready® technology) are very vulnerable. The study used the following sources of evidence: key informant interviews, direct observation, and quantitative data (financial documents analysis and industry statistics). The informant interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview instrument on managers and field staff within Pioneer, managers of competing firms, government officials, trade associations, seed distributors and multipliers, and producers. Direct observation was conducted on location at Pioneer R&D, production and distribution facilities. Financial document analysis was conducted using balance sheet, and income data at the business unit level and internal marketing research documents provided by Pioneer as well as secondary data on the industry. All interviews and site visit were digitally videotaped. Interviews were then transcribed and analyzed using QSR NUD-IST®, a text analysis software tool. We hypothesize that there will be sharp differences between the corn and soybean business units not found in a Northern setting. These differences will reflect the "investment not made" that has been so elusive to other empirical studies. Theory predicts that there will be differences in quality and quantity of infrastructure investment, differences in supply chain relationships, differences in resource needs, differences in human resource management, and differences in financial performance. At the firm level if such differences exist it would indicate that there are different business strategies for different IPR environments even though the traded products are identical. Finally and equally important the study will measure the impacts on the host country in terms of human capital, under investment, reduced cash flow, and smaller knowledge spillovers. These impacts plus the welfare gains from lower prices and wider product distribution will comprise our assessment of the economic impact of weak IPR.


In this paper new tests for the independence of two high-dimensional vectors are investigated. We consider the case where the dimension of the vectors increases with the sample size and propose multivariate analysis of variance-type statistics for the hypothesis of a block diagonal covariance matrix. The asymptotic properties of the new test statistics are investigated under the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis using random matrix theory. For this purpose we study the weak convergence of linear spectral statistics of central and (conditionally) non-central Fisher matrices. In particular, a central limit theorem for linear spectral statistics of large dimensional (conditionally) non-central Fisher matrices is derived which is then used to analyse the power of the tests under the alternative.
The theoretical results are illustrated by means of a simulation study where we also compare the new tests with several alternative, in particular with the commonly used corrected likelihood ratio test. It is demonstrated that the latter test does not keep its nominal level, if the dimension of one sub-vector is relatively small compared to the dimension of the other sub-vector. On the other hand the tests proposed in this paper provide a reasonable approximation of the nominal level in such situations. Moreover, we observe that one of the proposed tests is most powerful under a variety of correlation scenarios.


BACKGROUND
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a largely preventable and manageable respiratory condition, affects an estimated 12% to 20% of adults. Long-acting inhaled β-agonists and anticholinergics have both been shown to improve COPD outcomes and are recommended for moderate to severe disease; however, little is known about their comparative effectiveness.

OBJECTIVE
To compare survival in older patients with COPD who initially receive inhaled long-acting β-agonists with that of patients who receive anticholinergics.

DESIGN
Population-based, retrospective cohort study.

SETTING
Ontario, Canada.

PATIENTS
Patients aged 66 years or older (who carry the largest burden of COPD and for whom data were available) who met a validated case definition of COPD on the basis of health administrative data and were newly prescribed an inhaled long-acting β-agonist or a long-acting anticholinergic (but not both) between 2003 and 2007. Patients were followed for up to 5.5 years.

MEASUREMENTS
The primary outcome was all-cause mortality.

RESULTS
A total of 46 403 patients with COPD (mean age, 77 years; 49% women) were included. Overall mortality was 38.2%. Mortality was higher in patients initially prescribed a long-acting anticholinergic than in those initially prescribed a long-acting inhaled β-agonist (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.14 [95% CI, 1.09 to 1.19]). Rates of hospitalizations and emergency department visits were also higher in those initially prescribed a long-acting anticholinergic.

LIMITATION
Patients were classified as having COPD on the basis of health administrative records, which did not contain information about lung function.

CONCLUSION
Older adults initially prescribed long-acting inhaled β-agonists for the management of moderate COPD seem to have lower mortality than those initially prescribed long-acting anticholinergics. Further research is needed to confirm these findings in younger patients and in a randomized, controlled trial.

PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE
Government of Ontario, Canada.


The thesis details the development of computer vision and path planning algorithms in order to map an area via UAV aerial imagery and aid a UGV in navigating a roadway when the road conditions are not previously known (i.e. disaster situations). Feature detection was used for transform calculation and image warping to create mosaics. A continuous extension using dynamic cropping based on newly gathered images was used to improve performance and computation time. Road detection using kmeans segmentation and binary image morphing was applied to aerial imagery with image shifting tracked by the mosaicking to develop a large road map. Improvements to computation time were developed using k-means for calibration at intervals and nearest neighbor calculating for each image. This showed a greatly reduced computation time for a series of images with only 1-2% error compared to regular k-means segmentation. Path planning for the UAV utilized a traveling wave applied to the traveling salesman genetic algorithm solution to prioritize close targets and facilitate UGV deployment. Based on the large map of road locations and road detection method, the Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) algorithm was modified for real-time application and efficient data processing. Considerations of incomplete maps and goal adjustments was also incorporated. Finally, aerial imagery from an actual UAV flight was processed using these algorithms to validate and test flight parameters. Testing of different flight parameters showed the desired image overlay of 50% to give accurate mosaics. It also helped to develop a benchmark for the altitude, image resolution and frequency for flights. Vehicle requirements and algorithm limitations for future applications of this system are also discussed.


Air pollutant concentrations recorded in the Athens basin area by a network of stations are analysed and examined to estimate the typical behaviour of the air pollutants, especially with regard to daily, weekly and annual periodicities and meteorological dependencies. Also, an attempt is made to predict daily and monthly concentrations by utilising a statistically based model, that is, a multiple linear regression model. The results obtained show the presence of a very significant weekly periodicity for all the analysed air pollutants (e.g. SO2, O3, CO, NO and NO2). It also appears to be present a yearly periodicity for the primary (e.g. SO2, CO, NO and NO2) air pollutants analysed and studied. The statistical prediction by using the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) stochastic model in combination with the Theil index, shows good predicting capabilities (one day ahead) for sulphur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O2) and nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2). The significance of the forecasting is controlled by the Theil index.


This paper investigates the long-run effects of climate change on conflict by examining cooling from 1400-1900 CE, a period that includes most of the Little Ice Age. We construct a geo-referenced and digitized database of conflicts in Europe, North Africa, and the Near East from 1400-1900, which we merge with historical temperature data. We first show that during this time, cooling is associated with increased conflict. Then, turning to the dynamics of cooling, we allow the effects of cooling over a fifty-year period to depend on the extent of cooling during the preceding fifty-year period. We find that the effect of cooling on conflict is significantly larger if the same location experienced cooling during the preceding period. We interpret this as evidence that the adverse effect of climate change intensifies with its duration.


OBJECTIVES
The aim of the study was to investigate effects of the fungicide formulation Spartakus (prochloraz 450 g.L-1) on common carp Cyprinus carpio through biometric, biochemical, haematological and antioxidant indices, induction of xenobiotic metabolizing enzymes and histological examination of selected tissues.

DESIGN
The test was performed on juvenile fish, which was exposed to Spartakus (concentrations of prochloraz: 0.05; 0.15 and 0.38 mg.L-1) for 28 days. Haematological indices were assessed using unified methods of haematological examination in fish. Plasma biochemical indices were determined by biochemical analyzer. Concentration of total cytochrome P450 (CYP), glutathione (GSH) content and glutathione-S-transferase (GST) activity were determined spectrophotometrically in hepatopancreas. Activity of liver ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) activity was measured spectrofluorimetrically. Ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP) and ceruloplasmin activity were assessed spectrophotometrically. Histological changes in samples of hepatopancreas, skin, gills, spleen, head kidney and caudal kidney were examined by light microscopy.

RESULTS
There was a significant rise in hepatosomatic index (HSI) (p<0.01), CYP and EROD (p<0.05) of fish exposed to prochloraz of 0.15 and 0.38 mg.L-1 whereas GST was induced by all concentrations tested and GSH by 0.38 mg.L-1 (p<0.05). Red blood cell count decreased significantly (p<0.05) in prochloraz of 0.05 and 0.15 mg.L-1. Plasma potassium increased (p<0.01) in all Spartakus treated groups, a decline in total protein (p<0.05), ALT, Na+ and Ca (p<0.01) was found in fish exposed to prochloraz of 0.38 mg.L-1. Ceruloplasmin activity was elevated (p<0.05) in the highest concentration tested, FRAP declined (p<0.05) in the same group. Histopathological changes in gills were demonstrated in all pesticide treated groups, with a decreased activity of skin mucous cells in prochloraz of 0.38 mg.L-1.

CONCLUSION
The subchronic exposure to Spartakus influenced HSI, induced xenobitic metabolizing enzymes, initiated a disorder of selected plasma indices and a decline in red blood cell count, caused minor histological impairment, and affected antioxidant activities of the test fish.


The implementation of a conservation program since the early 1980s resulted in a reduction in phosphorus concentrations in Lake Geneva. However, in the 1990s, phytoplankton biomass increased again, almost reaching the high values recorded during the period of greatest P loading. The structural changes in the phytoplankton of Lake Geneva over the past 25 yr have been analyzed using a recently developed statistical method based on hierarchical clustering and Bayesian probabilities. This method has been used to identify phytoplankton assemblages and to map annual and interannual successional patterns simultaneously. Characteristic species were identified for each cluster after calculation of their relative species fidelity and specificity indices. Six distinct phytoplankton assemblages were identified, and although the way species are organized into communities remains unclear, the seasonal patterns of succession are consistent with the C‐S‐R adaptive strategies and are characteristic of temperate lakes. This pattern broadly recurred over the years, but was markedly influenced by both human activity and regional climatic changes: The warmer winters and springs recorded in Europe since 1988 led to an earlier clear‐water phase. In the 1990s, the earlier and deeper depletion of dissolved inorganic phosphorus led to colonization in the summer by large species tolerant of low light levels and that could develop deeper in the water column, where phosphorus was still abundant. Their size made them less vulnerable to grazing losses, which favors their accumulation and lead to an unexpected high biomass in recent years.


Anthroposcopy means judging the body's built by inspection. Visual assessment, one of the oldest methods of examination, still used in medicine today, is not reliable because is highly subjective. Anthropometric studies are therefore needed for quantitative assessment. Traditional methods use an assortment of instruments (goniometers, rulers and tapes), which can cause varying measurement errors, depending on the region of interest and the examiner's experience and consequently may produce conflicting results, making the worth of scientific information doubtful. In this paper we discuss the use of photogrammetric techniques for craniofacial studies, explaining how this technique can be implemented and what are the comparative advantages to the commonly used methods that are still favored by the majority of medical doctors. Photogrammetry not only can minimize the above sources of errors, but it can also assist the doctor to perform and repeat the measurements in later time periods from that of the time of acquisition. We investigated 102 dissected facial halves and we used pins as markers of anatomic facial details in order to determine the Modiolus area relative to other stable, anatomic, osteal craniometrical points and measure details of the Zygomaticus Major muscle. The image acquisition and the photogrammetric processing including camera calibration, using a low cost software that supports maximum ease of use, are analyzed and results from the quantitative assessment are presented. Moreover, the paper demonstrates the feasibility that non-experts in photogrammetry can use commercial cameras and simple photogrammetric software tools to derive the required information.


The Medical Article Records System or MARS has been developed at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) for automated data entry of bibliographical information from medical journals into MEDLINE, the premier bibliographic citation database at NLM. Currently, a rule-based algorithm (called ZoneCzar) is used for labeling important bibliographical fields (title, author, affiliation, and abstract) on medical journal article page images. While rules have been created for medical journals with regular layout types, new rules have to be manually created for any input journals with arbitrary or new layout types. Therefore, it is of interest to label any journal articles independent of their layout styles. In this paper, we first describe a system (called ZoneMatch) for automated generation of crucial geometric and non-geometric features of important bibliographical fields based on string-matching and clustering techniques. The rule based algorithm is then modified to use these features to perform style-independent labeling. We then describe a performance evaluation method for quantitatively evaluating our algorithm and characterizing its error distributions. Experimental results show that the labeling performance of the rule-based algorithm is significantly improved when the generated features are used.


This thesis is based on 5 papers exploring the filtering problem in non-linear non-Gaussian state-space models together with applications of Sequential Monte Carlo (also called particle filtering) methods to the positioning in wireless networks. The aim of the first paper is to study the performance of particle filtering techniques in mobile positioning using signal strength measurements. Two different approaches for mobile movement(polar and Cartesian)were used, combined with two different models for the received signal strength. The results of the simulation study showed better performance for particle filters based on a power model with varying propagation coefficient. The filters based on the polar model for mobile movement were found to be more precise in terms of mean squared error, but at the same time were more computationally intensive. The second paper represents the results of a simulation study on mobile positioning in multiply input multiply output (MIMO) settings. Three different particles filters were implemented for the positioning, and simulation results showed that all filters were able to achieve estimation accuracy required by Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Moreover, since dimensionality of the particle filter state space does not depend on the antenna configuration, it is possible to apply described filters in more sophisticated MIMO setup without changing the algorithms. In the third paper we investigated an algorithm for particles filtering in multidimensional state-space models which are decomposable in the states. We demonstrated using the simulations that the algorithm effectively reduces the computational time without a large precision loss. It is known that the quality of sequential Monte Carlo estimation depends on the number of particles involved. In the paper four we explored different strategies to increase the number of particles: correlated sampling and observation-driven sampling. The correlated sampling approach was further investigated in the fifth paper, where we employed the idea of using antithetic variates. We introduced a version of the standard auxiliary particle filter and concluded, based on the theoretical developments, that the asymptotic variance of the produced Monte Carlo estimates can be decreased by means of antithetic techniques when the particle filter is closed to fully adapted, which involves approximation of the so-called optimal proposal kernel. As an illustration, the method was applied to optimal filtering in state-space models. (Less)


The student protests in South African Universities, which started in 2015, demanded the decolonisation of certain aspects of higher education. While the primary demand is free education, issues of the curriculum and transformation connected with the country's history of colonialism and apartheid have also surfaced. In the field of law, demands for curriculum change are accompanied by the broad issue of the decolonisation of law, translating into questions of legal history, the concept of law, the role of law in African societies, the status of indigenous systems of law in the post-independent/apartheid legal system, and how law is taught in law schools. This paper examines the idea of the decolonisation of law in relation to the teaching of law in African states previously under the influence of English or Roman-Dutch colonial/apartheid legal history. The teaching of law is with special reference to the system of law that governs the majority of people in Africa in private law and aspects of governance – living customary law. The paper examines the design of legal education with respect to three elements that are essential to the decolonisation of law and legal education. The elements under review are the inclusion of living customary law in legal education, a shift in the legal theoretical paradigm within which law is taught, and the interdisciplinary study of law. Thus, the paper links the decolonisation of law to how law is taught, with special reference to living customary law. In discussing these elements, the paper draws examples from the South African legal system, because it has the most advanced jurisprudential conceptualisation of customary law on the African Continent.


Background: Older people participating in shareholding networks are exposed to diverse situations, which may be associated with dignity. Aims: This study aimed to illuminate the meaning of lived experiences when participating in shareholding networks for the care of older people in rural areas. Methods: This qualitative study is based on individual interviews. Ten older Thai persons with at least 12 months of lived experiences participating in shareholding networks for older people in rural areas were interviewed. A phenomenological-hermeneutic approach, inspired by Ricoeur, was used to understand the meaning of the narrated text. Findings: The structural analysis resulted in four themes: 1) being satisfied with activities, 2) being valued as important, 3) being frustrated and feeling sad, and 4) being bored and feeling disinterest. The meaning of participation in a shareholding network for the elderly can be understood as a pathway to feelings of confidence and presence of others. Confidence and allowing the presence of others mean facing humanity and sensing vulnerability, because in a trusting relationship the person who gives confidence is susceptible to the other's betrayal. Conclusion: An individual's dignity should be a high priority in health and social care strategies. Therefore, it is important for healthcare professionals to initiate a dialogue with the shareholding participants for support and information. The narrations in this study can be used as a basis for developing cooperating care with older people in shareholding network focusing on their needs and dignity.


The measurement of democracy and its empiric work is at the beginning of the issues discussed for many years. The democracy index created by the Economist Intelligence Unit group of the Economist magazine, which has long been recognized as a democracy index and a measure of democracy, is the only index that measures the democracy levels of countries with many subcomponents and is recognized by the United Nations. The main aim of this study is to compare the current index with democracy, freedom of the press, and public opinion collected primary data in order to measure whether corruption is consistent with the index in question. At the same time press freedom and the democracy movement in a country like Turkey have moved towards a single man leadership. Turkey claims to be a member of the European Union but it reveals it has bigger problems. Primary data obtained from the aspects of index variable indicates that a parallel way of press freedom in Turkey and the country have moved towards a totalitarian regime by ignoring democracy.


Abstract BACKGROUND. Sinonasal polyposis represents a chronic inflammatory condition characterized by nasal obstruction, reduction in the sense of smell and impaired quality of life. Intranasal steroids play an important role in preventing the postoperative recurrences in these cases. We carried out a study to evaluate and compare intra nasal budesonide and intranasal fluticasone propionate in the postoperative management of ethmoidal nasal polyposis. MATERIAL AND METHODS. 106 patients with ethmoidal polyposis were treated with endoscopic polypectomy and were postoperatively started and maintained on intranasal steroids. 54 patients were managed with budesonide and 52 patients maintained on fluticasone propionate nasal spray. The patients were followed-up for 6 months and recurrences and control of symptoms evaluated. RESULTS. There was a statistical difference in the SNOT-22 (p<0.0001) and Lund-Kennedy scores (p=0.015) between patients using fluticasone propionate as compared to those using budesonide intra nasal spray by the end of the 6th month. CONCLUSION. Both intranasal budesonide and fluticasone propionate are effective in controlling symptoms after endoscopic sinus surgery in patients with sinonasal polyposis; however, intranasal fluticasone propionate was more efficacious than budesonide in the control of postoperative symptoms.


The availability of large scale multitasked parallel architectures introduces the following processor assignment problem for pipelined computations. Given a set of tasks and their precedence constraints, along with their experimentally determined individual response times for different processor sizes, find an assignment of processors to tasks. Two objectives interest us: minimal response given a throughput requirement, and maximal throughput given a response time requirement. These assignment problems differ considerably from the classical mapping problem in which several tasks share a processor; instead, the authors assume that a large number of processors are to be assigned to a relatively small number of tasks. In this paper they develop efficient assignment algorithms for different classes of task structures. For a p processor system and a series-parallel precedence graph with n constituent tasks, they provide an O(np squared) algorithm that finds the optimal assignment for a response time optimization problem; they find the assignment optimizing the constrained throughput in o(np squared logp) time. Special cases of linear, independent, and three graphs are also considered. In addition, they also examine more efficient algorithms when certain restrictions are placed on the problem parameters. Their techniques are applied to a task system in computer vision.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the efficacy of prophylactic swallowing exercises on swallowing function in patients undergoing chemoradiation therapy (CRT) for head and neck cancer.

DESIGN
Randomized controlled trial.

SETTING
Tertiary care, academic medical center.

PATIENTS
Twenty-six patients with head and neck cancer receiving CRT.

INTERVENTION
Patients performed 5 targeted swallowing exercises throughout their CRT and participated in weekly swallowing therapy sessions to promote adherence and accurate technique. Controls had no prophylactic exercises and were referred for swallowing treatment after completion of CRT if indicated.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Swallowing function was assessed with the Functional Oral Intake Scale (FOIS) and the Performance Status Scale for Head and Neck Cancer Patients (PSS-H&N) at baseline, immediately after CRT, and at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after CRT.

RESULTS
There were no statistically significant differences in FOIS scores between intervention and control patients immediately after CRT (immediately after CRT: intervention group median score, 3 [range, 1-7], vs median control score, 4 [range, 1-6] (P = .88). However, intervention patients had significantly better scores at months 3 and 6 (median 3-month intervention score, 7 [range, 5-7], vs median control score, 5 [range, 3-7] [P = .03]; median 6-month intervention score, 7 [range, 6-7], vs median control score, 6 [range, 3-7] [P = .009]). There was no significant difference in scores at months 9 and 12 (P = .24 and P = .93, respectively). The same pattern between intervention and control patients was observed for scores on the PSS-H&N.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients who performed prophylactic swallowing exercises had improved swallowing function at 3 and 6 months after CRT but not immediately after CRT or at 9 and 12 months after CRT. The small sample size may have limited our ability to detect significant differences beyond 6 months of observation as well as additional significant differences in our study.


Abstract Electron microprobe analyses are presented for astrophyllite-group minerals from hydrothermal veins and pegmatites of the Ilímaussaq complex, South Greenland. The analyses fall mainly into two groups: (1) niobophyllites with the highest Nb/(Nb+Ti) ratios yet recorded (~0.9), occurring only in the veins, and (2) an essentially continuous sequence from astrophyllite to niobophyllite with Nb/(Nb+Ti) up to 0.6, found in veins and pegmatites. It is highly likely that there is complete solid solution between astrophyllite and niobophyllite. More limited substitution of Mn for Fe has resulted in the formation of kupletskite in some rocks. Altered zones in certain astrophyllites and niobophyllites have compositional features similar to the type 'hydroastrophyllite'. The astrophyllite-group minerals in the hydrothermal veins crystallized at temperatures below 400°C at 1 kbar and under high pH and low oxygen fugacity, whereas those in the pegmatites were formed from water-rich melts which were hotter (≥450°C), less basicand more oxidized.


The impact of air transport liberalisation suggested by economic theory and globalisation inspired Nigeria to adopt a more liberal policy towards its international Air Service Agreements (ASA). The policy involves implementing the Yamoussoukro Declaration with some African countries, an Open Skies Agreement with the US, and the easing of some market access regulations with several other countries. This study explores the extent to which international air transport liberalisation has impacted the Nigerian air transport market over the ten years (2001-10) since its commencement. The objectives of the study include, among others: to review the country's ASAs and determine the level of liberalisation in those agreements, to study the performance of the ASA in terms of international air traffic demand in the market, to determine the impacts of liberalisation on passenger welfare in the market, and to evaluate the impact of further liberalising market access and carrier ownership.

The study employed the use of secondary data relating to traffic volumes and socio-economic variables from the market. These were subjected to analytical methods commonly used in the study of liberalisation, including descriptive statistics, entropy and econometric modelling in order to establish relationships among the variables. Also, primary data were collected from a field survey and analysed to complement some of the findings.

The empirical findings were able to fulfil the objectives of the study. It was discovered that most countries' ASAs were not fully liberalised, but have some level of liberalisation. For a country to attain market access liberalisation, the ASA should grant fifth freedom rights, free pricing, multiple designations, and free determination of capacity and frequency. Another salient discovery was that liberalisation of market access and carrier ownership could spur traffic demand in all route markets, which could substantially increase total annual international traffic flows. The impact on traffic could trigger changes in air fares that would enhance consumer welfare. Nigeria's airport infrastructure is found to be capable of accommodating the expected traffic increases as a result of the liberalisation.

Although there were some adverse effects from the policy which include capital flight and the possible liquidation of home carriers, the thesis concludes that liberalisation could stimulate traffic demand in the market significantly, which could enhance revenue to the industry for sustainable development. The study concludes with recommendations and areas of further research.


Introduction. In this paper, we outline some theoretical background for workplace studies in LIS to facilitate an understanding of what is new in the phenomena and how early frameworks may inform us about the modern digital workplaces. Method. We first characterise modern workplaces and discuss why new digital workplaces raise important questions for in relation to information-related activities in workplace. We explore significant, earlier frameworks on workplace information issues to question their utility in researching digital workplaces. Analysis. Our approach is to analytically examine the major trends and themes in early frameworks to present a discussion of which features may still be relevant to studying modern workplaces. Results. We see the continuance of this broad understanding of workplace information as a fruitful base for present and future studies of digital workplace information. This richness of views on workplace information leads to different understandings of information-related activities, which can create deep understandings but also conceptual confusion. Conclusion. Our workplaces have changed radically since the early frameworks; whilst some aspects may provide the underpinning for research in modern workplaces there is a need for further conceptual analyses and clarifications to facilitate future research and compile their findings.


3-Hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMGR) catalyzes the irreversible conversion of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A to mevalonate and is considered a key regulatory step controlling isoprenoid metabolism in mammals and fungi. The rate-limiting nature of this enzyme for isoprenoid biosynthesis in plants remains controversial. To investigate whether HMGR activity could be limiting in plants, we introduced a constitutively expressing hamster HMGR gene into tabacco (Nicotiana tabaccum L.) plants to obtain unregulated HMGR activity. The impact of the resulting enzyme activity on the biosynthesis and accumulation of particular isoprenoids was evaluated. Expression of the hamster HMGR gene led to a 3- to 6-fold increase in the total HMGR enzyme activity. Total sterol accumulation was consequently increased 3- to 10-fold, whereas end-product sterols such as sitosterol, campesterol, and stigmasterol were increased only 2-fold. The level of cycloartenol, a sterol biosynthetic intermediate, was increased more than 100-fold. Although the synthesis of total sterols appears to be limited normally by HMGR activity, these results indicate that the activity of one or more later enzyme(s) in the pathway must also be involved in determining the relative accumulation of end-product sterols. The levels of other isoprenoids such as carotenoids, phytol chain of chlorophyll, and sesquiterpene phytoalexins were relatively unaltered in the transgenic plants. It appears from these results that compartmentation, channeling, or other rate-determining enzymes operate to control the accumulation of these other isoprenoid end products.


This Article intervenes in the debate over executive compensation to assert that evaluation of prevailing practices concerns more than the quality of the bargaining space. The discussants posit shareholder value maximization as the firm's objective and agree that value can be enhanced by aligning management's interests with those of the shareholders. They tend not to address the follow up question as to how the shareholder should be modeled for the purpose of incentive design. This Article unpacks the unitary notion of the shareholder into a differentiated cast of characters made up of investors, speculators, noise traders, fundamental value investors, short term holders, long term holders, dumb money, and smart money. Most will agree that compensation should be designed so as to encourage managers to take the view of a long term, fundamental value investor. Despite this, prevailing practices invite alignment of management interests with those of short term speculators. Perverse effects result for investment policy, payout policy, and the quality of financial reports, particularly when the market overvalues the firm's shares. Although long term restraints on alienation on equity grants would substantially ameliorate these problems, they are not seen in practice because they diminish the value of equity grants by impairing liquidity and inhibiting diversification. A persistent question emerges: At the margin, what is the purpose of incentive compensation, to incentivize or to compensate? To the extent that the answer is "both" rather than "incentive compatibility," perverse effects remain a constant possibility. Leaving the matter over to case-by-case negotiation in an appropriate bargaining environment holds out an incomplete solution. Nor would shareholder empowerment solve the problem of perverse effects because the behavioral shortcomings of shareholders create the problem in the first place.


How does the brain combine prior knowledge with sensory evidence when making decisions under uncertainty? Two competing descriptive models have been proposed based on experimental data. The first posits an additive offset to a decision variable, implying a static effect of the prior. However, this model is inconsistent with recent data from a motion discrimination task involving temporal integration of uncertain sensory evidence. To explain this data, a second model has been proposed which assumes a time-varying influence of the prior. Here we present a normative model of decision making that incorporates prior knowledge in a principled way. We show that the additive offset model and the time-varying prior model emerge naturally when decision making is viewed within the framework of partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs). Decision making in the model reduces to (1) computing beliefs given observations and prior information in a Bayesian manner, and (2) selecting actions based on these beliefs to maximize the expected sum of future rewards. We show that the model can explain both data previously explained using the additive offset model as well as more recent data on the time-varying influence of prior knowledge on decision making.


Association is one of the key concepts in UML that is intensively used in conceptual modeling. Unfortunately, in spite of the fact that this concept is very old and is inherited from other successful modeling techniques, a fully unambiguous understanding of it, especially in correlation with other newer concepts connected with association ends, such as uniqueness, still does not exist. This paper describes a problem with one widely assumed interpretation of the uniqueness of association ends, the restrictive interpretation, and proposes an alternative, the intentional interpretation. Instead of restricting the association from having duplicate links, uniqueness of an association end in the intentional interpretation modifies the way in which the association end maps an object of the opposite class to a collection of objects of the class at that association end. If the association end is unique, the collection is a set obtained by projecting the collection of all linked objects. In that sense, the uniqueness of an association end modifies the view to the objects at that end, but does not constrain the underlying object structure. This paper demonstrates how the intentional interpretation improves expressiveness of the modeling language and has some other interesting advantages. Finally, this paper gives a completely formal definition of the concepts of association and association ends, along with the related notions of uniqueness, ordering, and multiplicity. The semantics of the UML actions on associations are also defined formally. Index Terms—Object-oriented modeling, Unified Modeling Language (UML), association, association end, formal semantics, conceptual modeling, model-driven development.


By developing international law, international courts - 'intermediate Global Public Goods (GPG)'- can also contribute to the protection and promotion of final GPG. In international legal discourse, the term is often linked but not limited to the idea of erga omnes norms. The ICJ, in particular, is capable of promoting GPG by adjudicating inter-State claims. However, one of the main obstacles faced by the World Court relates to the existing tension between the bilateral nature of its own proceedings and the multilateral nature of the conflicting substantive law. Whereas the rules of substantive law that protect community interests are considered as GPG, those guiding international adjudication are of a procedural nature. Considering that procedure may guide and shape the application of substantive law, it will be argued that it should itself be interpreted and developed in a manner to ensure community interests. This article argues that using its power to 'frame rules for carrying out its functions', independently from States' consent, the Court should assume expanded procedural powers in order to ensure the effective application of substantive law whenever GPG are at issue. Most procedural rules can be adjusted and tailored for multiparty aspects with the aim of protecting community interests and enhancing the international court's legitimacy. It is up to the Court to find the balance between States' rights and commonly aspired goals, acknowledging the relation between the emergence of soft international law-making (procedure) and its role of addressing the provision of GPG (substance).


This dissertation utilizes a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach to demonstrate a paradigm for a novel design strategy for new generation engineering. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), reduced-basis modeling, statistics, uncertainty quantification, and machine learning are employed to develop this strategy. In the real world, designing a new product or device may require months or years. It is therefore crucial to develop more time-efficient strategies for reducing investigation and development costs. Using a rocket engine injector as an example, this dissertation addresses fundamental issues critical to the development of an efficient and robust capability for understanding, analyzing, and predicting fluid dynamics and enhancing the interpretation of physical characteristics for future propulsion systems. The presented work demonstrates recent breakthroughs in modeling and data analytics techniques to substantially improve modeling capabilities at many levels. Due to the high-pressure requirements of cryogenic propellants, such as those of liquid rocket engines, physical experiments are expensive. Furthermore, it is difficult to observe the physical mechanisms of the combustion process via optical diagnostics. High-fidelity CFD, such as large eddy simulations (LES), has been employed for decades to better capture the flowfield and combustion characteristics that occur in rocket engines, but these computationally expensive calculations are impractical for design purposes. A 2D axisymmetric LES case, for instance, can take 6-14 days with 200-350 CPU cores in parallelization, which is extremely costly and timeinefficient. Further, a full-size 3D LES case with the same grid resolution and CPU cores as a 2D case may take over a month to complete. To develop an efficient design strategy for new generation engines, therefore, an interdisciplinary revolution, spanning fields from statistics to engineering, is needed. Taking a swirl injector as a demonstration example, Design of Experiment (DoE) is formulated based on few pivotal geometric design parameters and the corresponding ranges for each of these parameters. Drawing upon prior knowledge of the major contributing geometric parameters, the sample size is determined based on semi-empirical approaches, with a recommended six to ten simulations per design variable. This approach facilitates the design process and reduces the number of total sample points required to efficiently scrutinize the design space. To effectively and efficiently examine the physical mechanisms and dynamic details of instantaneous flow features for a new swirl injector design, serial novel data reduction methods are developed and employed to reduce the data size while keeping dominating physics information. These methods include low-fidelity models such as common proper orthogonal decomposition (CPOD), kernel-smoothed proper orthogonal decomposition (KSPOD), and common kernel-smoothed proper orthogonal decomposition (CKSPOD). The reduced data are used to train the high-fidelity simulation models, and finally a kriging-based emulator is applied to predict the dynamics of the flowfield with various spatiotemporal characteristics, based on the new geometric design of an injector. These representative metamodeling techniques are found to be substantially improved the modeling capabilities at all levels. Recent breakthroughs in modeling and data analytics successfully capture turbulent dynamics in a swirl injector and yield predictions more quickly than high-fidelity simulations. Most notably, CKSPOD, the latest proposed emulator, can achieve a turnaround time 34,000 times faster than LES in evaluating a new design point across 1,000 snapshots with only 10 CPU cores. Furthermore, the presented work conducts uncertainty quantification (UQ) theorems to examine the uncertainties (i.e., the accuracy and precision) of all models. Results of the UQ analysis reveal not only that the proposed models are qualitatively good comparing with simulation but also that they perform quantitatively well for spatiotemporal predictions. The work described in this dissertation produces a suite of multi-fidelity modeling techniques for effective and efficient assessment of the dynamic behaviors of a practical system, with geometric details over a broad range of operating conditions. This approach can also be applied to other engineering systems involving complex turbulence dynamics, nano/micro fluid dynamics, combustion instabilities, manufactory industry, geological exploration, biomedical device invention, medicine, and other fields. It is noted that this dissertation interpolates materials from three published or submitted papers [1-3] by Simon Mak, Chih-Li Sung, C. F. Jeff Wu, Xingjian Wang, Shiang-Ting Yeah, Vigor Yang, Liwei Zhang, and the author of this dissertation (note: all names are listed in alphabetical order by the surnames). Partial results for the CPOD-based emulation of the presented work have been published in JASA and AIAA J. in 2017 [1] and 2018 [2] respectively, with the author of this dissertation as a co-author who contributes most of the preliminary data physical mechanism exploration, data work organization, and partial coding works. Partial research results for the KSPOD in the presented work have been submitted to J. Comp. Phys. in early 2018 and are currently under review, with the author of this dissertation as first author [3]. Meanwhile, partial results for the CKSPOD in the presented work are currently being prepared for submission to J. Comp. Phys. as a first-author paper. Committee: Dr. Vigor Yang, Advisor, School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology Dr. Lakshmi N Sankar, School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology Dr. Joseph Oefelein, School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology Dr. C. F. Jeff Wu, School of Information and System Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology Dr. Roshan Vengazhiyil, School of Information and System Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology


A three-dimensional boundary element formulation of an incompressible viscoelastic layer of finite thickness is proposed, in a moving frame of reference. The formulation is based on two-dimensional Fourier series expansions of relevant mechanical fields in the continuum of the layer. The linear viscoelastic material is characterized, in the most general way, by its frequency-domain master curves. The presented methodology results in a compliance matrix for the layer's upper boundary, which includes the effects of steady-state motion and can be used in any contact problem-solving strategy. The proposed formulation is used, in combination with a contact solver, to build a full three-dimensional model for the steady-state rolling/sliding resistance incurred by a rigid sphere on the layer. Energy losses include viscoelastic damping and surface friction. The model is tested and its results are found to be consistent with existing solutions in limiting cases. An example is explored and the corresponding results are used to illustrate the influence of different parameters on the rolling resistance. General aspects of previously-described dependences are confirmed.


ABSTRACT This article reviews critically selected recent literature on electrochemical energy storage (EES) technologies, focusing on supercapacitor and also supercapattery which is a generic term for various hybrid devices combining the merits of rechargeable battery and supercapacitor. Fundamentals of EES are explained, aiming at clarification of some literature confusions such as the differences between capacitive and non-capacitive Faradaic charge storage mechanisms, and between cathode and positive electrode (positrode), and between anode and negative electrode (negatrode). In particular, the concept and origin of pseudocapacitance are qualitatively correlated with the band model for semiconductors. Strategies for design and construction of supercapattery are discussed in terms of both the materials structures and device engineering. Selection of materials, including electrolytes, is another topic reviewed selectively. Graphenes and carbon nanotubes are the favourable choice to composite with both capacitive and non-capacitive redox materials for improved kinetics of charge storage processes and charge–discharge cycling stability. Organoaqueous electrolytes show a great potential to enable EES to work at sub-zero temperatures, while solid ion conducting membranes and ionic liquids can help develop high voltage (>4.0 V) and hence high energy supercapatteries.


For millions around the globe, digital payment apps such as Venmo are replacing cash as the preferred method of payment between friends and vendors. Apps like Venmo bring a unique blend of convenience and social interactions into financial transactions. In this paper, we study the role of social relationships in the adoption of the Venmo digital payment system. We collect records of all 91 million public transactions conducted on Venmo since its introduction, a social graph connecting most of its 10.5 million users, and analyze the interplay between social relationships and financial transactions. We find that Venmo communities are very densely connected compared to other interaction networks, and are often driven by specific niche applications. We are able to extract both user-to-user and user-to-vendor transaction communities, and show that they exhibit dramatically different structural properties.


Accurate temporal action proposals play an important role in detecting actions from untrimmed videos. The existing approaches have difficulties in capturing global contextual information and simultaneously localizing actions with different durations. To this end, we propose a Relation-aware pyramid Network (RapNet) to generate highly accurate temporal action proposals. In RapNet, a novel relation-aware module is introduced to exploit bi-directional long-range relations between local features for context distilling. This embedded module enhances the RapNet in terms of its multi-granularity temporal proposal generation ability, given predefined anchor boxes. We further introduce a two-stage adjustment scheme to refine the proposal boundaries and measure their confidence in containing an action with snippet-level actionness. Extensive experiments on the challenging ActivityNet and THUMOS14 benchmarks demonstrate our RapNet generates superior accurate proposals over the existing state-of-the-art methods.


In this paper, the authors survey some of the recent techniques proposed in the literature to measure the trend component of output or potential output. Given the reported shortcomings of mechanical filters and univariate approaches to estimate potential output, the paper focusses on three simple multivariate methodologies: the multivariate Beveridge-Nelson methodology (MBN), Cochrane's methodology (CO), and the structural VAR methodology with long-run restrictions applied to output (LRRO). The foundation of these methodologies is first discussed and then applications to U.S. output and consumption data are considered. The LRRO estimates provide significant evidence of a diffusion process for shocks to potential output. This suggests that permanent shocks have more complex dynamics than a random walk, which is the basic assumption of the CO and MBN approaches. However, it is also found that the estimation of the output gap on the basis of an estimated VAR is imprecise, which is consistent with results obtained by Staiger, Stock and Watson (1996) with a different methodology. The spectra of the transitory components (output gaps) resulting from the empirical applications of the CO, MBN and LRRO methodologies differ from one another. Indeed, only the LRRO transitory component has a peak at business-cycle frequencies, i.e., cycles lasting between 6 and 32 quarters.


Background: In Latvia and other endemic regions, a single tick bite has the potential to transmit both tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) and Lyme borreliosis. Objective: To analyse both the clinical features and differential diagnosis of combined tick-borne infection with TBE and Lyme borreliosis, in 51 patients with serological evidence, of whom 69% had tick bites. Results: Biphasic fever suggestive of TBE occurred in 55% of the patients. Meningitis occurred in 92%, with painful radicular symptoms in 39%. Muscle weakness occurred in 41%; in 29% the flaccid paralysis was compatible with TBE. Only two patients presented with the bulbar palsy typical of TBE. Typical Lyme borreliosis facial palsy occurred in three patients. Typical TBE oculomotor disturbances occurred in two. Other features typical of Lyme borreliosis detected in our patients were distal peripheral neuropathy (n = 4), arthralgia (n = 9), local erythema 1–12 days after tick bite (n = 7) and erythema chronicum migrans (n = 1). Echocardiogram abnormalities occurred in 15. Conclusions: Patients with double infection with TBE and Lyme borreliosis fell into three main clinical groups: febrile illness, 3 (6%); meningitis, 15 (30%); central or peripheral neurological deficit (meningoencephalitis, meningomyelitis, meningoradiculitis and polyradiculoneuritis), 33 (65%). Systemic features pointing to Lyme borreliosis were found in 25 patients (49%); immunoglobulin (Ig)M antibodies to borreliosis were present in 18 of them. The clinical occurrence of both Lyme borreliosis and TBE vary after exposure to tick bite, and the neurological manifestations of each disorder vary widely, with considerable overlap. This observational study provides no evidence that co-infection produces unusual manifestations due to unpredicted interaction between the two diseases. Patients with tick exposure presenting with acute neurological symptoms in areas endemic for both Lyme borreliosis and TBE should be investigated for both conditions. The threshold for simultaneous treatment of both conditions should be low, given the possibility of co-occurrence and the difficulty in ascribing individual neurological manifestations to one condition or the other.


Extended Abstract Hinode is a solar observation satellite in Japan and its launch was in September 2006. Its name means "SUNRISE" in Japanese. It has three instruments onboard in visible light, X-ray, EUV to solve mystery of coronal heating and origins of magnetic fields. Hinode has been providing us with impressive solar data, which are very important for not only investigating solar phenomena but also giving new knowledge about the sun to the public. In order to efficiently communicate Hinode data to the public, we organized working group for public use of Hinode data. which are composed of both researchers and educators in collaboration. As follow, we introduce our activities in brief. For the public use of Hinode data, at first, we produced two DVDs introducing Hinode observation results. In particular, second DVD contains a movie for kids, which are devloped to picturebook. Now, it is under producing an illustrated book and a planetarium program. It turn out that the DVDs help the public understand the sun from questionnaire surveys. Second, we developed teaching materials from Hinode data and had a science classroom about the sun, solar observations, practice with PC such as imaging software at junior high school. As the results, they had much interests in Hinode data. Third, we have joint observations with high school students and so on in a few years. The students compare their own data with Hinode data and have a presentation at science contests. The joint observations make their motivation higher in their activities. It is important to record and report our activities in some ways. So, we positively publish papers and have presentions in domestic/international meetings. Though we are supported in budget, resources and so on by NAOJ Hinode Team, we apply research funds for promoting our EPO activities and acquire some funds such as NAOJ Joint Research Expenses and Grands-Aid for Scientific Research Funds since the launch. This way, since its launch, we have continued various and constant EPO activities for the public use of Hinode data and have been giving intense impacts and high interest to the public. As the result, our activities contribute in further extension of Hinode Mission. Those are quite unique and would be reference of other similar ones. Hinode is now operating and solar activities might get more higher. As long as SUN RISE, we would GO FORWARD!!


OBJECTIVE
To compare psychosocial functioning (PF) in a prepubertal and early adolescent bipolar disorder phenotype (PEA-BP) sample to two comparison groups, i.e., attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and community controls (CC).

METHOD
There were 93 PEA-BP (with or without comorbid ADHD), 81 ADHD, and 94 CC subjects who were participants in an ongoing study, the Phenomenology and Course of Pediatric Bipolar Disorders. Cases in the PEA-BP and ADHD groups were outpatients obtained by consecutive new case ascertainment, and CC subjects were from a survey conducted by the Research Triangle Institute. To fit the study phenotype, PEA-BP subjects needed to have current DSM-IV mania or hypomania with elation and/or grandiosity as one criterion. Assessments for PF were by experienced research nurses who were blind to group status. Mothers and children were separately interviewed with the Psychosocial Schedule for School Age Children-Revised.

RESULTS
Compared with both ADHD and CC subjects, PEA-BP cases had significantly greater impairment on items that assessed maternal-child warmth, maternal-child and paternal-child tension, and peer relationships.

CONCLUSIONS
Clinicians need to consider PF deficits when planning interventions. In the PEA-BP group, there was a 43% rate of hypersexuality with a <1% rate of sexual abuse, supporting hypersexuality as a manifestation of child mania.


The effect of water application levels on growth characteristics and soil water balance of tomato grown in greenhouse were investigated. The study was conducted in two greenhouses located at Matinyani Secondary School and Kyondoni Location in Kitui County, Kenya. The variation of growth characteristics (plant height, stem diameter, fruit diameter and fruit weight) and extraction of soil water with time were monitored. Four irrigation water application levels namely T1-1.2, T2-1.0, T3-0.8 and T4-0.6 served as treatments. These were 120, 100, 80 and 60 % of crop water requirements computed using Piestley-Taylor model. The irrigation frequencies were daily and 1-day respectively at Matinyani and Kyondoni greenhouses. For the daily and 1day irrigation frequencies respectively, applied irrigation water varied from 548 to 274 mm and from 255 to 128 mm while actual evapotranspiration varied from 537 to 246 mm and from 227 to 108 mm in T1 to T4 treatments. This study revealed that different water application levels had significant effect on growth characteristics, soil water balance and yield of tomato crop. Low water application levels as well as less irrigation frequencies reduced crop growth and yield and also led to low soil water content. Daily irrigated treatments produced the best growth characteristics, the best fruit quality and the highest yield. In particular, T1 treatment produced the best stem diameter, plant height, fruit weight, fruit diameter and yield as 16.74 mm, 2.31 m, 129 g, 62 mm and 4.44 kg m respectively. In terms of water use and irrigation water use efficiencies, T4 treatment produced the highest as 11.90 and 13.26 kg m respectively. Under scarce water resources, T3 treatment (80 % ETc) under daily irrigation frequency was considered the most suitable water application level for tomato crop grown inside a greenhouse and therefore recommended.


In underground mining, the selection of support system for mine tunnel development plays a significant role in safety and economics of operations. Traditionally, such selection is on the basis of the experience of the design engineer. Nevertheless, the validity of such selection is questionable. A new approach for selecting the optimum tunnel support system based on Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is proposed. In this new approach, the selection of the tunnel support system is considered as a multi criteria decision-making problem. Firstly, by using the numerical Finite Difference Method (FDM), based on technical and stability parameters of the tunnel, different support systems are specified. Then, by considering the economics and performance indices of each support system, a decision tree based on AHP model is generated and the optimum support system is selected. As a field study, the method is applied to Tabas collieries in Iran. It is concluded that the proposed support system determination is advantageous compared to other alternatives. Therefore, the proposed approach can assist the engineer in selection of optimum tunnel support system in different underground mining situations.


NEWS / IMPRESSIONS

In the eighties I would spend a lot of time thinking about photography, I would spend my days in the dark room developing and printing my shots. These photographs were usually in black and white. Again, during those years we would put a roll of film in our cameras and we could only take 36 pictures with one roll of film and we could not see the pictures we had taken immediately. To make photos took a considerable amount of time and effort. One would have to develop the shot, take contact print, choose the frame to print and under red light and aggrandizer attempt the primary trials until the desired tone and grain quality was reached. Needless to say that after the size and the frame of the shot is established came the process of masking to give certain areas of the picture more or less light as desired. Photographing and the laboratory work needed to develop a picture was quite a different process from the digital photography rhythm of our times.

I believe that when I abandoned my dark room, I sort of shelved my thoughts about the practice of taking photos. Nevertheless I personally photographed all my sculptures and installations. These were generally slides. Today, in the 21st century we take digital photographs and our approach to photography has changed. We are not limited to 36 shots, but we should modify our thinking process when we have to choose one frame out of 200 instead of one frame out of 36. If we use the language of computers, we have learned to function with the 'delete' button. We can see our photos immediately, we can erase them, and we can send them to people far away from where we are to share them.

At the end of August 2008 I went to Lebanon, to the small town of Aley for a 15 day workshop*. There, I started to take photographs in connection with the work I would realize there. I was taking photos as a personal reminder and to document my planned work. During our first night in Aley an intense fog came over the town and we went out to take photographs in the dense fog with a friend. That night I suddenly realized that I had not been taking photos for a long time. I forced my memory to remember the techniques of photographing in the dark. Maybe I should rephrase this and say that I was not documenting anything but I was working on the image itself, I was really photographing, and that made me remember the pleasure I felt when I worked in this way years ago. Times had changed; we are in the communication era. I could share my whereabouts and my impressions of the moment on the internet immediately. That day I was in a garden devastated by civil war, 10 kilometers east of Beirut; 100 kilometers west of Damascus and I was cleaning this garden. Later, I would place the objects that I had collected during my random walks as a 'flâneur' in town on a hexagonal table in this garden. On certain place on the map, from the series' "News/Impressions", the first photograph I shared was 'Hexagonal Table in the Garden' (18.08.2008), after this photograph, I sent a new one every day by e-mail to my acquaintances.

I established certain rules for myself concerning the making and sending of these photographs. These photographs would be taken during my trips (not my vacations) no matter how many photos I had taken during one day, I would choose only one, I would put a title, and it would be the impression of that given day. I would not plan what I would photograph the next day. I would be loyal to the impression of what that single day had brought. There were exceptions from time to time. I had established the rules and I could break them. I believe this supple approach is correct as in the sequence of the taking of the photographs. A friend claimed this activity of mine as the prolongation of the popular movement, 'Mail Art' of the 70ties. I do not oppose, but I prefer to keep "News/Impressions" outside of a social network. From my point of view, I prefer to share them with my personal means that I established throughout the years. I even received some sort of answers to my mails.

"News/Impressions" can be read as where I am, what I am looking at, what I am witnessing and in what kind of a mood I am observing my environment.

In the following pages I wish a happy journey to those who will find a place for themselves among 51 samples of "News/Impressions" photographed and sent in the years 2008-2012.

Istanbul, 12/2012

*AIW: A (Artist International Workshop: Aley) Lebanon 2008

** Can Altay – during Muruvvet Turkyilmaz's "Open Table" meeting series at DEPO Istanbul at "Selim Birsel: The Jester, Flâneur, The Gardener and The Cook" discussion with Ali Akay,Can Altay, Adnan Yildiz the 02.02.2011.

NEWS / IMPRESSIONS IS PRINTED AND BINDED
 IN 50 COPIES AT MAS MATBAA.
 ALL COPIES ARE NUMBERED AND SIGNED BY THE ARTIST.
 FEBRUARY 2013


What are people actually able to do and to be? And are they really able to do or be these things, or are there impediments, evident or hidden, to their real and substantial freedom, in some areas that are agreed to be of central importance to a rich human life, a life worthy of human dignity? More specifically, how have the basic constitutional principles of a nation, together with their interpretation, promoted or impeded people's abilities to function in some central areas of human life? The idea that all citizens in a nation are equally entitled to a set of basic opportunities, a set of substantial preconditions for a flourishing human life that includes opportunities to unfold themselves, to develop a set of basic human abilities to choose and act, has had a lasting appeal over the centuries in the Western tradition of political and legal thought. A familiar understanding of the purpose of government is that it should, at a minimum, secure those central entidements.1 If it does not, it will not have a claim to be even minimally just. The Capabilities Approach (CA), as I have developed it over the years, is a normative approach to basic social justice.2 It identifies a list of ten Central Human Capabilities, or substantial freedoms, and it then says that securing those capabilities up to a threshold level is a minimum necessary condition of social justice. It does not, then, purport to describe any particular nation. It does however, have a close resemblance to the aims of quite a few modern nations, as embodied in their constitutional guarantees and their attempts to fulfill them. The task of relating the CA to constitutional law is one that has keenly interested me. In my Supreme Court Foreword concerning the 2006 Term, I set out to explore the complicated relationship between the CA and the US tradition of thinking about constitutional entitlements.3 1 conclude that some aspects of the CA are well embedded in our constitutional tradition, particularly in its tradition of interpreting the Bill of Rights, and in the interpretation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment; others (those concerned with what are usually called social and economic rights) are not recognized as topics for constitutional law, although a beginning of such recognition appeared in the 1970s. Focusing on the 2006 Term, I conclude that, even to the extent to which the CA has been recognized in constitutional interpretation, the 2006 Term represented a backing away from it, toward a different sort of jurisprudence. One difficulty in making any such argument is that of political structure. The CA says what should be delivered to people, not through what set of institutions. The whole topic of political structure has been insufficiently attended to by all the proponents of the approach. One certainly could not conclude from the fact that courts are not involved in the securing of a particular entitlement that this entitlement has not been recognized as important, and secured through legislation, or the actions of administrative agencies. Still, the fact that a given set of entitlements has been left to the legislature to secure means, at least, that these entitlements are not protected for all beyond the reach of majority whim. To that extent, then, looking at what a nation has decided to protect through its system of constitutional law and judicial interpretation offers us useful information about what it thinks most central, and most worthy of protection. I am very grateful to Judge Diane Wood for her serious interest in this normative philosophical project and for her very thoughtful and shrewd comments. Since her paper is a commentary on my Supreme Court Foreword, I must begin this response with a brief summary of what I argue there. I then reply to her commentary. I begin the Foreword by spelling out the core philosophical claims of the CA, contrasting it with two alternative normative approaches that have some influence in the legal fold, Utilitarianism and Libertarianism. …


This paper introduces the QMDP-net, a neural network architecture for planning under partial observability. The QMDP-net combines the strengths of model-free learning and model-based planning. It is a recurrent policy network, but it represents a policy for a parameterized set of tasks by connecting a model with a planning algorithm that solves the model, thus embedding the solution structure of planning in a network learning architecture. The QMDP-net is fully differentiable and allows for end-to-end training. We train a QMDP-net on different tasks so that it can generalize to new ones in the parameterized task set and "transfer" to other similar tasks beyond the set. In preliminary experiments, QMDP-net showed strong performance on several robotic tasks in simulation. Interestingly, while QMDP-net encodes the QMDP algorithm, it sometimes outperforms the QMDP algorithm in the experiments, as a result of end-to-end learning.


The quest to achieve the impossible fuels creativity, spawns new fields of inquiry, illuminates old ones, and extends the frontiers of knowledge. It is difficult, however, to obtain a patent for an invention which seems impossible, incredible, or conflicts with well-established scientific principles. The principal patentability hurdle is operability, which an inventor cannot overcome if there is reason to doubt that the invention can really achieve the intended result. Despite its laudable gatekeeping role, this Article identifies two problems with the law of operability. First, though objective in theory, the operability analysis rests on subjective credibility assessments. These credibility assessments can introduce a bias toward unpatentability, with inventions emerging from new, poorly understood, and paradigm-shifting technologies as well as those from fields with a poor track record of success as the most vulnerable. Second, what happens when the impossible becomes possible? History reveals that the Patent Office and the courts will continue to deny patents for a long time thereafter. This Article argues that the mishandling of seemingly impossible inventions vitiates the presumption of patentability, prevents the patent system from sitting at the cutting edge of technology, and frustrates the patent system's overarching goal to promote scientific and technological progress. In an effort to resolve these problems and fill a gap in patent scholarship, this Article offers a new framework for gauging the patentability of seemingly impossible inventions. Briefly, it contends that a more robust enforcement of patent law's enablement requirement can and should perform the gatekeeping role because it can resolve whether an invention works by weighing objective, technical factors. This approach would quickly reveal technical merit for inventions that really work or, alternatively, the fatal flaw for inventions that are truly impossible. Its implementation would not only eliminate the need for the operability requirement, but it would also streamline patent examination, improve the disclosure function of the patent system, promote scientific and technological progress, and ultimately foster innovation.


A photokeratoscope is described which makes it possible to record in a single photographic exposure the contour of the entire corneal surface of the eye. This has been accomplished by using a hemispherical object surface located such that its center of curvature coincides with the center of curvature of the cornea being photographed. The reflection of this surface is photographed through a small hole in the object surface. A brief history of the development of photokeratoscopy is presented. Photographs taken thus far verify the spherical nature of the central zone of the cornea.


The rapid development of high-technology has caused new inventions of gadgets for all walks of life regardless age. In this rapidly advancing technology era many individuals possess hi-tech gadgets such as laptops, tablets, iPad, android phones and smart phones. Adult learners in higher learning institution especially are fond of using smart phones. Students become passive in the classrooms as they are glued to their smart phones. This situation triggers the question of whether learning really takes place while the students are too engaged with their smart phones in the ESL classroom. In this context, the following questions are framed to investigate this issue: What type of learning skills are gained by using smartphones in ESL classrooms? Does smartphone use promote the autonomous learning process? To what extent do learners rely on the lecturers in addition to the usage of smartphones? What are the learning satisfactions gained by ESL learners using smartphones? A total of 70 smartphone users in the age range 18 to 26 years participated in this quantitative study. Questionnaires eliciting demographic details of the respondents, learning skills, learning satisfaction, students' perception on teacher's role in the ESL classroom and autonomous learning were distributed to all the randomly chosen samples. The data were then analyzed by using SPSS version 16. The findings revealed that smartphone use boosted learners' critical thinking, creative thinking, communication and collaboration skills. In fact, learners gain great satisfaction in the learning process through smartphones. Although learners have moved toward autonomous learning, they are still reliant on the teachers to achieve their learning goals..


Retrospective voting models assume that offering more information to voters about their incumbents' performance strengthens electoral accountability. However, it is unclear whether incumbent corruption information translates into higher political participation and increased support for challengers. We provide experimental evidence that such information not only decreases incumbent party support in local elections in Mexico, but also decreases voter turnout and support for the challenger party, as well as erodes partisan attachments. While information clearly is necessary to improve accountability, corruption information is not sufficient because voters may respond to it by withdrawing from the political process. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for studies of voting behavior.


Background: Newborn infants are exposed to life-threatening conditions such as severe lower respiratory tract infections mostly caused by a respiratory syncytial virus. Previous studies suggest vitamin D deficiency is associated with an increased risk of lower respiratory tract infections but this hypothesis is controversial. This study aimed to assess the relationship between serum vitamin D levels and the occurrence of lower respiratory tract infections among Turkish infants.

Methods: We performed a case-control study including newborns admitted in the neonatal intensive care unit. Respiratory syncytial virus related respiratory infections were confirmed by the Respi-strip test. Clinical and biological data were collected from medical records and analyzed with Epi Info7.

Results: We included 18 newborns (9 cases with the diagnosis of respiratory syncytial virus-related lower respiratory tract infections and 9 controls admitted with another diagnosis). Their mean age was 23.72 days and sex-ratio was 2. The main clinical symptoms of lower respiratory tract infections were cough, tachypnea, and fever and respiratory syncytial virus test was positive in all cases. Vitamin D level was significantly lower in cases compared to the control group (5.40 vs 17.67 ng/ml respectively). All newborns with lower respiratory tract infections presented vitamin D deficiency and 11.1 % of controls had normal vitamin D status. All babies and mothers with vitamin D deficiency were supplemented.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that severe lower respiratory tract infections is associated with lower vitamin D levels among newborns admitted in neonatal intensive care unit. Vitamin D supplementation could help correct this deficiency and prevent postnatal severe lower respiratory tract infections.


The synthesis and supramolecular properties of novel glyoxylamide-based short peptides formed via the ring-opening reaction of N-acetylisatins in solution phase are described. The short peptides self-assembled into gels, which were examined for their mechanical and morphological characteristics using multiple spectroscopic and microscopy techniques. The critical gel concentration and mechanical strength of the self-assembled gels were influenced by the presence of electronegative substituents (such as fluoro, in 5b) or hydrophobic substituents (such as bromo, 5d) respectively in the short peptides. Moreover, in vitro cytotoxicity assays demonstrated that these compounds were non-toxic to mammalian cells.


Scholars have debated the impact of open-list systems on women's representation. While some argue that open lists provide a unique opportunity for voters to overcome parties' bias against women, others argue that they create additional barriers. I examine several mechanisms that impact women's representation within Poland's open-list system. Results suggest that 1) voters shift women's original list placements positively across all parties over three elections; 2) these shifts are more pronounced when women's overall presence on the list and list placement are lower, regardless of party; and 3) positive shifts often result in the election of substantially more women than would have been expected. These findings add to our understanding of open-list systems by documenting variability in the effects of preferential voting across time and party in a postcommunist context. In addition, the unexpected positive effects of preferential voting in Poland add to a growing body of evidence that voters and parties on the center and right support female candidates at rates approaching or similar to parties on the left.


This paper reviews the different types of merit functions that have been used in the past in optical thin film calculations. Attention is drawn to the power of merit functions which operate on complicated quantities that require one or more integral expressions for their definition. To prove this point, several thin film problems are solved in which the CIE coordinates, luminous transmittances or reflectances, solar absorptance, and blackbody emittances of a multilayer are specified.


This paper introduces a novel technique for reconstructing the phase of modified spectrograms of audio signals. From the analysis of mixtures of sinusoids we obtain relationships between phases of successive time frames in the Time-Frequency (TF) domain. To obtain similar relationships over frequencies, in particular within onset frames, we study an impulse model. Instantaneous frequencies and attack times are estimated locally to encompass the class of non-stationary signals such as vibratos. These techniques ensure both the vertical coherence of partials (over frequencies) and the horizontal coherence (over time). The method is tested on a variety of data and demonstrates better performance than traditional consistency-based approaches. We also introduce an audio restoration framework and observe that our technique outperforms traditional methods.